Trans/Genderqueer/Agender/Questioning Thread

Two of my roommates had a big shouting match a few weeks ago cause one (cis) kept purposefully misgendering the other (trans). I had to intervene on the side of the latter because the former just did not want to listen to him, but I was really glad he finally stood up for himself on that matter.

Oh and, I was going to post about "yo" a couple days ago when BB first brought this up but I didn't have time! I've been thinking about "yo" a lot lately.

There's this weird disconnect between wanting to use people's pronoun's as a way of showing respect for their gender identity, which is great, and this space of "treating trans* people totally differently from the one one treats cis people, which is totally icky.

I was emailing A, who had met our mutual friend B, who is trans, at a concert, and I wanted to ask "What is B like? Zie is hilarious online! Is Zie the same in person?" because I do not know what pronoun B uses and respect B enough to want to get it right, and know that B's trans-ness is an important thing to B. But at the same time realising, that if A had met C, who is cis, I would not have thought twice about saying 'What is C like? She seems really wise online, is she the same in person?" and I would never have thought to use a gender neutral pronoun with C. And not knowing which of those two options is the better - queering everyone, or trying to adjust my language based on known preferences*.

*Yes, I also know that using the words "preferred pronoun" is problematic. When you are talking about e.g. a trans woman it is quite clear to me that her pronoun is "her" and this is not a "preference", this is just her pronoun. But asking to use "their" or "Zie" or "Hir" etc - the act of *choosing one* of several ambiguous pronouns is a preference, where requesting "a gender-neutral pronoun" is not a preference in the same way "a trans woman is she" is not a preference. It's tough. I'm of two minds about this.

It's shitty, because I've heard both sides, in terms of "showing respect means not assuming and waiting until the person volunteers" vs "OMG I am so sick of having to *tell* people what my pronoun is, it would be nice, just once in my life, to be *asked*" which really starts to feel like, whatever choice you make, is wrong. But still wanting to show basic respect.

It depends. I've said before, I don't really care what pronouns people use (I've spent a lot of my life being indiscriminately gendered, with embarrassment for the other person, and mostly just amusement for me) but for real, if anyone ever uses "zie" or any other gender neutral pronoun with me, I instantly perk up and just think "you are my people!" because it shows they've thought about this stuff.

OK, I'm going to do some reading on "yo". It feels rather too American for me to use, but it's an interesting idea.

Kind of thinking about other stuff, presentation and the like...

Body dissatisfaction in cis people is a whole nother kettle of fish, possibly tangentially related, but... OK, I spent nearly 3 years working for a cosmetic surgeon, surrounded by an environment that was constantly trying to ramp up body dissatisfaction for commercial gain. On one level, it actually made it easier to ignore, because when you see the brutal capitalist machinery of what is behind the constant advertising/media representation of "body perfection" it does on one level empower (ugh, sorry, horrible word) one to see the man behind the curtain and go "this is fucking bullshit and should be torn down and resisted with every ounce of one's being." But on another level, living inside that environment 40, 50 hours a week, every week for 3 years, I do believe that ramped up my body dissatisfaction and, more saliently, my gender dysphoria to the breaking point. The result was a kind of collapse that I'm able to see in retrospect as a nervous breakdown. Living in that environment would have been difficult and challenging for person who was totally confident in their Cis-ness. Living in that environment as a person who was already trans-ish and questioning and would have called themself probably genderqueer had they had that word, it was one of the most actively poisonous environments of my life, all the most poisonous aspects of late capitalist gender malarkey ramped up to 11, all the time.

So... on level, it's like, yeah, this shit is awful for Cis people. But it's worse for trans* people.

But from a different angle, there's a point where, if you are trans* you are almost never going to measure up to "society"s standards of beauty, so why bother, and it's incredibly freeing to recognise them as impossible-for-you and thus disregard them.

