Still looking for Ask a Non-Binary mods!
I’ve got a few DFAB applicants but no DMAB folk as of yet! Drop an ask in my inbox to register your interest.
I’m gonna be in a sexual health services focus group for the NHS!
It’s about how to make the services better and how to reach more people. I’m gonna talk about trans stuff, obviously, and how misgendering can really put people off sexual health clinics. And how queer sex is never talked about in schools, and how everyone’s automatically presumed to be straight, cis, and monogamous. I’m also gonna talk about how the stigma surrounding sex in general, especially non-normative sex, and STDs needs to be tackled if you want people to be enthusiastic about getting tested and using contraception. I’m gonna talk about how I’ve felt judged when I go to the clinic because of my number of sexual partners and my non-monogamous relationship. And I’m definitely gonna bring up how hard it is being taken seriously if you don’t want children and you’re young. I’m also gonna talk about how I always feel hella uncomfortable that whenever I’m tested, I’m always asked if I’ve had sex with bisexual men because of the connotations. And I wanna bring up how consent needs to be talked about more, and definitely needs to be much more than ‘no means no’.
I don’t know if anything I say is gonna be listened to, but I have a chance to bring stuff up, at least.
I would really like to work out if I want to medically/surgically transition without thinking about cis people.
As much as I try and think of it in terms of ‘what will be right for me’, my mind inevitably goes back to wondering if my anti-trans parents will treat me like shit, if I’ll ever have sex with anyone other than my husband without being a novelty act, if I’ll pass enough not to get beat up, if I’ll be allowed to transition in a way that works for me and not just be forced into saying I ID as a man, if I’ll be able to keep up the facade of IDing as a man long enough to get the hormones, if I’ll be able to get jobs, if I’ll lose friends, if I’ll ever get my gender respected (because the few people I’ve told IRL almost all don’t respect it as it is)… I wish I could think about this in terms of my dysphoria, in terms of what I need… but I can’t. Cis people are gatekeeping me before I even see a fucking doctor.
[tw: anti-trans stuff, specifically transmisogyny] My mum was being super anti-trans in the car today.
There’s some awful ‘shockumentary’ on tv soon about trans women in Thailand. The name of it is a slur, I’ll let you guess which one. Anyway, the advert apparently shows some dude on there is dating a trans woman and says that he’s straight. And my mum keeps going ‘but he can only have anal! But it’s got a cock! But he must be gay!’ etc etc etc and I call her on it and I say ‘no, fuck you, he’s dating a woman and he likes women so he’s straight. And she is a fucking woman. Genitals don’t mean fuck all’. And she shuts up and the journey continues.
For regular followers, you may already know that my mother is one of those ‘I can make racist jokes and if you call me on it YOU’RE being intolerant of ME!’ bigots. She claims she’s allowed to be a scumbag because ‘everyone gets more conservative with age, you’ll see!’. I have also somewhat come out to my mother, several times, about being trans. So when she pulls stuff like this, it’s both expected, and seriously disheartening, because I KNOW her and my dad (his favorite game? Playing spot-the-[trans slur] whenever he watches quiz shows) will be really fucking shitty should I ever chose to physically transition in some way. Which I have been seriously considering lately.
My mother is an asshole.
I don’t like it when people tell me I ‘present’ as female.
Seriously. I do not wear clothing with a view to being seen as female. Like, rarely ever. No matter what I wear, my DD tits are gonna be visible and seeing as how I’m 5’2 and have a fairly high voice, I’m gonna be read as female. Closest I got to being read as anything else was being read as a butch lesbian. I wear clothing because I like it. Sometimes that means a dress, sometimes that means a baggy shirt and jeans, sometimes that means a tight shirt or something with cleavage. And at no point am I putting these things on and thinking ‘gee, I hope everyone I see today thinks I’m a cis female!’. I am putting these things on and thinking ‘why can nobody see past my chromosomes and hormones and just ask me what gender I ID as or what pronoun I want’. I’m gonna get misgendered no matter what I wear, and it kinda pisses me off when ‘well meaning’ cis folk or other trans folk say that I’m presenting in any one way because that’s ascribing a motive to my actions that doesn’t exist, and it’s a motive I’m not wholly comfortable with anyway.
To paraphrase Eddie Izzard, my clothing isn’t ‘girls clothing’ or ‘boys clothing’, it’s my clothing, and when I wear make-up, it isn’t a womanly thing, it’s my thing. I am presenting as myself regardless of how butch or femme or whatever else the clothing I am wearing is considered by society.
I think the mainstream feminist world’s obsession with vagina cupcakes and knitted ovaries is connected to how DFAB folk are privileged in trans and queer spaces over DMAB folk.
I mean, there’s more shit behind it such as DFAB people being seen as ‘trading up’ but I seriously think it’s connected. I think the feminist rhetoric such as saying women are hated because they have vaginas and penises are privileged and all the rest of it has a hell of a lot to do with all this. The bodies of DMAB folk who are pre- and non- op are seen as gross but DFAB people, including cis lesbians wearing strap ons are edgy and subversive and all the rest.
Just my 2¢, anyway.
Been thinking about a book project lately.
