Untitled

I am an adult (18+)

[gender-incinerator]

I fear many of us are forgetting that trans men belong to Men (the gender) but not Men (the sociopolitical class) and I think thats an important distinction

[gender-incinerator]

I fear many of us are forgetting the definition of sociopolitical class and I think that's important to this topic of discussion

[transfemme-shelterdog]

This pride month, and any other month, remember not to assume that all transfems are transandrophobic because of a few shitty ones.

Likewise, also don't assume that all trans men are transmisogynists just because a few are.

Don't assume that all binary trans people are exorsexist just because a few binary trans people are

And don't assume that all perisex people are intersexist because a few perisex people are.

And just don't assume that all trans people are whatever bigotry just because a few from that group are.

[gaitou]

do you remember Angel Maxine, the artist behind this song?

Angel opened a gofundme about a month ago, so if possible please consider donating to help fund her future projects :)

Donate to PAY ME FOR EXISTING, organized by Maxine Angel Opoku

I’m Angel Maxine, a trans woman, artist, musician, and activist using my voice, music, and vis… Maxine Angel Opoku needs your support for P

if you aren't able to donate, please share! as of writing this, Angel has only raised €433 out of her €7k goal

[boythingrobot]

'trans men haven't upheld their weight in the community at the same level that lesbians and trans women have' a lot of those lesbians were trans men and mascs but you're all not ready for that conversation

[genderkoolaid]

#a mixed Black transmasc woman very likely sparked the stonewall uprising (storme delarverie)#and yet somehow we never fucking hear about her! even when people talk abt the trans and Black origins of Stonewall!#& when it comes to feminist stuff as ive said before#transmascs often find inspiration in cis women in history who resisted misogyny#yet cis women REFUSE to ever find inspiration in transmascs who resisted misogyny and transphobia#have trans men failed to uphold their weight or can you not tolerate visible transmasculinity

actually adding my tags. ik op also talked about Stormé in the notes but like. i really do find it so frustrating how he has been completely neglected as a historical figure. to the point where there's a lot of people who will, when talking about the erasure of Black trans people from Stonewall history, will immediately jump to talking about Marsha P. Johnson (who, while a vital figure in US queer history who deserves the attention she has started to receive from the community, did not start the uprising and arrived to them later) and continue to credit her with "throwing the first shotglass." but they don't even know who Stormé is, despite again, it being at the very least equally if not more likely she was actually involved with sparking the uprising.

and its even more frustrating because part of the reason its likely isn't just Stormé's own recollection, but because there are other reports that the uprising was kicked off when the cops arrested, specifically, a person seen as female who was wearing male clothing and was being violently arrested for FTM crossdressing. FTM activists were trying to raise awareness about this in 1989. like people specifically saw (even if it wasn't Stormé) a butch dyke getting arrested explicitly for wearing too many men's clothes and not enough women's clothes.

and yet, no one ever. fucking talks about this. no one who specifically is trying to talk about the erasure of trans people from queer activism mentions this. and we should all be asking, ourselves and each other, why? a lot of people don't want to have this conversation because it asks a lot of us, but that's exactly why its so vital to have responsibly.

Stonewall is as much myth as it is historical event, especially at this point in time. and how we choose to narrate it matters, even though we (should) all know that we will never know the full exact story, nor do we need to because, again, much of its importance is serving as a grounded myth of the birth of organized queer resistance in the US. And the fact is, there is every reason for us to tell a version of this myth which highlights that the inciting moment for queer people being fucking done with the constant acts of violence, was a mixed Black transmasc woman, a drag king who identified as a transgender warrior in Leslie Feinberg's book of that name, being violently arrested for his transmasculine presentation.

