I'm charmingly awkward @imcharminglyawkward-blog - Tumblr Blog

Reclaiming “Weird”.

September 2016 - formally diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder and a bunch of other behaviours place me firmly on the autism spectrum. I knew this. It isn't a strange recent thing amongst many others. A lot of my previous behaviours make perfect sense within the framework of autism. I now know my inability to read in a straight line (previously diagnosed as dyslexia) and my pattern oriented behaviour (previously diagnosed as OCD) as well as many other symptoms previously related to anxiety disorder are now well established autism traits. It's a relief, more than anything, to have medical science finally confirm what I always knew. However, there are some things it doesn't change. I have always been a "weirdo" a "loner" in high school i was called a freak on more occasions than i care to remember. I just accepted that my behaviour was going to isolate me, it was just a condition of being as I am. I intergrated my condition as part of my "weird" personality. I saw autism as a character flaw. As did a lot of the religious community I was around at school and my own parents. I had very few Autistic role models, more so I just began to think... Maybe there's something to it. Maybe it is me.. Medical diagnosis changes a lot. It doesn't change the social isolation often caused by Autism. Particularly when one experiences severe sensory difficulties that leave them house bound, it limits the ability to create and maintain relationships. When I can only speak to my chosen people, it means that I am constantly reliant on a few close friends which is burdensome for them and me. My life is impacted when my condition is visible, through stimming, the use of sensory integration aids, or when I have melt downs. I am constantly, along with other autistic people, the subject of completely fucking insensitive memes. I remember one depicting a non verbal girl in the throes of a meltdown with the words "when I learn they are out of soft serve" across the bottom. I was recently grabbed and had my headphones smashed whilst being called an "autistic r*tard" by a grown woman. This is how I have constantly experienced my condition, throughout my life, even when I don't notice it. It's there. "You're a fucking weirdo" the social script that runs through my head, limiting me, constantly. Sometimes it is upheld by the people around me. I have found myself outside of communities because despite my best intentions I don't understand the rules of engagement. I make effort not to intentionally harm anyone, and when I do, it's never because of my autism, i never use it as an excuse, but social rules and cues often confuse me. The non autistic world isn't a particularly forgiving place. I wish I could give people an insight into how hard I work to make sure my behaviour can allow me to "pass" as neurotypical in social situations. It is exhausting. But I have been thinking recently,what if I turned the idea of "being a weirdo" on its head. What if i began to speak back to people who demand I behave like them in order to fit in. I am not here to extol the virtues of Autistic people, we are worthy of dignity and respect because we are human. However, I will say that we do bring a great deal to the table in our understanding of life from different angles. In the theatre, directors will often ask an actor not in a scene to provide them an "outside eye" i.e watch the scene and provide a different level of feedback to the actors. Austistic people are often life's "outside eye" we don't get asked for our feedback very often, but we have it in spades. Those times we are silent, our minds are constantly working. It is more so that we lack the ability to explain or share what we are thinking. Weirdness is a part of society. Strange and unexplainable people and things often have perfectly logical reasons for existing, no one bothers to ask. What seems like a persons lack of empathy is often their extreme feelings of empathy shut down in order to avoid overload. What is a person's lack of relationships may be the fact they are simply scared to form them because they've experienced so much ostracisation in the past. Moving, spinning, making noises are often similar to the neurotypical friend's form of self medication and soothing. My message to my Autistic friends, and even to my allistic ones who experience other forms of neurodivergence. You aren't wrong. You are being forced, often without your consent as a kid (via behavioural therapies, but i will speak of them later) to mould your uniquely structured brain to a dominant ideal. Yes, the world is not set up for you, it's a fucking harsh and unkind one. But. Don't let that change you. Be whoever it is you are in all your flapping, spinning socially awkward glory. I hope one day we can get to a point where we say "yeah i'm weird, so fucking what". Because if we dont, what's going to happen? the alternative is more deaths (Autistic people have huge rates of suicide and non verbal Autistic children are more likely to be murdered by their parents than their verbal allistic counterparts) More social disenfranchisement, more mental illness. Us weirdos gotta stick together, make that word ours. Because if we can't take the sting out of it, it will continue to hurt us. And we know full well how that feels. I guess too the onus is on non autistic people to make sure they know about Autism issues, to make sure they never behave in ways that can be perceived as unaccepting. In the words of Captain Planet "The power is yours". Because it is, and one day it will be ours too.

