Transtrender and theyfab targeted nonbinary people of all un/alignments not just transmascs and definitely not just trans men.
You can talk about how they're being used in the current context of transandrophobia without erasing enbies and the history of exorsexism those terms hold. Especially since a lot of it targeted enbies who were assigned female at birth who explicitly did not identify as transmasc.
You can do it without misgendering people and treating afab+nonbinary as interchangeable with transmasc.
Please do better about remembering the existence of and actively including your nonbinary siblings.
I'm gonna be honest, while I can totally get behind the trans Ralsei headcanon/theory, some of y'all are starting to get kind of Weird about it in a way I really don't like.
Put this under a cut because it goes into my worries about sexual side effects when it comes to getting a hysterectomy as a trans man and talks frankly about sexuality and pleasure at times. Nothing detailed, just decided it was best to put it under a cut.
This is mostly about my fears around the hysterectomy and why, but I also vent somewhat about my frustrations with dealing with medical providers more broadly in recent years. It's a vent post but it's also asking for people's experiences with these things, especially the hysterectomy, and whether anyone has advice or anything they'd like to say that might be at all helpful in soothing my anxiety and frustration around the whole situation.
I'm going for my consult for a hysterectomy in the next couple weeks. I have fibroids and probably endometriosis, and on Tuesday, I get to find out whether there's a mass or cysts, which is somewhat likely given how my pain and other symptoms have evolved over time.
I'm on board with the hysterectomy; every trans guy is different, but to me, the idea of pregnancy is terrifying, and not just because of the physical changes it would bring or the dysphoria. These are definite factors, but I really don't like the idea of my body being hijacked like that. And my pain and bleeding have always been really bad and have gotten worse in the last year or so. There are many reasons to do it, and I hope it will end up improving my quality of life tremendously.
The thing is... I'm also scared. My mom had a hysterectomy when I was in middle school, the kind done like a C-section, and was in pain for the rest of her life. She also later had basically no sex life at all, and although I know she also had anorectal cancer and received radiation and chemo as treatment for that, which itself played a role in her pain and (eventual) nonexistent ability to have any kind of penetrative sex.
I know the procedure is different nowadays and that there's every chance I'll be fine and have little to no issues after the recovery. But I'm scared. (Grown men in their 30s get scared, too. To quote Futurama: "We're all scared. It's the human condition.")
If anyone feels like sharing about their experience with this stuff, I'd be grateful. I just think if I had a better idea of what to expect, maybe I wouldn't have this much apprehension about it. Because I don't want these organs in the first place, and they cause me no end of trouble, and several different types of trouble.
Anyway, if you're reading this and have had a hysterectomy or know someone who has, and feel like tell me about what it was like, both the procedure and recovery, I'd appreciate it.
I have a supportive gynecologist, which is nice and much more than I dared to hope. But I also wonder if there's anything unique about a trans guy getting this done, particularly because I've been on T for close to 10 years. I'm not sure how or whether that might make a difference in terms of the outcome of getting a hysterectomy. And to my knowledge the question of potential differences of this kind isn't exactly widely researched, at all. So anecdotal sources will have to do.
I'm also semi freaking out waiting for Tuesday to find out what, if anything, new they can tell me about what's going on down there. Because I have been having increased pain and tenderness in my abdomen, among other issues, and I really just want to fucking KNOW what's going on. And I had to twist my primary care doctor's arm, damn near literally, just to order tests to TRY to get to the bottom of this.
Meanwhile, I can't take NSAIDs, so I have to go to a pain clinic and get, among other things, Percocet. And boy oh boy, do people ever have Opinions about a 30-something person taking opioids for chronic pain. "You're too young, so we're not going to increase your dosage, even though you're literally writhing in pain on the exam table." Well, could somebody tell my body it's not allowed to hurt this much? Because I don't think it got the fucking memo.
That, and when you're on one controlled substance, they really don't want to give you another, even if you need it. I'm disabled, due to PTSD, anxiety, and long-term consequences of eating disorders. I also have ADHD. And as a trans man, I take testosterone. (I know not all trans men take hormones, and I'm not at all implying that they're not For Realsies trans. I'm not that guy.) I can get my testosterone from an endocrinologist, but I can't get anyone to give me Klonopin, which is right up there with the pain meds and testosterone when it comes to how much it improves my quality of life. My primary care doc referred me to a psych practice for my ADHD meds, and they wanted to have me in group therapy five times a week just to get that. But it's a generalized group therapy thing, and as a trans guy living in fucking Florida, I don't feel safe to talk about what's bothering me in mixed company. Ever. And not that I'm saying mentally ill people are violent monsters who are gonna Get you, because I know better, clearly. I'm just also not willing to put myself in a potentially unsafe situation by actively talking about what things are like for me lately with a bunch of random people who, for all I know, could follow me out to the parking lot afterwards and make it my problem.
Suffice to say, medical shenanigans abound lately in my life, and in some ways, I'm not sure what the right answer even is. And I'm frankly scared that surgery will break my vagina, and I'll never be able to have an orgasm or sex without extreme pain again (and not the good kind). And I'll be honest, if I had to give up sexual pleasure for the rest of my life, I don't know that I would want to keep on living. Everything else sucks so hard sometimes, a lot of the time lately, that I sometimes won't even be particularly horny, but I'll have sex or jerk off just to feel something that doesn't feel awful.
tldr, I'd like to know about anyone else's relevant experiences and any advice or anything else you might consider useful for someone dealing with all this.
Look guys, "what you do / read / write / like in fandom spaces is not always reflective on your morale values" and "you can bring bigoted rethorics in fandom spaces" are statements that can coexist.
Like.
"Writing/reading a horror story does not mean you support or are yourself a serial killer. Same logic applies to most things you can think about, even if it's very gross and fucked up. Casually talking / joking about a character being in pain is also not the same as being cruel or uncaring, as fictional characters are not real people and their pain is as fictional as them. Liking a character being horrible does not mean you would approve someone acting like this in real life, characters are plot devices. Most people know this, can make the difference between fiction and reality and this is why they behave this way, they do not need a story to teach them ethics."
and
"It is absolutely possible to be an asshole or bring bigoted rethorics in fandom spaces. An obvious exemple are people disliking when there is a lead female character because they are sexist. Saying (or implying) that a character would be better if they were less fat, had a lighter skin, had a queer identity erased, weren't disabled, etc etc is not just "playing with dolls", YOU, as a person, are using bigoted statements. Even if you can't blame everyone doing it to the same degree (not everyone knows everything about some languages), characters with neutral pronouns (or trans characters in general) have a much harder time having their pronouns respected and valued and it does not come from nowhere. Also, a writer has their own bias and can, unvoluntarily or not, use harmful clichés in their story and it can be brought up."
are statements that are not mutually exclusive at all. Like, don't even care about the orders of the statements they are not being used as a counter exemple to each others, they are legitimally statements that are not opposite.
tfw you miss the community of being in a fandom space and regularly interacting with other fans but you also don't know how not to be alone anymore and also your new fandom scares you. and also you were always pretty bad at socializing anyways
I'm suddenly remembering (and having sad and resentful feelings about) a time when someone made a callout for me - for using the terms TME and TMA, no less (like, that was the supposed "problem" they were "calling out") - and called me a cis woman in the callout. When my description says "genderfae" right there at the top. (I remember changing my mobile header from the lesbian flag to the genderfae flag shortly after seeing it too, since it bothered me so much.)