and not only is that not the version we tell, there's often no trace of transmasculinity at all in how we remember Stonewall or any queer historical events. & op is so. so incredibly right in prompting people to critically examine that absence. because i do believe if Stormé was a femme lesbian, people would be a lot more invested in making sure people know about the lesbian woman who started Stonewall. almost like, on an unconscious collective level, we see transmasculine figures as undesirable when it comes to being community icons, martyrs, heroes, theorists, creatives, etc.

anyways, for those curious, here's Stormé's recollection of Stonewall, from this interview:

The conversation turned to the night in June of 1969 at the Stonewall Inn where she made history. Quite a few friends, writers and historians over the years have identified her as the tough cross-dressing butch lesbian who was clubbed by the NYPD, which evoked enough indignation and anger to spur the crowd to action. She was identified as the Stonewall Lesbian in Charles Kaiser’s book The Gay Metropolis, and her scuffle with the police has been mentioned a few times in passing by The New York Times in the past couple of decades. Then in the January 2008 issue of Curve Magazine she identified herself as the Stonewall Lesbian in a detailed interview with writer Patrick Hinds, an excerpt of which is below: I asked her if she still remembered that night. She answered in the affirmative. After the cop hit her on the head, she socked him with her fist. “I hit him,” she said. “He was bleeding.” A natural protector, she has worked as a security guard at a few of the lesbian bars in the city. I spoke to her friend, Lisa Cannistraci, who has known her for around 25 years. Now one of the owners of lesbian bar Henrietta Hudson, Cannistraci said that DeLarverie worked as a security guard at the original Cubby Hole, located at 438 Hudson Street, starting in 1985. Cubby Hole eventually moved to the corner of West 4th and West 12th. Then Henrietta Hudson opened at the 438 Hudson Street location, and DeLarverie continued working there until 2005. “Until she was 85 years old?” I asked her. Cannistraci said yes.

also, just to drive home the point, the community ignoring Stormé was not a harmless act. he developed dementia later in life and did not receive the support that she fucking deserved from the community:

In March, Farrell, who lived next door to DeLarverie at the Hotel Chelsea, found DeLarverie disoriented and, uncharacteristically, asking for help. DeLarverie was shaking and dehydrated, and she was taken to and treated at the nearby St. Vincent’s Hospital. No next of kin has been located, and she no domestic partner. Friends say that she had a long term relationship with an aerialist and burlesque performer, but that was “a long time ago.” With no one in her life legally able to make health care decisions, she was given a court appointed a guardian: the Jewish Association for Services for the Aged (“JASA”). She remained at the hospital as doctors ascertained her ability to care for herself. When St. Vincent’s went bankrupt and closed abruptly, she was transferred to the nursing home. SAGE, an advocacy group for elderly members of the LGBT community, has also been offering assistance. Her friends say that communication with the aforementioned groups has been inadequate and a source of frustration, and they feel powerless to improve her situation. [...] DeLarverie continued emceeing and singing after Stonewall — at gay events and at benefits. Her friend Williamson Henderson, President of the S.V.A., told me that she hosted an annual gay nightlife event, The Gay Bar People’s Ball, where all of the movers and shakers of NYC gay nightlife would congregate and receive awards. “It was an event that was well known and a big deal,” he said. In Sam Bassett’s film, DeLarverie said that she continued to sing at benefits for battered women and children, remarking “Somebody has to care. People say, ‘Why do you still do that?’ I said, ‘It’s very simple. If people didn’t care about me when I was growing up, with my mother being black, raised in the south.’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t be here.'” What does the future hold for DeLarverie? Cannistraci told me that she is currently in the process of petitioning for legal guardianship of DeLarverie and hopes to move her into a brighter, more modern nursing home with a larger staff and activities for the residents — and one where a friend of DeLarverie’s already resides. “She was a protector of the community, and [her situation] is heartbreaking,” she said. [...] DeLarverie’s situation is, unfortunately, not unique, and it highlights some of the issues faced by gay and lesbian seniors. It is unclear whether DeLarverie has no surviving family members or whether she has surviving family members but simply lost touch with them over the years. Many elders become isolated from their families, either because of family disapproval or because they moved away from their families to a big city with a large gay and lesbian population, thereby becoming out of sight and out of mind. If they do end up in a retirement home or nursing home, there is also the issue of whether other residents will have a problem with their sexual orientation. Furthermore, in many states, same-sex partners cannot be legally bound, and if there is no next of kin, one can end up being a ward of the state. If the Rosa Parks of the gay community can end up in a nursing home among strangers like other forgotten elderly men and women, it is certainly a wake up call.