This isn't a good day. I wanted to share it with you. I am out of the house but my mind is churning with anxiety and my stomach hurts. I don't order anything because I can't eat and I am so so tired because sleep isn't around much at the moment. I haven't showered or brushed my teeth and every fibre of my body is screaming. Why am I sharing this? Because Instagram isn't just a happy place, it's an honest one. I also need people to know they aren't alone. You are seen, heard, and understood. I honestly have no idea if it gets better because it hasn't for me yet but I am holding on to all of you in hope. #ptsd #mentalhealth #anxietydisorder #autism #depression #stayalive.

#mentalhealth #ptsd #anxietydisorder #autism #depression #stayalive

even though my body gives me pain and discomfort I am proud of it and the things it does. It earns me money, allows me to make art hug friends and kiss lovers. The light streaming through my bedroom window kisses my cheeks and keeps my arms and hands warm. With my legs I kick box ride a bike and walk my dog. No one has the perfect body. It is a myth designed to keep you feeling terrible. Love yourself. It is the ultimate act of resistance. #selflove #resistance #beauty #beyourself

#beauty #beyourself #resistance #selflove

I Need YOU!!!!

To my friends Family Community

The time has come

I am looking to medically transition to become the handsome creature of my dreams. Being agender, the identification with no particular gender at all means I am constantly battling with dysphoria, the physical and mental discomfort associated with not identifying with my birth sex. My chest, my voice, my appearance gets me read as female, something I have never been entirely comfortable with. So I have decided to take action to degender my body - take masculinizing hormones, and have top surgery.

In Australia at the moment, no surgery is covered by Medicare. It means that for anyone seeking reconstructive chest surgery or mastectomies, they are charged thousands of dollars in hospital fees and associated costs. Even with private insurance or the benefit of employment, the excess can render surgery a distant and unattainable dream. Also, as of now, it is difficult to get Testosterone on the PBS system without a consultation from an endocrinologist which often causes more costs if we are not lucky enough to find one that bulk bills.

I have realized that it is now or never. My dysphoria has reached a point where I cannot any longer go out into the world with the body I have. Dysphoria is a heart wrenching anxiety provoking experience that in some cases, is fatal. Being unable to work as much as we need to, or transphobic hiring practices in workplaces mean that often the funds we need to alleviate our dysphoria are just simply absent. That is definitely my case. So I ask you, with humility and grace, to help me. I have started a fundraising page to help offset a lot of the costs of surgery and transition related materials (clothes, hormone injections, and other things) I understand the poverty many queer people find themselves in, so please, feel free to pass this on if you feel you cannot donate. Trans Lives Matter, Non Binary Lives Matter, and transition helps us live our best selves.

Here is the link to the gofundme, feel free to share.

https://www.gofundme.com/mj-sgenderjourney

With all my love and thanks

#gender transition trans mentalhealth

airgearcloudroad

dinosaurdamage-deactivated20250

@kingduck303

aezenatrus

When My Uncle, who’s completely deaf, was about 17, he got in a heated argument with my great aunt, his mother. They were furiously signing back and forth. Suddenly they both stopped and started laughing and laughing. My great aunt had accidentally signed, “Don’t you yell at me.”

hellodaarius-deactivated2019070

If I witnessed that Bruh omg 😭😭😭😭😭😭

imabrickshithouse

“Use your inside hands!”

meltedwings-kidicarus-deactivat

USE YOUR INSIDE HANDS IM

Cute on the outside anxious on the inside. Stilll queer as fuck #socialanxiety #mentalhealth #isithometimeyet

ponyfiasco

The signs as male "feminists" you've dated

aries - shroedinger’s douchebag: decides if his statement was a joke or not based on the reactions he gets. Thinks family guy is brilliant satire.

taurus - lives to mansplain. The guy who puts his hand up in the middle of a speech to make a blindingly obvious statement instead of asking a question or even waiting until questions are being taken.

gemini - has lesbian mums and never lets you forget it, especially when ur calling out some homophobic bullshit he just said.

cancer - slaps girls’ asses during sex without asking. When questioned on it, says he was just “too turned on” and subtly shames you for not being kinky enough.

leo - always tries to initiate a massage train, complains that people who don’t want to join are “uptight” and “resisting their own liberation”

virgo - that polyamorous guy who’s like 40 but always talking to rly gakked 19 year old girls at music festivals about how repressive monogamy is and putting his hand on their knee.

