One of my funniest interactions with medical personnel was when I went for an ADHD assessment around 3 years on HRT, and the specialist said "Gender incongruence? So you want to be a man?"

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@acorpsecalledcorva
One of my funniest interactions with medical personnel was when I went for an ADHD assessment around 3 years on HRT, and the specialist said "Gender incongruence? So you want to be a man?"
There's straight up no such thing as an apolitical fandom space btw, there are participants in fandom who are privileged enough to not notice the politics, and there are people who, if they speak up about bad experiences in fandom, are Making It Political.
There's a choice being made when saying you want a space where people can escape from political issues and just have fun, which is between the following options:
Address the issues that prevent particularly vulnerable, marginalized people from joining the fun
Silence the ones who bring up the issues, contribute to the barriers that prevent them from participating in the fun, and squeeze them out of the space
There's a wrong choice here. It's made way too often by people who claim to be progressive.
okay estro junkies liveblog. two pages in and the way nicky described chutney made me want to pass out /pos
mona intro actually genuinely scared me a little. she's liek a regina george twink
kathy narration literally is Like That right off the bat. i can't believe they made light yagami for women
great news this bit still brings me to tears
“I’ve been reading up a lot on your culture and customs, Kyle!” Jeffrey chirps, like he’s thought of a completely novel way to try and make conversation with me. “The festivals, the poojas, the temple rituals, they’re all so beautiful and spiritually meaningful! You have such a beautiful history.” “You know I’m Christian, right?”
every time rashmi is on page my vision turns an enamored pink btw
MONA RACISM?
I think rcbg and estro junkies is the first time i've really related to and understood. People in fandom going batshit over characters and doing the literary analysis, but uhm yeah I'm gnawing on wood or whatever the saying is. I think I get it. I just finished EJ and I wanna print it out and read it again with a pen highlighter and notepad and write a mediocre highschool rapport on it.
Well, there's physical copies available...
I guess I knew that, but kinda forgot in the heat of the moment.
Book arrived. Time to take a shot at it
In a world where pundits were expected to be self-consistent, doing "trans people are just autistic and confused" and "autism isn't real" at the same time would really result in some loss of perceived legitimacy and like. Reduced access to a platform
So chapter 15 is a knife? Designed for my HEART?
:DDD
okay so this is not my lane (am not Black) but i think we should show our Black trans siblings especially our Black trans sisters out here some extra care when they are dealing with the dysphoria worms, because *all* Black folks are already in the antiblackness mines fighting the degendering demons. Like you got cis Black women out here getting their gender deleted by antiblackness (Black female olympic athletes getting transvestigated, Black women being expected to perform femininity at a higher standard in order to be perceived as feminine at all, just like….the dehumanization of it all), trans Black women are in the fucking trenches my ducks.
Estro Junkies re-read live blog 2
Gonna be much fewer direct quotes than the last one and try to distil things down to the wider themes of the chapter. With the occasional bravo for witty prose
Pov 1 - The Nichole
You know those acting aus people make where the piece of media is a movie within the au and all the characters are acting playing the characters? And then they'll do like funny actor interactions?
We need one of these for RCBG where all the girls are played by older out trans women who are having a lot of fun pretending to be younger and closeted and repressed. Give me rupali's actress cracking up because Rashmi is making a stupid face during a serious take bloopers. Give me Katherine's actress making up crazy lies about the movie in the press circle Robert pattinson style. I wanna see Tahani and Laura's actress doing each other's makeup in the dressing room running their lines. I think it'd be fun
Doesn't this kind of AU usually happen to stories that are too painful to imagine actual happy endings for---oh
Melvin RCBG fan art
That sure is Melvin!
I feel like bigotry is so normalized that people will inadvertently say genuinely strange and awful things, and because these things don't go against the grain and they're phrased "politely" (and are usually -- but not always -- out of white mouths) you'll see..........basically no push back. It's treated as a joke, or something that should be glossed over. But then something is pointed out, and suddenly the pointer outer becomes treated as a sort of complicit aggressor in the situation for speaking out. The fact that you have to be God's most articulate orator who is ever polite and ever patient, the fact that you had to be the one to shoulder the burden of saying something at all instead of it being immediately rectified, the fact that the pattern repeats.....I don't know, it's the kind of shit that genuinely breaks the spirit a little bit. The prioritization of "politeness" but the "politeness" holds no kindness; the "politeness" centers certain people's feelings. The "rudeness" comes from a place of genuine righteousness, but it's treated as if it's more of a problem, because direct phrasing offends sensibilities. The way that you can never lose patience, especially if you are perceived as racialized -- hell, the way that when you are racialized, it is always on you to be the one who speaks up and explains. Why do I have to perform for you while you and your saltine flavored peers slobber at the table, reckless and unthinking, considering yourselves the ultra civilized and beneficent while I stand alone except for my fellow outcasts, forced to perfectly fold the napkins lest I be accused of being lesser, unstable, unkind? You people are throwing mash potatoes. I'm just stuck cleaning up the mess. I'll need to probably write a post that untangles my thoughts and sections them off better, if I feel up to trying to disentangle my feelings better, later. But I think self-examination stays woefully lacking.
