Real love -- I'm, like, searchin' for that Queer Love -- LGBTQIA+ Love // A Thread for the Real Ones

Truly don’t understand what I’ve done to deserve your constant desire to provoke me, Alfred, but I don’t appreciate it.

map to answer your question I'm really not sure what this summer is going to be like for me - all I know is I'm going to order some ACs like nobody's business STAT
seriously considering making this - the summer of 2 ACs . . . . . . . . . . .
bye bye heat, hello electric bill!!

sounds like a good idea

I'm also going to be spending a good amount of time with my dermatologist this summer
just got done dealing with a thing that left me a bit worse for wear so it's the summer of the glow-up for me
watch out it's about to get all Judy Greer up in here

talk to me about your look this summer map. any new pieces? or tried and true?

so buzzing about Jake Daniels - 17 years old, professional footballer, looking a lifetime of being closeted and miserable, and saying "no thanks" - he's going to have such a terrible time on the pitch with the abuse but he must have figured that it couldn't be any worse than what he was facing already.

y'all with the balls talk, lol, i'm, like, in kind of a different place testicles-wise, i'm just gonna put it that way. marcos it's great seeing you talk about your experiences, hearing you talking about the place you're coming from.

your understanding of the "button question" is a really good one. it's not meant... i mean it's a bullshit question, yes? there is no button. it's a koan, it's there to break people's assumed thought patterns, and it sounds like you're past a place where you have those ingrained prejudices, like you're dealing with these things without the cisnormative bullshit a lot of people deal with. you're finding a way of doing things that's working for _you_, and i just wanna say you're fucking killing it. you're killing it, fgti is killing it, gender is lots of things and it's confusing and the way we learn is by _doing_.

when people think about gender diverse people, there's so much of the binary there, and when i talk to cishet people i deliberately avoid saying, like, that i'm a non-binary trans woman, that _most_ of us... lily alexandre did a video and it's a good video but you know, The Algorithms, it has this clickbaity title, "Do Binary Trans People Even Exist?". every once in a while someone comes into a particular trans group i'm in and says "i feel kind of non-binary, can i be non-binary and still be trans" and the facilitator does a show of hands and more than 50% of us at any given time are non-binary trans.

presentation is part of gender, it's important to gender, but you know, when someone says "wearing a dress doesn't make you a woman", yeah i fucking _agree_ with that. it's important and meaningful in ways that i don't... i don't fucking _need_ to describe, i don't need to _justify_ to anybody. getting to present femme helps me feel good about myself as a woman, but most women aren't high femme, and i'm not high femme either. some trans women are in fact butch, and with me, i don't think of myself as butch or femme or even futch, i just present different ways depending on the situation, and i have that _freedom_ as a woman and i never felt i had that freedom as a "man". for me a lot of my early tendency towards presenting femme was more not wanting to be misgendered; as soon as i could feasibly pass wearing a t-shirt and jeans i started wearing t-shirts and jeans again when appropriate. i don't think of t-shirts and jeans as being particularly male-coded, though different people have different takes on it. i have friends who are dogmatic about never wearing pants ever, and friends who won't wear dresses because they're terrified of being seen as a "man in a dress" (which is kind of a shame given how jealous in general cis women often are of how fabulous trans women's legs are; it's often one of our best features).

i think hormones do play a role in it too. i was never into guys until i transitioned and now i am, i _appreciate_ them in a way that i didn't pre-estrogen. i still identify as a lesbian and people argue about that, of course, because people argue about everything, "gold star" lesbians vs. "bi/pan" lesbians, and for me queer labels aren't a thing that are there to tell me what i'm _not allowed_ to do, they're there to help me understand and accept myself, whatever that happens to be. i do recommend, again, lily alexandre on this, the video of hers that went viral and got me to start following her was the one on MOGAI, which is a really good breakdown of the tumblr "microgender" thing and how it got made fun of but also what it contributed, where it came from, what its failures and successes were.

putting too strict a label on things can be limiting. experimental gender, like, using aspects of the scientific method, try things, record your observations, draw conclusions, repeat, i am a strong supporter of that. that was my process. being open to things, open to changes. it helped me a lot in my transition when someone who used to post here talked about how when she'd started, she was pretty sure she was non-op but that changed. it meant that when that changed for me, too, i was ready, it saved me a lot of time and bullshit self-doubt. and that's not the perspective you're coming from, but the same principle, i think, of openness and non-judgement, applies.

which isn't exactly the vibe of the dan s/jordan s exchange upthread, i know, but i also recognize that they're both trying to be non-judgemental and i do want to celebrate that!

