modge podge

[ HE/THEY transmasc gay] | 21 | side blog for my queer stuff! main blog: tuetlensheep

[queerlyraging]

debating the probability of being able to get top surgery within the next year.

[queerlyraging]

here's the thing.

top surgery, as far as I can tell, is a tad expensive, even when it's covered by insurance. however, I am currently in one of the best positions to be getting surgery, if I plan to get the surgery in December/January. I am still on my parent's insurance (which should cover the procedure), I don't really have any debt right row, and I actually have an okay amount in savings. but there are a few problems, because I'm not stupidly financially secure, either, I'm just not in financial trouble.

I need a car, and it needs to be a reliable car. this will mean taking on debt and putting down a chunk of money to purchase the car in the first place. while I have this money now, I wouldn't have it if top surgery took up a portion of my savings.

I don't have a full-time, stable job. as a college student, my current job is a stipend from the school that covers my living expenses. if I really pinch my pennies, I might be able to save $100 a month, but no more than that. this means I can't really increase/rebuild savings in a timely manner.

although crowdfunding or asking for donations is technically an option, I feel bad doing so because I am in a significantly more privileged position than people who are doing that to prevent homelessness, going hungry, etc. and I understand that money is a finite resource!

however, getting top surgery would be really convenient for my schedule. I would get the surgery right as I started job hunting, so I wouldn't need to take a significant portion of my time off right as I got a new job to take medical leave and recover. I would be getting engaged right before/after top surgery, which means I wouldn't have to worry about planning a wedding and planning top surgery, or scheduling top surgery around my wedding (or vice versa).

the most compelling factor, though, is the fact that I don't want my fucking chest.

[queerlyraging]

debating the probability of being able to get top surgery within the next year.

[queerlyraging]

I casually mention I want to start HRT but have obstacles in front of me medically that makes it difficult in queer community discussion about HRT. someone tells me my doctors are lying to me and that I would be fine if I went on HRT, it's just trans broken arm syndrome, and says we'll figure it out. I explain it's a unique neurological condition that doesn't actually have a cure or basically any research on it, and that my doctors are not actually lying to me, they just don't want me to go blind and suffer from chronic migraines, and that there is currently nothing to figure out. I am once again met with ignorantly positive "we'll figure it out!!" from someone who has been on HRT for four years. I am fucking annoyed.

[queerlyraging]

this is more towards my local queer community than an indictment of the entire queer community but empathy towards people who are "stuck" at various stages of transition is absolutely necessary to foster a supportive community. not everyone has access to the resources required or is socially at a life stage to achieve a legal, medical, and/or social transition, despite wanting it. this is something that fucking sucks. do not gloss over this experience that really fucking sucks to insist that something that currently isn't possible is, in fact, possible. I am happy that for that person (and many others in my local community!) the transition has not had the same, damning barriers as me. but do not ignore my barriers or struggles in a blaise attempt to have positivity.

[queerlyraging]

I casually mention I want to start HRT but have obstacles in front of me medically that makes it difficult in queer community discussion about HRT. someone tells me my doctors are lying to me and that I would be fine if I went on HRT, it's just trans broken arm syndrome, and says we'll figure it out. I explain it's a unique neurological condition that doesn't actually have a cure or basically any research on it, and that my doctors are not actually lying to me, they just don't want me to go blind and suffer from chronic migraines, and that there is currently nothing to figure out. I am once again met with ignorantly positive "we'll figure it out!!" from someone who has been on HRT for four years. I am fucking annoyed.

[genderkoolaid]

tbh my opinion isnt so much that trans men cannot have male privilege. its that the way we understand male privilege is based in cis women, specifically otherwise privileged (esp. otherwise-gendered privilege, i.e gender-conforming/straight/perisex) cis women's understanding of gender as something static and inherent to who you are, rather than something fluid which is, in part, constructed by society and placed onto you separately in every moment.

can a trans man experience (cis) male privilege? yes. can a trans woman? yes. and so can a cis woman! hell, a femme perisex cis woman with a gender neutral name could if she's assumed to be a cis man on a resume. male privilege is not an on/off switch. the idea that it is stems from cissexist understandings of male/female as entirely separate and static categories which everyone can and must be understood through. trans people in feminism are expected to constantly defend and deflect accusations of being Privileged Male Oppressors by promising cis perisex women that our experiences are just like theirs! we don't have any scary opinions that don't align with their worldview! we swear we won't ever make them have to reflect on how being cis+perisex has biased them and potentially made their analysis of gender at all inaccurate! trans experiences are only considered valuable to cisfeminism to the extent that they reaffirm what cisfeminists already hold true. thats why they only ever want to talk about a very simplistic narrative around wages pre/post-transition. its extremely unthreatening to cis people because it presents transness in patriarchy as just going from one cis role to another; it doesn't ask cis feminists to expand their paradigm to include the ways in which trans people are treated as a class and their own complicity in transphobic oppression.