idk not to get on a soapbox here on op's post, but i think Stormé is such a good example of how this "lack" of transmasc contributions to the community is actually a sign of anti-transmasculinity. i want you to think about how Stormé's race and trans*masculinity made the labor she did for the community, for decades, invisible.

[genderkoolaid]

#Stormé DeLarverie#this genuinely makes me want to chew glass every time i think about it#like frankly if you don't know about /any trans men contributing to queer rights/ you should Not be bragging about it#bc it just means you do NOT know your history#are you a queer trans person with access to transition? you Better put respect on Lou Sullivan's name#or hell do you have Actual Access to Medical Transition At All ???#Jamison Green WROTE the policy that formed the groundwork for medical transition AND anti-discrimination policies across the US#i mean hell Gavin Grimm's court case aiming to officially classify bathroom bills as discriminatory was only 5 years ago#and he was a fucking /teenager/ when that ball started rolling#if you think trans men and transmascs are not and have not ALWAYS been involved in community activism#you are simply uneducated and you should be ashamed of that

^^^ all of this + Gavin Grimm not only did that, but he didn't benefit basically at all. he graduated before the case was decided, and he only got $1 from it. Gavin was left traumatized and poor and has since struggled with housing. And I personally have never heard his name mentioned in discussions of vital modern trans activists in the US. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Fuck, I've barely heard his name ever, and I'm a queer from the DMV (region in the northeast USA) who has been pretty involved in my local queer community, so there's really no excuse.

You can still donate to his GoFundMe if you'd like. From this article:

As Donald Trump rolled back LGBTQ+ rights, including banning trans servicemembers from the military and authorizing homeless shelters to exclude trans people, Grimm won repeated court victories. But his school district appealed. One court of appeals judge compared Grimm to the historic American plaintiffs who challenged slavery, Japanese concentration camps, segregation and bans on interracial and gay marriage. A 2020 ruling offered a “resounding yes” in favor of the constitution and civil rights laws protecting trans students from discrimination. Grimm graduated before the case was resolved and never got to return to his school’s boys’ bathrooms. In 2021, the supreme court allowed Grimm’s victory to stand, and the school board was ordered to pay $1.3m in attorney’s fees. Grimm, however, only got a symbolic $1. To secure damages, Grimm would’ve had to give the opposition’s lawyers access to his medical records to scrutinize the cause and extent of his emotional distress, a process he couldn’t stomach after years of fighting. The idea he’d have to prove his anguish was unbelievable to his mom, who can’t shake the memories of her son becoming suicidal. Grimm doesn’t regret moving on without damages. But he desperately could’ve used financial help – especially as the trauma of his childhood began to catch up with him. [...]

Grimm has complex post-traumatic stress disorder and has suffered from stress-induced seizures that have affected his cognition and left him hospitalized in 2021. “The PTSD at its core is about not being safe or understood, being rejected, and the adults in my life not acting responsibly,” he explains. “In high school, I was picked over and hyper-analyzed. I was tortured, harassed and bullied.” He recalls a period when the stress was so severe he’d dissociate as he walked down the hallway, not hearing his friends call his name. Grimm also has autism and struggles with sensory processing, and the combined impacts of his disabilities have prevented him from holding down a job or completing school, he says. He’s relied on a GoFundMe and disability benefits, but has repeatedly struggled to make rent. His mother supports him but also has a tight income, he says. “I don’t have options … unless some rich gay philanthropist tosses me a crispy million.” At times, he’s felt disposable to the broader movement; he says it’s hard not to think of notable gay rights plaintiffs who have not struggled to make ends meet after their victories. “It makes me so angry that it’s so hard for him to find housing stability,” says Camille Gibson, his best friend who moved to England and video calls him on a nearly daily basis. “Some days, it’s almost like he’s short-circuiting because there’s just so much stress.” Still, the two find ways to have fun with each other from afar, often streaming anime. “When he’s not in a complete utter funk,” she says, “we are cackling at each other, because we’re both silly-billy stupid bitches.”