libra - secretly thinks that gamer gate “kinda has a few points”. Has said “anyway, here’s wonderwall” without irony at least once.

scorpio - plays men’s roller derby, and gets annoyed with women who say they don’t want to train with him. Sulks and threatens to withdraw his support from the movement if feminists aren’t nice enough to him.

sagittarius - white crust punk vegan who will take any opportunity to talk about how he’s read The Sexual Politics of Meat. Tells women they can’t call themselves feminists if they eat meat/dairy.

capricorn - young liberal type who loves to talk about equal opportunity and quotas for women on corporate boards. Thinks intersectionality is something to do with traffic control.

aquarius - goes to strip clubs and tells the dancers he won’t spend any money because he’s “not like those guys, they’re so gross to think they can buy you”. Thinks he can buy you.

pisces - White ribbon ambassador. Talks about beating up rapists but never takes seriously any of the girls who have complaints about his best mate.

imcharminglyawkward-blog

So much of this way too real. #menaretrash

Another Angry Queer

I was just down at my local tattoo parlour. I asked the artist I've been seeing for years to tattoo the title of this piece on my left bicep. I didn't have the money straight up so i made an appointment for next week when I get paid. From the look in her eye I think she figured I'd settle down by then and have gone off the idea of having my identity literally tattooed onto my skin - wearing it publicly. The Latinx people killed in Orlando didn't have that option. The trans women of colour who have been brutally murdered before and after Orlando didn't have that option either. We as queer people are asked to give so much, for so fucking little in return. Still, I know my priviledge as a white AFAB non binary person in an english speaking relatively affluent country means I am not marked in the same way Queer and Trans people of colour are. I am not denied the same employment or housing opportunities. I know I was born extremely lucky, that my whiteness shields me from a great deal of the suffering my brown friends go through, even at the hands of their own community. I know I am not as likely to be jailled, or criminalized at all, and when I am, my experiences in prison aren't going to be the same. I am not likely to be jailled for a crime of poverty, and am more likely to be able to seek assistance for any mental health issues I might have and that assistance be culturally sensitive. But I also know, living in the same system, that I still have a certain degreee of being marked, of knowing that society at large would rather me dead than living openly. That the more I openly express my gender and sexuality, the closer I come to my life ending, at my own hands or the hands of others. It isn't being dramatic to say any of this. Each movement we make is a calculated risk, and the more intersections we embody the riskier those movements become. Every morning when choosing how to dress, or how to walk, or what to *do* in the world, is deciding if we will get through that day or not. The deaths of queer and trans people are something that straight cis people profoundly don't understand. It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the community's reactions to the Orlando tragedy are marked not just by proximity to the events but by our proximity to queerness, to the historical feeling of never being safe in any setting. Of putting our headphones on to walk home at night but still being acutely aware of how hard your footsteps are on the pavement, or feeling like you've got someone following you because it happened once, even when you're the only one on the street. To the idea that 'thoughts and prayers' are enough, and silence in the face of day to day microagressions. Queer people feel the silence of their straight cis counterparts, they see them turning up for marriage equality rallies thinking it is enough, when it nowhere near resembles even a slight portion of our lives and struggles. Queer People of Colour wear your silence, on their bodies, in their souls and in the case of Orlando, have traded your silence for their lives. Until this shit ends, and it won't just end with gun reform, it's going to take a cultural shift of a huge magnitude, I will always be, another angry queer.

#queer #orlando #writing #anger #gender

A place ive never been

#dirtythirty #day6 #poetry

There are highlands calling me home From across the ocean drilling their way into my deep rooted antipodean heart They are timeless Places where the moss tells tales even the oldest can no longer remember I do not hear the accent in my corner of the world Not unless i have been visiting Mr Jamieson and he’s poured me a drop My father told me stories about how the thistle became the scottish emblem. He said that a soldier from an advancing army stepped on a thistle its prickle embedded in his foot. As he yelled in pain woke the sleeping scotsmen who killed them. I would love to hold a thistle in my palm To let it tell me the of the day william wallace was killed. Or sing its ancient songs in a language long thought dead But still spoken In sometimes whispers And often roared rebellion

#poetry #scotland #writing #thistles

The Myth of happy families.

