A cute guy likes me on a dating app. After chatting with them for weeks, we decide to go on a date. They are very flirtatious and forward over the app, but not when we meet in person. He admits he thought I was transmasc like him, we laugh about it because his mistake is funny and means I’m not passing but in a silly backwards way. I think his sudden awkwardness in person may be nervousness and flirt with him in ways less forward and aggressive than he’d been flirting with me earlier, and they become cold and distant for the rest of the date. By the time I get home they’ve blocked me on the app we met on. This case of being mistaken as a transmasc on a dating app will happen 3 more times, and in 2/3 times it results in a similar sudden lack of interest where once they were coming on to me. None of these people will be cis.
I am in a self defense class for queer people, learning hand to hand combat as a community. I have been here months. I notice I’m the only transfem in the classes but there are other trans people there so I don’t think much of it. Today I have some stubble as I did not have time to shave before the early morning class. When discussing unrealistic action movie and anime fight scenes I describe on of my favorites, quoting the lines as I pantomime the goofy moves. They smile and laugh along until the word bitch leaves my lips in one quote, then the bisexual woman who only ever they/thems me glares at me like I’ve committed a grevious crime, and the rest of the class looks at me like a freak in awkward silence for a moment before moving on. I learn bitch is not a word a clocky bitch can “reclaim”. I am quiet in classes now, and when I go I focus primarily on the training, when I see other trans women try it out they often give me a sad look and do not return for a second class. I get a sinking feeling that if I ever use this training to save my life one day I’d be branded a violent man instead of a strong woman.
I am texting with a good friend of years who was one of the people who helped me realize I was trans like them and even the one who helped pick out my name loves talking about our shared interests and sharing their favorite smut with me. We bond over favorite stories, artists, characters, and kinks as well as our trans experience. Yet they constantly tell me they could never date someone who’s AMAB because of the trauma of being “female socialized” and their genital preferences for vulvas. Every compliment they have ever given me on my appearance or outfit is followed up by “but in a non-sexual way, I could never date you”. Today I finally have the courage tell them they don’t need to say that every time. They ignore this response. We keep talking for awhile, but they start taking months to respond to my messages and respond with a short sentence at most. They no longer share details about their life and shut me out when I ask or share details about mine, even the most mundane and chaste details. I stop talking to them. A birthday gift I bought them months before this falling out happened looms at me in my closet. I cannot use it as it doesn’t fit me but can’t bring myself to throw it away, just in case we reconcile one day. I feel pathetic for craving friendship with someone who sees me as “abuser-bodied”, that so much of my early stages would’ve been impossible without their help. I feel a little more lost without them.
I am at a queer/trans/enby kink dance party with some friends. I am scantily clad and wearing a skirt and high heeled boots. I do not pass well so this space is one of the few places I feel safe and free dressing like this. It is packed with queer and trans people just like me engaged in delightful debauchery and wearing very little. The music hurts my ears but I’m happy to be here, I feel overstimulated but alive and authentic. I am approached by a beautiful stranger from across the dance floor, she is graceful and stylish, like some modern Galadriel clad in leather, white lace, and industrial piercings with impeccable voice training. She compliments my outfit, I compliment hers. She tells me I need to shave my armpits if I want to look like a real woman. My two friends stand up for me and yell at her. They assure me she was just being an asshole, that women were supposed to be hairy, but I can’t help but notice how both of them have hairy armpits and yet the “advice” targeted me. The wide range of bodies that people here tonight find desirable on cis women don’t seem to apply to the women like me. I am the only one of us that doesn’t go home with a hookup at the end of the night. I realize now she likely spoke from experience. I am still hurt by her words, but realizing the kinds of experiences she must have had herself to feel her words were kind advice hurts far worse.
A local queer photographer who’s work I follow is looking for women & non-binary models for a photoshoot. I have become comfortable with getting photos taken of me for the first time in my life since my egg cracked, and had a few small time modeling gigs under my belt. With something like this I could actually have the beginnings of a portfolio. I reach and am told that they are not looking for trans women models, “only women and AFABs”. Getting the same line I get from agencies from an independent queer photographer repackaged in “woke” terminology stings. I see many queer and nonbinary models I looked up to take part in the shoot. I have to wonder if they knew that the photographer’s definition of woman didn’t include trans women, or if like me in my martial arts class they noticed no transfems were there but didn’t think much of it because there were other trans people there.
