Somebody was telling me recently about not being out as ace to anybody except their partner. Because, basically, they're afraid that people will feel like, "eww, I don't need to know about your sex life."
Which is also kind of how I've felt about coming out to people.
And I know this is a common thing: being afraid that people will hear, "I'm bi," "I'm aro," "I'm intersex," etc, as some variation on, "I'm oversharing! I'm hitting on you! Please oversexualize me and act weird around me now! Please ask invasive personal questions!"
So I want to Make A Thing that talks about what kinds of things we actually are actually saying when we come out.
What I have so far:
"I hope I can trust you."
"There's something you're missing about me."
"I have some powerful and interesting experiences you might not know about."
"I wish more people were familiar with our powerful culture."
"We might have more in common than you think."
"Being silenced hurts us. I need to bring this into the light."
Come crush imposter syndrome! Or just win a cool book?
I’m autistic, I’m bi, I’m trans, I’m ace, I’m an abuse survivor... so as you can imagine, I’m real fucking tired of the message that my life doesn’t matter. That everything I am is less-than. That I’m inherently, somehow, not valuable to society -- or just to the people around me.
If you get treated that way enough, you internalize it.
It seems like an awful lot of us walk around all day feeling like we’re not good enough. That our social skills, or our writing skills, or the work we do, aren’t really ever going to be good enough. That people are going to see through the façade, and realize that we’re the sort of person they think is trash.
That’s imposter syndrome.
I’m done living my life under its thumb. I’m done believing that I’m somehow ranked below the entire rest of humanity. I’m done always feeling anxious, second-guessing everything I say or do, and just being afraid of people in general.
And I’m co-creating a website, with my (amazing, autistic, intersex, intergender, freaking glitter-encrusted deity of a) partner, to help other people start crushing it too.
And it’s finally ready to launch!!!!!!!! so we’re doing a giveaway to celebrate:
You would think that you’d be able to click on this picture and enter. But no. Because Tumblr hates the internet and refuses to play nice with it. Instead, you can click here!
Only 8 people have entered so far! (they each have a whole bunch of entries, so it looks like more) So the odds are pretty good right now.
It’s also a great contest for Pride month, because Jeffrey Marsh -- author of the one on the far left, How To Be You -- is nonbinary trans, and Sonya Renee Taylor -- author of the one on the far right, The Body Is Not An Apology -- is a queer Black woman.
We’ll talk to the winners to see which book they want, and see if we can get everyone something they love.
And if you’re interested in the whole crushing-imposter-syndrome thing, you can sign up for our newsletter to get an invite to our free intro course when we finish it. It’s like a bonus prize! (Sign up for it through the contest if you want extra entries! Or just through our website if you’re not entering)
[Image description, for accessibility: two hands clasping, in support, one with golden brown skin and one with medium brown skin, against an aqua starburst background, with the headline "Enter to win a life-changing book! Brought to you by Powerfully Vulnerable." Three books are pictured as prizes: "How to Be You" by Jeffrey Marsh, "Design the Life You Love" by Ayse Birsel, and "The Body is Not an Apology" by Sonya Renee Taylor".]
If you think you're not X enough to call yourself X --
whether "X" is autistic, bi, ace, aro, trans, nonbinary, Jewish, Pagan, mentally ill, disabled, smart, strong, brave, creative, a writer, and/or a million other things I could list forever --
My partner just told me that our baby (now 2-year-old) used my pronouns correctly the other day!!!
They were asking where I was or something, and paused, and instead of saying "Daddy" a second time they carefully said, "gem"! And then, apparently, they liked practicing using pronouns so much that they used it again right away!
(Apparently my partner celebrated with them afterward, too. How freaking cute is that? I don't think I've heard them use pronouns for a person before this, either. Baby's first gendering!)
MY BABBY USES MY PRONOUNS ❤🥰😍🥰❤
And, of course, you can now say to people who make excuses for misgendering you, "If my friend's two-year-old can do it, so can you."
[Image description: post says, "a perfect word popped into my head, and I am replacing 'cis guy' in my vocabulary with 'tradmasc' for every situation in which I do not actually want to exclude binary trans men, effective immediately".
post background is a swirl of colors from light pink to deep blue, evoking both bi flag and trans flag vibes.]
That's the acronym used in this survey of over 10,000 people.
(Despite the fact that, like pretty much all community studies, they didn't actually talk to intersex people or address intersex issues. And in fact, in a lot of places, including the survey page, they just use LGBTA.
But shout-out for at least breaking up the different categories and including aces.)
And on the bright side, look! A breakdown of different nonbinary genders in the Polish trans community!
I think that they chose these options for people, and that the "different answer" is write-ins. But I can't tell, because they took the survey down. It could all be write-ins, especially because the labels seem to overlap so much.
Trans women: 17.8%
Trans men: 47.2%
Androgynes: 6.7%
Agender people: 6.8%
Genderqueer people: 5.8%
Nonbinary: 10.4%
Different answer: 5.3%
Cis women: 43.7%
Cis men: 53.6%
Cis "different answer": 2.7%
I'll reblog with more when I have time to read more, but here's the whole report!