Christmas is an altogether strange time. For as long as I can remember, even as a child, I've never had a whole lot of affection for it. If you ask me to recall my happiest memories growing up none of them would involved christmas in any way. It filled me with dread, most of the time, being a socially anxious kid. This is where my negative self perception started. Stuffed into outrageously frilly dresses my mother picked out for me, every christmas we'd do the treck across town to visit both sets of grandparents on the same day. Stuffed full of food we'd collapse at home when the night ended. During these days, every chance i got i'd go and hide. I'd hide In spare rooms, up trees in my paternal grandparents' garden, even hiding on top of a shed roof sparking a full scale search by my parents. During lunch, I'd eat very little, and drink water instead of fizzy drink, and ask my grandmother for cups of weak milky tea instead of the sugary cola my brother and cousins drank. she'd make me the same cup of tea she made for my aunts and uncles, with a tiny cookie by the side. As i drank my cup of tea, trying to avoid the death stare of my mother. I realized something. My family was miserable. They weren't happy people. I realized very early on that my parents hated each other. My aunts and uncles have since divorced, one of my uncles has passed away. I think i realized by the age of 10 that adults weren't always happy. I said very little during those lunches, I just watched them. I watched the way my mother would heap scorn on my unmarried aunt who i adored, and who loved my brother and I like we were her own children. I watched the way my father would always downplay the offensiveness of my grandfather, the generational racism, the sexism he displayed to my grandmother, as if he were embarrassed, as if sexism was transmissible by touch, and everyone around him would automatically assume my father was the same. When I was 11, it was the first time christmas was different. My Dad's father had passed away earlier that year, and my parents had divorced and my brother and I began the years of being shunted back and forth between homes and cousins, and aunts. I still hid wherever I could, but as I got older I was hiding from very different things. My family became the band of kids i found when i slept in various places or went to drop in centres, the kids that had no families became mine. I remember the first christmas I didn't go home. I was 18. My mother acted as if her world was imploding. I had just moved into my own flat and was preparing to go overseas. I had created my separate life. I'd aced my year 12, against the odds, getting a higher score than my overpriviledged step siblings, and had decided that this wasn't for me. I know I was brash about it. Full of not quite matured possibly misdirected but only just under the surface anger at what I saw whee the things she'd put us through years before. Mum and I had a huge row. She called me things then she's called me several times since. I've simply become used to the stings. The carefully constructed artifice of happiness Mum went to great pains to create was going to be shown up for what it was. A myth. From the time my parents separated, untill only just recently, my mother's big thing has been christmas. Despite being horribly treated, she still wishes to create artificial happiness at christmas time. I guess she thought it'd make up for the things that had happened. She didn't realize how desperately unsafe i felt, how every time I went back to the house, i was going back to the places that filled me with overwhelming dread. We don't ask someone who's been bitten by a bear to return to its den time and time again, we need to stop asking abused kids to come home as adults. When i think of the last christmas I went to. My grandmother had died years before, my cousins were all grown up my uncles all doing various things of their own. It was just sad. It was the progression of time my mother couldn't stop, even though she desperately wished to. These people are still miserable, still holding onto the same unhappinesses they did years ago when I drank tea and watched them. we don't need to be beholden to our families if they make us unhappy. I'd give everything for people in my life who are related to me who hold me up and at least are able to have conversations with, but as an adult I know I can create this environment for myself. People who don't have a lot are very good at building things. take care of yourselves loves, remember the important things in your life aren't what you're told you should have, but what is already inside you, and the life you are already creating.

#writing #families #bah humbug

just-shower-thoughts

What if Harry was just in a coma for 7 years because he actually just ran head first into a wall at a train station

someone: saying "they" in a singular sentence just feels so uncomfortable

me: existing in this cissesxist and transphobic society that continues to gender my body without my permission according to their weird arbitrary binary system is also uncomfortable but I manage, Helen

middlenameconfused

It is not fair to treat people as if they are finished beings. Everyone is always becoming and unbecoming.

