TFW you show your cis girlfriend "Alien" for the first time and tell her "this is how I want to procreate."
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
Sweet Seals For You, Always
dirt enthusiast
Stranger Things
Not today Justin

Discoholic 🪩

JVL
almost home
noise dept.
KIROKAZE
we're not kids anymore.

Andulka
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open

Product Placement
Xuebing Du
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her

⁂
Today's Document
Game of Thrones Daily
Peter Solarz
seen from Germany
seen from Malaysia

seen from Vietnam

seen from Argentina
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from Netherlands

seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Hong Kong SAR China

seen from Malaysia

seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from Germany
seen from United States
@logophagos
TFW you show your cis girlfriend "Alien" for the first time and tell her "this is how I want to procreate."
#transgirl #transgender #trans #hrt https://www.instagram.com/p/CJKgm3AHbFg/?igshid=zgdss6lgsj0l
On Wednesdays we wear pink. #transisbeautiful #transgirl #transgender #trans #onwednesdayswewearpink https://www.instagram.com/p/CI4WWCmnsD9/?igshid=2omkidtuc674
CW: silence of the lambs, medical gatekeeping, transphobia, representation
Like many people, the first book I read featuring a trans character was "Silence of the Lambs." My feelings about this work are...complicated to say the least. Let's dig in.
The elephant in the room is that the main antagonist, Jame Gumb or Buffalo Bill, flays cis women and uses their skin to make a wearable "woman-suit" in order to become a woman. Obviously, this is incredibly transphobic. What interests me is that, unlike the film, the book explicitly states that Jame Gumb is not in fact transgender. Apparently Jame has been rejected for Gender Confirmation Surgery and doesn't fit the psychological profile of a real transgender person. So not trans after all! When I first read the book, I took this at face value and didn't question it, despite already knowing I was trans. It's actually relieving to read this horrible caricature of yourself and then be reassured that it isn't really about you. It was so relieving that it was how I thought about the character for years: "He's not trans, he just thinks he is". Up until quite recently I could watch Demme's Silence of the Lambs and feel safe knowing the character onscreen wasn't a cruel parody of me; after all, the book said so.
That was until I realized how many times I'd been told I didn't fit the profile of a transgender person. How many times I'd been told that I wasn't actually trans but just believed myself to be. Whatever that means. As it turns out, it is very common for trans people (especially non-binary people) to be told they "aren't trans enough" or "aren't trans in the right way." When coming from a healthcare professional, this assessment is then used to deny us access to essential medical care such as HRT and GCS. The concept itself is generally called "transmedicalism" and its proponents "truscum", so named because they accuse other trans people of not being "truly trans." It goes without saying that transmedicalism is incredibly harmful as it unnecessarily gatekeeps who "gets to be trans" behind a set of arbitrary criteria. All this does is divide trans people and serve as a pretext to deny us healthcare.
With this in mind, I can no longer take seriously the book's insistence that Jame Gumb is not trans. Furthermore, the characters in the novel who utter these verdicts are all psychiatrists and cops, i.e. the two main proponents of transmedicalism! Accordingly, the denial of Gumb's trans identity in the text substantiates rather than silences the accusations of transphobia. Silence of the Lambs is incredibly transphobic in its portrayal of Jame Gumb and promotes harmful notions about what it means to be trans. This damage is exacerbated by the Demme film cementing Jame Gumb as the most prominent trans character in pop culture.
With that being said however, I'd like to offer up my own alternate, queer reading of Silence of the Lambs. If you think about it, the book's plot boils down to "a trans woman is denied medical care; later she is killed by a cop." Maybe there's a moral we can take from this after all? Allowing people to transition saves lives.
Let me say it again: Allowing people to have access to essential medical care including HRT and GCS saves lives.
All of this is to say that representation matters. The fact that I have to go through all of this analysis to even make sense of the first trans character I encountered in fiction speaks volumes. I don't want my children's first impression of trans characters in literature to come from Silence of the Lambs like mine did.
