an open heart, or a watchful one

on gender and the cage i've locked it in

[allegoryofthecage]

I want to talk about the Cage in relation to gender dysphoria and being closeted

The Cage's chapter talks a lot about detachment from the body, viewing the body as something separate from you that perpetuates your suffering. The Cage herself says she isn’t mad at you, and doesn't really want to kill you, but her body continues its slow march forward anyways, a slow march towards its own death.

The lack of choice with what happens to your body is central. It changes physically in horrible ways without your permission, it is gendered without your permission, it is policed by restrictive constructs without your permission. The body doesn’t align with your mind, but the body is what physically interacts with the world, and it’s all people will see. The world is a prison for the body and the body is a prison for you and you can't control it.

Another key element of Cage's state of mind is the awareness of the walls. You might recognize that something feels wrong, you might even know what you would need to fix it (whether you admit to it or not), but you don’t do anything about it. You can't do anything about it. And how could you?

For one thing, when it comes to gender, openly admitting to what you really want, let alone actually reaching out for it, is terrifying and potentially dangerous. This construct can be deeply hostile to what you are. It thinks you deserve to suffer. It thinks the world is better off without you.

Maybe in order to be free, you would have to risk severing important ties, losing parts of yourself. Maybe past attempts at vulnerability went poorly for you, with a knife to the back, or being left to bleed out, and with you just as trapped as when you began, only wounded and jaded.

Leaving the cage is simultaneously as simple as saying a few words and as impossible as cutting through steel.

If there is No Exit, then the only way to survive is to dissociate entirely. The only agency you have left is in your mind, so your mind is where you will stay.

You suppress, suppress, suppress, suppress, lock your desires in a birdcage, bury your pain and discomfort towards the body because you're not getting out any time soon, scratch that, you're not getting out ever. The chains pull tighter, the pit grows deeper. Actually, it's not painful at all, you've accepted it now. The violence committed against you is just how life is: this is what the construct dictates must happen, so you will let it happen. In a way, detached from it all, your suffering is beautiful.

With this comes an apathy towards what happens to the body, and how it gets hurt. (and through this lens the allusions to suicide in the chapter become even more devastating, with the nooses scattered in the woods, and her pushing the blade deeper into her heart in the riddle of steel)

And throughout all this you isolate yourself from others. Maybe there are people in your life who you care about, who care about you too (or at least, the body), but you hold them at a distance. They can't change your situation, and even if you did consider expressing this part of yourself, if you'd separated yourself from the misgendered body and bared your bleeding inner self for them to witness, the risk of rejection, of abandonment, is painful enough to stop you.

And the painful irony of it is that by not sharing your struggles, not sharing your needs, even well-meaning people won't be able to support you. They may turn away and leave you behind simply because they didn't know you needed them.

…so I think, in spite of everything, it’s important that an ending exists where Cage states plainly what she really wants, where she is vulnerable, where she is listened to, and where she escapes alongside someone who was similarly trapped in the gendered construct. (gestures at transfem TLQ readings)

The truth was right there the whole time. What Cage needed was proof that change is possible, and hope that things could get better, for others and for her.

But even with the support of TLQ, it is Cage who stops marching towards death, who hoists them both out of the pit. She acknowledges the body as a part of her, but also is able to leave it behind for the sake of reaching for what she needs.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is a way out, someway, somehow, even if you don't see a path forward. But the first step to leaving is believing that it's possible.

[8-bitfiction]

[crystalfountain]

[fudamnshi]

”time heals all wounds” WRONG. it merely allows for infection.. it is Too late for me

[screenshotsofdespair]

[veryagileglasofwater]

I tried five point perspective :>

[screenshotsofdespair]

[screenshotsofdespair]

[rimonoroni2]

it is of course fine not to undergo medical transition if thats genuinely what you want. however due to Society it can be difficult to tell if not medically transitioning is a decision of your own will or one you've made as a result of conditioned transphobia. essentially one must consider if you don't want to medically transition or if you're in the middle of doing a "the stages of not going on t" by daniel m. lavery. it's entirely possible you aren't doing a "the stages of not going on t" by daniel m. lavery! but i implore you to consider the possibility

[rimonoroni2]

i'll link the whole thing here if you want to read it in it's entirety (its very good and not super long) but the bottom line is that if this excerpt right here is ever reminiscent of your internal monologue on the subject of medical transition:

If someone were to drop a little bit of leftover testosterone on the ground, and I couldn’t find the owner and there weren’t any trans people around, and it was about to go bad, I would probably take it, in the interest of preventing waste. That would just be sensible. Stand to reason. If for some reason I were forced to take testosterone — I don’t know why someone would, but it might happen — I would of course make the best of a bad situation and comply with good cheer. There’s no point in complaining, when someone comes to your house and forces you to take testosterone. I’d be remarkably sanguine about the whole thing, a model of radical acceptance. These things happen sometimes, for any number of reasons. One reads about it. Yes, I’m quite prepared to be forced to take hormones, if it ever comes to that, but I wouldn’t go out of my way for it.

maybe you do actually want to medically transition, because i too once vehemently insisted i would never go on t because i felt exactly the way lavery describes for a few years, and as of now i've been on t for like six months and don't regret it at all. just btw.

The Stages of Not Going on T

In a recent newsletter entry, Danny Lavery wrote, “The art of masculine withholding is designed to collapse; the collapse is the point.” Per

[transmasc-latias]

… oh.

[thenightpost]

To my trans siblings: Whether or not you can be visible, please hold on to your joy. Joy in yourself, in your achievements and ambitions, joy in how far you've come, joy in your loved ones and in your community. There are a lot of scary things happening to and around us, but you are living proof of the beauty and power of our shared experience. Your joy inspires others and ensures that we will never be erased. I love you.

[thearsonistofarland]

something something lethal injection killed their daughter something something it’s a t-shot it’s transitioning he used a lethal injection (t-shot) to “kill his old self”

[fairycosmos]

my 5 year plan? find the energy to use my human body to participate in the world in some form or fashion

[veryagileglasofwater]

Cage my beloved

[tpwrtrmnky]

Sometimes "estrogen would save her" means literally just going on HRT would resolve her issues, but other times it means "a radical act of self-determination would reframe so much of how she views herself and the world around her, she'd come out of it a changed, better person. But also she's a girl and needs to realize that."

[tpwrtrmnky]

Sometimes a trans girl who's already on estrogen backslides on the radical self-determination and ends up falling into passivity again. In those cases estrogen would save her (metaphorically) even though she's literally on estrogen.

[veryagileglasofwater]

Here’s chibis for the princesses I didn’t make chibis for during slaytober

[metalloids]

[crisismoth]

always reframe your mindset !!!! and never stop thinking about the character

"things are getting bad again" -> "im just like the character"

"i dont feel like myself" -> "the character is here"

"i dont feel connected to reality" -> "i am immersing myself in the character's world"

"who am i" -> the character! the character.

i dont know where i was going with this . have you ever thought about riding horses.