---

when it comes to masc/femme stuff, i come at it from a kind of different place than you, marcos - i've found, through that process of non-judgemental observation, that i really like topping guys and bottoming to women. that's something that's been a challenge to me because there is a lot of... the normative thing is that masc = top and femme = bottom and for me going against that is challenging, on top of the, what i'm gonna say, i feel like there's a lot of ingrained versphobia or switchphobia kind of like there used to be biphobia.

(i guess i should also make it clear that i'm... ambiguously ace. i don't think of myself as asexual but "getting railed in a sundress"/"railing someone in a sundress" is more of a joke meme for me. sundress, yes, weather permitting. "railed", idgaf; there's other shit that is way more interesting to me that i won't get into here; idk why but ilx in general has always come off to me as being really vanilla, sometimes aggressively so, and i don't really want to challenge that!)

sort of the same with body hair, at least coming at it as a trans woman. i do epilate, pretty thoroughly, and it's pretty fucking important to me to not have body hair. at the same time i've not felt the need to have permanent hair removal of any sort. i shave my face (if anybody ever is considering epilating their face, just fucking don't, ok? people of my acquaintance keep trying it and it's a bad idea) and some people have huge dysphoria over it but me not so much. i don't have heavy beard shadow, it's light hair, and i don't really feel like electro. plus epilation to me is very centering in a sort of "girls rituals" sense and i don't want to give it up. i find that as a woman, the social expectations are different, very often the only "downtime" i get in my life is bodily self-care/grooming, which is... not without its advantages, because it feels intentional and productive in a way that the canonical "relaxing in a la-z-boy with a drink in one's hand" experience doesn't.

i haven't - this is personal stuff here, but i've become more open about talking about volunteering this stuff unasked just because if i don't people have a tendency to make dumb fucking assumptions - i haven't had genital hair removal, either. the bottom surgery i've had doesn't require it. i like the flexibility of it. anywhere else i'm pretty dogmatic about no hair, but sometimes i like growing things out a little bit, having a hairy bush. one of the effects of not having had hair removal... the particular surgery is called "zero depth" or "minimal depth", vulvoplasty without creation of a neovaginal canal, which is why hair removal isn't necessary. but it does mean i can get pretty damn hairy down there! i find that having a more closely trimmed bush or shaved cunt helps keep things from getting too terribly pungent down there, particularly since i don't need to shower every day now.

i can't relate at _all_ to the ball talk. most of the dicks i encounter in everyday life are girl dicks, and while trans women can often have complicated and nuanced feelings about our dicks, when it comes to our balls, most of the trans women i know feel as negatively towards them as i did (which is to say _very_ negatively). since orchi is the least invasive version of bottom surgery, it's pretty common for us to have had them yeeted.

Truly don’t understand what I’ve done to deserve your constant desire to provoke me, Alfred, but I don’t appreciate it.

― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table),

I'm sorry I missed this last Friday. I'm sorry for provoking you -- I like to prick people's self-importance, especially in a gay thread, and certainly I can use ahem pricking too. In other cases sometimes you're quick to jump on other posters, and, to your credit, you recognize it; but then I'm no one to judge either. Hugs. You're one of my favorite posters -- it's been more than a dozen years, no?

I just thought it was well known that Alfred and I communicate in All About Eve lines roughly 75% of the time.

Enchantez to you too!

Thank you Mr. Fabian!

see, that made me laugh, even tho i don’t know the film.

Alfred, I think we first really interacted on here in 2007, since the “I have, like, no gay friends in town” era. I obviously have much fondness for you and your posts, too— many hugs.

talk to me about your look this summer map. any new pieces? or tried and true?