OK, what follows is mine own digestion-of-things-I-have-read and quite possibly bullshit and misremembered because my memory is so poor, feel free to correct me or link the correct source or call me out for unexamined bias, but this is my supposition:

It's inspired by the memory of reportings, IIRC, of self image in fat women - I do not remember if this was an actual study, or just a blog or a comments thread, so I do not know the sample size or how representational this is. In this discussion, there was a discrepancy in the self-reporting of white women reporting poor self image based on their perceived fatness, but fat black women had better self image and were more likely to self report feeling "beautiful" and affirming their beauty than fat white women. And there was some discussion of what might cause this, if it were a greater acceptance of a wider range of body types in African American communities (well, yes and no, different range of body types, but not necessarily wider.) But when those black women were asked about their positive self image, individual women said things like - because the standard of beauty in this country is so based around thinness, yes, but also whiteness, blondness, European looks, those things are just Not Applicable. If you have to recreate a personal standard of beauty entirely from scratch, that standard of beauty for self love can include fatness as well as different standards of skin tone, hair texture. It's paradoxically less of a big project to include that one aspect in an image of beauty and self love made completely from scratch, than it is to try to match a standard of perfection where you are capable of matching several aspects (whiteness, European features and hair) that do look like you, but not the impossible one that doesn't look like you (weight).

I apologise again, for any misremembering, misinterpretation and also for lack of links to where I encountered these ideas - the fat-o-sphere is a big place. It might have been a study, a blog, a comments thread, I have such poor memory, I do not remember the source; I would be grateful if anyone else did. I also acknowledge the possibility that I may have got this completely RONG in a way that is hugely offensive to Women of Colour, though I really hope that I haven't. I do *not* mean to imply that black women "have it any easier" in this culture, because clearly they do not, it's about self-reporting, not about how one is perceived by others.

Now I'm done qualifying and hedging and "trying and probably failing not to express racist things when talking about race": the thing that stuck with me, and the takeaway that I took away, was this idea that when you are trying to measure yourself against an impossible standard that *seems* achievable, it is much harder to resist it than an impossible standard that will *never* be achievable. To use an example switched to enhance its absurdity: there is some capitalist fantasy world where if I buy all the products and use all the things, it is just conceivable that it might be achievable, *maybe* to turn out looking like Claudia Schiffer. There is no fantasy world where I buy all the products and use all the things where I turn out looking like Idris Elba.

Cis-Het femininity, I have just accepted, is just not an option that is available to me. I say this as someone who has been "read" as queer, my entire life, even when I was trying most hard to present as heterosexual. Cis-Het masculinity is also just not an option that is available to me. I am already "other". It's up to me to piece together a personal standard of gender, like a personal standard of beauty, which includes me and that I can live up to.

Talking about this stuff is hard, and I am not up to the task. I apologise again for all the ways in which I have got it wrong. I am often aware of being the stupidest person on any given thread, this is just one more. Sorry.

Oh, and one more thing, which I was thinking of after waking up but before reading this thread: wondering about the intersection of "performing a gender" with "interacting with other people."

This is a thought provoked by how currently isolated I am right now, how few IRL interactions with other people I have right now, and if my increasing sense of "being agender" is related to "no others to perform gender to" rather than an intrinsic quality. Interactions with other people = "performing/identifying genderqueer" while being on one's own for days/weeks at a time = "no performance, ergo identifying agender."

Don't want to sound too mopey or "lonely guy just thinkin bout things" though.

Right. Must. Leave. House. Now.

Realised, on reflection, I can summarise that sprawling, overthinky, awkwardly phrased post up above:

For Women of Colour, and/or also for Trans* people, practising self love as a political act.

Yeah, that whole spiel otm. I guess I'm conventionally attractive, but the less I've worried about imposed standards of masculinity, the more attractive I've felt. When I was trying hard to be masculine, I didn't feel attractive at all.

OK, I'm going to do some reading on "yo". It feels rather too American for me to use, but it's an interesting idea.