Kathleen Winter (via wethinkwedream)

On the bad days

TW depression

I don't post much on tumblr or facebook about what happens to me on really awful mental health days. I've often thought it's somewhat self indulgent and attention seeking of me but lately I've found myself wanting to talk about it. Many people do know what depression is like but a depressed person will often go to great lengths to he their depression from the people around them. It is easy to appear to be the happiest person in the room - it becomes your shield, the way you immediately deflect like a super hero all the inner turmoil you feel. You're almost afraid to speak because you desperately want people to think you actually are as competent, well presented and out going as you seem. On the other hand though, you do want them to be able to see you. To actually emotionally see you. Like when soneone drops a bag full of groceries and Everyone kinda rushes up to help them because they can see it's what the person needs and dropping your groceries is so fucking annoying. To further that analogy, Usually when I drop my groceries it's because I haven't used a strong enough bag, I go back into the shop, depending how far away it is, and re inforce that shit, put everything back in and go home. It just took that re -inforcement to help me. Sometimes, it takes more than extra plastic, and I find myself needing those reusuable blue bags they charge you an extra dollar for at the checkout. Those ones are a lot tougher and fit more in them, lessening your likelihood of dropping anything else.

On Tuesday I dropped my groceries in a huge way. This was a broken egg carton, smashed jar of pasta sauce, bananas on the foot path type spill. I get depression that manifests itself in very physical ways. I get stomach aches and headaches and often spend my days throwing up and I had to call in sick to uni and work. It was a lot easier to say I had a stomach bug than to admit I am possbly suicidal wth a side of panic and nausea for dessert. I managed to shower, take some valium, and a few old anti nausea tablets and then just sort of. stayed in bed. When the nausea and anxiety subsided I just felt nothing. I stared at the ceiling faintly hearing my dogs play outside where i'd left them, shutting the door until it started to rain, then opened and let them in. Everything seemed like a gigantic effort. Every step felt like I'd run a marathon. Until the pups and I got back into bed. My limbs just kind of melted into the mattress. I let my mind wander. It went to extremely dark places. Sort of like. inner voice "you know you're pretty fucking useless right" me "yep" inner voice " you know a great deal of people just would be a whole lot better off if you weren't around. No one would miss you" me " i don't thnk they would either" I am normally pretty good at speaking back to that tiny voice in the back of my brain that flashes up thoughts lke that every now and then. Not on Tuesday. All i knew is that Tuesday would become Wednesday, and maybe there'd be a possibility that Wednesday would be better.. I tried to latch on to that possibility, used it to re-inforce my grocery bag, placing each item that wasn't smashed, back in with care. I called my psychologist, left a voice mail, took my dogs to the neighbour who walks them on a Tuesday afternoon. Went back to sleep. Melted into the mattress again. Waiting, just waiting for the hours to tick over into the next day.

I share this with you because I desperately want to live. I want my friends to live. I want the people around me who don't have depression to get that it's not just something we can decide to recover from. I have the added complication of severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, so for me, recovery is pretty much out of the picture. It's a careful game of management. One that for the most part I win. But I need you, to be my grocery bag enforcers, to antcipate, where you can, my potential to drop the groceries, but to also not take it as a sign I can't do the shopping on my own.. I can, and there is so much that I am good at, and competent at, internalized self worthlessness aside. I guess we all need a bit of re-nforcement now and then.

#depression #writing #mental health

Leaving

TW DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

When we ask why doesn't she leave, I'm not convinced we know the rammificatons of this line of questioning. When we consider the neoliberal slash and burn effort towards any form of refuge, financial dependence, and just a plain lack of support, it becomes apparent that these questions are absurd. There's another side too... We know now, although don't acknowledge often, that she is often unsafest after she's left. That once you leave the violent home, you don't neccesarily leave the violence. These things are all a part of my origin story. Written into my skin, and underneath it. For the longest of time, I tried to deny my mother's victimhood, to negate the impacts of abuse on her out of anger and a lack of knowledge around what she truly endured. We are trying to rethread the tapestry of our relationship. She hurts me in ways I'll never understand, and can't accept, but I know so much of it stems from the things we went through together. I look at the woman I idolized so much as a small child and I see a shadow of that person.. Long before she has died she's become a ghost.

I remember the first time we left. We'd been living with Mum for almost two years after a shitty custody thing. She'd been married only a year. SHe told me the violence began on their wedding night. A social worker mum had been seeing bundled us into a taxi while he was at work. We packed clothes and whatever else we could carry, and Mum packed all the essential thngs women are told to keep wth them when they leave. She reminded me to take my epilepsy medications, and made sure my brother was wearing his glasses. When I look back on this now, I remember my brother being so small, his glasses falling down his nose, his toy lamb, a relic of my bioligical father's childhood, clutched in one hand, my hand in the other. I remember feelng his racing pulse through his tiny palm when I held his hand in the back of the taxi. I tried to distract him by asking him to point out all the different types of car we could see on the road ahead of us.