― Swen, Saturday, May 14, 2022 3:08 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

i don't know, it's a bit of a mess. i've been vacillating between feeble attempts at "hip dance music guy" and "embracing power daddydom". both feeble because i'm short on time and money.

i have a lot of short mesh gym shorts and crossfit tees so i'll be defaulting to that a lot of the time when i don't feel like i have to look a certain way.

anyone else have exciting look developments?

i'm going to a secondhand clothing store this afternoon, first time in years. i need a "retro" costume for a pride party.

I’ve started wearing more color, but summer on the east coast for me just usually means tight shorts with baggy top or the opposite, depending on mood and activity

I also am trying to not buy new clothes any longer, only goodwill or thrift shops

anyone else have exciting look developments?

― the cat needs to start paying for its own cbd (map),

Me! Me! Haircut:

https://i.imgur.com/d0BagVD.jpg

hi alfred :) nice haircut

Thanks!

handsome!

haha, has _anyone_ here actually seen a picture of me? i have a billion but, like. trans woman. public internets. nope.

please!!!

I have seen a pic of you, Kate! I think you might have posted one a few years ago. You were wearing a cute top.

she has a _name_

sorry i know that's a corny one

lmfao Kate, i kinda knew i was setting myself up there

Hey y’all, I didn’t think I’d still be saying this at my age, but I am horny on fucking main right now and have been for the past month. Just uh, putting it out there. Husband has been not as horny but accommodating.

how is everyone else doing?

One husband is always more horny than the other, as we've sadly learned these recent years.

But that's. Fucking. Awesome.

I'm older but continue to be horny, don't count out older people

I kicked off this year's "no really we're back to normal" Pride Month by testing positive for COVID, but I'm boosted and, tbh, this is the shortest window of sickness I've ever experienced, so if I get lucky this month with or without my husband, I'll be humping one out for science.

xp it’s not just you, T. i actually just rejoined ~the apps~ this week after a three-year hiatus and hooooo boy. (my partner is currently out of town for about a month - he’s back on them too)

tabes and kate’s most recent exchange reminded me: watched the pirate yesterday and i giggled at the scene early on where judy garland snaps at gene kelly: “will you stop walking in circles around me? it’s like trying to talk to a top!” internet has broken me etc

Quite horny now that this tropical storm's a bust. Come at me.

At least buy me a drink first

Avec plaisir.

Hey y’all, I didn’t think I’d still be saying this at my age, but I am horny on fucking main right now and have been for the past month. Just uh, putting it out there. Husband has been not as horny but accommodating.

how is everyone else doing?

― broccoli rabe thomas (the table is the table)

Just re-started progesterone and uh whew. It's been pretty frustrating because I've been meaning to see people but somebody always gets COVID and it winds up being cancelled.

This is my first Pride since coming out, and I'm really frustrated about the whole thing already this year. Gone straight from "ally" to burnout, this damn quickly. Not just COVID spiking again, but the whole thing. It's not just the corporatism, it's the growing sense I have that the whole thing seems to be centered around cisgender gay men, with the rest of us just an afterthought along for the ride. Trans people are viciously and brutally under attack everywhere but when I talk to people who've been to Pride before, it's mostly by and for gay men. Gay men are centered. Particularly, in PDX, _white_ gay men, to the extent that Pride NW decided to hold Portland pride on fucking _Juneteenth_, and politely declined requests to, you know, move it. And where I'm at is, you know, boycotting would be the right thing to do but damn I need something to celebrate right now.

That's what so much queer life is, compromising with people who have the economic resources to make things happen. Which is cis gay men, particularly cis _white_ gay men. There's this idea of "rainbow capitalism" and I'm not opposed to it, but it never seems to have trickled down to anybody but cis white gay men, and I'm not sure a lot of cis white gay men seem to necessarily understand this. For the rest of us, it's the same old precarity. For us trans folks, the extreme public transphobia on display is causing us ludicrous levels of trauma, and we're just trying to be here for each other as best we can, despite none of us being at our best.

