[TW: transphobia]

dolly-uncanny:

harmalade:

There’s no correct way to be trans, and what I mean by that is that society will never give you a pat on the head and say you did it right, no matter how hard you work.

If you feel negatively about your body, then you transness is pathological and could be fixed with therapy. If you feel positively about your body, you made up being trans for attention. If you have mixed feelings about your body, then who can trust anything you say?

If you didn’t play with “opposite gender” toys as a child, then where’s your proof that you’re trans? If you did play with “opposite gender” toys as a child, then you’re enforcing the gender binary and you, personally, will force “normal” cis gender role nonconforming children to transition against their will. If you played with all sorts of toys as a child, then who can trust anything you say?

If you want to medically transition, then you’re going against the natural order and should be stopped before you, personally, bring about a dystopian future where everyone is forced to get “unnecessary and grotesque body modifications.” If you don’t want to medically transition, then you’re not really trans and everyone should feel free to misgender you. If you want to partially transition, then you’re confused and who can trust anything you say?

If you are binary-identified, then you’re enforcing the gender binary and single-handedly destroying years of feminist progress. If you’re not binary-identified, then you’re faking being trans and you are also enforcing the gender binary. Tough luck.

If you get angry at cissexism, then you’re hysterical and damaging your cause. If you don’t get angry at cissexism, then of course you think these jokes are funny, too, right?

If you wear the “right” clothes, then you, alone, are the driving force behind clothes being gendered and cis boys not feeling comfortable wearing dresses, and cis boys are way more important than you will ever be. If you wear the “wrong” clothes, then you should be happy to be misgendered. If there are no “right” clothes for you to wear, tough luck, and maybe if you’re skinny and white and dress as androgynously as possible then you might get a pass in some circles. 

If you tell people that you’re trans, then you’re a “crazy” SJ warrior who never shuts up about your “issues”, but if you don’t tell people that you’re trans, then you’re a liar, and if you’re a woman, you’re also a predator.

If you answer every invasive question about your transness, then you’re a zoo animal, and if you refuse, then you’re not only uptight and rude, but damaging your own cause.

If you knew since birth, then there might be a cure, or at least a way to detect your trans defect in utero so parents could choose to abort you, and if you didn’t know since birth, then you’re faking or it’s a choice, in which case you should choose something more acceptable.

If you look trans, you deserve ridicule and no one will ever love, and if you look cis, then you’re being deceptive. 

You will never be acceptable. 

*cries at the horrible truth of this post*

wow yeah, I’ve been feeling this really hard lately. :(

Source: harmalade

privacyp0licy:

Trans 101 for Trans People

tranwrecks:

