#genderstuff

[dykepuffs]

Seeing a few "All masculinity is toxic and by definition reinforces patriarchy" posts lately and keep having two thoughts:

1) It must be really convenient to have identified that, of the two broad aesthetic modes-of-being that society recognises, the one that you prefer happens to be the one that's inherently harmless and where you don't have to consider its broader implications before you live it.

2) The only way that masculinity can exist is by femininity existing, and vice versa, both of them equally prop up the patriarchy, you can't attack one of them without attacking the other but, again, that makes people nervous.

[vigilantsycamore]

non-newtonian genderfluid

gendersuperfluid

bose-einstein gendercondensate

fermionic gendercondensate

genderplasma

dark gendermatter

[starguyinthesky]

Just thinking about Yoshi and how he is my friend. The trans masc hero that was always there right under my nose as I was growing up. Teaching me about positive masculinity and how boys can play a supportive role and be nurturers. Using his trans body to protect himself and his loved ones. Forming alternative community where everyone pitches in and no one gets left behind. I love you Yoshi 💚

[queenofzan]

i understand other people’s experiences are different, and some people legit have changed genders

but personally i was never a girl. when talking about baby!me i use they pronouns now. except for like, the years i was 16-18. i was not a girl then, but i was trying to be a girl, so it feels right to respect that and use she pronouns for her.

i said this in the tags of a post some time this week but like. as young as 4 i was aware i was not a girl. i, being four, assumed this was because of misogyny. girls get a raw deal, so clearly it was only sensible to wish i was born a boy.

like honestly i don’t think i had a clear sense of gender at all until like, last year. (inasmuch as “whatever makes you, the viewer, the gayest” can be considered a clear sense of gender, lmao)

idk when i need to make clear that i am talking about a past experience i had because other people around me believed i was a girl, i just...say that. they treated me like a girl. they thought i was a girl. i was trying to be a girl.

i never was a girl. other people perceiving me as a girl doesn’t change that. hell, like i said, me trying to be a girl didn’t actually change that. seventeen year old ani was not a girl any more than thirty-one year old ani, but she was trying to inhabit girlhood in a way i would never bother with now (at least, not for longer than a few hours)

given how disparate people’s experiences of gender are, the correct thing to do is...ask people. like if you’re talking to a trans person about their past, ask what language to use. even if you are trans. i know some of my trans friends feel very strongly that they were their assigned gender, at least when they were kids. i feel very strongly that i never was. neither of us is wrong, we’re just different people.

[awkwardcatman]

i think im deff more on the agender side of things but theres times when i feel completely male so idk if it is dysphoria???? or if i am genderfluid???? or....?????? its all really confusing. sometimes i dont want a gender its like....A VOID. but other times its not? and i feel connected to being a man? and its parallel with my sexuality too???? being on the asexual spectrum.....but then idk if thats my dysphoria or not???? idk idk its all...a lot

[luckylenz]

Sometimes i wish i could talk to the person who told me many years ago that i was “trivializing the trans experience” by drawing people in binders.

I wonder if they know how much they held me back in gender expression, Or coming out in general.

I don’t hold it against them or anything its just wild how one comment warped and made me fear a community i belonged in.... And I’m now old enough to know now that policing peoples “experiences” doesn't work as a whole.

No two people are the same and express things to same

[ipromisetowrite]

Life is a series of build ups and let downs and victories. We live through turning point after turning point. The turning points and the growing; that’s the stuff that books are made of. When I was a kid I could feel these turning points and I would write myself these manifestos or letters of declaration of who I would become, what I would leave behind, how I would get through. I would promise myself in my developing handwriting inside of ugly diaries or on yellow legal pad pages and then I would sign my name at the bottom, to make it official. Scattered through drawers and boxes, notebooks and diaries between New Jersey and Indiana you can uncover these declarations of past versions of myself I was determined to leave behind. I’m sure many of them have disintegrated or been recycling or stained or laughed at before being crumpled up and thrown in a trash pile. I can’t remember what any one of them said but they were all important. Right now I am at the point of my story where I don’t know. I don’t know what the struggle is or when it will all hit my shoulders or what will break me this time. I don’t know what I’m growing through. Right now I feel like I’m in the stuck phase. The stuck phase might be worse than the bottom. One thing I do remember is a scrapbook diary page. It was a little picture of me, the sun highlighting the curve of my chubby cheeked profile as I looked off frame and then a current, then high school, photo of the same sort of thing. Cut crookedly from old seventeen magazines in words and phrases it read, “Let me be/And I will be/The woman I’ve always been.” Like, fuck, you guys, that is deep. That is significant. That is as important for me to remember now as it was then. Sure, I’ve changed, I’ve left parts behind and I’ve declared myself better, but - that little girl? She was the purest version of the person I am. Her heartbreaks are still mine today; lost friendships and too many feelings. Her joys are still mine as well; fits of laughter, chocolate frosting, watching sports and being outside. She is the most me of all the mes. Sure her momma made her wear itchy dresses that she hated but she also didn’t correct her from sitting with her legs spread.

[oak-antlers]

Hi folks!

So I’ve got a few people on here who know me by name, but most don’t. I’ve already gone through a name change so this is a bit awkward (for me at least) but I’ve decided to make a last change. Y’see, I got thrown headfirst into a teaching internship and I was still very much figuring this genderthing out (still am), but I’m not comfortable being called ‘ma’am’, and kids here are required to call you either ma’am or sir at school. So I decided use a new, more neutral name than my old one to make sure kids wouldn’t automatically call me ma’am.

By now I’ve realised that while I like the name, it doesn’t suit me much and doesn’t work for me in general. I have one that I’ve felt really good about for quite a long time now but had some connotations for me that made me hesitate to introduce myself with it to others. Now’s as good a time as any though!

I’ll be using Melle from now on. That’s a very traditional Dutch (Frisian) name so it might be odd to pronounce in a lot of languages, but taking english intonation into account it would be ‘mel-uh’ (‘mel’ like mel gibson I guess would be the best way to explain it).

If there’s any questions etc. don’t hesitate to ask ✌🏼

@keekmenta @the-goofball @cactusandmushroom (more to be added as my brain realises people I actually know follow me here D: )