It is years ago and I am still an egg. I am with my partner of 4 years. I am exhausted after a long day. She asks me for sex in the voice that I know means saying no will hurt her. I learned from her long ago men have high and insatiable sex drives, therefore saying no meant I wanted to have sex, just not with her. So I say yes. The sex is painful and unsatisfying, and I simply do my best to thrust through the discomfort until she cums. I feel numb and hurt. She enjoys herself but seems sad I did not cum. I assure her I love her. When we hold eachother after my obligation has been met and I finally feel comfortable and safe. We begin talking. She talks about the trashy women she saw on the street today, describing their cringe outfits and ugly styles and bad hair. All the styles and clothes and hair I yearn to try myself in my deepest and most repressed desires. I change the subject and ask her about work and family. She asks if I’d still love her if she were a man and I say yes. She says she would still love me if I were a woman. Something in that statement feels like a lie. It is months later when we break up and I move out. Now that I am a woman I look back and know from our years together that if I were a woman then she’d hate the kind of woman I’d become. That if I were a woman she’d still have the same expectations of me as a man, that her refusal of sex equated an impersonal not being in the mood but my refusal of sex equated a cruel refusal of love.
A lesbian group begins organizing a queer woman’s strip night event. A safe place for amateur performers to shine and women to perform and enjoy sexuality away from the male gaze. I see no transfems in the promotional material or leadership team, and I’ve learned not to think nothing of it just because there are other trans people there. I do not go.
I am talking with my therapist. They are trans too and an amazing therapist, often providing insights and advice only someone else with the lived experience of being trans can. I express distress and suicidal ideation at the fact I feel like I need to pass before I can dress the way I want. That until I get expensive hair removal procedures and FFS I can never feel safe and welcome presenting authentically. I lament how these things are expensive and may never be accessible to me. They tell me I need to deal with my “internalized transphobia”, as if these feelings aren’t a result of constant rejection and othering by external forces even within queer spaces. As if the scrap of womanhood others sometimes acknowledge in me does not rely on their perceptions of me.
There is a publication accepting works from trans people of all stripes to document trans experiences. It gets flamed for not having a single transfem as a contributor. The people behind it apologize profusely, they say didn’t notice no transfems had sent work in and would do a sequel publication that was transfem-centric. I wonder if anyone had noticed there were no transfems but didn’t think much of it because there were other trans people there. I think about the kinds of spaces I’ve seen like that, and the implications it has about how they treat transfems, and I am unsurprised no transfems submitted.
One of my closest friends for years is very supportive of me when I first begin crossdressing and experimenting with they/them pronouns. She gives me suggestions on cute clothes to wear and takes me shopping as well as asks for pictures. We had helped eachother discover we were both queer as young teens, come to terms with it, and navigate it in a hostile environment, so I have complete trust. We are close enough we are frequently asking eachother advice on serious life choices & relationships, sending nudes for critique + tips before sending them to our partners, and sharing our most secret and vulnerable moments. She often asks me for tips on getting her straight boyfriends into pegging and crossdressing that make me slightly uncomfortable but I don’t mind, she is a loyal friend I would endure a great many discomforts for. I host a lunch for us one day, and come out to her as a trans woman. I tell her my new name, say I no longer use he/him pronouns, and thank her for her support on my journey thus far. She launches into a monologue about how by changing my name I am throwing away all our memories together and spitting in the face of my family. Taken aback by her sudden heel turn after being so supportive of me being nonbinary and GNC, I excuse myself to go to the bathroom to get a break and give her some time to process. When I am in the bathroom trying not to cry, she is on the phone. I overhear her misgendering me as she is talking about me being bisexual in a frightened voice. She sounds truly afraid that I intend to be sexually violent towards her. When I leave the bathroom and sit back down I pretend not to have heard. She gets off the phone, saying she was just chatting with her boyfriend. We talk a bit longer, she explains how “the surgery” is dangerous and experimental and she hopes I won’t get it. I assure her I won’t and do my best to change the subject and hope she comes around after some time to process things, hurt and shocked that what I saw as a natural shift in the path I was already on marked me as frightening in her eyes after knowing eachother for over a decade. That a fellow bisexual suddenly saw my bisexuality as dangerous now that I was asserting myself as a trans woman. I say goodbye to her, and she says goodbye to me using my deadname, I do not risk an argument to correct her. It is months after the meeting we have not seen eachother since and she has not responded to any messages I sent. After reflecting on her reaction further I decide that I don’t really want to spend time with someone who thinks these things about me for my own safety and mental health, regardless of our history. A friend of 14 years who supported my queerness and transness gone the instant I crossed an intangible woman-shaped line that marked me as a predator and invader in her eyes.