A lot of this is the crux of Sara Ahmed's work on how disruption of bigoted norms are treated as more troubling than the norms.
I got to speak to her at a panel she gave in my town and asked her well what can we do? If working within a system doesn't affect change, because an institution will protect itself first and foremost, and disrupting makes them close ranks harder or even actively work against you, is there a balance? Or does it become fruitless? And her answer was to do everything you can to find others that have been silenced. Because official processes that get things done "the right way" be they official complaints, going to HR, or even discord mod tickets, are all there to isolate you against the institution. It's back stage. People can't see it which means they can't stand with you.
So if you ever feel like "why do I have to be the one? Why is it me against the world?" The chances are you aren't the only one, someone else has been "dealt with through the proper channels" and felt silenced. And working together will not only make it easier on you all but make things harder to sweep under the rug
I guess I wish there was wisdom to be dispensed for in-the-moment type situations. (Probably there is; I just haven't googled it yet.) Like, ime, it's not just "I went to [whoever is supposed to be moderating the space] and they were like 'uhhhhh sowwy'" it's also in the moment, there's this shift -- where the person calling out the aggression is suddenly made into the aggressor, because they're the only one who's responded to [insert bigotry, usually racism] with the proper amount of "what the fuck," and then all of a sudden because they broke the 'tone' they are swooped in on, and no one else says anything. I feel like in a group situation, if more people were willing to -- I guess put it bluntly, be race traitors, at least a little bit -- then situations like these wouldn't go the way they do. If you can correct the culture in the moment, if you have enough people go, "yeah, what the fuck actually," you shift the culture of the space. It forces the situation to go differently, it teaches people that this shit won't be tolerated, and it protects the more marginalized people getting shafted. Like...please for the love of God call people out in the moment for being heinous in a liberal racism (and liberal any bigotry way, but in particular racism) way, please don't wait for the people of color in the room to be the ones to say something first (when the people of color have been gaslight all their lives into immense amounts of self doubt), please be direct and forward and stand up. It's not just authority, though that's certainly part of it. It's also all the people who stand there and say nothing, or wait until the Pee Oh Cee coughs first. Which, the Pee Oh Cee has been taught all their life that they must immediately explain their existence in as tolerable way as possible, and that they must accept any treatment, even if it's genuinely dehumanizing, just because the other person is "nice" and not calling them slurs. Like, if someone else could shoulder the burden a little bit, that would be great, thanks. I would like people to please stand up.
Yeah I feel you. I guess what I'm getting at is the inaction, the waiting for someone to step up first, can come from a place of having tried to stand up before and being shut down for it because they were on their own against a consensus. So when they see consensus yet again going in a particular direction they feel disempowered. And this goes for groups sharing demographics as well as between people from different demographics.
So one of the solutions proposed is having networks where people can go "are you fucking seeing this shit?" "Omg yes thank fuck I thought I was the only one" so they don't feel alone, they can't be gaslit, and the burden doesn't have to fall on one person to be the first. Things can be organised better with plans of attack, and strengthen their will to stand up knowing that others have their back. It's exactly to share that burden so you don't feel like you're the only one shouldering it. Not to be more polite, but more effective disruptors that can't be ignored and shut down
I feel like bigotry is so normalized that people will inadvertently say genuinely strange and awful things, and because these things don't go against the grain and they're phrased "politely" (and are usually -- but not always -- out of white mouths) you'll see..........basically no push back. It's treated as a joke, or something that should be glossed over. But then something is pointed out, and suddenly the pointer outer becomes treated as a sort of complicit aggressor in the situation for speaking out. The fact that you have to be God's most articulate orator who is ever polite and ever patient, the fact that you had to be the one to shoulder the burden of saying something at all instead of it being immediately rectified, the fact that the pattern repeats.....I don't know, it's the kind of shit that genuinely breaks the spirit a little bit. The prioritization of "politeness" but the "politeness" holds no kindness; the "politeness" centers certain people's feelings. The "rudeness" comes from a place of genuine righteousness, but it's treated as if it's more of a problem, because direct phrasing offends sensibilities. The way that you can never lose patience, especially if you are perceived as racialized -- hell, the way that when you are racialized, it is always on you to be the one who speaks up and explains. Why do I have to perform for you while you and your saltine flavored peers slobber at the table, reckless and unthinking, considering yourselves the ultra civilized and beneficent while I stand alone except for my fellow outcasts, forced to perfectly fold the napkins lest I be accused of being lesser, unstable, unkind? You people are throwing mash potatoes. I'm just stuck cleaning up the mess. I'll need to probably write a post that untangles my thoughts and sections them off better, if I feel up to trying to disentangle my feelings better, later. But I think self-examination stays woefully lacking.