Not just too American! On a side note, part of the reason I've been thinking about "yo" a lot, is because my roommate, who is black and trans, has a name that begins with those two letters and is used to being called Yo anyways. So I've ended up trying it out a few times since reading about it. Plus it's just fun to use.

Re gender neutral pronouns, I've been saying "they" since I was a kid.

― bamcquern, Friday, January 3, 2014 8:31 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

we had a long argument once about your refusal to use "they"!

Haha, I can believe it. I definitely used it as a kid, and it felt more natural and "native" to me then than it does now. It was surely my linguistic miseducation that made me argue against singular they, which i don't specifically remember doing, but i have a terrible memory of myself (Broseph is always telling me stories of me). The thing about language chauvinism is that it is usually as ignorant as it is confident.

Some good stuff happened here:

http://www.hashtagfeminism.com/queeringgender-affirming-us-loving-us/

I liked that whole lot!!!

So I'm currently experimenting with "person/per" as both an ungendered third person singular pronoun, and also as an unspecified pronoun for avoiding the ambiguities of that you/I/we/one cluster which leads so easily to problems. Maybe it will start to come naturally, maybe it will start to feel really clunky and I'll give it up. It feels like an interesting experiment to do right now.

Seeing this play out in various timelines has been interesting, although one conjugate of the new pronoun could result in 'pe'.

1) no, it's person/per
2) I recognise that you are trying to make a joke, but where you point your humour is a reflection on you, and I don't find this playful

Uh, so yesterday my mom asked me if I was trans. That was kinda weird.

I said not really, but I didn't really care about presenting as masculine anymore. She said she asked because of my facebook which shows me in women's clothes and says I'm female and people had been asking her. Plus she also knew I've been hanging with a lot of trans people lately.

I kind of wish I'd answered that better, but I didn't really feel like explaining "genderqueer" to my parents at that moment.

Ha, she also noted that my nails are done and hers are not.

prob just jealous of your manicure

lol. My nails are a ragged mess because I was, erm, playing with power tools this weekend.

Have been noticing feedback loops, more, how gender expression in me comes out in relation to other people, or situations.

Like, I went to Homebase because I needed to buy some tools, and of course that means wandering up and down all the tool aisles just picking things up and going "Yes! I need an axe... don't know what for, but I definitely need... oh look, a set of wrenches. WANT. I don't even own a car but these look so great" and the like. And just feeling very kind of manly and macho and trying on leather toolbelts and oh yeah, this is great. I feel so ~masculine~ by which I guess I meant capable and physical and handy and great.

But how it gets you, the separation of gender roles, and on my way to the paypoint, I had to pass through a wall of cushions into the half of the shop that sold soft furnishings and home cleaning products and kitchenware and scented candles and something in the back of my mind just went "Whoops, nope! Not the section for you!" And I caught myself doing it, and just said, this is ridiculous. How do rubbish bins and teatowels have a gender? But of course, most of the people shopping in those aisles were women (sometimes men in tow) while the power tools section had been all men except for me, including the staff. But going on the side of the shop that was full of women felt like encroachment in a way that trying out all the screwdrivers hadn't.

So is that my gender, because I feel more comfortable in one section of the shop? Or is that just ridiculous and absurd, that the way things had been organised had been artificially gendered, and noticing that made me want to express one side more than the other? Oh, consumerist late capitalism, how I hate you! (New work gloves and better screwdrivers = ace, though.)

Also, fancying mostly men again this week, but feeling very gay while doing it. This could just be the men I am currently fancying (nothing makes me feel gayer than looking at pictures of Interpol. Nothing. Well, at least nothing I've done in about 7 years.) But also wondering if this is what causes my eternal fluidity. It's not just that my tendencies/preferences get overridden by an extremely attractive person of any gender (and yes, I said preference instead of orientation deliberately) but my feeling about mine own internal gender changes the nature of my desire. I don't feel like a girl fancying boys right now. Or even a non-gendered girl looking at boys I'd rather be. I feel like a boy fancying boys.