[genderkoolaid]

happy pride! credit transmasculine people or shut the fuck up

while we're here, might as well add on that not only was the Stonewall Uprising likely kicked off by a transmasculine person resisting state violence because of their masculine presentation, but the transmasculine people & other queer (perceived-)women of the nearby Women's House of Detention rioted in solidarity:

"The House of D [was] 500 feet from the Stonewall Inn," Ryan says. "On the first night of the riots, people incarcerated in the prison could actually see what was happening out their windows, and they started a riot all their own, setting fire to their belongings and throwing them down to the streets below while chanting 'Gay rights! Gay rights! Gay rights!'" By the '50s and '60s, Ryan estimates, "around 75% of the people incarcerated in the House of D are queer in some way." In the 1960s, the prison began marking gay prisoners with a "D" for "degenerate," and placing them into solitary confinement because they were considered a "danger to other women."

credit transmasculine people or shut the fuck up.

[thesitharts]

Once you start noticing the erasure and exclusion of trans mascs in everything from media to academics you can never stop noticing it

[burning-gray-mon]

Back when I was in university we were asked to do a brief research exercise on a health condition impacting a community. Can't remember what I wanted to look at now, but it was something to do with the trans community.

Whatever it was, to put it this way, if there were 10 studies on the trans community as a whole, there were 3 on trans women and trans fems and 0 on trans men and trans mascs, and 0 on nonbinary people. All of the mixed studies were also pretty much useless for my purposes as well because they were all so lopsided.

I think I swapped to a bunch of different things - addiction rates, smoking, depression, mental health in general - nothing that was even roughly equal in looking at all of us. Trans men, trans mascs and nonbinary people are so under researched as to be nonexistent.

To keep this brief since I've rambled a bunch - this is a major issue health wise since we have not a lot of literature on what testosterone does to certain bodies. This can lead to major health complications, not because of the testosterone itself, but because there might be an interaction thats missed or a complication that's not noticed (which is the same for any medication that's under researched on certain bodies. This is not me scaring people off of hrt, this is me pointing out its a medication like any other.)

[genderkoolaid]

#the therapist who wrote my permission slip for hrt was a trans man#and during that appointment we talked about the erasure of trans men from basically everything#and i talked about an article i had read a week or so earlier about trans people and hiv#it very in depth about risks prevention treatment etc#except that it exclusively referenced trans women with a single sentence at the end basically saying 'oh trans men are at risk too'#less than a year later i saw that same therapist speaking at an hiv organization fundraising event#he talked about how he had just recently been diagnosed with hiv#and had to sit there while this doctor told him all about how the treatment options had never been tested on trans men#none of them#they knew that the treatment would work#but not how effective it would be in comparison to its effectiveness in other demographics#no idea what kind of side effects he might experience#how it would interact with his body and his hormones#what the long term effects would be#nothing#he had to sit there while his doctor told him he would have to be a guinea pig but its not like he has a choice#the only alternative is dying from aids#that whole thing was kind of a wake up call for me#and i started paying more attention getting tested regularly myself and all that sruff you're supposed to do#and over time i befriended the person who did most of my testing#they were also trans masc and we would talk about this kind of stuff#and i told them i wanted to get on prep but every doctor i asked had a wildly different answer on if i even could take it#which verison i could take etc#and they said that only one form of prep has been approved fot trans men but its never actually been tested on trans men#and that one version isnt good for long term use because it has some pretty serious side effects long term#and they said that they regularly go to conferences and meet with representatives from all these drug companies#and they ask 'wheres the data on trans men' 'when are you doing clinical studies on trans men'#and the answer#every single time is: we have not done any studies on trans men and we have no intention to ever do studies on trans men#this is not some passive result of trans masc invisibility it is an active act of erasure that needs to be recognized as an act of violence

