Inspired by @louchie 's fic "a very small steam powered giraffe with smokes"! I had So Many Emotions about these two in it which I have no idea how to articulate so I drew them instead lol
I don’t know how universally relevant this is (I guess no part of queer history ever is) but I wonder how many trans people know the history of T&T groups.
Like, in the 90′s and 00′s in the Netherlands almost every trans related groups was a T&T ‘Transsexual and Transvestites’ group and that seemed to also be a quite common thing in other north-west European countries for as far as I can see. Maybe beyond Europe too? I’m not sure.
People who called themselves transsexual and transvestites at the time felt that they had many experiences in common that made organising together valuable and many agreed that there was a large grey area of overlapping identities. With very little information available, a lot of trans women identified as transvestites first, before identifying at trans women (in that period often using the term Male-to-Female transsexual and transwoman without the space between the words).
Then, in about 2007-2012, things changed. Transgender became more popular than transsexual and crossdresser largely replaced transvestite. In those early days, the term transgender was often understood to include crossdressers. The transgender umbrella is from that time:
Back then, the word transgender was seen by many as the umbrella term that would unite all the struggles against gender roles. But that grouping together was far from uncontroversial and a lot of heated debates took place over how broad or narrow the transgender umbrella term should be. Some feared too wide an umbrella would take attention away from transsexuals, others feared it would be confusing, some groups that had previously only had transwomen and transvestites did not appreciate the new presence of transmen and transmasculine people in their transgender community, some felt that it was very important to distinguish binary-identified transsexuals from all sorts of weird non-binary identities.
Those who took part in the debates probably remember the specific standpoints in more detail. For me, I just remember how in 2008-2012 all the T&T groups started changing their names to ‘transgender groups’ and then slowly but surely focussing more on only those transgender people that wanted some kind of transition, physical or social. Eventually, transvestites (or crossdressers, as the common term was by then) disappeared entirely from the transgender groups and a lot of transgender people forgot about the earlier wider meaning of transgender as an umbrella term.
Within that same period, there started to be a LOT of new and fairly positive media attention for transgender issues, specifically transition related atttention. The media was no participant at all in the ‘what does transgender mean’ question but the questions they did ask were ‘are you on hormones yet?’ and ‘did you have the surgery’? Since that was a lot better than ‘so are you mentally ill because you want to be a woman?’ a lot of people who fitted the hormones + surgery narrative eagerly accepted this ‘positive visibility’ and did not question the narrow focus. This further cemented the view that transgender meant transition.
And the transgender activists? Well, let’s just say many of them, knee deep in a struggle against terrible health care and cruel human rights violations, leaped at the opportunity to seize the momentum and finally make some changes and many didn’t really give much thought to the slow disappearance of transvestites from the newly named ‘transgender’ community.
So where are we now, in 2018?
The transgender community seems to have largely forgotten about their T&T history. The terms transvestite and crossdresser both seem to be in decline, as are the communities that meet around those identities. Younger people who don’t fit the gender binary but also do not desire social or physical transition, are now more likely to identify themselves as some kind of genderqueer and nonbinary or just ‘not into labels’ or just to wear whatever they want and rock it. Some of them find their way back under the transgender umbrella after all. Which I guess is some kind of a happy ending.
But then theres the question of recognizing our legacy. I don’t think a lot of these young people realise that, had they been born 20 years earlier, many of them would probably have found a home in the transvestite community. I don’t think a lot of young transgender people recognize older transvestites as their elders, who paved the way for them. I often get the impression that they view the dwindling groups of 50+, 60+, 70+ transvestites with an element of disdain, as people who held on to a regressive binary identity, instead of as like - their badass grandfather-mothers who build parts of trans history.
Over the last 24 hours, some trans people have responded to this with some truly nasty comments about transvestites and crossdressers, mostly accusing them of stuff like ‘degrading femininity’, ‘fetishizing’, or ‘giving trans people a bad name’. Invariably, the people writing these comments were young. Invariably, their only frame of reference seemed to be stigmatizing media portrayals and they clearly have no idea what they’re talking about.
I am not going to dignify these comments with a response because they’re too disgusting to reblog, I do not think they would listen and frankly reading them fills me with far too much emotion to write coherently.
I just wanna say: this is what happens when we are so quick to forget our very recent history. Despite the many debates and divisions that have existed in the past, few trans people could have had these completely off-the-wall misguided ideas 15 years ago because if they travelled in trans spaces they would have met so many transvestites and crossdressers. They would chat and hang out and probably make friends. They would swap experiences, share hardships and learn to recognize transvestites and crossdressers as siblings in the community of gendernonconforming and marginalized people.