I log online and day after day see trans women getting banned and harassed. Seeing baseless callout posts calling them groomers and abusers getting taken seriously by other queer and trans people. Seeing proof that deep down so many people I consider kindred spirits see me and people like me as worthy of intense scrutiny and policing to keep “the queer community” safe and united. The blocklist grows but everything stays the same. I treasure the people in my life who don’t take part in this and would do anything for them, but it seems they get fewer each time.
I’m not making this post to seek sympathy, I am used to this kind of shit and far worse has happened to myself and others. I just make this to illustrate transmisogyny is not some “online-only” issue like people claim. Even if online issues weren’t “real” (as healed is fond of saying, “online is real”) this has tangible effects in the way trans women are treated offline as well. By communities, friends, partners, colleagues, systems, etc. That’s why we talk about it.
So much of the discussions people have paint transmisogyny as some online oppression olympics maliciously trying to divide the community, smear transmascs, and “reinvent bioessentialism”. That is not what it is about. Discussions about transmisogyny is about how we are treated for being what we are, and while related to transphobia and misogyny it is seperate because it often represents doors other trans people and women can walk through that transfems cannot. It has affected me in my most intimate moments when I was with other trans and queer people I felt safe around, and taught me that I need to carefully manage my persona and presentation at all times lest my authenticity be branded “male socialization”. I am even terrified to express attraction to people who express attraction towards me because I’m so used to being treated like a predator upon reciprocating or being used and abandoned by people I trusted. I am terrified to be too excited about shared interests with friends lest I be too loud or talkative about it and branded with aggressive male socialization. So I make myself quiet and small, and shrink from the community and people I care about, and become more and more isolated.
Anyways, stop platforming anons who spread lies about trans women, stop hopping on TERF harassment campaigns because the trans gal they’re smearing “gave you bad vibes”, and maybe consider carefully if in your own life where you draw the line for a transfem’s behavior is any different from where you’d draw the line for anyone who’s not one.
Sorry to put more of this on your dashboards but i need y'all to know. Aaron Bushnell was trying to get out of the military prior to his action on february 25th. He was sick of being complicit and was trying to get out. His contract was almost over and he was trying to leave the air force.
When you join the military you sign a contract for a fixed period of service. It is likely he opted for a 4 year contract. You cannot “just quit” like a normal job. Attempts to avoid finishing your contract can result in felony charges and jail time. appealing as a conscientious objector is possible, but extremely difficult for noncombat roles.
He was trying to utilize the skill bridge program the DoD offers, to work for a civilian company for the last 180 days of his contracted service period. That would have let him cease his complicity even sooner.
This was the last act of a desperate man trying to draw attention to the horrors he felt he was complicit in, complicity he was legally barred from stopping.
He felt complicit, he was trapped in the military, he was trying to get out, and he couldn’t take it any longer.
The reactions i’ve seen to this are a mix of vets and people close to the military who know how this works, being shocked that civilians don’t know that “you just can’t quit”, and civilians who don’t know much about the military being shocked that this is the way the military functions.