Oh, bodies. Why are you so confusing?

I totally relate to that. My girlfriend makes me feel totally femme and encourages me to explore that side of myself. (It was her, actually, who gave me the purple sparkly nailpolish my mom commented on.) We do a lot of roleplaying, and although she identifies as cis and femme, she usually takes the masculine role. I use the girls holding hands emoji a lot when I text her. Otoh, this other person I'm dating makes me feel very masculine, way moreso than I ever do these days outside of her presence. I'm still trying to figure out my difference in reaction to the two of them.

I think one of my first inklings that something was weird about my gender was when as a teenager I realized I had a very different relationship to girl-on-girl porn than my straight male friends. They enjoyed it in a voyeuristic way, but had difficulty inserting themselves into the scene, at least without a penis or penis proxy available onscreen, whereas I had no trouble identifying with the female performers.

That's very interesting, like your gender identity is fluid enough to change depending on who you are relating to.

Or maybe... I may be way out of left field here, but it's something I was thinking about.

Been reading a lot recently about the definitions of bisexuality - did I talk about this recently? maybe on this thread? I should check. Nope, doesn't look like I did.

How the "bi" in bisexual does not mean attracted-to-two-genders. It means two-orientations, both homo and hetero. Defining heterosexuality as being attracted to those broadly of-a-different-gender to you, and homosexuality as being attracted to those broadly-of-a-similar-gender to you.

But how does that pan out if you are genderfluid or bi/pan-gender, and have a monosexual orientation? Like, if you are attracted to "people-broadly-like-you" then would your gender fluidity orient the gender you feel towards the person you are with? So if you are with a very feminine partner, you will express very femme, while if you are with a masculine partner, you will express much more masculine? Does that make any sense?

When in the past I've dated more feminine women, I often felt very male in the relationship, but I was much more willing to let them dress me up in "girl-drag" and do my hair and make-up. (Even when I end up looking like Robert Smith.) I don't know if that's even particularly sexual, though, as I've let bandmates do it to me, too. I guess, though, I should be more honest about the quasi-romantic nature of bandmate relationships giving way to unrequited-romantic things, which puts a different spin on it.

It's complicated. I'm probably just really into looking at boys in suits at the moment because I'm feeling quite into wearing suits. There's always been this weird identification-desire thing for me, with wanting to be boys I also want to fuck. Why am I such a weirdo. Why.

Oh, I've totally got the wanting to be girls I want to fuck thing going on. But not so much with boys? I want to fuck them, but I don't usually imagine myself as the boys I want to fuck.

With the other girl I'm dating, it might be that she's so thoroughly femme herself that I can't really out-femme her (whereas my gf has more of a "hard femme" style), so I might as well go in the other direction? I dunno.

On a sidenote, my taste in guys has always run toward the femme side, albeit not absolutely. I guess I just tend to be attracted to femme people in general, regardless of their gender identity. I have this theory that people aren't really attracted to gender(s), as society generally thinks, so much as broad gender cues, but most people suppress their attraction to people with genders that fall outside of the one most closely associated the set of gender cues they are most interested. I guess this line of thought comes out of an epiphany I had a while back that if gender is a construct, then so must sexual orientation be.

I don't really identify as bisexual, as I find this term limiting in scope. Usually people use it to mean someone is attracted to just cis men and cis women, but I'm also trans and non-binary people so I guess pansexual works, but I'd feel like a total dork if that word ever came out of my mouth, so just simple "queer" it is.

*but I'm also attracted to trans and non-binary people

And on a related note, I'm suddenly feeling hella disphoric.

Bah, dysphoria is the worst. Sorry, person!