which is why trans men have been getting fucked over by trans-affirmng cisfeminism. because by virtue of having our gender acknowledged, we are expected to forfeit our place in the feminist movement and adopt the role of outsider along cis men*. and its also why trans women and MTX people get fucked over the minute they cannot or refuse to describe their experiences through the one or two approved narratives. cisfeminism cannot tolerate transness-as-transness. it has to be compressed and reduced and diluted into something that fits within a cis-centric framework. we aren't allowed to have nuanced and intersectional conversations about trans men & other trans folks relationship with male privilege, the things we have to sacrifice to there, how fleeting it can be, the fact that for some of us being read as "biologically male" is actively more dangerous than being read as female... if it isn't familiar to cis women, then it means you aren't really oppressed.

*cis men should not be outsiders in feminism either btw but thats another post

[thestuffedalligator]

What's the process if you're a superhero and you come out as trans

Do you tell your villains?

Do you keep it a secret so no one can connect Spider-Man with your secret identity for a while? Or do you pop a pronouns pin on your costume and the next time you web up Doctor Octopus and he goes "I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME SPIDER-MAN" you go "Spider-Girl actually! I've been figuring out some shit"

[thestuffedalligator]

"Listen for Christ's sake we're a modern paper. Parker - Parker get in here - this is Madeline Parker, came out three months ago. Best photographer we've got. We're proud to have her on board. We at the Daily Bugle are proud to support the LGBTQ+ community bUT THIS SPIDER-GIRL IS A MENACE"

[thestuffedalligator]

Overwhelming consensus on this post is that you should come out in your superhero identity first, and then a couple weeks down the line come out in your secret identity and when people ask just go “Oh seeing Spider-Girl come out really gave me the confidence to come out myself” which is the best possible answer

[genderkoolaid]

real quick before TDOV ends anyone want some transmasc joy

A Transmasc Ironman Trio Won Third Place in a Relay, Beating Over 200 Other Teams

We love hopecore!

On Saturday, March 28, Team Iron Transmasc nabbed the third place spot in an ironman competition, a team sport that includes swimming, bike riding, and running. The team included champion trans swimmer Schuyler Bailar, deaf nonbinary cyclist Chella Man, and trans nonbinary marathoner Cal Calamia.

[florallychaotic]

Im gonna be so real can yall actually talk about ways we can support trans women in the UK instead of giving all the attention to fucking JKR. I already know that Harry Poter sucks, I wanna know how to actually HELP people. Something something you have to love the oppressed more than you hate the oppressor

[snowonthebeachmp3]

trans actual uk - trans led and run advocacy, education and empowerment organisation

fiveforfive - collective fund for trans women and girls and transfem causes

gendered intelligence - trans led advocacy org

mermaids - supports trans youth

akt - lgbtq youth homelessness charity

loving me - domestic abuse service for trans people in england

not a phase - for trans adults

[matamatoki]

Here's some from Wales

Trans Aid Cymru - supporting trans people in wales

Queer Emporium - hub of queer businesses and events

And ones who operate in Wales but also across the UK

TIN Wadrobe - supplying clothes for trans and gnc people

G(end)er Swap - resources and events for trans style and gender expression

[severalowls]

Adding some from Scotland I have experience with and afaik take donations, some are broader but with good trans inclusion:

Scottish Trans - Trans advocacy, information and social events. Run by the Equality Network, a broader Scottish LGBTQI advocacy group.

LEAP Sports Scotland - Sports charity that advocates for queer inclusion in sports, runs trans sports groups (Trans Active) in at least Glasgow and Edinburgh that I can absolutely recommend.

LGBT Health & Wellbeing - Not trans specific but includes trans specific, trans led and trans inclusive support and social events, and supports a variety of smaller community-run subgroups.

And another couple UK-wide:

Gender Identity Research & Education Society - Trans led charity supporting research on trans matters and education/training on trans inclusion. Does consultancy for public and private sector organisations.

Trans Kids Deserve Better - Trans advocacy and activist group led by and for trans kids. They do good work.