This is why i made this post. I have the “benefit” of being raised in a military family, being taught the way things work by my father, and knowing that civilians like you and me aren’t typically aware of these facts. I saw the information about Aaron and i knew in a split second the situation he was in, and i knew I needed to share it.
People on the political left are quick to form snap judgements and call for death about anyone in the military without understanding the context of the situation those people are in. Do better, and strive to understand people before writing them off as “unsalvageable reactionaries”. The revolution that brought the world the soviet union would not have been possible without the support of the russian military. Things are more complex than the surface level easy explanations you have probably been operating under.
I should have included this in the first version of the post but:
if you or someone you know feels trapped in the military, there are ways to get out early, with varying levels of difficulty and legal risk.
The military, broadly, tries to cover these up and make it as difficult as possible to get out.
This podcast episode by leftist anti-war veterans discusses the various ways you can make your way out prior to contract termination.
You have options. You may feel trapped and complicit, but there are ways to get out. You are not alone. Regardless of who you are, and why you joined, if you feel sickened and shocked at the war in gaza, and want to leave the military, there are options for you.
aaron bushnell, a 25-year-old comrade in the struggle, chose to self-immolate at the israeli embassy today in protest of the genocide in gaza. let it be remembered that he chose death over complicity in the massacre of the palestinian people. may we hold him in our hearts as we continue the fight and may his memory be a blessing. עליו־השלום
Also while making the tags for my post, typing in “trans men” auto completed to “are women”. Same thing for “trans women” “are men”. And no, this wasn’t my phone auto suggesting that, those were the fucking auto suggested tags tumblr had.
Queerest place on the internet my entire ass
@staff I want you take a long, hard look at this and ask yourselves why y'all have got such a shit reputation. Why your “apology” post doesn’t satisfy anyone. This is the answer. If these tags are allowed, you aren’t creating a safe space.
@staff is ineffective, use @humans that’s the one they actually look at
The addition at the bottom of “I tried to scroll past this” is what MAKES me want to scroll past it. It genuinely pisses me off that OP is just making that assumption, and it’s honestly dumb that it’s literally part of the original post.
Public transportation is humbling, by which I don’t mean there’s anything lesser about it, but that it reminds you in the best possible way that you’re not the main character of the universe. Even in a world class public transportation system you’re occasionally going to encounter people begging, crying babies, people talking loudly or emoting, people wearing outfits you may consider weird, body odor, delays and inconveniences. I’m not saying you need to put up with straight up harassment or anything like that, but you need to accept that the world exists outside of you. If your entire world is your workplace, your car and your nuclear family, that is going to impact your politics and your perspective. It’s no wonder so much of the US is designed to this exact end, and how so many suburban Americans who value comfort and convenience over all else are losing their damn minds. The US is an international embarrassment when it comes to transit, but even in sophisticated networks you still have to share a space with other human beings and you need to act like an adult about it.
Very cool find from last spring- a Florida vinegaroon (Mastigoproctus floridanus) that was hiding inside a rotting log.
despite her impressive size, this rarely encountered Florida endemic is actually the smallest of the 3 vinegaroons in the US, and some of the Mastigoproctus species from Mexico and southwards get even larger.
and yes they’re called vinegaroons (among other fun names) because they squirt concentrated vinegar from their butt as a chemical defense
an angel would fuck a streetlamp and it would be nothing. it would be like a dog thoughtlessly rutting against a couch: pure instinctual pleasure chasing with something that may elicit but not share in your libido. but if an angel fucked a cell tower then viable offspring could very well result
this isn’t an arbitrary fact nor am i saying it in a fit of tryhard i’m-so-quirky-weird-internet-man pretense ok im saying that metaphysically speaking, if we were talking about the pure intent and function of angels and cell towers, they are absolutely in the same family of creature
people are asking “are you okay” and “what the fuck does this mean”. you are not contributing to divine phylogeny
By the way, for people who did not stay informed about Palestine throughout last week:
Isreal has planned to attack Rafah and to completely close the border to Egypt on the first day of Ramadan. This week is the very last week where we can help disabled people to get out. We do not know when the border will be open again, but it could last month if not a year. And evacuating those people out is extremely expensive. If you can please send money to either of those 2 links:
The money is going to Safebow to evacuate kids under 4yo, disabled, and pregnant people. Those are people who definitely will not survive if they are stuck in gaza. They are extremely urgent cases, people with cancer, who need insulin, people with broken mobility aids etc…
please help.