My heart breaks for the young crossdresser out there today who might enter a trans space looking for their community of supporting likeminded people, only to find out that they are not welcome and even despised. I can only hope that if this happens, some older trans people will talk some sense into their younger community members and remind them of the long road transgender people and crossdressers have walked together, the battles we fought together, the crossdressers who fought for trans rights and the trans people who fought for their siblings too because we understood those struggles as interconnected.
When we forget where we come from, we fail to recognize members of our own family, and we are all lonelier and more divided as a result.
Note: I love weird cars and hate car loans. Getting the car of your dreams is not worth the overhead of a car loan.
Take my hand. Look me in the eyes. You are better off buying a beater and learning to work on it than you are getting into a multi-hundred-dollar monthly payment and multi-hundred-dollar monthly full coverage insurance.
Insane car buying decisions should be of the "This would disappoint my parents" variety, not the "i have obtained debt" variety.
Get the electric teal 1991 XJ with 250k miles from craigslist for $2000. Do NOT get the 2023 wrangler with 18,000 miles from carmax for $32,000.
It has been like seven years since i was a car geek on main so if you met me after i had to sell my Jeep, prepare for me to be so SO annoying about cars.
(The Yaris was a great little car and I really liked it but it was not a car that I was ever excited about. I'm now looking at two vehicles that I've been lusting after since high school, both of which are good for desert offroading i am vibrating with anticipatory glee)
Do not buy a car you have not researched. You don't need to dig in to the complete maintenance history, but you should at the VERY least do a search for "Make/Model/Model year known issues" and if you find issues, make sure they're ones you're comfortable dealing with. I was comfortable dealing with the ABS issues on my 91 Jeep, but I would not be comfortable dealing with head gasket issues on a 2006 Subaru. I was comfortable dealing with electrical issues on my friend's 2012 Tacoma, I would not be comfortable dealing with electrical issues on a 2008 Hybrid Saturn Vue.
If you are a first-time car buyer, you may not be comfortable working on ANY issues yourself, but you should know how much it costs to solve the kinds of problems that can come up with the car you're looking at. Electric cars can be a lot more expensive to fix than gas cars, for example. A car with known transmission and engine issues is going to be a lot more expensive to fix than a car with vacuum system issues.
You can usually spot red flags with a quick internet search, but if you want to go more in-depth you should search "Make/Model Forum - Known Issue" and search for videos on resolving the issue on YouTube. Forums are one of my favorite things about car culture because you can learn SO MUCH both before and after buying a car.
If you are just starting your search and you don't know what to look for, as a first-time buyer the first thing you should care about is reliability. If you haven't been driving long or you don't drive much, you may not be able to recognize early signs of mechanical issues so it's a good idea to get a car that is known to be boring and reliable - in the US this would be the dullest ten-year-old Toyota Camry or Corolla you can imagine.
You want to focus on extremely widely manufactured, popular cars that have a long history with that model line, something that has years and years of options to choose from. Don't buy a car from a defunct manufacturer (I love Saturns, I would not tell a first time buyer to get a Saturn because it is a PAIN IN THE ASS to get parts for one and they've been out of production for so long that it's hard to get reliable answers on what's normal from anyone other than people who own Saturns. It's way, way easier to find a mechanic who knows a Ford Focus inside and out than a mechanic who can help you with your Saturn Sky)
Look up "frequently stolen cars" and try to avoid those, also anything that turns up a ton in a search for "Stolen Catalytic Converter."
Consider your lifestyle, what the car will be used for, and where you live. My dad has been complaining to me that I need to get a bigger car than my Yaris (which was a tiny 2-door) because it was really hard to get more than 2 people in the car, especially if they had luggage. But I don't think I've ever needed to drive more than 2 passengers and my dad and sister are the only ones who get in my car with luggage, and that happens 2-3 times a year. What happens a lot more is that I need to park at a Trader Joe's in LA, so what's more important to my lifestyle is a car that can fit in a compact parking spot when surrounded by people with zero situational awareness. These two needs are not mutually exclusive, but both mean that it would be a bad idea for me to get a 1962 Ford F-250.