[quastions-i-dont-ask-on-main]

And then people say things like that when we point out that we're just.... Actively erased and ignored.

[newblvotg]

[dogletantte]

Today, the UK government accepted guidance which excludes trans people from single sex spaces.

This is a change to the interpretation and implementation of the equalities act which legally prevents any trans person from using the correct changing rooms, toilets, or even attending gym classes.

It’s more than a bathroom ban. It’s something that will prevent us living our lives.

And, as it stands, the guidance is markedly worse for trans men than it is for trans women.

Taken from page 268 of the pdf linked above:

This guidance sets out, in a legally binding code, that trans men can be barred from both men’s and women’s facilities.

While it does go on to say that preventing us from accessing any services might be grounds for a discrimination claim, that’s in direct contradiction to the paragraphs shown above, and right now is purely hypothetical until tested in a court of law.

As the news of the government’s decision to enforce this guidance spreads, a lot is going to be said about the impact on trans women. That’s good, a lot needs to be said.

I doubt, though, that as much will be said about the impact on trans men. I doubt it because when this guidance was first released as a draft I saw dozens of not hundreds of comments talking about how the only impact was to trans women, joking that trans men should use the women’s toilets to make transphobes uncomfortable.

Please don’t fall into that pattern this time, not now this is really happening.

Protect trans women, please, but I am begging you, protect trans men, too.

This guidance systematically erases us from public life. It is deliberate. We are not collateral damage, we are the target.

Think of us in your anger.

[transmasc-theory]

By the way, everyone who ever laundered TERFs' reputations by saying "they don't hate trans men, they see them as lost little girls in need of protecting!" is partially to blame for this. They enabled TERFs and ignored the harm they telegraphed wanting to do to trans men, and now they're acting shocked that this guidance harms trans men, as though that isn't what TERFs always wanted. TERFs never liked trans men, people just got fixated on denying trans men could be truly oppressed

[dogletantte]

Today, the UK government accepted guidance which excludes trans people from single sex spaces.

This is a change to the interpretation and implementation of the equalities act which legally prevents any trans person from using the correct changing rooms, toilets, or even attending gym classes.

It’s more than a bathroom ban. It’s something that will prevent us living our lives.

And, as it stands, the guidance is markedly worse for trans men than it is for trans women.

Taken from page 268 of the pdf linked above:

This guidance sets out, in a legally binding code, that trans men can be barred from both men’s and women’s facilities.

While it does go on to say that preventing us from accessing any services might be grounds for a discrimination claim, that’s in direct contradiction to the paragraphs shown above, and right now is purely hypothetical until tested in a court of law.

As the news of the government’s decision to enforce this guidance spreads, a lot is going to be said about the impact on trans women. That’s good, a lot needs to be said.

I doubt, though, that as much will be said about the impact on trans men. I doubt it because when this guidance was first released as a draft I saw dozens of not hundreds of comments talking about how the only impact was to trans women, joking that trans men should use the women’s toilets to make transphobes uncomfortable.

Please don’t fall into that pattern this time, not now this is really happening.

Protect trans women, please, but I am begging you, protect trans men, too.

This guidance systematically erases us from public life. It is deliberate. We are not collateral damage, we are the target.

Think of us in your anger.

