Trans/Genderqueer/Agender/Questioning Thread

i love the hair!

Looks good!

👍👍👍

yeah it looks good phil!

phil i'm so happy that you seemed to have found a good therapist. good luck on all the good work you are doing

also i dig your hair a lot

ditto all that and also thumbs up for baby steps--progress is progress!

damn, phil. looking good. keep going to that stylist. they have the touch!

good hair!

next step: SPACE DERN

xp yeah, my stylist is named Daisy and she is the best. She couldn't believe I was serious at first, then by the time she finished last night she was taking pics for future reference.

Yo I have been following this thread intently from afar. Phil, I am so fucking proud of and happy for you and your new hair RULES not just bcz it looks rad but bcz of how meaningful/norm-pushing it is. like it def reads "rad queer" to me imo (but I also live in the area of Philly that is basically the trans/radical queer/activist capital of the universe so)

https://apnews.com/02e14dcaba1f44af8202d390794f8717/Not-just-boy-and-girl;-more-teens-identify-as-transgender?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP

Far more U.S. teens than previously thought are transgender or identify themselves using other nontraditional gender terms, with many rejecting the idea that girl and boy are the only options, new research suggests.

The study looked at students in ninth and 11th grade and estimated that nearly 3 percent are transgender or gender nonconforming, meaning they don’t always self-identify as the sex they were assigned at birth. That includes kids who refer to themselves using neutral pronouns like “them” instead of “he” or “she.”

Thanks, Stevie! That's a big part of why I did it, to push some boundaries without necessarily putting myself SO far out into the nonbinary/trans space just yet that I'd feel unsafe in public. Honestly, a couple of weeks in, I almost forget that it's there until I look in a mirror. I know I get second glances from people but I'm teaching myself to be in the "Your problem, not mine" mindset.

I also went to my last therapist appointment presenting entirely as female and it was so FUCKING amazing to be someplace where not a single person, from the receptionist to the people in the waiting room to my therapist, treated me as anything but perfectly normal. (I also went out publicly this weekend presenting as binary female, to the library, lol.)

In my experience, cultivating the "your problem, not mine" mindset is probably one of the hardest but most thoroughly helpful aspects of transitioning or presenting differently. I'm glad you've been having encouraging experiences lately!

I also went to my last therapist appointment presenting entirely as female and it was so FUCKING amazing to be someplace where not a single person, from the receptionist to the people in the waiting room to my therapist, treated me as anything but perfectly normal. (I also went out publicly this weekend presenting as binary female, to the library, lol.)

― Millennial Whoop, wanna fight about it? (Phil D.), Monday, February 5, 2018 6:55 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is so great phil <3. i can echo that experience being p fucking amazing

this makes me v happy Phil <3

Very cool indeed. :-)

:D yayyyy!

YYYEESSSSSSSS

https://thenewinquiry.com/up-for-debate/

'Reflections from the TERF wars about dismantling bigotry on the left'

Argh one of my friends - who has had to deal with a partner’s transition where both have been beastly to one another - has gone full TERF. It gives me the horrors! Thing is, I know she’d be OK with trans women if she wasn’t in constant conflict with one, so her position seems fundamentally selfish/dishonest even considering her ex’s appalling behaviour.

there's a startling amount of acceptance of terf ideas in the scene that revolves around one of my careers and it... well, ofc, it makes me feel not like a person

"startling amount" = i feel like i'm overstating things, i've noticed it maybe three times but it feels world-destroying every time

Ugh, that sucks. My friend is being tedious and making li’l old cis me feel deeply uncomfortable, but that is as nothing compared to what my nb/trans friends would feel like if they had to read 2000 angry words on FB agreeing with that arsehole Janice Turner who writes for The Times.

Honestly, I really wish that ppl would spend even half the energy and time and words on addressing the transphobia and the gender essentialism of Cis Men (and all the benefits that Cis Men derive from these things) that they did on “terfs”.

Who benefits from the terf wars? And they amount of attention they get in the narratives around both feminism and around trans and non-binary people? (Bcz it sure isn’t trans and non-binary people, it sure isn’t women, or the intersections between those groups.)

Who benefits from casting transphobia and gender essentialism as a problem exclusively of ~feminists~? Why do we even need a separate word for “female transphobe”? When was the last time you saw a cis man getting called out for transphobia, at all, let alone with the amount of air time and attention? When are cis men even queried on their views on trans ppl, let alone dragged for them? Why don’t *those* questions get asked?