Consider maintenance and running costs. The model of car that I'm looking at has a Turbo option - I would not consider getting a turbo because that would mean buying high octane gas, which is not something I want to build into my car expenses budget. Check car forums for PDFs of maintenance manuals and look up what kinds of work needs to be done at what mileage with the vehicle you're considering. You're going to need regular oil changes, you're going to need fuel (or electricity costs, which will be less than fuel), you're going to have to think about the cost and lifespan of tires and when fan belts wear out and what the 50,000, 100,00, and 150,000 mile maintenance routines look like. If you're buying an older car, you SHOULD check and see if there's documentation of that kind of maintenance - there may not be, but if there is that's a good sign!
Consider insurance costs. If you're going to get a car loan - which I recognize that many people have to - in the US you would be required to carry full coverage insurance, which is fuck-off expensive. But even if you don't have a car loan, you may find that liability insurance is more expensive for SUVs than coupes, or more expensive for sports cars than trucks.
Take the car to a mechanic or have a mechanically competent friend come with you for the purchase to check out the vehicle before you sign anything (YMMV; your friend has to be VERY mechanically competent for you to trust a curbside inspection and a test drive). Find a mechanic who offers pre-purchase inspections first, then find a seller, then make sure that the seller knows that the inspection is going to have to be part of the deal. If someone is above-board, they should be fine with this. It will cost you something extra for the initial purchase and it may be an annoying filter for a lot of sellers, but if you don't know cars very well, this is non-negotiable.
Take a skeptical friend or family member with you to the point of purchase. You want a car. You are in need of a car. You have found something that seems like a good deal. Take someone who is less emotionally invested to be a cooler head because they feel less pressure to make the buy and more pressure to make sure their friend doesn't get fucked.
Know what kind of regional environmental damage you might be dealing with. I live in California. I will not buy a car from Minnesota. Cars from places where it snows have rust issues that are totally alien to me. If you're from a dry place and you're buying a car that has been in a humid place or a place with lots of cold wet weather, make sure to check for weather-specific wear and damage.
IF you are considering an auto loan, do NOT go to the dealership without a loan pre-approved. Look at cars that you are interested in and think will be trustworthy, look around in the local market to get an idea of pricing norms, take this information to the bank and ask THEM for a loan because your bank is going to give you a better rate than any dealership. Also a bank isn't invested in selling you a car. Some dealerships will approve anyone for anything; your bank (or, especially, your credit union), will not approve you for a loan that you're not going to be able to pay. A bank isn't going to give a college student a forty thousand dollar loan on an 84 month term at extortionate interest. Plenty of car dealerships WILL do that. And you don't want that. That's a terrible choice. Please, please, don't get screwed by the dealer finance department.
If you do have to get financing from the dealership, do not buy a car based on what you can afford each month, buy a car based on what you can afford as one lump sum. Your budget is not "your monthly budget for this bill" it is "this is as much as I am willing to pay for this car including taxes." Have an actual number in mind. Calculate the taxes first. Build in 5-10% for various kinds of dealership fuckery. The price of the car is going to be is sticker price, plus local taxes (look them up and do the math), plus interest, plus 10% - if your budget is $7000, you are probably looking for a car with a sticker price of no more than about $5000. If you are at a dealership and you say your budget is $7000 they are going to show you cars starting at $7000 and at an 8% dealership interest rate with no down payment because you're broke and 10% taxes you're going to end up paying $9500 for that car with interest. And if you say "oh, $7000 is too high, that's not in my budget" they're going to say "well we can adjust the loan term and bring down your monthly payment and at a five year instead of a three year loan your payment goes from $265 to $170, so you're saving $100 a month" but over the life of the loan you're paying like $800 more and your $7k car has become a $10k car because the dealership worked with you to "fit it in your monthly budget." So don't even fuck with that. Calculate your total budget ahead of time and tell them that the principle cost is your total budget. Here's a loan calculator that makes it easy.
Damage reporting and title requirements vary - I would not consider buying a car that had been in a serious accident as a first-time buyer but I wouldn't be put off by some minor cosmetic damage. If you are a first time buyer and you are looking at a salvage title or equivalent, I'd pass if you have ANY other options. If you're paying out of pocket, you may not have other options in which case you need to do what you can to find out what specific kind of damage totaled the car.
DO NOT buy a car if the person selling it can't get you the title during the purchase. You don't own that car until you have the title in your hand.
Have fun and be yourself. But, like. Seriously. A car is a major purchase and you want to make sure that you get something that is reliable and will suit your needs, but if there's an option that has a stereo you like better, or has a paint color you find more fun, or a model year with styling you like better (as long as it doesn't have model year specific issues), try to get the car that you're going to like the most.