[genderkoolaid]

how many nonbinary people have come out publicly only to then semi re-closet themselves because people are so incapable of not being extremely exorsexist towards them immediately... ive seen this happen to nonbinary people across agab we cannot catch a damn break

[genderkoolaid]

also the way people tend to see misgendering nonbinary as like. "softer" or easier or more understandable than misgendering a binary trans person. like it doesn't even really matter, because it's basically just an aesthetic choice, and not anything to be taken that seriously

[genderkoolaid]

#i remember when mr beard came out and immidiately had to go back in the closet#because people were giving him shit for not changing his presentation or pronouns#its really sad

forgot about mr. beard but yeah that made so upset on his behalf!!!!!

and what's annoying is how often binary trans people just don't seem to react? like this is what i mean by people treat misgendering nonbinary people as "softer." a trans man or a trans woman getting harassed back into the closet is a tragedy, a nonbinary person getting harassed back into the closet is just another wednesday for a lot of binary trans people.

[genderkoolaid]

#yeah.#and then when we stand up for ourselves we’re ‘difficult’ and no longer ‘one of the fun chill ones’#i can be chill#but im entitled to the same god damn respect and i will insist upon it#get yourselves right i’m fucking tired

no this too. i do feel there's this. expectation. that all nonbinary people will be rather apathetic about their genders, that the "good" nonbinary people (who isn't "crazy" and "dramatic" and "trying so hard to be woke") don't really care about what pronouns or nouns you use, will be binarize themselves in whatever way is easiest for the binary people & system around them, will be largely unobtrusive about their gender unless it can be a funny joke for binary people (even "inclusive" ones).

& then this feeds into what i described above, binary trans people & cis allies treating nonbinary people being misgendered or going back in the closet as less serious and less tragic and less disruptive than binary people. the assumption that nonbinary people somehow have less stake in being trans, that we never physically transition, that we never have dysphoria, etc. instead of being horrified that recloseting or never coming out ever is so common that so many nonbinary people are so used to repressing their own wants and needs preemptively. using pronouns they don't really connect with just to not be seen as "unreasonable" but it doesn't hurt as bad if its not technically misgendering. there's a lot of pain in the nonbinary community that i think we have never been allowed to fully voice.

[genderkoolaid]

Transmasc People Have “Chasers,” Too — And It’s Important to Understand Why

On TikTok and beyond, trans guys are opening up a difficult conversation.

When I recently came across viral TikTok clips of comedian Chris Overalls labeling himself a “chaser” seeking to hook up with trans men, I felt, frankly, unnerved. Chasers, or people who fetishize and sexualize trans people based solely on their transness, have been the topic of intracommunal trans dialogue for decades. In fact, a robust canon of zines, blogs, and articles have documented the phenomenon, usually focusing on cisgender men who fetishize trans women and transfeminine people. But less-discussed, both in the archive and in the present, are the specific subset of chasers who pursue trans men and other transmasculine people. As controversy has erupted over the content made by Overalls — who, it should be noted, has “John Wayne Chasey” in his bio — several transmasculine people and trans men have taken to social media to share their own thoughts about this controversy, but with one clear and overarching message: In general, we need to talk more about chasers who pursue transmasculine people. “Predators who target trans men are often loud af in the way they claim to affirm our manhood and masculinity in order to build a sense of false trust,” Jersey Noah, a trans social media creator, wrote in an Instagram post. “In reality, they use our isolation, our struggle to gain access to our bodies.” The recent bout of discourse speaks to the necessity of finding common language for this experience. There has even been some discussion about whether or not trans men are subjects to chasers at all, because so often trans men are often mistakenly viewed in two camps: not passing, and being seen as a woman, or passing, and being unclockable as trans. The reality is that transmasculine experience occupies many more shades of gray, and anyone in that spectrum of experiences is still subject to unwelcome fetishization from cis people. According to Louis Lindley, a researcher who has written papers on the sexualization of trans and nonbinary people, this is, at its core, an issue of power. [...] How exactly do chasers who pursue trans men differ from those who pursue trans women, and does the distinction even matter? According to Lindley, there are a few distinct — and often troubling — ways in which trans men and transmasculine people are fetishized. Trans men who are early on in their transition, for example, might be approached by cis men who are attracted to them because they have a “prepubescent” look. Cis women can also be chasers, despite popular representation, often by saying they won’t date men while actively seeking out trans men as the exception to that rule — an approach that can both hinge on and invalidate someone’s identity. For G. Perry, a trans man based in Philadelphia, his experience with chasers manifested in feeling disposable and sexualized in uncomfortable ways. “I once had a cis bisexual guy that I used to f**k tell me he likes transmascs because we don’t expect him to marry us,” he tells Them. “Now, he is in a serious relationship with a woman, and it hurts a little to know that I am good enough for a quick f**k but not a marriage.”

