The joy of transition

also the fear, anxiety, and overanalysis thereof.

[chatwiththeclouds]

Us: what do we want?

Also us: mainstream IPA education

Us: when do we want it?

Also us: during high school so we can stop using those crappy pronunciation “guides” in dictionaries, textbooks, music and international studies

all together: and use a real scientific and specific way of recording pronunciation

[bpd-dylan-hall-deactivated20190]

You just made me look up the record for most sexual partners in a single day and wow that's gonna be tough to beat. Not that I wouldn't wanna try too.

we get gangbanged not because it is easy but because they are hard

[bpd-dylan-hall-deactivated20190]

patrithebat

I think it is because we are easy and they are hard.

god fuck damn shit I am disgraced

[elsandifer]

Do they determine if my nipples are female presenting based on how bad my dysphoria was when the picture was taken, or how dysphoric I feel looking at it?

[elilla-blog1]

Today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance. I have written on fountain pen the name of every trans sister, brother or sibling whose murder was reported in my country—the country that most kills trans people in the world; the country that has elected a fascist, whose supporters have already stabbed two trans women to death in honour of the fascist. I have not included trans suicides, trans victims from other countries, or information on their age, profession, manner of death (you can read that here: https://transrespect.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/TvT_TMM_TDoR2018_Namelist_EN.pdf ; all the drive-by shootings, the dismemberments, beheadings, tortures; all the girls killed at 17, 18, the sex workers killed by male entitlement, the ones who dared to fight and died, the woman who moved to a city where I lived in and within months had her home broken into for a targeted execution) (thanks @linguist-breakaribecca on Tumblr for the data reference). I have limited myself to the names of trans people killed in Brazil, and even then this project took hours, dragged into days, was written in the most cramped dense hand I could or else it wouldn’t fit a large A4 sheet. Flávia de Oliveira from Ceará was killed WHILE I wrote this—and the newspaper deadnamed her. In my country, I am, statistically, dead. That’s a chilling statistic; it makes me feel as if on borrowed time; it really put in perspective all the people who say they voted on the fascist "for the economy", the right-wingers who whine over "SJWs" (or, much more disappointingly, the white-male brocialists who decry "identity politics"). I am, however, privileged, there’s a reason I escaped the statistic; I’m white, I’m employed, and the biggest safety factor of all, I’m lucky enough to not live in the country that elected a fascist. I miss my family, but I’m not going back home so soon. This is my small effort to remember your lives. Your names are so many, they won't fit this field; but we mourn every single name today. You did not deserve this. You did not deserve this. #tdor #trans #transgender #remembrance #Brazil #Brasil (hier: Bochum, Germany) https://www.instagram.com/p/BqamEwXlyc1/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1f7ruqkv1zsf4

[linguist-breakaribecca]

Hi I’m a massive nerd who can’t even look at a note left in the break room at work without getting excited.

Usually, in English, the contracted ‘ve in words like should’ve or could’ve come from what’s called the auxiliary ‘have’ — the form that hangs out with the main verb to communicate tense or some other aspect. So “should have [verb]”. I should have gone to the store.

In this note, the author has contracted the verbal ‘have’ — the form that signifies the action of possessing something. “Should have [noun].” The store should have bread.

“…we should have plent[y]” has become “we should’ve plent[y]” and that’s fascinating to me!

[elilla-blog1]

nice catch! though "tense or some other aspect" is not my mood 🤡

[elilla-blog1]

Afflições

Imaginem esta palavra phase, escripta assim: fase. Não nos parece uma palavra, parece-nos um esqueleto. Contende-nos com os nervos ,e affligimo-nos extraordinariamente, quando pensamos que haveriamos de ser obrigados a escrever assim! (Alexandre Fontes)

Na palavra lagryma, (...) a forma da y é lacrymal; estabelece (...) a harmonia entre a sua expressão graphica ou plastica e a sua expressão psychologica; substituindo-lhe o y pelo i é offender as regras da Esthetica. Na palavra abysmo, é a forma do y que lhe dá profundidade, escuridão, mysterio... Escrevel-a com i latino é fechar a boca do abysmo, é transformal-o numa superficie banal. (Teixeira de Pascoaes)

[elilla-blog1]

this is my "just been gendered in Italian" face.

caro diario: today io ero la signora

https://www.instagram.com/p/BqKv6i_lS9Z/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=f1u5dlpqzapj

[elilla-blog1]

Kitamura Kazuchika, Eighteenth-century materials on Tōhoku dialects in Russia. #Japanese #linguistics #Russia https://www.instagram.com/p/BqMtEzOF5YA/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=9wdmx9qgdnw2

[linguist-breakaribecca]

[STRONG TW: Trans Death; TDOR]

This Sunday is the local Trans Day of Remembrance memorial service. I had volunteered to type up the list of names, dates, and places of all those murdered worldwide since this time last year, to be printed on labels and put on candles.