[hapalopus]

The worst thing that ever happened to LGBT+ discussions was the attempt at creating rigid definitions for diverse experiences that often exist on a sliding scale, or are fluid. Some lesbians experience attraction to men. Some gay men, who were forced to marry women for their own safety, did really love their wives. Some people are man and woman at the same time. Your gender identity and sexual orientation can change over time. In the 70s it was common knowledge that bi women could also be lesbians. Some people defy categorization just by their existence. Some people choose to reject categorization.

[lazygravez]

can someone explain how a lesbian can be attracted to men????? i really dont get it

[hapalopus]

In this line of thinking ‘lesbian’ isn’t an objective pseudo-taxonomic category - it’s a label that people choose to use. Both lines of thinking are valuable, but I think the latter is a lot more useful for community building.

When we view ‘lesbian’ as an opt-in label, rather than a category that one is born into, the main question that pops up is “why do people use this label?” The answer varies, but for most it’s due to an attraction to women and a lack of attraction to men.

However, ‘woman’ and ‘man’ are categories with a lot of variation within themselves, and very few people can say with 100% certainty that they will never experience attraction to one or the other. If a woman has only been attracted to women her whole life and has joined communities centered around this attraction and has advocated for the rights of WLW, is her lesbian identity negated if she (knowing full well that he’s male) finds a male crossdresser hot? What if she’s sexually attracted to a few men, but could never be in a stable relationship with one, so she only dates women?

Labels like this need wiggle-room. If they don’t allow for some fluidity of experience, only a fraction of a fraction of people would ever find them useful, and the communities built around them would be small, weak, and isolated, and full of nothing but echos.

[raemoriendi]

In other words, such a statement presupposes that the “I” exceeds its determination, and even produces that very excess in and by the act which seeks to exhaust the semantic field of that “I.” In the act which would disclose the true and full content of that “I,” a certain radical concealment is thereby produced. For it is always finally unclear what is meant by invoking the lesbian-signifier, since its signification is always to some degree out of one’s control, but also because its specificity can only be demarcated by exclusions that return to disrupt its claim to coherence. What, if anything, can lesbians be said to share? And who will decide this question, and in the name of whom? If I claim to be a lesbian, I “come out” only to produce a different “closet.” The “you” to whom I come out now has access to a different region of opacity. […] For being “out” always depends to some extent on being “in”; it gains its meaning only within that polarity. Hence, being “out” must produce the closet again and again in order to maintain itself as “out.” In this sense, outness can only produce a new opacity; and the closet produces the promise of a disclosure that can, by definition, never come. Is this infinite postponement of the disclosure of “gayness,” produced by the very act of “coming out,” to be lamented? Or is this very deferral of the signified to be valued, a site for the production of values, precisely because the term now takes on a life that cannot be, can never be, permanently controlled? – Judith Butler, “Imitation and Gender Insubordination,” The Gay and Lesbian Studies Reader, 1993, pg. 309.

[fandomsandfeminism]

There is no magical biological marker for identity. You can’t take your DNA and put it in a microscope and zoom way way in to find a little tag for Genderqueer Bisexual woman or Nonbinary Pansexual or Trans Lesbian or Agender He/Him Dyke.

Labels are a linguistic shorthand to try to quickly convey something about our experiences to other people. They are messy and complicated and contradictory and weird because WE are messy and complicated and contradictory and weird.

And “that person is using the wrong label” is almost never a useful way to approach someone using a label in a way that is confusing or unfamiliar to you.

[gay-otlc]

It's frustrating how quickly people dismiss the idea that "cross dressing women" in history might have been trans men. Like, yeah, as a child she presented as a boy and believed herself to be a boy, and then as an adult she "pretended" to be a man, but she was totally 100% cis, suggesting otherwise would be ridiculous. Everyone knows trans men only started existing in the 21st century!

[genderkoolaid]

#A historic fear of masculine women is the fear of transmasculinity

[pingintech]

yeah there was a tradition that only allowed women as warriors when they give up their femininity and she willingly chose the life as a warrior yeah she continued to dress like a man after the war in the privacy of her own home after the war yeah she was told t0 stop wearing mens clothes by the law and continued to do so anyway yeah she was killed because she refused to stop dressing like a man but she was so girl boss slay queen woman warrior

[selfpoweredoxygenmachine]

trans children deserve to go through the correct puberty at the same time as their peers

[selfpoweredoxygenmachine]

there needs to be a third option . going through a puberty that causes distress or staying in an underdeveloped body for years until its decided youre allowed to make decisions over your own body is not a good choice !