I think that's all for now. I know it's a lot. Good luck!
Hey someone suggested I use ChatGPT to figure out adulting today, and as I was going through the mental list of places I'd rather look, I realized "beloved strangers on Tumblr dot net" was on that list.
So if you have an aspect of adulting that you're really good at-taxes, budgeting, cooking, insurance, credit, time management, house upkeep, anything-please feel free to reblog with any tips.
That's us! Professional internet adults, specializing in financial stuff! We recommend starting with our Grand List of All Articles, or one of our Masterposts:
MASTERPOST: Everything You Need To Know About Taxes
MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about How to Increase Your Income
MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Retirement and How to Retire
MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Credit and Credit Cards
MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Investing for Beginners
MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about How to Pay off Debt
MASTERPOST: Everything You Need To Know About Living Independently for the First Time
MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Repairing Our Busted-Ass World
MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Self-Care
MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Getting a Job, Raise, or Promotion
MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Saving Money and Being Frugal
Hey someone suggested I use ChatGPT to figure out adulting today, and as I was going through the mental list of places I'd rather look, I realized "beloved strangers on Tumblr dot net" was on that list.
So if you have an aspect of adulting that you're really good at-taxes, budgeting, cooking, insurance, credit, time management, house upkeep, anything-please feel free to reblog with any tips.
That's us! Professional internet adults, specializing in financial stuff! We recommend starting with our Grand List of All Articles, or one of our Masterposts:
MASTERPOST: Everything You Need To Know About Taxes
MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about How to Increase Your Income
MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Retirement and How to Retire
MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Credit and Credit Cards
MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Investing for Beginners
MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about How to Pay off Debt
MASTERPOST: Everything You Need To Know About Living Independently for the First Time
MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Repairing Our Busted-Ass World
MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Self-Care
MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Getting a Job, Raise, or Promotion
MASTERPOST: Everything You Need to Know about Saving Money and Being Frugal
Advanced guide to getting in the loop. Supplementary to "Civilization Essentials." If a movie is on this list, then it has one of these: -Po
Not all these movies are necessarily good, but the ones that gave me small pop culture epiphanies. It made me realize that 30%-40% of the jokes from modern sitcoms are references/parodies- and these movies are their source material.
^^ This is also true for socializing. So many people I thought were naturally funny were just doing movie bits.
[I actually do have a job, I am just a big fan of lists and graphs and flow charts etc.]
Something that the Americnas of this site wont even comprehend. Shit like this happens everyday in europe and we get used to it because the alternative is some yanke bullcrab
she was dead silent on the drive home, but that was okay. sometimes, after band practice, she was just out of words. it was a short drive to her house. the only part where it actually felt weird was after i pulled up her parent’s driveway.
after that, the silence stretched so far it smeared and left a weird residue. she kept looking at the car door like she wanted to leave, so i looked at the door too, then she looked at me, and i looked at her, and my first thought was that she was going to tell me that the door was stuck. i was used to that car always doing some damn thing. it was the car me and all my siblings had learned to drive in, and it was really beat to hell. there were dents all over the body, which we’d unsuccessfully tried fixing up with spackle. it had looked nice for maybe a week, but then the sun wrecked it - the spackle cracked up like the mud on the bottom of a dry riverbed and turned a sort of off yellow-white that made the car looked like it had been molded out of chicken shit. it also had a bullet hole it through the cabin that whistled like a toothless old man whenever the car went above 40, so loud it could drown out the radio, and a cabin that smelled so strongly of bugspray that even the arizona summer we drove everywhere we could with the windows down.
(if you have kids one day, you will maybe, possibly, begin to understand how much i loved that car.)
anyway, i was thinking about what else could possibly be wrong with the chickenshitmobile, and she just kept looking at me, and then i wondered if there was something on my face, and she just kept looking at me, and then the penny dropped and i realized she was trying to work up the nerve to break up with me.
now, i’d seen her work up the nerve to do things like this before – it could take quite a while. and knowing it was about to happen made the waiting immediately unbearable.
so i said hey.
and she looked at me, very startled, and said hey back real small. like she’d been caught. and in a way, i suppose she had.
and i said it’s okay. you can just say it. i’ll be okay.
i’m always okay.
and she said: i’m really sorry.
i loved her, you know? it was highschool, but teenagers are capable of love. the way people love changes over time just as much as the way they stand, or the way they talk, but things don’t stop existing just because they're different. opposite really – a thing only stops changing when it's fully gone.
