Trans/Genderqueer/Agender/Questioning Thread

bigoted assholes will treat you like shit and try to kill you.

To clarify I don't mean that people will attack you on the street or anything like that - depending on where you live that _may_ happen but it's generally pretty rare. I mean more like they'll try to bully you into self-harm and systematically work to deny you access to life-saving gender affirming treatment. Which I guess when I put it that way they're kind of doing already, so, you know, six of one, half a dozen of the other.

hi! i'm visiting my dear aunt in St Louis. it's been making me think about some things. my other aunt (her sister) who was my dad's best friend growing up always made fun of me for being effeminate ever since i started presenting that way - my dad passed when i was young so it was a real bummer for me. she was my favorite aunt when i was a kid. and it's weird these days because i miss being close with her, and wish we could be in each other's lives again, but also feel like she's contributed to the tearing down of my confidence over the years. but yesterday i think i made the decision to reach out anyway because in the end, it's my feelings about her that matter. i think i forgive her.

sorry to just butt in - to be honest i was also just looking for an excuse to say hi <3 hope all are doing well this mornin' and hi Kate :D

hi! i'm visiting my dear aunt in St Louis. it's been making me think about some things. my other aunt (her sister) who was my dad's best friend growing up always made fun of me for being effeminate ever since i started presenting that way - my dad passed when i was young so it was a real bummer for me. she was my favorite aunt when i was a kid. and it's weird these days because i miss being close with her, and wish we could be in each other's lives again, but also feel like she's contributed to the tearing down of my confidence over the years. but yesterday i think i made the decision to reach out anyway because in the end, it's my feelings about her that matter. i think i forgive her.

sorry to just butt in - to be honest i was also just looking for an excuse to say hi <3 hope all are doing well this mornin' and hi Kate :D

― Swen

you're not butting in, you're welcome here!

my thing on forgiveness is that i can really only forgive people who apologize to me. like, my mom, every time i try to talk to her about my childhood she gets super defensive and makes excuses and starts blaming my dad for everything. i care about her and want her in my life, but if she doesn't think she's done anything wrong, i can't forgive her, i can only excuse her. and as much as i try, she keeps doing stuff that hurts me. so none of her kids except for my one brother who was the Golden Child still talk to her. it's been interesting. lately even her sisters have started noticing that she's honestly a pretty awful person. i'm glad she's facing consequences, even though i'm sad that she's probably not going to learn anything from it. a lot of people don't face consequences for their actions.

omg that song - i thought i was the only one

thank you so much for everything kate it's amazing, i'm sorry i can't respond to everything but i have been taking it all in and thinking about it a lot esp the HRT stuff. paolo the shapeshifting thing is v v familiar

i'm really sorry to everyone who has shitty family situations to deal with- of course forgiving or excusing anything is a choice you have to make for yourself but it can't be easy

i'm lucky enough to have an OK relationship with mine, i'm not out but i've heavily implied it. my mother is much better than the average uk 2nd-waver on trans issues in the abstract (it's not hard to be) but she does casually misgender and deadname her friend's they/them teenager behind their back despite knowing better which is less encouraging (i know there's a sociolinguistic element to how naturally they/them comes to people by generation- not to make excuses). i think she could learn to be OK with me but the chance that she won't holds me back

i'm seeing my sister soon which could be a start- we're both sort-of-out as bi, she does pride stuff a lot more than me, we've never talked about gender except in a theoretical way but she's probably the most reliably pro-trans person i know. we were both into a grab bag of the same and different "girl things" and "guy things" growing up (still are) so i have wondered about about her too. but maybe everyone is like that

yay! slapp happy fan twinsies!

coming out for the first time is super super scary but it's also so exciting - going in i focused so much on the fear that i would come out to someone and they would reject me that i didn't really think about how it would feel to come out to someone and be not just accepted, but _celebrated_ for who i am. it feels fucking awesome. one of the reasons i never really felt compliments or praise was that i felt like they wouldn't say that if they knew who i _really_ was. now, people know who i _really_ am and they actually like me _more_ for it. it's kinda mindblowing.

no pressure to respond to everything or even anything i say. just wanting to share the little i know :)

<3 such lovely thoughts ...

so interestingly one of my best girlfriends last night called me - her 12 yr old just came out as gay. luckily born into an amazing family but agreed that it's a total crapshoot and even though she and i were observing on how different acceptance is these days, still so much to educate people on. anyway that's it from me for now, but i love this thread. sending you strength and levity, Left!