P.S. In Hannibal, Clarice shoots a black mother cradling her child. Fucking ACAB, in my queer reading Clarice and the FBI are the real serial killers. RIP Evelda and Jame, love ya ladies <3
CW: sexual assault, transphobia
To my former therapist:
Being raped didn't somehow "make" me trans. Being trans and aware of the stigma placed on trans people by society did however make me more vulnerable to being groomed and raped by an adult when I was a teenager. #metoo
On this government website there is a page bluntly titled "chicken or egg" dedicated to discussing, well, "which came first, the trauma or the trans?"
https://ovc.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh226/files/pubs/forge/sexual_ch_e.html
Over half of trans people will be sexually assaulted at some point over the course of their lives. Anyone in healthcare or psychology, please stop talking over us and listen. Stop telling trans survivors that our dysphoria is misplaced sexual trauma. Stop dismissing our desire to transition as a misguided attempt to cope with the violation of our bodies. Stop making it worse. We've been through enough already. You're literally killing us.
She knitted herself into a cocoon! @bela_carson https://www.instagram.com/p/CG8s0bZnb_Zmpfyj2kqyjes-03hDzhNb-mAFTI0/?igshid=16lpbeieo58xf
My whole life I've spent wishing I was cis. A cis woman specifically. I will never be that. No matter how many times I've dreamt it, ever since I was a little girl, I will never wake up one day to discover I am cis.
I am okay with this fact. I wasn't okay with it for a very long time, but I can say with full certainty that I am now. I am proud to be trans. And I am interested in exploring the ways in which being a trans woman is different from being a cis woman. I don't want to erase that, I want to embrace it.
Being misgendered by people who seem nice is the worst. Especially in passing customer service moments, whether as an employee or as a customer or as a coworker. It ruins my day and causes me immense anxiety. It didn't used to do that because I wasn't trying to be recognizably female. Now that I am trying very hard and am out 24/7, it hurts a lot. It throws me off completely. I can't get the intrusive thoughts out of my head for an hour. I become scatter brained and anxious and go into survival mode where I'm afraid of my surroundings. I almost want to go up and correct the person, they seem nice, I'm sure they'd react well and apologize but idk if I can remain calm while I do so. I don't want to come off like a bitch. And either way the anxiety is too much. I am too non-confrontational in uncomfortable situations. I just fold and slink away. I know it'd be fine to just let them know in a friendly way, but that feels nearly impossible for me to do. It's impossible to even go up and correct then in a bitchy way. I'm just too traumatized from everything else in my life I guess. Being misgendered, even unintentionally, hurts a lot and makes it difficult to concentrate on anything other than feeling marginalized.
I'm feeling a strange sense of contentedness that I haven't felt in a while. It's like...everything is going to be okay. It hasn't been okay in the past, and it's not ideal now, but it doesn't have to be. Dysphoria and mental illness and insecurity and facial hair and trauma all still plague me. Today I can be happy in spite of them. I'm not perfect, but I am valid. My life isn't perfect, but it's mine. And that's enough, I think.
I was off my meds the other day, it wasn't pretty. I had refilled one of my prescriptione but forgot to add it to my medicine case. I forgot to take it for a few days. That was catastrophic. Screaming and yelling and sobbing and crying about how I wanted to die. My girlfriend made me go to an emergency psychiatric clinic where they asked me if I still wanted to kill myself. By this point I had calmed down and realized I had forgotten my meds, so I took them. I said I no longer wanted to kill myself. They have me a sheet of paper with therapists' numbers on it and told me that was all they could do. I hate the mental healthcare system in this country. It's either a sheet of paper or a 72 hour hold. Nothing in between.