What does Pride look like in Portland? Drag shows. Lots and lots and _lots_ of drag shows. That's the public face of Pride. Look, I like drag, I think drag is fine, but just like a lot of trans women, I have a complicated relationship with drag. Quite honestly, a lot of people don't understand the _difference_ between drag queens and trans women. I've got a number of friends who, it's well-intentioned, but when they come out drag queens they know are like "Oh girl I'll help you with your makeup" and look, personally, I want to look as _little_ like a drag queen as possible.

Of course, lots of trans people do drag, there's a lot of overlap there, but the two experiences are _so_ linked in the public mind and just personally, it fucked me up for a long time. A long time. I had a lot of misconceptions about what it was to be trans, and a lot of people still have those misconceptions, and I feel like there's a lot at Pride that perpetuates those misconceptions, rather than correcting them. People can say "trans rights" all they want but a lot of people still don't understand who we are, what we are, and that's frustrating as hell to me. I'm tired of having my identity constructed in someone else's image. I want people to know me for who I am, I want to be _visible_, and Pride, well, Pride just isn't making me feel that way right now.

Pride has nothing to do with me afaic— being a target for vodka advertisements and Andrew Christian jocks isn’t my idea of liberation.

I am going to point out, tho, that I regular get called a faggot and intimidated, and I live in the most progressive voting congressional district in the US. While I am well aware of how fucked up and violent the world is for non- cis queer people and particularly trans women, I’m also getting a little ticked off when I read stuff that’s like “you aren’t oppressed.” Both can be true, particularly since like many things in the US, class is handily elided by solidarity formations that rely on identity formations. I don’t think identity formations need to be thrown to the side, obviously, but I resent being grouped in with rich white fags who have nothing to do with me except sharing a love of dicks and buttholes.

I'm 100% with you, table. Anybody saying cis gay men aren't oppressed is full of shit. I also don't at all like this hierarchical understanding of oppression where subaltern groups have these endless fights about who's more oppressed. That's certainly not the angle I'm wanting to come at this from, and I can definitely see how someone could get that from my post.

I would say that what I'm trying to do more is... express my personal frustrations, things I've talked with other trans women about, to people who aren't trans women, necessarily. We've had to fight really hard to be recognized for who we are, and still have to fight really hard. PDX is absolutely one of the transest cities in the world, but I'm not really seeing that so far reflected in the Pride events scheduled here, and that's frustrating me.

I don’t argue personally that cis white gay men are not oppressed, I argue that it is incumbent upon cis white gay men to acknowledge their cis white male privilege and not use their gayness/queerness as misdirection from that privilege. This is almost always an internal directive more than an external one. Portland Pride should have moved the date imo

Totally, and I should have mentioned in my post that I wasn’t trying to diminish yr problems with Pride in PDX— your frustrations and mine intersect in many ways, because they’re about who holds power, and who is the arbiter of what Pride looks like. That is, I’m with you all the way regarding more trans (and specifically trans fem) representation and power in Pride proceedings. Perhaps if there were more trans and radical queer representation in Pride orgs, the whole event wouldn’t resemble another fucking shopping mall. I’ve understood for years why Pride is such a powerful and important time, particularly for young people and trans people, but for years I’ve felt nothing about Pride except the same alienation I feel about almost everything else in this country.

i mean honestly you make a really good point, it's not white cis gay men, that's a classic bit of misdirection of the sort that capital loves and i'm a sucker for falling for it again. me, of all people, a white professional trans woman, someone who people keep treating as "respectable". "respectable". i'm in the process of losing my house, i'm desperately trying to hold on to a job for a company i hate, bosses i hate, a job i stopped being able to do years ago. and i'm saying "burn it all down" to anybody who will listen, which turns out to be the choir.

i can go into target and buy a t-shirt that says "the first pride was a riot" and it was _wrong_ to stop celebrating pride like that. the people who buy these t-shirts, the people who _sell_ these t-shirts, are they priming themselves for the revival of that tradition, or are they trying to console themselves, tell themselves that we fought and won and we are "enjoying" the fruits of our victory?

Totally, and I should have mentioned in my post that I wasn’t trying to diminish yr problems with Pride in PDX— your frustrations and mine intersect in many ways, because they’re about who holds power, and who is the arbiter of what Pride looks like. That is, I’m with you all the way regarding more trans (and specifically trans fem) representation and power in Pride proceedings. Perhaps if there were more trans and radical queer representation in Pride orgs, the whole event wouldn’t resemble another fucking shopping mall. I’ve understood for years why Pride is such a powerful and important time, particularly for young people and trans people, but for years I’ve felt nothing about Pride except the same alienation I feel about almost everything else in this country.

