i like the girls that do drugs girls with cigarettes in the back of the club girls who hate cops and buy guns 27 y/o he/him trans butch sapphic as all fuck this blog will occasionally contain suggestive content and art
Kind of a hot take but i dont think we can solve the issue of marginalized people being treated like children without asking ourselves why we treat children like subhuman objects incapable of thinking and undeserving of autonomy
so I wanted to articulate my thoughts with the whole system accountability thing and why headmate accountability works better for my system personally, but I'm experiencing art block so I'm bringing back 2011 to make a pmd sprite comic
A long and deeply personal story about gender transition, agency, and the Aspect of Life
Although the Lifebound are almost always gifted with privilege in some way, my childhood was spent in a gilded cage. I had an incredible wealth of opportunities, but my agency was ultimately restricted. I was told I could do anything I set my mind to, that the world was a canvas for my creativity, that my potential was limitless, but when I ultimately reached out and tried to grab that agency, that true measure of Life…I lost the support. I lost the understanding. I was kicked out. I lost my health insurance. I was treated as a burden. I was given a destiny, and I refused it. I embraced what Life truly means and refused to give that up for anything. I grabbed hold of my own desires and refused to let go. I shaped the world around me when I could, and shaped myself to fit through the cracks when I could not. And, perhaps inevitably, I burned out.
We, the Lifebound, desire control. Agency. Power. We don’t want to cede that to anyone, but those of us who have seen the worst consequences of our actions will eventually run the risk of giving up that agency entirely, afraid of what might happen if we act. We begin to doubt ourselves. Do we have all the information we need to make the right decision? Are we being selfish, trying to impose our will with no regard for those around us? We become paralyzed. We get lost in the cerebral overthinking that is terribly familiar to the Mindbound. We slip into the comfort of Doom, relinquishing responsibility along with our agency, and succumb to the inertia that comes with such long periods of inaction.
My parents handed me a mockery of Life—it came with Terms and Conditions. It was Doom masquerading as its opposite, just as they projected the façade of a happy couple for nearly two loveless decades, until divorce finally set them free. And yet, the Life inside of me found a way. The truth of my Aspect continued to shine through, guiding me on my own chosen path, propelled by my own enthusiastic and unstoppable energy. These things come in waves, though, and at some point it was inevitable that all the abuse and trauma would catch up to me. I would need to grieve before I continued on my way. I began to feel a heaviness inside of me, weighing me down and demanding to be acknowledged, processed, digested like a tough piece of meat, gristle and all.
Near the end of last year, I started to realize just how much of my gender transition—one of the most life-altering choices I’ve ever made—was a direct reaction to the trauma of being forced, sometimes violently, into the most restrictive, toxic, and misogynistic ideal of womanhood that I’ve ever known. I fought tooth and nail to escape that, and I took that newfound agency and did the only thing I could think to do: I completely rejected womanhood as an identity. All it had ever brought me was pain. I was surrounded by women in my family and community who felt that same pain, who saw little chance of escape except through denial, drugs, and living vicariously through their kids. Meanwhile, I made a choice that, I’ll admit, was quite extreme; in fairness, I was nonbinary to begin with, so some kind of gender transition was always in the cards for me. But the concept of femininity was so poisoned by my upbringing that I immediately fled to the other end of the false gender binary. It was only in late 2021, after four years on T and a few months post-top surgery, that I was finally able to see what womanhood could be.
I started dating a trans woman, a friend of a friend. Witnessing her excitement at each new development in her transition—her mother’s acceptance, the gradual changes from HRT, the experience of finally being seen—was like a salve on a wound that I’d believed had already healed. As my social circle expanded from there, I naturally became friends with a lot more transfems of all stripes: proud butches and gorgeous femmes, shy nerds and outgoing ravers, stoners, artists, vintage enthusiasts and DJs. I met transfems with kids, former Air Force security, stage managers, about a dozen incredible musicians, gun nuts, kinksters, witches, and everything in-between. The one thing they all had in common, to some degree, was the profound euphoria they experienced as a direct result of choosing what womanhood means to them—something that I almost never saw from the cis women I grew up around, and still don’t see much of today. Most of the cis women I’ve known with the same level of love for their identity have been much older, having had decades upon decades to break out of our society’s conditioning and find that joy.