さらに読む

[slimgiltsoul]

http://instagram.com/nervanaofficial

http://instagram.com/nervanaofficial

http://instagram.com/nervanaofficial

[elilla-blog1]

Fëanor bredlik

My naym, Morgoth, is Fëanor; who out of heate left Valinor to get my orbs now in your gripps i slay my kynn i burn the schipps.

[elilla-blog1]

Haunter bredlik

Haunter i am a pokeymon ghost is my typ can't touch me hon humans i seek on nyght-tyme stroll stalking unseen i lik the soul.

[elilla-blog1]

I decided to not hate my body this summer

I mean, don’t get me wrong. Dysphoria, gender dissonance, won’t go away. I’m not saying "accept yourselves the way you are"—accepting yourself the way you are means, precisely, transitioning. Whenever I look at my thick black body hair or my protruding junk or the indelible shadow of a moustache or the oversized hands/feet/skull or the indefinable masculine features of my face, I’ll get that annoying, depressing buzz in the back of my mind. I suppose that’s defining feature of our condition, which is intrinsic to our bodies. That buzz is as part of our bodies as our skin, our bones, our blood.

But just because my body is dissonant to the secondary sexual features it had to endure, it doesn’t mean I have to hate it, you know? I mean, there’s so much hate out there already. If I expose this body in public in my home country, there’s a high chance I’ll just be killed outright. If I exposed it on Youtube or wherever, I can all but picture the venom in the comments. It’s not my body’s fault that it’s hairy and masculine. It’s a condition, an ill fate that befell the poor thing. If I don’t stand for this body, who will?

I’m 2 months into HRT, and my breasts are growing at a much better pace than I expected. Laser has already done wonders to my hand and face (all I can afford). But that’s about it. The shape of my face is still unmistakably masculine, with no visible changes so far. The laser has left these random patches of beard scattered through it, which due to their dark colour I can't hide without makeup, and I can’t wear makeup to work. Every other piece of clothing I try reminds me of "shoulders too broad for a girl". Body hair is starting to thin I think, but no matter how often I shave, its black roots are still visible inside my clear skin. My strict-ass diet has managed to reduce the pot belly significantly, and now I have no muscles and my waist is starting to look femme (I went from 46 pants to 42 and even those are starting to fall); but, on the other hand, I lost even more thighs and butt along with it, and bet I won’t be getting any curves until I stop with the diet (an idea I can only tolerate after the man-belly is 100% completely gone). I can’t even bear working on my voice. And, transitioning at 34, I have to deal with the real possibility of never passing.

So at this point I'm in this weird early-transitional, confusing stage. Still too much fur to be gendered female, even if the skin and smell have changed. Squareish face. An androgynous, skinny, bony body, with protruding femurs and visible ribs, but still a bit of a pot-belly. And breasts before everything.

And you know what? Even acknowledging the buzz, I’m ok with it. I started summer set on wearing long sleeves exclusively, to hide the arm hair, but fuck that. I don’t care what people will think anymore. Fuck people. This is my body; I am a woman and I’m hairy and I’m booby. Which means I’m fucking Lilith over here. I’m fucking mythological right now. It’s like Susan Stryker put it, about being a monster:

I find no shame, however, in acknowledging my egalitarian relationship with non-human material Being; everything emerges from the same matrix of possibilities. “Monster” is derived from the Latin noun monstrum, “divine portent,” itself formed on the root of the verb monere, “to warn.” It came to refer to living things of anomalous shape or structure, or to fabulous creatures like the sphinx who were composed of strikingly incongruous parts, because the ancients considered the appearance of such beings to be a sign of some impending supernatural event. Monsters, like angels, functioned as messengers and heralds of the extraordinary.

…and every time someone is disgusted by my hairy arms, they’re being heralded right in their damn face by my wonder-ful, chimæraic, Lilithian body, and the next time a trans sibling is forced to deal with them, they’ll be a little less shocked, and maybe act a bit less crappily

Eli Erlick once wrote about fashion: “Transness is a place of possibility for fashion, not something that should be hidden beneath it.” After dealing with severe dissonance in clothing stores, her transgressive statement hit me with the force of a lightning bolt; I realized that the blame lies not with my shoulders, the blame lies with capitalism. And her statement keeps coming to mind; I will do everything in my power to feminize my body, of course, that’s what it’s for; but, in the meantime, I want to make of my transitional body a place of possibility, and not just for fashion; I want to stand proud (like the Brazilian trans artist Laerte put it) as a possible woman, as one possible kind of woman; I will affirm the validity of this body against all norms & expectations; I will wear a fucking tank top in public and wave my hairy fucking arms around town and be happy doing it, because daring to be happy while trans is the strongest possible act of political resistance.

[letters-from-autismland]

You are not a puzzle (we're nearly halfway through April)

Dear Autistic girl,

It’s April. Which for those of us Autistics means constant reminders of how aware the general public should be of autism. Not Autistic folks like you. Not like me. None of us. A particularly frustrating, not at all worth naming (because they thrive on attention, not awareness), nonprofit insists everyone light it up blue.