We arrived, were shown rooms. In the days that followed we slept, made decisions, cried, went to school in taxis. I left for a different refuge as I was older than most of the kids there and able to live independently of my mother. I missed my little brother and we eventually got family accomodation in the suburbs. It lasted almost a year before Mum started to get phone calls at work. Threats of suicide, and at one point. Homicide. We moved back in, the cycle began again. We'd leave three more times before I made the decision to go back to my real Dad. My brother found his own way of coping, retreated into fantasy lands, and would draw me pictures for when i'd sneak a glimpse over the fence to see if he was alright. (my mum lived when she moved out, a 45 minute walk from my bio Dad. I walked it often even though it was a long way. I didnt care) I cannot get over the sense of betrayal, the feeling of guilt, I left him to witness things I had the luxury of leaving. Everything in me wanted to take him wherever I went. He was my best friend, and the one thing I desired to protect the most. But it simply wasn't possible.

This is why it's so incredibly difficult for me to hear "why doesn't she leave" Because we often do and it isnt enough. We're still picking up the bits of ourselves years later, and some of the bits can't be picked up. Dont ask why we stay, ask why we are forced to stay, or better yet, ask why he does it at all.

#writing #origin story #domestic violence #brother #mother

chemicalheart-deactivated202009

Sex Workers, language and slurs

This is the same stuff I’ve said a lot in more posts than I can remember but I want to make a specific post about it since I get a lot of questions about these things and I want to add it to my resources page.

Prostitute is a Slur

Prostitute is a word that is used entirely to criminalize sex workers. The word refers specifically to exchanging sex acts for money, which is a crime in most places, and is part of the reason other terms like ‘escort’ came along; escorting is selling one’s time which may or may not include sex, and is paid by an hourly rate, whereas prostitution is paid by the sex act. In many places, ‘escorting’ allows a loophole for full service sex work though it also has some classist implications. It remains though that prostitute is a word that strips full service sex workers of our humanity and reduces us to criminals; this is the history and intention of it. It is a slur, so don’t use it except to self refer if you’re a full service sex worker yourself.

Hooker is a Slur

Hooker is a disparaging term for a full service sex worker, often linked to street-based work, which again has class issues. It is used to demean and degrade full service sex workers. Don’t use it.

Whore is a Slur

This is an area where a lot of people fuck up, believing bullshit like “but whore is used to target all women!” No shit, guess why? Because it refers to full services sex workers. That’s the entire reason why it’s offensive. When you call someone a whore, you are literally calling them a full service sex worker. Don’t do it, and don’t use it for yourself if you’re not a sex worker (the word can be applied to sex workers who don’t do full service in some situations, but only to self refer).

When you use any of the above words, you are contributing to whorephobia; the specific marginalization that sex workers, usually women, experience in every aspect of society from interpersonal relationships to the state. This stigma often results in discrimination, violence, rape, death and even murder. Language matters. Words are important.

Whorephobia

Whorephobia is the term that sex workers coined in the 1970s to describe this oppression. This is the only instance where non sex workers can use the word whore. While there are problems raised with this word, it’s what we have, it’s been around for 40 years now so unless sex workers decide to change it (if that’s even possible) this is what we have whether we like it or not. The fact that this word contains a slur is no fucking excuse to attack people for using it, and the only people who complain about it are whorephobic fauxminists themselves who are trying to silence us by taking away our language to call them out on their bigotry while changing the subject, trying to paint US as misogynists. This is not a “new libfem term” and libfeminism has fucking nothing to do with sex worker rights anyway; sex workers have historically occupied the fringes of society, something which every brand of feminism likes to avoid. If you don’t feel comfortable using this word, feel free to write it as wh*rephobia instead.

Street-Walker is a Slur

This word specifically attacks street-based workers, who experience the worst marginalization of all sex workers with all other things being equal. Even in sex worker spaces, street-based workers are often looked down on by indoor sex workers such as escorts or brothel workers. This is called lateral whorephobia and it’s fucked up. No one gets to use this phrase except street-based workers.

Pimp is another term that often comes up in these conversations. It has a complicated history and has strong anti-Black connotations. Pimping is a reality, it definitely does happen and there are situations where this word is appropriate. It’s also a concept used to attack sex workers by criminalizing anyone who assists us; legally, anyone who helps a sex worker organize their appointments or drives them to and from a client can be charged as a pimp. It’s a disparaging term that often targets friends and partners of sex workers. It’s also widely used by anti sex worker fauxminists to discredit peer-based organizations; SWERFs will baselessly claim that sex worker organizations are actually run by pimps. This virtually never happens as most organizations have strict policies regarding who can become a member; only sex workers can join peer-based organizations.