Yeah, I get that the bi- in bisexual is so indelibly associated with "bi" meaning "only 2 genders", but I'm just saying that the ~bisexual community~ (whatever that is) or rather, the definition has been updated to reflect the fact that trans people and non-binary people exist. It's trying to broaden a category, which is always a welcome thing.

Like, I'm not telling you how to identify; you're gonna use whatever words you feel fit you best. But "Bisexual" as a technical term, these days means something different than you're implying.

I dunno. I still feel completely uncomfortable using any kind of -sexual to describe myself because it's been so long since I had sex with anyone of any gender that I don't even know any more what sex would look like for me. (Seriously. It is at a point where it is just stupid, like a mental block. Like, last year I actually asked someone I thought was a friend to, y'know, just help me out so it wasn't such a big *deal* any more. But they freaked out and now... well, they are no longer even a friend. I think I've regressed back to a place of "never feel like I'm going to be comfortable asking anyone ever again" again, because that shit was really unpleasant, and that wasn't really a happy place to be.) So I kinda feel like it would be lying to use any kind of sexual identity except... non-binary. Could be anything. I'll know when it happens. If it ever happens, which it might not. The only thing I know for certain is I *don't* want to do the girl role in the relationship. I'm really done with that.

"Being attracted to" is another matter. I feel uncomfortable trying to generalise my/your experiences onto monosexuals, but yeah, what you describe sounds pretty OTM. I am definitely attracted to a certain set of visual cues, but yeah, during my "I am straight, don't you dare say I'm not, I'm a straighty mc-straight-person" years, if a person I had formerly been giving the eye to stood up and they turned out to be female, I would tell myself "Oh no, I am not attracted, that is a girl" even though clearly, I had definitely been attracted. It's more a question of looking at someone and just thinking "they look interesting" rather than having an expectation. (But that said, I never ever look at, like, super cis-het dudes and think "they look interesting." I think it is ambiguity itself that attracts me. But not always!)

love and good days to you folks. i feel this is an aspect of life i need to better understand.

Well, welcome and feel free to share your own story if that helps you to understand.

the half of the shop that sold soft furnishings and home cleaning products and kitchenware and scented candles and something in the back of my mind just went "Whoops, nope! Not the section for you!" And I caught myself doing it, and just said, this is ridiculous. How do rubbish bins and teatowels have a gender?

i think it depends on the rubbish bin, though tea towels definitely code as femme. But yeah, apart from the cleaning products, these are things I never buy, and I dunno if it's so much a gender thing, as what to me feels like a subset of female, the "suburban homeowning mom." But I also realize that I am fortunate now to live somewhere where there is a broad array of "acceptable female behavior and self-presentation," it definitely wasn't like that where I grew up, which is probably part of why my mother had to drag me (almost literally) kicking and screaming to buy my first bra.

See, I have this beautiful vision of a weird fragmentation/redefinition where "suburban homeowning mum" might be a gender but "urban, gender-non-conforming ex-tomboy who hated bra shopping" might also be a gender and there are dozens of genders, not 2 (or 3) but I get that's not really what you're talking about.

I guess I'm just kinda trying to examine this weird gendering of shops and products and how arbitrary it is, vs how "associated with different activities that men or women perform" it is. Because "Homebase" (I'm assuming this is a US conglomerate, giant DIY/home improvement/gardening centres) is a shop that is full of couples/families/mixed gender groups, but is coded "male". While something like "Ikea" (which is a hugely similar DIY home thing, but more furniture and less power tools) is also full of couples/families/mixed gendered groups but is coded "female". How on earth did these notions of the gendering of shops get into my head? How on earth did the notion that one side of Homebase was coded a different "gender" than the other side? Why am I drawn to one, and vaguely repulsed by the other?