Blue lights will never change the world. Lighting cannot bring hope or joy or peace. Nothing of any real use. Just a general sense of foreboding. Plenty of NTs are aware of us Autistics. But they are terrified too. They forget our humanity.

But as Laura Hershey reminds us, “you are not the one who made you ashamed. But you are the one who can make you proud. Just practice. Practice until you get proud.“

And oh, little one, April brings so many opportunities to keep practicing. Being proud of yourself. Ourselves. As we are. Our vibrantly Autistic, happy flappy, confused, melting down, shutting down, crying, screaming, demanding, pushing, changing, loving, angry selves. As we are. No exceptions.

Not too high functioning. Not too low functioning. Aspergers. PDD-NOS. Classically manifesting. Mild. Moderate. Severe. Acute. Autistic. Definitely enough. As we are.

This shivering, little Autistic community of resilient survivors “singing [and shouting] for our lives.” Demanding space for us all; then breaking down barriers with battering rams of self love and radical acceptance.

Becoming ourselves. Together. Not alone. We never were really alone anyway. Just apart. Separated. Caring for one another when society, majority culture, “the awful normals” compel us to pass, blend in, stop being ourselves. Or fear losing our freedom. Or our lives. Entirely.

But know this, Autistic girl: We are scrappy little fighters. And you are surrounded by a community who loves you deeply. As mister Rogers says, “just for being you.”

Love, Autistic woman

[funereal-disease]

Some of the Viking reenactors I know are giving it up because of the unfortunate association with far-right groups. I do not blame them for doing this, as I am sure it’s quite upsetting to be mistaken for a neo-Nazi. I support people doing whatever they have to to avoid this.

However, I am really bothered by the idea that there’s something *morally correct* about ceding your passions to supremacist groups. I am deeply uncomfortable with the praise such people have gotten for “doing the right thing”. You know what that’s saying? It’s saying that racists can point to whatever they please and go “it’s ours now”, and *by your own standards* you have to give it to them! Not only did you build the most exploitable loophole ever, you’ve practically drawn them a map!

I do not wish to acquiesce to neo-Nazis in any other context, and I’m not starting now. Hate groups do not get to set the standards for my communities. I’m genetically disabled and engaged to a Jew, and I *delight* in the middle finger my presence in Viking reenactment holds up to Nazi ideology. Like hell I’m going to go “oops, my bad, this actually *does* belong to you!”

It doesn’t. It doesn’t get to. History belongs to goddamn everyone, and in fact *making people think it doesn’t* is one of the great tragedies of racism. I sincerely believe that connecting to shared human heritage is one of this world’s foremost delights, and supremacist groups do not get a say in how I express that.

[elilla-blog1]

Just started this; hope y'all find it useful.

[elilla-blog1]

I have a gender identity. Now what  do I do with it?

Trans timeline: Gender-non-conformant since childhood, identifying as transgender in my thirties, and as a woman since about a week ago.

Even when all the pieces fit in my head, at first I couldn't really think of myself as a woman. It felt fake, in this body. All I have to do is to look at the mirror and see the beard, the body hair, the wide flat thoracic box etc. I knew I don't want to live as a man; and I was totally sure that I'd be happier in a female-type body. That is, I knew I was an MtF trans person. Still, all the talk of “gender identity” sounded abstract to me. I didn't really know what does it mean to "identify as".

Some time ago I was feeling down and decided to dust off my Euripides, trying to extract something useful from all the toxicity and sexism (and, it turns out, transphobia! genuine transphobia in the 4th century BCE!), when it suddenly struck me that my body is (as the kids say) beyond my control, but this doesn't change the fact that I am a trans woman, which is one possible kind of woman.

This is totally obvious, I know, but it all just came rushing to me as a feeling of calm certainty, not just as abstract thought. I went through my gallery of fears, staring each one in the face, and I knew that:

According to violence statistics in my home country, I should be already dead. But even if they beat me black and blue, they will be beating a trans woman. There's nothing they can do to make me a man. It's impossible. The guy who threw a bottle on my head threw a bottle at a woman. If I die on the streets I'll die a woman.

My beard may grow hourly and my body hair may rise again depressingly fast, and I don't want them and that's fine. It's perfectly alright to want to change your body. But even if I became hairy enough to infiltrate a furry convention, I'd be no less woman than a cis woman with hirsutism. No feature of my body can change this fact.

TERFs may harass, dox, yell at my face etc., but they'll be doing that to a woman.

My extended family might reject me; they'll be rejecting a woman.

People in the streets may shout and jeer, but the only effect of this act would be to make themselves assholes. It doesn’t change anything about me being a woman.

I couldn't live in society as a woman for all of my childhood and adolescence. Should I be killed, they’ll take my old age, too. But try as they might, they cannot stop me from being a woman all the while.

I found my identity through resistance. I realized that all along I had this core thing that no one can take away, ever.

Having an identity feels reassuring. It’s not as if dysphoria or social fear went away, but I don’t get so anxious about them. My visceral discomfort with my body feels more like any other medical condition beyond my control; like a headache that I’m patiently waiting to pass while the medicine doesn’t kick in.