#tsstxt

[planetarytransformation]

so many of the transfems i know spent their time pre-transition performing a kind of lifelong exercise in self-deprivation, the goal of which was to find out exactly how little a person needed to live. they starved themselves, dressed carelessly, shunned friends, and hollowed themselves out so as not to be burdens on anyone but themselves.

i see it now, too, in the girls around me. i'll ask if they want care – a home-cooked meal, relaxed company, sex without the expectation of reciprocation – and they say no, no, thank you, i don't need it; what would you like, what do you want, because in their head they're still doing that awful calculus, still training themselves to disappear in the eyes of the people around them.

i don't think i'd have died without transition – not in the conventional sense, at least – but to take that leap, i had to stop thinking of myself as a human experiment in fuel-efficient living and start nurturing the anemic, atrophied flame of desire in my heart. i had to learn to eat well, to exercise, to style myself beautiful, but harder than that, i had to learn to ask the people around me to work on my behalf in order to enrich my life and give me the things i wanted.

and i did it; i learned. and it was agony, but courage is a muscle you can train, and every day i get better at accepting gifts with the hungry gratitude i never learned in my years and years as a sad, scared, lonely boy.

so be patient with the trans girls in your life. better than that: be proactive, attentive, generous; be forceful, if you have to, and learn to distinguish real discomfort from the terrified reflex of self-denial that so many of us once learned to rely on.

and if you are so lucky as to love a trans girl, you must insist upon her. you must insist upon her happiness, her comfort, her pleasure, and her rest, because she may still not yet know how to make those demands for herself. if you can devote any amount of energy to becoming an engine that nurtures the flame of even a single tgirl then there is a place for you in trans heaven, which as far as i'm concerned is the only one worth going to

[planetarytransformation]

"AMAB" i mean so what. i was jaundiced at birth too but nobody seems to want to assign social significance to that. they should though. they should assert that i will always have a jaundiced soul no matter how much urine i process. and mock me for my weak faggot kidneys #myweakfaggotkidneys

[planetarytransformation]

affirmations:

i am being assailed by invisible demons

i am being assailed by invisible demons constantly

[planetarytransformation]

no, no, it's like— imagine you're the only one in your friend group with a car. and all the people around you want you to drive them places, help them move, take them on joyrides up the coast.

but the thing is that you don't like driving. you have this car by some, i don't know, some accident of fate – your dad left it to you, or something – but it doesn't feel good to operate. like for some reason it just feels gross.

and nobody listens to you when you say that! they're like, dude, you have a car! that makes you powerful, capable, exciting, and you're like, no, honestly, i'd really rather i didn't have this, and they're like, but as long as you do, can you drive me to work? can you help me get this cabinet off of craigslist?

and you begrudge them, cause you don't wanna be selfish, and also because you sort of feel like they could ruin your life if they wanted, but it still sucks to drive, even after you've gotten good at – hang on, i'm getting there, i know this is long.

right, so then one day, your car breaks down. and it's such a relief! but everyone's like dude, fix your car, i gotta be out of my ex's place by sunday, i gotta get to the airport tomorrow, but, like... that's your car.

you control if it works or not, and now you get to say no thanks, i can't do that, not anymore, and as a matter of fact, you can never ask me to do it again.

so to your point, like, i have a strap i can use instead if that's cool,

[planetarytransformation]

if i was in charge of pitching lesbian heated rivalry i'd do a c4t kickboxing drama. young upstart black british muay thai fighter gets her shit knocked in by some racist female conor mcgregor type. retreats to thailand to lick her wounds and train for the comeback. she meets a woman in bangkok recovering from surgery who's like you know i used to be a champ and the girl is like i've never heard of you and she's like yeah i was a men's kickboxing legend but they kicked my ass out when i transitioned. now i'm bitter and jaded and would love nothing more than to make you my avatar of vengeance against the establishment that used me up and ruined my life. this club has everything: 1) antiracist revenge arc 2) toxic coachplayer lesbianism 3) neopussy 4) 30 year minimum age gap and you better believe they fuck NASTY. does anyone have several million dollars i can borrow to make this

[planetarytransformation]

this isn't exactly a new sentiment on here but i can't really deny my desire for the exclusive and permanent company of transfems. every night i spend in bed without 1-3 tgirls in my arms is melancholy; by contrast, every night that i do is so surpassingly warm and comforting that i can feel my life's priorities shifting each time they nuzzle up into me. my mannerisms change around them; i unmask, laugh louder, kiss better, sleep more soundly. when work gets hard i think about the look on a girl's face after she eats a meal i've made her, the sound of her breathing as we lie together watching tv, the feel of her soft hands on my naked body. i'm so lucky to be one of these people, to know them, to love them; if all i do with the rest of my life is bring a little relief to a few of my sisters it will have been a life well spent

[planetarytransformation]

much hay gets made about the deep pain of childhood body dysphoria, but i spent a lot of time as a young boy wanting desperately to be accepted socially by girls: craving their friendship and affection, hoping something would happen to push me across the boundary that softly but inexorably segregated me from them.

i stood apart from boys, neglecting my friendships with them, in the hope that one of the girls would see me all forlorn and take me in. they'd release me from my obligations to be fast and strong, to be cruel; they'd teach me the chants and hand-games they played in circles on the schoolyard. of course, they didn't; why would they? i never asked. i didn't know how.

so while the boys ran and wrestled, and the girls gathered in the grass and whispered gossip in the secret languages they'd made for themselves, i built fairy houses in the tree-roots far off on the edge of the schoolyard. i hoped someone would notice how sensitive, how gentle and small, i was being, and would... well, i didn't know what it would mean. i couldn't see over that precipice.

now i'm 26, and i have the power to choose everything i want: who i am, who i befriend, who i desire. i'm surrounded by women now – brilliant, brazen, graceful, intoxicating – who will play games with me, who will braid my hair, who will sit with me in the grass and help me to speak the secret languages i never got to learn. i hope that sad, lonely boy can see me. i hope she's proud.

[planetarytransformation]

i am the very model of a brooklynite transsexual

my mutual aid is vital and my votes are ineffectual

i'm versed in the pretenses of both affects glib and glamorous

and constantly entangled up in drama polyamorous