This used to be a meaningful term for addressing a specific thing. It’s pretty much stopped being one, and started being a deflection. It’s a way of locating the problem *over there*. Those women, those feminists, those terfs. And never interrogating cis men or cis male violence.

i hardly think isolating the terf problem is some kind of distraction from the transphobia of cis men?

it's also like... so important to not feel active hostility in spaces you inhabit? i don't inhabit a lot of spaces with cis men. i inhabit a lot of spaces with feminists

i do not think "never interrogating cis men or cis male violence" is remotely accurate

xps. if you're referring to the post that j made it specifically addresses that:

"Trans womanhood continues to be treated as a topic of playful debate for the chattering classes in places like Sydney, New York, and London. The stakes are high—Mike Pence is now a heartbeat away from the Oval Office, “bathroom bills” are cropping up across the U.S., and Trump appointees are busy rolling back any gains won under the Obama administration. We cannot lay primary responsibility for this state of affairs at the feet of anti-trans feminists—their influence is not so great. But the damage they do is real: Not only do they open space for liberals and leftists to opt out of trans solidarity, but they also provide rhetorical cover and ammunition for right-wing attacks."

in the city i live in i know of two feminist spaces/services that exclude trans women. doesn't seem like a minor detail to confront terfs.

Maybe you should try inhabiting more spaces full of cis men, then.

Because when I am afraid for my physical safety for ~presenting wrong~, or I am being bullied out of a space I need to be in *for my job* (as happened to me within the past 6 months) it is 100% not terfs that are doing it to me.

But it's really hard to get anyone to care about transphobia unless it's somehow ~to do with~ feminists.

I have too many dogs in this fight, and as far as I can see you have none, so this is not the time or the place.

But just try and think about what you *see* and try and think about who it serves. Cos it ain't us.

Maybe you should try inhabiting more spaces full of cis men, then.

... ok

this is really not what i come to this thread or this board for so see y'all later

well clearly everyone who’s been organizing against bathroom bills is only getting mad at TERFs right? they’re everywhere in american government after all

🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

Here in Canada terfs and evangelical christians have teamed up and are uneasy allies in their anti-trans activities. High profile transwomen here are most obviously targetted by both groups (rather than Joe Public cis-men) and terf websites etc highly suspected of receiving funding from US organisations pushing an anti-trans agenda.

great contributions from k*** here, ilx youre wild

Who benefits from casting transphobia and gender essentialism as a problem exclusively of ~feminists~? Why do we even need a separate word for “female transphobe”?

Some started just calling them "TERs" now for this reason.

okay the kochs do have a lot of money

still though the debate in american politics right now is decidedly not focused on michigan womyn’s fest types

great contributions from k*** here, ilx youre wild

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Thursday, February 8, 2018 1:21 AM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Regardless, there really is no need to do this. Unless your goal is to wind them up. Which it clearly is.

captain save a terf seems like shes doing a pretty good job 'winding people up' without me

Sure. It's a 'dick move', in all respects.

Yo, deadnaming and the like is not tolerated here, even if it is obfuscated. I've threadbanned D-40.

does the threadbanning feature work now??

(not to play captain save a deej but... i don't think d-40 knew that he was deadnaming as much as he was past-ilx-handling? sorry if this is making things worse or if i'm out of line, just think that the shape-shifting of ilx handles over time can be a bit obfuscatory)

If deej knew the past-ilx-handle - which he did - he def knows about the, let's see, *billion* times they said they didn't want to be called that on here. Come now.

okay

i guess it's just like there's deadnaming and then there's citation of past behaviors in the context of a message board. but again, i don't really know the specific branwell backstory as i tend to avoid most threads they're active on because of confrontations like the one that sparked this whole thing.

I've no stake in this discussion at all, not tonight's I mean. And I hear you, and your questions are totally valid imo. But Deej not knowing their backstory is just not possible. He knows they asked sooo many times to not use their birth name any more. Which is why it's a dick move to use a name not used by that person for what now, five or six years?

feel like it was a contextual reach but i guess it's in the eye of the beholder, and anyway this whole thing has resulted in at least one other person peacing out of ilx so good job everyone

wait is Brad peacing out of ILX entirely??? :(

I mean I think ppl should make the decisions that are healthy and right for themselves but you can't let Branwell get to you like that