I wish I didn't feel so...insecure when I see other trans women on the internet. Especially if they have any sort of following whatsoever. Upon reading their articles or viewing their videos, I feel a burst of envy and resentment. I desperately want to tear them down as if to reassure myself that I'm valid. I don't know why I feel the need to do this. I don't want to do this. I wish I could see other trans women and celebrate their successes and maybe even find them inspirational. I can get there eventually, the more I familiarize myself with a creator the less threatening they seem. But my initial reaction is so defensive and hostile and I don't know why. I mean, obviously I'm insecure. I want to be seen as smart and attractive and inspirational and as having accomplished something. I see others who are in a similar position as myself and have people supporting them and applauding their work. And I feel all the more useless and alone by comparison. When I meet trans people in person it's never like this. I'm always happy to meet a kindred spirit who I can commiserate with. Online it feels different though. I know this is a problem with me not with anyone else, but it feels good to confess it publicly. I never act on these feelings, I only ever feel upset and say mean things to myself for being the sort of person who feels this way. I wonder if it's because I have PTSD, or because I've suffered in ways other people haven't and I see a certain privilege in not having your life derailed by health problems, sexual harassment, sexual assault, trauma, drug addiction, and mental illness. I think I see an alternate world in which I had a good life and then maybe I'm the one with a voice and a following. But in this world I feel like I can barely speak.
I hate that's it's difficult for me to do things. It's hard to pick up the phone the when someone calls, it's hard to listen to voicemails, it's hard to call back. Each of those steps feels like a herculean task. The fact that I don't know what voice to answer the phone with doesn't help either. I have so much anxiety and it's paralyzing. I hate how it makes life harder for others too. I wish I was more reliable, I wish I could always be present. I saw what happens if I go off my meds yesterday and it's not pretty. I shut down completely and start sobbing uncontrollably and yelling about how I want to kill myself.
I want to make progress but it's really hard to do the things that result in progress. I don't feel like a human anymore. I feel most human when I'm at work but I have fewer hours these days. COVID has a way of making me feel invisible and ineffectual. Time slips by. Stay inside all day. Leaves change. You don't.
"Thank you, sir."
It's amazing how someone can be so polite and yet also so rude at the same time.
Fuck the proud boys, fuck white supremacists, Nazi punks fuck off. Black lives matter.
I saw a trans girl at work today. She was a customer, not a coworker. She had unshaven legs and what looked like stubble poking out from behind her mask. She was wearing a cute skirt that had patches sewn on, as if it was homemade. I was working near where she was shopping, I kept stealing glances at her. I hoped she'd notice me. I wanted to say something like "hey I like your skirt" or "hello" or "hi I'm also trans nice to meet you, I feel safe right now and I hope you do too, it's so nice to see another trans person". But I didn't say anything. I stuck to my work and hoped she might notice me and say something to me. She never did. Maybe she was anxious herself. Maybe she didn't recognize that I was trans. Maybe she was just busy shopping and didn't notice the employee near her. Or maybe she did and just didn't feel like talking. Maybe we'd have nothing in common. Maybe she doesn't want to be accosted by random strangers. Maybe I should just focus on doing my job. Or maybe she would've appreciated it and we'd have talked. Or maybe just exchanged hellos and gone on our way, sharing a knowing yet masked smile at seeing a kindred soul. I wonder who she is, I wonder if I'll see her again. I wonder if she has the same insecurities as me, or different ones. Who knows. At least I'm no longer the only trans woman I've seen at work. We exist and we won't be hidden.
It's interesting how much my perspective on being trans has changed since being out at work. I used to just be out to my friends but would disguise myself when I went to work. I'd try to blend in, to stay safe. Eventually though, the effects of hormones more or less forced me to stay out of the closet full time. As scary as that was, I'm glad they did. Before, when I was any degree of closeted, being trans was something I always knew but didn't have to constantly think about. Sure it would come up if I felt dysphoric, if I was reminded of it, if one of my friends misgendered me. But if I wanted to go out in "boy mode" because that was easier or safer, I could. I didn't have to be trans 24/7/365. I could blend in, I could hide, I could choose not to think about it. But now I'm constantly aware of it, it is present in all my interactions at work. Everyone I meet knows I'm trans. I don't think I pass, I don't really know if I'm trying to. I'm happy with how I look and sound. I feel liberated. But I don't get to forget that I'm trans anymore. I'm aware of it every second of every day. Being in the closet is awful but