A collection of letters from trans people from various backgrounds to their childhood selves. I feel like it could be useful for trans youth and hell, even trans adults. Might set up a separate blog for folks to submit to. Anyone feel like they’d be interested in this?
The discourse we have surrounding rape makes me uncomfortable.
This is probs gonna be triggering when it comes to rape, and possibly a few *isms too.
The main thing I see people talking about when they talk about rape is how nobody deserves it whether they flirt with a person or have short skirts or whatever else. And this is important and true and all that, don’t get me wrong.
But, can we just for a little while acknowledge that some of us have our rapes ignored not because of our clothing or our promiscuity or our previous relationship with the rapist, but because we’re considered unrapeable, because we’re seen as repulsive.
I’m talking about fat people, disabled people, trans people, especially trans women… I’ve heard a lot of POC women say they get the same attitude from people, especially if the rapist is white.
I think we need to seriously address the intersectionality that surrounds rape. The discourse I see focuses on the rapes and the kind of rape culture that affects white, abled cis women. We need to talk about how First Nations women make up a high percentage of rape victims in the US. We need to talk about how an astonishing number of developmentally and physically disabled people are raped compared to abled people. We need to talk about how so few people think fat women get raped because so few people think anyone would want to have sex with them. We need to talk about how a fuckton of cis feminist lesbians see trans women saying they’re lesbians too is a form of rape culture and how undeniably fucked up that is.
We need to understand that privileges exist in rape culture too.
fuck cis feminism.
I haven’t seen a single trans person deny that anti-abortion laws are often rooted in misogyny. I really haven’t. We’re genuinely not asking you to ignore this. However, when you’re talking about these things, when you say things like ‘this harms women’ or ‘this is bad for women’ or post anything with a picture of a uterus or a vuvla cupcake or whatever and talk about women women women, you’re being a cissexist asshole. You’re telling me that either I’m a woman because of my uterus or I’m just not important. You’re telling my DMAB trans siblings that they aren’t women because they don’t have these parts. You’re telling me my personal experiences with abortion that had a strong relation to my transness aren’t important, that the work I’ve done for the pro-choice movement is meaningless. Above all, you’re telling me that because the lifers see me as a woman because of my genitals, you will too.
Because I’ve seen that excuse. And do you know how much that fucking hurts? Do you know how much it hurts to know that the assholes trying to take away the little control you’re allowed over your body misgender you, but those trying to stop that do the same thing? And excuse me while I ignore the cis women’s tears here but when you talk about reproductive rights you talk about abortions. Maybe even IVF for cis women. You talk about how important it is that women have abortion rights and if men could get pregnant this wouldn’t be an issue and all the rest of it and you never mention that men DO get pregnant, you never mention that a lot of countries demand we are sterilized before we are legally recognized as our gender.
What about our fucking rights, eh? What about my reproductive rights? What about my right to bodily autonomy, my right to have hormones and surgery without some cis gatekeeper telling me I’m just not trans enough because I still wear skirts? What about our rights to be recognized as our ACTUAL FUCKING GENDERS without being lumped under ‘women’ because you people find it too hard to include us at all. Actually, I don’t think you even find it hard. I think cis feminists seem to find it harrowing and painful to even consider including us.
You talk about how women are marginalized because vaginas are seen as bad things and you never mention how your own communities marginalize women without vaginas. You worship at the altar of the vulva and talk about how important periods are to shared womanhood or whatever else and leave trans women at the sidelines, while telling DFAB trans folk that they’re only trans because the patriarchy made them hate their ‘womanhood’.
You lionize the vilest anti-trans second-wavers, you stick up for Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, you talk about lesbian sex like it can only ever include vaginas, you tell me I should feel shared womanhood with you because I was born with a set of organs I didn’t even want…
No, fuck you, cis feminism. Fuck you. You are a movement of primarily cissexist assholes. I am unfollowing more and more of you every day because of how many of you I see sticking up for cissexism or talking about how mean us trans folk are for daring to ask for more inclusive language. I see you crying cis tears at ‘die cis scum’, I see you bullying my trans siblings out of activism, I see you sticking up for well-known cissexists every day and I want nothing more to do with any of you.
Do you ever get those moments where despite all the crap in the world aimed at you, you feel fucking awesome?
I feel powerful today. I feel strong. I feel… I feel something I rarely feel that’s hard to put into words. I dealt with cissexism yesterday. I dealt with people defending my erasure and I dealt with people defending someone who is a bully and who has deliberately upset me several times on tumblr because I won’t stand for her shit. And I didn’t get panicky or dysphoric, I didn’t shut down… I felt alright. Sure, I started shaking a little from the adrenaline and sure, I may have chain-smoked a few cigarettes, but I actually coped really fucking well.
And now? I feel super fucking strong. I feel like when I go out tonight and someone makes a rape joke or a trans joke or an ableist joke I’ll be able to deal with it without it ruining my evening. When I see someone from a distance who reminds me of my rapist or who actually is my rapist, I won’t panic or cry or get stuck in a pub bathroom for an hour. I’ll be able to cope. I’ll be able to be strong.
So, cis feminists who would rather I shut up and went away… it hasn’t worked. It really hasn’t. You’ve made me stronger and you’ve made me feel like a trans godzilla. I’m strong, stronger than you, and I feel amazing.
