#queer related

[terror-punk]

Be Openly Scary

Society is scared of a lot of things it shouldn't be. A lot of those things can't be helped, a lot of those things don't hurt anyone, and a lot of those things are not what people even think they truly are.

So you know what?

Talk about your hallucinations, your delusions, your psychotic symptoms. Share things about your gender identity whether it be nonconforming, trans, xenogender or anything else. Scream about your nonhumanity and animal urges. Be open and unwavering about your systems existence, presenting as more-than-one wherever you want. Use and introduce your pronouns, even if people find them weird or offputting. Rock back and forth, pace, twitch and stim in any way you please. Wear things that reflect your identity in public. Get tattoos and body mods to your heart's content. Tell people about your personality disorders.

Don't make yourself small because others can't handle you. Be open where safe. Be you. Be scary.

[terror-punk]

Win for the queers today, I think.

We went to and spoke at a local council meeting this week. Long story short, our town is planning a pride festival and we're helping get it off the ground for its second year running. And, of course, the council doesn't like that very much. They were holding a vote in their meeting about whether or not to remove their funding from it, and if so, how much. The amount ended up getting dropped a bit, but nowhere near as much as a lot of them wanted it to be. A small win, though not the best outcome.

We'd been to a council meeting about the festival before. The first time was before the first festival, and one particular councilor had called for a vote to cancel it. We, helping run the festival, of course registered to speak at that council meeting as a member of the public and give our two cents. This was earlier this year, and we won--the festival was a huge success! That particular councilor wasn't happy, but oh well! That's a him issue.

Yesterday, though, we saw that specific transpbobic councilor in the dollar store. He, behaving like something out of a damn cartoon, looked us dead in the eye--then slowly turned away and started literally whistling. I cannot make this up. Literally whistling innocently. He seemed to wander around for a bit, then make a line straight for the door to leave. Like okay, the scary transgender who's spoken at your meeting twice is in the craft isle at the dollar store. So damn scary. We had a good laugh about it with our partner who was also there with us, and carried on with our day.

But, later that night, we get a notification on our phone. This councilor had looked us up on Facebook of all places--a place we don't have our face, we have our chosen name and a random bird as our icon--and followed our account. This guy, so damn pressed about us being outspoken and contesting him and his attempts to cancel the festival, remembered our chosen name, and sought us out on Facebook to follow us. We had to use our legal name for the registration forms! He remembered that in our speech, we introduced ourselves as our chosen name.

If that's not proving we live rent free in this old queerphobes head, I don't know what is. I see this as an absolute win, and a sign we're doing the right thing--being a person that assholes feel the need to keep tabs on. That's right, be threatened.

[terror-punk]

We personally love the "I'm the scary x that they all warned you about" phrase we see in headers or bios or anywhere else.

Yeah, we are the scary transgender nonhuman psychotic disabled plural and whatever else they warned you about, and it's not on us to change to fit what you want us to be. We'll continue being scary, and you'll either continue being scared, or learn to face your fears and see that we're not going to explode you with our minds if you make eye contact. That choice is up to you, not us.

[terror-punk]

”Society is scared of a lot of things it shouldn't be.” you mfers are scared of me using the wrong pronoun lmao

Says the person on anon, clearly demonstrating how brave and fearless they are when communicating with a transgender person.

[terror-punk]

be openly scary bro nobody is scared people just get second hand embarrassment , id tell you to go outside but i dont want more innocents smelling your unwashed ass from 3 miles away

Okay, let's see that post you're talking about here and ignore your attempt at an insult that proves you know nothing about us and what our offline life is like.

The post talks about highly stigmatised mental illnesses such as personality disorders and psychotic disorders. People "just" get "second hand embarrassment" from them? Please explain to the people who have had their friends shy away from them the moment they mention they're mentally ill in any capacity. Please explain that to people who end up forcefully institutionalised. Please explain that to the people who couldn't fathom even being friends with someone with such a stigmatised, scary disorder.

The post talks about trans and queer identities. Do you really think people just get second hand embarrassment from that? Is the fearmongering of "protect our kids" all second hand embarrassment? Is the "trans women want access to spaces they make others unsafe in" just.... a reaction to internally cringing?

The post talks about nonhumanity and alterhumanity at large, which even if it's seen as "cringe" or "embarrassing", alterhumans are lumped in with psychotics and commonly treated similarly.

People are scared of the mentally ill, people are scared of those who are queer, people are scared of alterhumans--that's the reason for a good chunk of the hate. In fact, it would be so much safer for us to be us if they were just embarrassed for us and nothing else. If people weren't scared of anything remotely different, maybe people would even cringe less, because we would be normalised and allowed to be more open.

I'm responding to this because you're almost an example of my point. You may truthfully not be "scared" (though if you weren't scared of something, even if it's just a block, why exactly are you on anon?), but if society were better, people wouldn't feel the need to send anons like this to people trying simply to exist. You likely wouldn't even bat an eye. We simply want as much of a right to exist as possible, and if people are scared, that's solely a them problem. It might not be safe for everyone to be "scary" or "cringe" right now, but we should be allowed to. That's the point.

Thank you for being an example of what ideas we're aiming to dispel.

[gardenstateofmind]

i would never get offended by someone who doesn't know me/doesn't know my specific sexual orientation calling me bi, of course not, it's not a bad thing to be bi or to acknowledge bi people

but ive also had a lot of people tryna tell me MY feelings about how I'M attracted to other people, telling me MY life as if they know it better than i do. i dont even know how many times people have said "pansexuality is biphobic" "you're just a self hating bi who refuses to admit it because of internalized prejudice" "there's no such thing as pansexual, you're just bi" "why isn't 'bi' good enough of a label for you" and i cant even remember what else

and im sure this is true for a lot of other pansexual and/or queer people, so yeah it can be reasonable for us to explicitly say that we are NOT bi. it's not because it's a bad thing, it's not because we don't actually know what bi means, it's just because it's fucking annoying having your identity policed and be constantly mislabeled in spaces that are supposed to be welcoming

[gardenstateofmind]

realistically it's very possible that future children i have could totally fall into the cishet standards, but they will still be deeply intertwined with queer issues bc i, their parent, am. and they will be raised in an environment that is radically different from the cishet norm. and i know id fight anyone who tried to claim my children didn't belong in Certain queer spaces i already see this with my little sisters, and i mean theyre tiny, the oldest is only 6, so theyre not really anything at this point, bc these labels dont apply to kids that young (usually at least) but theyre mom is bi and im queer and theyre being raised with a very different experience than that of cisheteronormativity, and when we went to montreal pride last summer, it was so much fun just being there as a family, existing and celebrating that existence. honestly one of the most wholesome feelings ive ever had. pride means a lot of things, and we should always remember the foundations of it, but it's also a time for love, healing, celebration. it's good to have anger and it's good to have peace. personally i think pride has plenty of room for the whole spectrum of emotions