My feelings of dissatisfaction with the expectations of ‘manhood’ that were placed on me by openly accepting family members and society at large, coupled with an unconscious desire to rethink my relationship with womanhood, began gnawing at me from the inside. As the years went on, I started feeling oddly disconnected from the very things that once made me feel incredibly euphoric: my beard and chest hair, my flat chest, being called ‘sir,’ and even my chosen name. It all came crashing down on me last year, when I started putting the pieces together. I realized that I never had the chance to experience womanhood as a joyful truth that I’d willingly choose to embrace.
The idea that I truly had such little agency in the circumstances that led to my transition, that the pain I’d suffered led me to race to the other end of the gender binary instead of allowing my nonbinary transition to unfold naturally, that I lost so many years that I could’ve spent exploring myself, healing those wounds caused by their violent insistence that I perform their cruel version of womanhood…that broke me. I’m still processing that grief, working with my therapist using EMDR, taking advice from a close friend of mine who’s a curanderx (the gender neutral term for curandero/a), exploring soul retrieval practices, and doing whatever I can to open myself up to exploring this new truth in my identity as a nonbinary woman. I’ve realized that agency lies not in the circumstances in which you make the choice, but rather the act of choosing itself. It’s the commitment to following through upon your will.
I’m trying to consciously surround myself with manifestations of Life, to remind myself of the power of my agency, of the optimism and drive that keeps me going, despite everything. Right outside my bedroom window, there’s a table covered in clay pots where my partner and I have planted cilantro, banana peppers, lettuce, rosemary, jalapeños, oregano. I check on the sprouts each day when I go out to pull invasive Johnson grass from our garden. I can identify nearly every plant in our backyard now, from our miniature sunflower field to our blooming Texas thistle, verdant henbit and yellow butterweed blossoms, eagerly sprouting hedge parsley, and the morning glories winding their way around the sunflower stalks. Every time I greet the evening primrose or beg the yellow sweet clover to please, please spread so we can have barefoot-friendly ground coverage, it roots me in the earth and connects me with everything around me. I’m part of a vast ecosystem, affected by forces and wills beyond my knowledge, even at times beyond my comprehension. That doesn’t change the fact that I have agency. I have a will of my own. I owe it to myself, and to the world, to find my truth and live it as bravely as I can.
Life is an Aspect that promises change. When faced with the responsibility of knowing that your actions have consequences, you must also remember that it is only through our actions that we can make the world a better place. Start small, start local, and don’t forget to touch grass when you can. In the vast ocean of spacetime, we all contribute to those unseen currents that sweep us along our own journeys. Every choice matters. Knowing this, I have just one question for you:
I know I'm preaching to the choir but like. You know you can wear masks for other sicknesses. Not just covid. If you have the flu or a cold or a stomach bug you can still wear a mask to help prevent the spread of it to others if you insist on going out! I just think it's the polite thing to do
In most East Asian countries it's considered really rude to go out in public without a mask if you have cold or flu symptoms. Really wish westerners could adopt this
its crazy that a lot of what we call 'video essays' these days are basically low budget documentaries on increasingly weird and niche topics. no network approval no tv budget just one guy with maybe a hired editor/writer and a couple of friends willing to read voice lines. and then they put it on youtube like its no big deal. insane.
"there should be some kind of test you have to take before having kids" -> wrong, extremely dangerous and highkey eugenicist and racist
"the youth should have safe and effective legal pathways at their disposal to make sure their human rights are constantly protected and upheld" -> based, centers the youth, gives minors more power to fight inequality and does not reinforce the idea that parents are immune to scrutiny from their kids
for a minute i definitely forgot that kanye west had changed his name to ye and was wondering why this accusatory headline was written in shakespearean language
werewolves? sorry buddy. around here we call them Howlers. vampires? those are Night Suckers. a ghost? not even close. that's a Nasty Little Flying Freak
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