Wanted to share this article because I'm glad them is talking about transmasc issues and raising more awareness. Although god I wish transandrophobia / anti-transmasculinity was more mainstream, because even this article I wish tackled this topic better.

I also wish we talked more about how people perceived as women in men's clothing have historically been sexualized, and similarly to trans women in often pornophobic / anti-SW ways. This is not new. FTM crossdressing sex workers were such an "issue" in medieval Venice that a law was passed to require any woman caught with a certain masculine haircut to be excommunicated and publicly shamed, and sex workers were specifically whipped and had their heads shaved. And this is far from the only case of FTM crossdressing being seen as a thing sexually deviant women.

[genderkoolaid]

Indecent in the Sight of God and Men: A Brief History of FTM Cross-dressing and Sex Work

When we talk about trans people and sex work, we don’t talk about trans men.

Hi! I wrote a medium article!

If you've been at all interested in what I've been posting about historical sex work and FTM crossdressing, that's what this is about. I go over three examples of this in ancient Greece, Renaissance Venice, and 19th-20th-century San Francisco, and talk a bit about my thoughts on how these stories tie in to transmasculine erasure (& specifically the erasure of gay transmasculinity).

[genderkoolaid]

Unfortunately only found out about this after publishing, but this is another example in the realm of "FTM crossdressing being seen as highly sexual and obscene" (w bonus intersexism and racism because all oppression is intertwined):

The Man-Woman and Womanish Man, Cross-Dressing in Jacobean London

  So I was rummaging through my books in storage in an attempt to get some inspiration for this week’s post. Serendipitously I came across t

The emergence of women cross-dressing really troubled the connection between clothing and sexual identity. For those Latin nerds out there, you probably notice something wrong right away with the term hic mulier: hic is the masculine form of “this,” while the noun it modifies is feminine, “mulier” or “woman.” The comment being made is that the female transvestite throws everything into chaos, including language. In the 1620 pamphlet, Hic Mulier, the writer constantly describes this figure as defying any categorization: the hic mulier is “not halfe man, halfe woman; halfe fish, halfe flesh; halfe beast, halfe Monster.” The pamphlet goes on to accuse the female transvestite of dressing more lasciviously: “From the other, you have taken the monstrousness of your deformitie in apparell, exchanging the modest attire of the comely Hood, Cawle, Coyfe, handsome Drsse and Kerchiefe, to the cloudy Ruffianly broad-brim’d Hatte, and wanton Feather, the modest upper parts of a concleaing straight gowne, to the loose, lascivious civill embracement of a French doublet. . . and extreme short wasted to give most easie way to every luxurious action.” In other words, yet confusing, the writer actually finds that in dressing like a man the hic mulier is exhibiting her lustful nature. The anonymous writer at one point insinuates that the female transvestite has traded sexual favors for her outfit and for having her hair cut short. Among being compared to a monster, “the untamed Moore, the naked Indian, and the wilde Irish,” the writer also suggests the hic mulier to be comparable to a prostitute. In Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton’s The Roaring Girl (1610), Moll Cutpurse, a character based on the real life female transvestite, Mary Firth, is often perceived by other characters as being sexually promiscuous. [...] The villainous father in the play, Sir Alexander, who is under the impression that his son wishes to marry Moll, thinks that she may be a [slur for intersex people]: “Hoyda! Breeches! What, will he marry a monster with two trinkets? What age is this? If the wife go in breeches, the man must wear long coats like a fool.” (Ii.ii.71-2)