and i said, nothing to be sorry for, and i meant it. she looked a little relived, and i was happy to give her that peace. then she left. i watched her make it through the front door, because that was just habit at that point, and then i sat there a while afterwards, checking how i felt. and the answer was not good, but good enough to make it home. good enough to limp on.
so i put my car in reverse, took my last look goodbye, and immediately backed into her neighbor’s car.
crunch.
air bags didn't go off, which was good. i left a decent dent in the bumper of the other car. genuinely couldn’t tell if i did anything to my car – anything wrong with it just kind of blended together into the general ecosystem of hand mottled, sun cracked, chickenshit spackle.
i checked my glove box, and my car insurance info was, of course, out of date. my phone was dead too. as a teenager, my phone was less my lifeline to my friends, and more my tether to my parents, so i wasn’t particularly conscious of keeping it charged. both my fault.
i sat there a few minutes, trying to think of the best way to handle things, and there was only one answer i could think of, and i hated that answer, so i spent a few more minutes trying and failing to think of a better one, and then a few more coming to peace with what had to be done.
then i went back to knock on my now ex’s front door.
her dad opened, which i was very relieved over, even if he seemed less than thrilled. he looked me over, and in a firm, but slightly apologetic way said: she does not want to see you right now.
(i think he assumed i was going to try and talk her out of the break up?)
and i said not here for her. i just backed into your neighbor’s car, and i need to call my dad, but my phone’s dead. could i borrow yours?
and he looked at me, then back at his neighbors car, which sure enough was dented, then he looked at the chickenshitmobile, and if there was something wrong with it, it just kind of blended into the general Wrongness of the car, then back to me, and i could see him imagining the last ten minutes from my pov: getting broken up with, backing into a car, having to walk up to your exes door and borrow a phone, calling my dad to tell him that i just reversed into someone.
and his expression shifted from stern and apologetic to truly sad, which felt more kind that i deserved. things only got here because i kept fucking up - forgot to look behind me, forgot to replace the insurance forms, forgot to charge my phone. it was my mess, but his sympathy meant the world to me. i probably would’ve cried if he said sorry, or patted me on the back or called me sport, but instead he said
stay out here – i’ll bring you a phone.
and then he left.
i found a nice spot on the lawn in the shade under a sycamore, then settled into his grass.i was trying not to freak out, and was doing an okay job. he came out a minute or so later, not just with a phone, but a juicebox and a jar of green olives, which really threw a wrench in the whole try not to cry thing. soon as i saw those, a few tears squoze out. i was still hoping i could pass them off as Manly Tears but then he told me that he’d gotten the olives a few weeks before and had been meaning to hand them off to me, and that this was his last chance for that. then i made a sound like a horse drowning in a bog, and he patted my back pretty rough, four solid thumps, like he wasn't sure if i was crying or choking on an olive, and was trying to cover both bases at once.
then he went back inside, and i made a few more bog horse noises while finishing off the rest of the entire jar of green olives, and then i called my dad.
he was about ten minutes away that day, and luckily was home. he drove over, and we went to the neighbor’s house, and from there things actually went quite nice. the neighbor was a retired man who actually said he could fix the dent himself, no need for insurance. he said he appreciated that i didn't just drive off, and i said i was really sorry about his car, and he said he was really sorry about my car, and then he gestured to the chickenshitmobile and i laughed because it really was a disaster on wheels.
then we left.
i thought we were going to head straight home, but instead we went to a gas station, and we both got several slim jims that we folded into thick enough coils that we could put them on a hotdog bun because the growing up mormon equivalent of having a sad brewski with your dad is just choosing to make bad decisions sober. then he took me to the canals and we watched the sun turn all orange and pink, and he looked over at me and said:
brains are good at remembering bad days. so you gotta make sure that a bad day has a good part in in, so you can remember that too. remember that when you have a kid. try to do a good job on days like that - they're going to be a big part of how they remember you.
and then he gave me a big hug and said he was never going to eat another slim jim again.
---
the year after that i went to college, which kicked my butt in new and exciting ways. and on a lot of those bad days, after a test that went sour, or a faux paus that was particularly embarrassing, or some other hardship of my new adult life, i’d stop by the gas station and pick up leathery, half jerkied hotdog before heading to the canals to watch the sun set. i’d take a bite and imagine my dad next to me, grimacing through the slim-jim wad, asking what good thing i was going use that time to remember.
amandla
izzy806
theartofmadeline
stormborns