If you’re giving at least 20€, you can send me proof of it and I’ll count it as an art commission.
my mom walked upstairs in her seal skin boots. Fjonka (my rabbit) came running to greet them (her seal skin boots). she sniffed them for a second. nuzzled them, before realizing they weren’t breathing. horror dawned on her. she begun to understand she was dealing with something she couldn’t comprehend. she backed off, without letting them out of her sight. she STOMPED to let them (the seal skin boots) know that she did NOT like this situation. my mom stomped back. Fjonka stomped harder, exhibiting a bravery and assertedness I had no idea she possessed. mom turned and went back down the stairs. Good job, Fjonk. You sure showed those undead vampire rabbits who’s boss.
This Rabbit has Witnessed the Horrors
This Rabbit is now a
Hare
love the implication that all hares are just rabbits that evolved pokémon style after experiencing a disturbing event.
this one’s for “stupid” mentally disabled people. people who can’t do basic math. people who are gullible to no fault of their own. people who can’t understand nuance in some situations. people with cognitive issues. intellectually disabled people.
hey, you’re doin’ just fine. doing a great job, even! don’t put yourself down or feel like your worth as a person rests on how smart you are. we’ll be ok
Somebody on Twitter pointed out that almost all of the netflix Avatar show was filmed so that the focus of the action would be at the center, so it could be viewed vertically, like on tiktok
Making a push poll doesn’t change my answer. A fairy showing up causes one thing to change, “I was wrong about fairies.” A Walrus showing up means it coming out of the nearest zoo that has one unnoticed, traveling down the highway for multiple days/weeks without being noticed or dying, and showing up at my house specifically, then knocking on my door.
On top of all that, if a fairy were to show up at my door, it clearly wouldn’t have been impossible. So it’s not even a good push poll when you apply the proper suspension of disbelief a hypothetical requires. Fairies are presumably much more mobile and have a less restrictive diet than walruses.
Growing up Arab literally means you’ve been told it’s your fault your whole life. It’s your fault you’re Arab, it’s your fault you were displaced from your homeland, it’s your fault you will never get the chance to practice your culture in an environment that endorses it. That’s why it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest when I see think pieces out there about how “well they’re not MY children” “why should I boycott Starbucks for people I’ll never get to know or meet” “I’m not political so it’s not really my business” like that kind of thinking is exactly why Arab suffering has been perpetuated for so long. If it’s not your problem, then whose is it? Because at this point—when multiple countries like Palestine and Sudan are facing ethnic cleansing in real time—it has to be somebody’s problem.
Geological horror. You find a geode and crack it open and the crystal lining its walls is human blood that can’t be genetically matched to anyone. You find a human skeleton but every one of the bones is made from rock, a rock that you know can’t be whittled into those shapes. You find layers of clay and loam that sport ancient fossils at the top and the still-rotting corpses of modern animals at the bottom.
10 children a day lose their limbs in Gaza. All hospitals in Gaza are basically barely functioning and the amputations are done in unsanitary conditions and without anesthesia
Hey, so if you have Windows 11 installed and have been losing your mind over the fact that you can’t find your own files because Windows is now prioritizing internet search results first, you can fix it by following this guide:
As someone with over 900 GB of intentionally and properly named files on her computer (I do a lot of digital art and digital media work that requires high-volume files that function off of dependencies), this feature was making me furious. I followed the above instructions and can confirm that the method outlined solves the problem.
I have just tried this, it works and the explanation how to do it was so user friendly and clearly laid out.
yesterday I got the “are you a boy or are you a girl” question from a six-year-old, and I told her that some people aren’t boys or girls (like me!) I was expecting her to be a little confused, but she nodded thoughtfully and said, “wow, just like snails.”
Children are both gremlins and precious and far more accepting than most adults.