A lot of this is the crux of Sara Ahmed's work on how disruption of bigoted norms are treated as more troubling than the norms.
I got to speak to her at a panel she gave in my town and asked her well what can we do? If working within a system doesn't affect change, because an institution will protect itself first and foremost, and disrupting makes them close ranks harder or even actively work against you, is there a balance? Or does it become fruitless? And her answer was to do everything you can to find others that have been silenced. Because official processes that get things done "the right way" be they official complaints, going to HR, or even discord mod tickets, are all there to isolate you against the institution. It's back stage. People can't see it which means they can't stand with you.
So if you ever feel like "why do I have to be the one? Why is it me against the world?" The chances are you aren't the only one, someone else has been "dealt with through the proper channels" and felt silenced. And working together will not only make it easier on you all but make things harder to sweep under the rug
I feel like bigotry is so normalized that people will inadvertently say genuinely strange and awful things, and because these things don't go against the grain and they're phrased "politely" (and are usually -- but not always -- out of white mouths) you'll see..........basically no push back. It's treated as a joke, or something that should be glossed over. But then something is pointed out, and suddenly the pointer outer becomes treated as a sort of complicit aggressor in the situation for speaking out. The fact that you have to be God's most articulate orator who is ever polite and ever patient, the fact that you had to be the one to shoulder the burden of saying something at all instead of it being immediately rectified, the fact that the pattern repeats.....I don't know, it's the kind of shit that genuinely breaks the spirit a little bit. The prioritization of "politeness" but the "politeness" holds no kindness; the "politeness" centers certain people's feelings. The "rudeness" comes from a place of genuine righteousness, but it's treated as if it's more of a problem, because direct phrasing offends sensibilities. The way that you can never lose patience, especially if you are perceived as racialized -- hell, the way that when you are racialized, it is always on you to be the one who speaks up and explains. Why do I have to perform for you while you and your saltine flavored peers slobber at the table, reckless and unthinking, considering yourselves the ultra civilized and beneficent while I stand alone except for my fellow outcasts, forced to perfectly fold the napkins lest I be accused of being lesser, unstable, unkind? You people are throwing mash potatoes. I'm just stuck cleaning up the mess. I'll need to probably write a post that untangles my thoughts and sections them off better, if I feel up to trying to disentangle my feelings better, later. But I think self-examination stays woefully lacking.
Been seeing some Estro Junkies livereads on bsky and the tunglr as of late and while I'm really happy the book is getting traction bc it's a wonderful piece of art....................................if i don't see you mention race at all in your liveread, or like, talking about rashmi (A MAIN POV CHARACTER), or acknowledge the struggles/complexities that rashmi, ru, tahani, and laura have to deal with in the book.....I think you may need to reread the book over again. Before you drop your hot takes. The hit book Estro "racism is bad" Junkies has at least a few things to say about the way racialized women (especially twoc!) are treated, lol.
Estro Junkies IS NOW OUT ON ITCH!!!!
Out on Itch and still rolling out on Amazon (based on time zone)!
Happy Estro Sunday, and I hope you all enjoy the book and consider leaving us a review <3
Don't forget to do your shot! <3
Consider picking the book up with Pride Month approaching! You'll get to experience a dizzying array of characters and genders that definitely don't collapse into messy lesbianism in the end
Got a bit of a fun little side project cooking. A more normal eggfic than rcbg, just as a bit of a writing experiment, you know? It's about a trans girl who's repressed, and then she meets a trans girl who isn't, and it leads to some gender stuff happening. Normal style! Downright conventional!
There's even a cis woman attracted to a man in this one! The most normal thing in the world!
After having read both Estro Junkies and everything released so far on Ranked Competitive Breast Growth I feel I can say it's still better than Reddit.
Praise for Estro Junkies:
"It's better than Reddit. Maybe."