Because I live on mine own, and I don't have "A Man" to put up shelves or do the soldering for me, I'm comfortable with - or even happy and proud - performing those roles to the best of my ability. (I really should take an electrical wiring course, this is how you do not electrocute yourself course to do the rest.) And I'm sure that men who live on their own do, also, somehow accumulate teatowels and washing up implements. "Living by yourself" is a pretty powerful way of erasing bullshit gender landgrabs. (Even *I* own teatowels, though my Mum actually bought them for me.) So *why* do I persist in seeing the "suburban mums" side of the shop as gendered, and why do I recoil from that side of the shop?

It's a dumb question, I guess. I am King of Dumb Questions. (But dumb questions are sometimes the only way you learn anything.)

See, I have this beautiful vision of a weird fragmentation/redefinition where "suburban homeowning mum" might be a gender but "urban, gender-non-conforming ex-tomboy who hated bra shopping" might also be a gender and there are dozens of genders, not 2 (or 3) but I get that's not really what you're talking about.

It is in a way! Like that's how I thought when I was younger, that I was some separate gender from the suburban homeowning moms and those in-training to be them. Now, I am comfortable enough being a "woman" -- and maybe some of this has to do with issues of "passing," I can "pass" and it is easier that way -- and there are women in my life who are more "butch" than I am, or they are about some things, though are more femme about others.

People Who Live In Suburbs: Classy, Icky, or Dudes?

(I am about to start a "passing" thread according to the old, old Greenspun-era "rule of 3" that it has come up on 3 separate threads now, therefore deserves its own thread.)

well BB, I don't really have a story, other than always feeling like a guy who likes guys. Kinda has gotten old at this point.

Everybody has a story! Whether that story is "I'm a guy who likes guys" or "I'm a girl - or so they tell me - who often feels like a guy who likes guys, when liking guys, which I don't always do."

Oh, and as if on cue (due to my prevaricating and carping and endless agonising on the other thread)! Juliet J is a fantastic writer; Aeon Magazine is a fantastic organ for long, thoughtful, interrogating longform pieces, and here are both together, talking about how the whole "before and after photo" phenomenon obscures the long and tortured process of becoming with a quick, easy narrative:

http://aeon.co/magazine/being-human/before-and-after-the-makeover-industrys-favourite-trope/

JJ is so lovely and so fucking smart.

*but I'm also attracted to trans and non-binary people

I find myself being MORE attracted to these people. I'm not sure why.... I'm sure if someone wanted to be mean and derogatory to me they might call me a "tranny chaser" or whatever.

I do believe there's a world of difference between treating someone's identity as a fetish and "like attracts like because there's so much less you have to explain to someone who already *gets* it".

Well obviously, cf: the "if people wanted to be mean and try and hurt my feelings" part. It's not some fetish, as far as I am concerned. If some TERF wants to consider my personal preferences a fetish without knowing me and kink-shame me it might make me feel pretty bad but then you gotta consider the source.

"like attracts like because there's so much less you have to explain to someone who already *gets* it".

Yeah, this is totally a thing and why I'm not interested in dating cishet women, even though I'm potentially attracted to them and they are potentially attracted to me.

Found this little quiz to be actually pretty interesting and good:

http://flexuality.wordpress.com/take-the-test/

Also came across this:

Inside Against Me!'s "Transgender Dysphoria Blues"

What a bullshit fucking test!

It came back and told me I was "probably polyamourous" - WHAT THE LIVING FUCK, fuck you, I have never been so offended by a result.

Being polyamourous is fucking lifestyle choice. Being able to be *attracted* romantically to women and men is no more indicative of polyamoury than being bisexual is.

What a crock of fucking shit.

Of their categories (and who the fuck has time for bullshit categories anyway, I'm just pissed off at this test right now, so fuck their categories) maybe Flexamourous and Metamorphic apply quite strongly. Though it told me I was "ambisexual" rather than "queer" but I just have such a raft of associations with the word "queer" because it's an identity that was always denied me by gays and externally imposed on me by straights, so who knows.