John is a term used to refer to the clients of sex workers. We virtually never use it, we call them clients cos that’s what they are though some sex workers call their clients tricks. That’s really up to them, but non sex workers would be better off using clients, especially since not all clients are men anyway.

Appropriate Language

The catch-all term for anyone who sells their sexual energy is ‘sex worker’. This includes strippers, peep show performers, brothel workers, cam performers and many more. The key point is that they sell their sexual energy; there are people in the sex industry who don’t and therefore are not sex workers, such as security staff, DJs, drivers, managers etc.

Since this is an umbrella term, you may need to refer to specific sex industry positions.

Full service sex worker is anyone who has sex with their clients. Sex can be a variety of things but usually involves genitals touching (some sex workers only do massage with hand relief, and they are not full service sex workers), though not necessarily every time. The term implies that some form of penetrative sex is an available activity. Porn performers aren’t usually referred to as full service sex workers even though they have sex because the people they’re having sex with are not their clients, though some porn performers do full service sex work in addition to performing in porn.

Indoor sex worker generally refers to any full service sex worker who works indoors. They may work for themselves privately in their own homes or from hotel/motel/rented rooms, for an escort agency, or in a brothel/parlor. Indoor sex workers generally experience lower risks of violence; from clients, strangers and police.

Street-based sex worker generally refers to sex workers who work outdoors or in public/semi public places. Some people consider sex workers who meet clients via the internet/newspaper advertisements and see them in semi-public spaces (e.g. cars, public toilets) to be street-based but more commonly, street-based sex worker means the sex worker meets their clients in a public place; sometimes a bar or club but more often, a stroll (a stroll is a street where sex workers tend to work; clients know to go to that street in particular to find sex workers and vice versa). Sometimes strolls are decriminalized; in Sydney for example, it’s not a criminal act for sex workers to meet clients at Kings Cross, though it isn’t legal to meet them in public anywhere else. Public sex is always illegal. Sometimes ‘outdoor sex worker’ is used, but less commonly.

Brothel worker is pretty self explanatory, I’ve not heard of another term to refer to sex workers who are based in brothels. Some brothel workers also do escorting, either privately or via the brothel.

Escort is an acceptable word to use to refer to independent full service sex workers who work indoors, though some (like myself) dislike it because it has certain class connotations as above.

SWERF is an acronym that means ‘sex worker exclusionist radical feminist’ and illustrates the fact that despite their protests, anti sex worker fauxminists actually hate us, including those of us who are forced, coerced and/or trafficked. They hide this behind false statistics and pretending that anyone with a tumblr account is too privileged to have an opinion, but in truth, they just want to silence us and force us out of our jobs.

I hope this covers all the language questions, if I’ve missed anything please let me know

robothugscomic

New comic! (link to comic)

Sorry this one’s a little late.

Trans people have to walk this really fine line with respect to acceptable gender expression. Deviating from what is considered ‘normal’ for their gender results in the credibility of that gender being called into question in ways that just don’t happen with cis people.

(while this happens with all trans people, I’m going to focus on trans women for this post)

The truth is, while feminism is making awesome inroads in creating space for women to adopt a range of gender expressions beyond what social norms of ‘women’ have prescribed, so often that only applies to cis women. Trans women who ‘break’ femininity are regarded as essentially 'letting slip’ their ‘actual gender’.

This is a symptom of the fact that trans people are largely still considered to be ‘acting like ’ their gender - ‘acting’ being the operative term. People see their gender as being something that sits upon a deeper truth - some less genuine, something deceptive.

There’s another side to this, of course, for trans women who adopt non-transgressive expressions of femininity - they’re accused (often within the feminist community) of reinforcing stereotypes, damaging the image of women.

So there’s really no way to win. Trans women who conform too much are essentially accused of being in bad drag, trans women who don’t conform enough are accused of a lack of commitment to their gender.

That great work we do, where we’re troubling what gender norms are, challenging sexist ideals, and taking control of our bodies? We need to make sure that we’re opening up those opportunities for ALL women. And we need to make that space available for all other genders, as well. I don’t believe in feminism that opens doors to some people while locking them for others.

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