there is a luxury to it. That luxury is I didn't have to deal with others knowing I was trans all the time. I wasn't reminded that I'm trans by people's interactions with me. I didn't have to see how they treated or spoke to trans people. I could ignore all that and not think about it. Or I could pretend it wasn't about me since it wasn't knowingly directed at me. But now I see it every day, I can't observe it from the shadows and be unaffected by it. Every interaction someone has with me is an interaction they're having with a trans person, and they know that. Sometimes I'm the first trans person they've met in real life. This is something that I hadn't had to think about when I was partially closeted. Now it's my daily life. Being trans has become much more a part of my identity the more that I've come out of the closet. No other aspect of my identity affects my life as significantly as being trans does. Society won't let me forget that I'm trans, so I won't let society forget that I'm trans either. I'm never going back in the closet and I will never pretend to be a cis woman. I am trans woman, hear me roar.
Something I find fascinating is how little I used to care about my appearance. I grew up wearing hand me down shirts and second hand jeans that were never the right size. My family approached thrift as if it was a competitive sport. Clothes were always utilitarian for me, that's how I was raised anyway.
When others started expressing themselves through their clothes, I got left behind a bit and am just now catching up. Come to think of it, I definitely wanted to express myself through fashion then. I got a pair of tripp pants to wear when I'd go to raves. I had a few different t shirts I liked, one with a peace sign made out of leaves (we joked it was weed) and another from Amsterdam. I enjoyed wearing those things, along with my che guevara beret and hammer and sickle belt.
But the real way I wanted to express myself was by wearing female clothes. Obviously no one was going to buy them for me so I had little to work with. I remember going shopping with a friend, I bought a skirt which was all I could afford at 14. I turned up at home, changed out of my ill fitting cargo pants, and wore the skirt around the house the rest of the day. My parents, who I'd previously come out to, asked why I was dressed that way. I replied that I wanted to dress to that way. They were not supportive. They confiscated the skirt, as they'd do for any other female clothes I bought.
(I just realized I didn't start doing drugs until after coming out to my parents didn't go well. Huh, go figure.)
If I tried to express myself and dress the way I wanted, I'd be spending my little money on clothes that would just be taken from me. So why bother? Thus I resigned myself to the closet. The closet was filled with too-wide cargo pants and too-short jeans. So that's what I continued wearing throughout highschool and college. I think some people saw this as uninspired or at the very least unattractive. I want them to know it wasn't a conscious choice to dress that way. It's just the only clothes I was allowed to wear. I think I came off as not giving a shit about my appearance, but it's incredibly difficult to give a shit about how you look or dress as a man when you aren't one. It's easier to not care than to invest time and effort into something you'll hate either way. Even if I did express myself through my appearance, I'd be expressing a facade. I was only allowed to express myself inauthentically. It's easy to understand then why I never found that liberating.
Sometimes I'm asked why I had a beard for so long, and if it caused me dysphoria. Quite simply, beards are easy to hide behind. Cue the jokes about beard girlfriends. On the second point, I think dysphoria cause me the beard rather than the other way around. Others seem to forget that for many people, if they don't shave, a beard grows. I didn't grow a beard, it grew on me. Do you ask a tree why it grows moss? No you ask the moss. So why didn't I shave? Well sometimes I did, but it grew back. It felt like a sisyphean task to keep it at bay and, once again, I hated my appearance either way, so what difference would it make? Sure shaving would make me look female in a way, but I'd still seem unmistakably male. It's like the female clothes all over again, why go out and buy them only to have them taken away by my parents? Any effort I made to express myself would be crushed by the tyranny of my biology, or else my parents. I became numb to my appearance, as caring about it was simply too painful.
It's only now that I'm rediscovering how to express myself through fashion and how to take care of myself. Because now, at long last, I feel worth taking care of. And I enjoy expressing that to the world.