Oh, I am cross now, and need photos of Weimar Lesbians or Dirty Dronerock Boys with Koala bears to cheer me up. >:-(

And to make me even more grouchy today, apparently "trans*" as a descriptor is ~problematic~.

http://practicalandrogyny.com/2013/10/31/about-that-often-misunderstood-asterisk/

To which I really want to say... you know, "trans*" is the first time in my life that a (queer) community has widened itself out to actually include me. Most of my experiences have been of feeling excluded from both str8 and queer spaces bcz "not gay enough" vs "you don't look straight to me, are you sure you're not queer?" is a constant tension. And you birches wanna take that away from me? Basically: shove it.

I should really stop reading social media, huh. Especially Tumblr, I guess.

I dunno I got high polyamourous results too but I think it's because I've been in threesomes... (TMI?)

Oh, I figured it out later - they clearly meant something like "bi- or pan-romantic" meaning one was romantically attracted to both women & men, when they said "polyamourous" as if they didn't realise it had another meaning. On the blog they had "flexi-amourous" but clearly hadn't changed they survey reporting tool. Clumsy and poorly defined attempt at realising that sexual attraction is not always the same thing as romantic attraction.

"willing to have sex in threesomes" is not exactly the same thing as "polyamourous".

I really don't have anything against poly people & their google calendar lifestyles; I'm just seriously not built for that lifestyle. I find a relationship with even 1 person difficult & complicated enough. Why would I want to juggle several? If it works for you, more power to you. I just don't want to be called something I'm not.

(sorry that middle bit about threesomes should have a winky face; being quite light-hearted/jokey there)

yeah that's the thing
it's better imo to think of style as a vehicle for personal transformation than a camouflage
not 'what looks good' but 'who do i want to be today'

i also think it's harder than a lot of people realize to be objective about how your personal style comes across

i wear a lot of dark monochrome, too (at this point, everything in my rotation is black, blue or gray except one lilac t shirt and one grayish-lilac)

that can be conspicuous, of course

on the whole i think it's clean and minimal, but more on the 'genteel' side (if that's a suitably negative word) than utilitarian, in a way i'm not always conscious of. i used to wear shorts much of the year but it made me the target of a sexual assault late in the fall, which i only narrowly avoided, and i've stopped.

now, my bed looks like an 8 year old girl went to town. i've got the princess canopy, the fairy lights, the hanging die cut stars covered in silver glitter, pink and orange tie dye throw pillows. it's a masterpiece, queers. this is part of who i am when no one is looking, i guess.

I still don't know what my style is I'm trying to branch out from my usual militant androgyne black/navy uniform but it's hard to know what will actually look good when your entire fashion sense has been based on not wanting to be looked at. I'm trying things and some of them look good but feel bad or vice versa which is a whole other issue from what might draw the wrong kind of attention. but I'm trying not to take any of it too seriously. hopefully some things will click eventually

― Left

presentation is still a really big challenge for me... i don't know if i've mentioned it but i just realized last week that it's not just worry about being perceived as disgusting, that perhaps the lion's share of it is tied back to SA trauma, to not wanting to be "too cute". it's one of those things that's easy enough to understand intellectually, but a lot harder to put into practice.

for me the pressure to place myself within the "butch/femme" dichotomy is itself a problem. i think i look good in a tank top and tight shorts. i think i look good in a pretty dress. like, a lot of the time i dress for the occasion, i don't know why that has to be part of my _identity_. i mean much as it pains me to say it that's not even _gay_ really.

this weekend i wrote a pilot for a potential serial work that kind of addresses some of these anxieties, about a middle-aged cis lesbian who finds out she's a magical girl and how she navigates things after realizing that - anxiety about femme presentation, anxiety about age, and some other stuff in there as well. now i just have to establish a work routine to keep going with it :)

y'all

the moment y'all have been waiting for is here

f1nn5ter is trans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3reFDwM0yIA

(big umbrella trans. genderfluid. not, like "binary trans" or w/e.)