[selfpoweredoxygenmachine]

informed consent + bodily autonomy for children is a really really important goal in healthcare and that includes trans healthcare . trans kids deserve to decide for themselves the steps they want to take + have access to the necessary information to help them make that decision . why is this an insane opinion to have even within the trans community

[lonelydesolate]

genuinely just saw someone say transmascs 'transition into the highest form of privilege society allows'. what are we doing here

[status-quo-hater]

I have a theory that if you put a bunch of armchair activist queer people in a box together they will eventually start killing each other because they need problems or they die of boredom. Like the mouse utopia experiment. Have any of you ever interacted with cis straight dudes.

[status-quo-hater]

Hey thanks for speaking out about the weird influx of sex-based oppression rhetoric. It's bothered me too.

I took a little break from looking at discourse and when I came back everyone caught fuckin Rowling syndrome.

I genuinely fear for the way this all is getting worse.

[status-quo-hater]

Hello my transmasc followers. You should harass, annoy, & block people when they display symptoms of Rowling syndrome. Make TERF rhetoric a social death sentence within your community. I'm being so fr. It's kinda upsetting that I'm the only one saying anything on a couple of these posts when it's THHHAT blatant and egregious.

[boy-gender]

it’s okay to be a trans man and be pre-T or never-T. whether that’s because you can’t financially or medically or just because you plain don’t want to, you are not less of a man for not taking testosterone. T is not the end all be all of masculinity and it is not the defining factor of your manhood.

[deactivating-s00n-deactivated20]

tumblr users’ obsession with self-reporting (especially as a weird form of penance) needs to be studied

[deactivating-s00n-deactivated20]

you don’t need to tell the world you still like Harry Potter because it’s your comfort movie or because your dad read it to you when you were little or something like that in response to a post about the harm continued monetary support of Harry Potter causes. you don’t need to tell tumblr all the myriad of reasons you don’t like rap under a post about how rap is often misrepresented as ultra-violent or overtly sexual and misogynistic because of racism. No one on tumblr has to know anything about you. no one has to know you still read your old Harry Potter books or that the only rap artist you like is Eminem. No one is going to say “oh of course you’re the One True Good Person with a Good Reason!” when you say that rap is difficult to listen to because of your auditory processing disorder or you’re only a part of the Marauders fandom. Just keep your shit to yourself and don’t embarrass yourself under other peoples’ posts.

[lebada]

funniest possible reply and its not even on purpose

[queerlyraging]

"fun questions" that become less fun and more of a mood killer when you are a Woke Transgender (especially pre-transition):

what superpower do you want?

shapeshifting. being a shapeshifter would make being transgender a non-issue, and make it extremely easy to play around with gender identity and expression as concepts. no other power resolves this issue as easily with as much fun perks. you can also "get rid of" any chronic health issues. but bringing this up is such a mood killer.

a life-changing amount of money or the ability to shapeshift?

being forced to choose between guaranteed financial stability (and the potential to pay and undergo the process of medical transition and treat any health issues using the current medicine available) or the ability to shapeshift (benefits listed above) is less a fun scenario inviting harmless debate and more a personal dilemma about your preference for a situation that will never occur, consequently also reminding you of your heartache around potential dysphoria and disability.

become the opposite gender/sex (derogatory) or be chronically disabled/in-pain/bodily disfigured?

yeah, guys! how awful would it be to experience gender dysphoria? how awful is it to experience disability? this would you rather can, and will, devolve into trivializing and ignorance about both experiences before cisgender able bodied's get to pat themselves on the back and remind themselves about how awesome their life is to not experience disability or gender dysphoria, right before they go back to re-enforcing a social system creating more hardship.

[mecha-girlie]

hey uhh, other white dolls out there? you have to start fucking listening to black trans women. and not pithy shit like half reading and then liking their posts on social media, i mean actually hearing them out when they are framed as being in the wrong in any given conflict. im so serious you are going to get black girls socially murdered if you don’t start listening to her side of the story instead of just taking what non-black trans women say about black trans women at face value