[genderkoolaid]

I know I already posted this quote elsewhere but I wanted to place it in this context:

Unless they present hyperfeminine, butches don’t have access to the job market. You will not be considered if you don’t wear nice women’s clothes. If you set up catering, you will get told, “I am disgusted; a woman who thinks she’s a man is cooking for me.” So butch lesbians normally have an assistant, or their femme partner if they have one, who is more feminine-looking to run the front so customers don’t know a masculine-presenting person is cooking behind the curtains. Many of us become sex workers [due to lack of job opportunities].… But then when police raid brothels and homes, the masculine lesbians get treated “like men.” This means more forceful handcuffing, kneeling, and stripping their shirts off. [...] According to Rosa, police are “far more brutal” to masculine-presenting queer women, which is particularly dangerous given that their masculine-presentation is a large part of what originally forced many LBQ+ people into sex work. Thus, masculine-presenting queer women’s discrimination in employment may lead to police violence after being pushed into sex work.

— Rosa, lesbian and sex worker rights defender El Salvador, quoted by the Human Rights Watch

[genderkoolaid]

"The House of D [was] 500 feet from the Stonewall Inn," Ryan says. "On the first night of the riots, people incarcerated in the prison could actually see what was happening out their windows, and they started a riot all their own, setting fire to their belongings and throwing them down to the streets below while chanting 'Gay rights! Gay rights! Gay rights!' "By the '50s and '60s, Ryan estimates, "around 75% of the people incarcerated in the House of D are queer in some way." In the 1960s, the prison began marking gay prisoners with a "D" for "degenerate," and placing them into solitary confinement because they were considered a "danger to other women." […] The first waywardism laws in New York State start in the 1880s and they only apply to girls and women, originally ones who are arrested for prostitution and then expanded greatly in the late 1800s to women who might become prostitutes. And that's where they really get into danger, right? Because suddenly the charge of prostitution has nothing to do with sex work or exchanging sex for money. Instead, a wayward girl is anyone who was thought to be improperly feminine to the point where she has an invitation to prostitution. She's either too sexual or she's too masculine and unable to get any other kind of job. So of course she's going to end up being a prostitute.

This forgotten women's prison helped cement Greenwich Village's queer identity by Terry Gross

[holdoncallfailed]

“the algorithm only shows us _____” so stop looking at the algorithm. you don't need it. go to a thrift store and flip through some magazines from the 1980s. go read a random book that’s no longer in print on the internet archive. go to a museum and walk around until you see an artwork you don’t recognize. go get a cookbook from the library and make a recipe you've never tried. go listen to the radio. go talk to people in real life. go write a poem or a song and don't show anybody. go take a walk. you are not confined to your online content feed. you never have been!!!!!!!

[storm-of-feathers]

yeah yeah rainbow capitalism is bad and whatever but like. when I was a child, being pro gay was not the popular or lucrative choice. I'm happy that times have changed.

[storm-of-feathers]

I miss rainbow capitalism. I do. I miss when it felt like public opinion was still pro gay. I understand it was always an empty gesture, but it mattered in a sense of knowing how socially acceptable being queer is. If that makes sense.

[galvanized-art]

Black Power and Gay Pride aren’t mutually exclusive. the first pride was a riot led by trans black women.

feel free to use!

[maureen2musings]

takemoreadventures

[rocedmed]

[nature-hiking]

Scottish mountain views - Isle of Skye, Scotland, August 2025

photo by: nature-hiking

Instagram: nature__hiking