TYVM and the same to you Swen!!

thanks again Kate - I really appreciate the depths of knowledge and experience and care you're bringing here- idk how to adequately respond to it all

seriously, you don't need to respond to it all. just be the best you that you can be :)

I think I might be a trans woman now

Recently I have been struggling with my gender identity and this feels good to say. It seems like a step in the right direction

Congrats on the egg cracking thing. You have a long but worthwhile road ahead of you.

Thank you! Egg cracking is a painful process but I feel like I'm getting somewhere

btw as of now i am going by the name ivy

nice to meet y'all again

do not sweat it if you accidentally refer to me as "brad," my parents will forever for instance

it's also still in my username (for now) after all

Ivy! Hullo

Do you still prefer they/them?

she/her and they/them are both fine, thank you for asking, i always forget about that part

👍🫶

Ivy!

Heyo Ivy!

hey Ivy!

I love it!!! xxx

Hey Ivy!

Yay Ivy!

there was blue ivy and now there is you, ivy!

How're ya

HI IVY!

hi
hii
hiii
hivy

Howdy Ivy!

Hello Ivy!

HIVY

Hello, Ivy!

Hi, Ivy!

hello Ivy!

IVY

greetings, ivy!

So glad to know you, Ivy!

great choice of name :)

Hello Ivy!

Hi Ivy!

hiya! xx

how's it feeling for you? because it took me a wee while to get comfortable with my new name

Ivy's a great name, congrats!

just reading through my posts from when i started questioning my gender a few years ago (as one does) and got a real how it started/how it's going moment

then - I've never really questioned my gender identity until recently (I always thought I was a cis male) but over the last few months I've been wondering if I'm non-binary or genderqueer. The main thing that I'm wondering about is whether I'm NB or GQ enough to really go all the way and identify as such.

I think the main reason I'd want to do that is for what I guess you could call political reasons - I think gender is bullshit and it would be great if all that gender role stuff just went away so we didn't have separate pronouns, different clothing sections in shops etc, so I sort of want to be the change I'd like to see and step outside of all of that. In terms of what I actually do/how I present there's not much that I do or would like to do that wouldn't really be classified as 'normal' male behaviour - except for wearing makeup, which I would totally do more of if that was more accepted. I think I'd like to use they pronouns but again I'm just not sure.

now - am out as a trans woman to pretty much everyone, am about to legally change my name and i also have a wee pair of tits

I sympathize with the feeling of not being genderqueer enough, but the fact that it’s weighing on you at all is a pretty big hint that you’ll be happier if you start sloughing off the dead skin of your received gender

― Canon in Deez (silby), Wednesday, 17 February 2021 16:15 (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

ot fucking m, awesome piece of advice here, skin has been sloughed to fuck and it feels terrific :)

Ava Weepairotits

ahaha love it!! wish i'd thought of that :)

oh yeah, i started keeping a diary at the beginning of 2019 and reading some of those early journal entries are a blast. "I don't know about hormones... I mean no reason to rush things... maybe in a couple of years I might consider it..." three months later i'm like "I NEED HORMONES NOW" and two years later i had bottom surgery... i sort of speedran it in retrospect, mind you

how's it feeling for you? because it took me a wee while to get comfortable with my new name

― ava (paolo), Saturday, June 17, 2023 4:07 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

i was playing board games with my friends last night and they were so sweet to insistently call me ivy but yeah: it's taking me an extra beat to respond to it bc it's all so new

I'm glad your pals have been nice! but yeah it can take time to get used to it. quite often when i've been trying out something new genderwise eg a new name, makeup etc it can feel lovely and gender affirming but there's also a sense of wrongness there too, like what the fuck am I doing here, this is weird and new and I don't like it etc. trying new gender stuff can bring up a lot of difficult feelings and i hope it's not too hard for you, it pretty much always gets easier with time if you are finding it tough xx