[mecha-girlie]

this is coming on the heels of watching a former irl (noticeably, uncomfortably white) transfem community i used to be a part of turn on and viciously expel a black trans girl i am close with after she got into a fight, which occurred after a concerted effort from popular members of the community to isolate and bully her for calling out anti-blackness. out of respect for her wish to be done with this whole fiasco and for her privacy, im not going to get into very much detail, but there is so much more rotten, horrifically racist shit that i am leaving out so this doesn’t get come back to her and she can be left in peace. there was one thing i found particularly noteworthy and sickeningly ironic though. i watched this group of entirely non-black transfems employ every transmisogynist tactic in the book to justify this girl’s expulsion from her support system, from spurious allegations of sexual assault to painting her as crazy to whisper campaigns. i saw white trans women close rank, pick up the weapons of our oppressors, and use them to silence and attempt to socially murder a black trans woman for refusing to let racism slide. and none of this is like. novel, or unheard of, if you’ve paid any attention to anything black trans women have been saying for years. but seeing it happen first hand, in a community i was once a part of, is so disgusting and disappointing and a stark reminder of what black transfems have been telling us all along. if youre a white transfem and you are not conscious, if you are not challenging your gut reactions and biases, if you are not listening to her for gods fucking sake, you are going to side with white supremacy at the expense of your black sisters every. fucking. time.

[abun3]

As a African-American and Indian trans woman, I'll happily say that when dealing with racism. I'd prefer it to be an old white man with a trump hat, Confederate flag, or even shit like the Balkenkreuz on them.

Why?

Because it's so fuckin easy to tell what's about to happen, when, how, and why. Grew up my whole life being taught how to act around these people not to upset them or make for a fight I wasn't ready to take. I carry a gun on my hip, and have a strong personality now. But I still know how to not cause an incident in a fucking grocery store. This is explicit racism and it's easy to see, learn, and prep for. I've had people follow me around stores, ask if I'd stolen my car, tell me not to buy fuel at their gas station, all pre-transition. Now? I've been told I make my entire personality "being black" by white trans femmes, been told "all you care to talk about is politics," by white trans femmes. Had them harass my family trying to find out what happened to me when I ditched the group they were in for somewhere better.

White people in general also have a 'subtle' form of racism that allows for plausible deniability of the words and actions being racist in nature called implicit racism because it's not "consciously done" in nature, it's an internal bias that functions on the subconscious level making it even more insidious. These usually take form in micro aggressions and other such behaviors where one doesn't really think about what they said or did, nor how it was offensive and bigoted in nature. It's only subtle to them and then alone! Any other socially conscious person will see it. But for all of the countless people who think racism died in the US in 1964, they don't see implicit racism and stereotypes, micro aggressive actions and statements, are all met with the wall of "it's a joke," "we're just kidding," "no one actually believes those things," "can't you just laugh," and so many other dumb fucking excuses for why we should just let racism pass.

"I can excuse racism, but I draw the line at animal cruelty."

There are actually a fuck load of people who legitimately act and behave like this.

If you think you're not a racist, I want you to stop and think every time you speak to a BIPOC and really check yourself to see if you're about to say something that's rooted in prejudice and socially conditioned thought. Because I get pissed when I hear the stories of other POC trans folks and how white folks in our own damn community treat us!!

We're not your gods, goddess, deities, kings, queens, monarchs, or any of that annoying shit that disingenuous white queers will call us to feign support. "It's giving strong black goddess!" No! It's giving, I wanna look cute now let's try and treat me like a fucking person.

[storyweavingspider]

Since it happened to me, I’ve met literally dozens of trans women that told me their stories, who have had some variation of Hot Allostatic Load happen to them and thought that they were some kind of unique monster.

In comparing these stories, Black trans women have it consistently the worst and are often subject to higher penalties for less severe “offenses”, especially once colorism is in play. For me, a lightskinned Black trans woman, I was driven out because I was working to desegregate the local queer scene because in a 50% Black city most free events were 70% or more white. I managed to save my ex, a darkskinned Black trans woman, from similar except she hadn’t done anything but be the object of affection for a white trans woman and another white trans woman was jealous.

Even ostensibly “leftist” white spaces, even marginalized whites, will put white solidarity and the general upholding of white supremacy before liberation because what they want is not total liberation, but to live with the same privileges as non-marginalized whites over non-whites. They want the space of the oppressor, not freedom, not liberation. This is why they will mercilessly destroy those who seek to upset this order in a way that won’t allow them to reach their goal and then ask for passive patience for the rest of us. Non-Blacks often will do the exact same in the hopes they’ll achieve their group liberation while still staying in what they believe is their rightful place above Black people.

A queer liberation, a trans liberation, without Black liberation, is just shifting the orders of oppression. Replicating and wielding the tools of white supremacy just because it’s easy, or it’s beneficial to you, is not acceptable if we want to actually liberate ourselves. We cannot truly be free in a world which maintains the structures that enable this oppression. This is why we must abolish white supremacy, abolish whiteness, abolish patriarchy.