― broccoli rabe thomas (the table is the table)

you're right, of course, that there should be more transfem and radical participation in planning, in organization. in an ideal world, absolutely, but none of the people i know have the spoons. we're tired, we're hurting, we're exhausted, and like i've said elsewhere, most of us couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery. it does occur to me that one of the great advantages of a riot over other forms of pride is that it doesn't require extensive committee meetings to plan.

I recognize that there is a conflict between two factions of queers, those who desire queerness to become more "mainstream acceptable" and those who desire queerness to remain linked with upheaval and separation from what is "mainstream acceptable". My stance on this changes, depending on the context. Sometimes I feel that the corporatization of Pride is inherently a net positive thing for creating a safer environment for (broadly) queers, sometimes I feel the opposite, that it is stratifying, depending on the gesture. The public transit system have elected to promote Pride by hashtag-rebranding certain subway stations in a yassifying way; Queen becomes Qween, Wellesley becomes Welleslay. I don't know how I feel about this politically, but aesthetically it is really ugly

Some friends and I the other night started joke-naming the remaining subway stations. Islington became Jizzlington, Eglinton became Peglinton, Pape became Gape, Laurence became Clitaurence, Coxwell became Cock Swell, and so on

I recognize that there is a conflict between two factions of queers, those who desire queerness to become more "mainstream acceptable" and those who desire queerness to remain linked with upheaval and separation from what is "mainstream acceptable". My stance on this changes, depending on the context.

― a legible shriek (flamboyant goon tie included)

I feel like I kind of split the difference between these factions - I want revolutionary queer anticapitalism to become mainstream acceptable!

Somewhere I read a tweet in the last week saying, in effect, this year -- the year of "don't say gay," the proliferation of anti-trans legislation and sentiment, and sudden existential doubt about the future of marriage equality, etc. -- the corporatization of pride feels a lot less disturbing.

I, on the other hand, find no genuine comfort in the idea that "the people" are, statistically, below corporations in anyone's eyes in terms of humanism. However true it might feel.

i'm having two friends stay over with us for pride weekend here and it has been an amazing treat. one of them is ex military and trans, lives on a paiute reservation in southern utah. she is quite skilled in both engineering stuff and food / chef stuff. it's felt so good to listen to her stories. i do envy the aspect of having pay and health care taken care of for the remainder of one's life, but not the trauma and physical sacrifice of being in the military.

i've had a real busy dj weekend and while the feeling i've been having is mostly "overwhelmed' it has also been mostly bright, fun and positive. i need to remember that.

Somewhere I read a tweet in the last week saying, in effect, this year -- the year of "don't say gay," the proliferation of anti-trans legislation and sentiment, and sudden existential doubt about the future of marriage equality, etc. -- the corporatization of pride feels a lot less disturbing.

― Eggs Benedick (Eric H.)

i'm the absolute opposite! corporations aren't working for _us_. they're not doing anything for _us_. corporations run america, fucking own america. they have the power here. they're getting the politicians elected. they provide the lobbyists, write the bills, fund the advertising. if corporations actually _supported_ queer and trans people the shit that's happening now _wouldn't be happening_.

I mean, yeah, that’s the obvious takeaway. The question is once corporations start quieting their support down over the next decade, then what?

Kate, thank you for sharing your thoughts on Pride. as a gender fluid middle eastern immigrant, I sometimes feel the same way you do about the celebration's demographic, and feel fortunate to be in the company of queer people of color in the midst of all that. I've been doing some thinking about what it means to be "foreign" within a queer community, and while I'm trying to keep in mind that I don't need to be critical of something just because I am foreign to it, I think you're right to say what you say.

I also strongly agree with the sentiment that the key is conversation and not a competition for most marginalized, but it's an easy line to blur and I've been there recently myself. I was lucky enough to be in a conversation with friends who I trust and were quick to point out to me that I was completely missing the point.