A Trans 101 For Trans People

  1. You are human. You are worthy of respect. You deserve to be treated with the same dignity as anyone else. There is nothing inherently wrong with your gender. You are not broken, you are not disgusting, you do not deserve to be hurt.
  2. You’ve been brought up and live in a world that’s designed to erase and demonize your existence, you’ve probably internalized a lot of that- and that’s not your fault. But it can be hard to deal with. But you aren’t alone in dealing with it. And sometimes you have to buy into it to be able to handle it (trigger warning: transphobic violence). And that’s okay.
  3. Your gender is no more or less than anyone else’s. Your history doesn’t make you “not really” or “less” your gender than someone with a cis history, it just makes you a person of your gender with a different history.
  4. You do not deserve to be held to higher standards than cis people. You do not have to “prove” your gender by forcing yourself into societal roles that may not fit. You are not “failing” anyone by fitting into societal roles that are comfortable. It is not your job to break down the binary/patriarchy/or anything else. If you want to, go for it, but you have no obligation to do anything for cis people just because you are trans.
  5. Being yourself does not hurt trans rights (so long as you aren’t trying to do so while stopping others from being who they are) and is not a reason why people don’t have to treat you with respect. There is nothing wrong with being a feminine man or masculine woman, or being a person who’s comfortable in their body, or being a person who doesn’t transition all the way, or being out about having a non-binary or genderqueer gender. You have not “failed” anyone by doing this, you are not “less” of your gender than someone else. Being who you are is not a valid argument for why people can’t treat you as who you truly are.
  6. No one else has the right to say your body needs to be changed. It only does if you need to change it. Or if you want to change it, that’s valid, too. Your body does not make you “less” your gender. It doesn’t make you “not really” your gender. It doesn’t mean you’re trapped in someone else’s body. You do not have to fix your body to “become” your gender- you already are your gender. All you need to do is what you need to do to be comfortable in your body. And if that includes reclaiming your right to label your own body, you are allowed to do that.
  7. You have just as much of a right to privacy as anyone else. You do not need to tell anyone about your body, your medical history, or anything else. Whether or not your body needs to be changed for you to be comfortable, you do not have to change it to deserve to be treated as who you are. You do not owe anyone intimate details about your personal life before you can be treated as who you are.
  8. You have no obligation to educate anyone. This includes trans people, but is most important with cis people. You are not a walking encyclopedia of transgender and/or transsexual information, you are a person. You do not have to answer every question any cis person comes up with, you do not have to represent trans people as a whole, (see 7) you do not have to bare the most personal and vulnerable parts of your soul to other people on demand.
  9. Not educating people does not “hurt” trans rights. NEVER let anyone try to guilt you into educating people or doing something you don’t want to do by insisting that doing otherwise will “destroy trans rights/acceptance/whatever”. Trying to force trans people to become walking information desks or to put themselves in dangerous situations regardless of whether or not you’re even up for dealing with this destroys trans rights and shows a great deal of intolerance. Asserting that you don’t have to tell anyone anything you don’t want to? That really doesn’t.
  10. If you do want to educate people, you are allowed to set limits and boundaries. You are allowed to say that you won’t talk about certain issues, or that you will only talk about them on your terms. You are allowed to decide which people you will talk to about which issues. You are allowed to change these boundaries if you become uncomfortable educating people you were previously willing to educate. You are not obligated to educate anyone just because you educated someone else.
  11. You deserve to take care of yourself- whatever that means. You deserve to be comfortable and safe. You deserve not to be in dangerous situations. If you can’t handle something alone, you deserve to ask for- and get- help or, if you can, take a break from it until you can handle it. Or just stop doing it all together, that’s okay. Taking care of yourself does not make you weak, it does not make you an attention-grabber or overdramatic, it does not make you “less” your gender, it does not mean you betray other trans people by not being a full-time (or even part-time) activist. You’re human, you have limits, and that’s okay.
  12. You deserve to have your boundaries respected. Any boundaries- how and where people can touch you, what information you give to who and when, what places you feel comfortable going or who you feel comfortable going with, what people can tell others about you.
  13. You deserve to have the words you are and aren’t comfortable being referred to as respected. You deserve to have the proper pronouns used (and, if there are times when it’s unsafe for that to happen, you deserve to have your safety maintained by those around you), you deserve to be called the proper name, you deserve to have the words you want used to describe your body used, you deserve not to be called by any label, pronoun, word, or name that you don’t want to be called.
  14. If you’re asking for something that you need to feel respected, comfortable, and safe- you are not asking for too much. Your identity is not “too complicated”. Your needs are not less important than anyone elses’.
  15. You are human. You are worthy of respect. You deserve to be treated with the same dignity as anyone else. There is nothing inherently wrong with your gender. You are not broken, you are not disgusting, you do not deserve to be hurt.

File under: things I wish I knew when I was twelve.

Also file under: things which should not be epiphanies but inevitably are epiphanies after struggling with my identity for eight+ years.

(via mermaid-vision)

Source: tranwrecks

chisagi: Argentina JUST PASSED a groundbreaking gender identity bill!!! From now on, people will be able to change the name and gender on their ID without needing psychiatric permission or any body modifications. Furthermore, anyone who does want hormones or surgery will be able to access them for free through the public and private health system. It was passed unanimously today by the Senate UNANIMOUSLY Argentina is just getting more awesome by the year. Countries that aren’t Argentina need to take note.
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chisagi:

Argentina JUST PASSED a groundbreaking gender identity bill!!!

From now on, people will be able to change the name and gender on their ID without needing psychiatric permission or any body modifications. Furthermore, anyone who does want hormones or surgery will be able to access them for free through the public and private health system.

It was passed unanimously today by the Senate

UNANIMOUSLY

Argentina is just getting more awesome by the year. Countries that aren’t Argentina need to take note.

(via carbonidiot)

Source: genderqueer

MALE-bodied FEMALE-bodied

bellyjape-seaman:

chaos-muppet:

I fucking hate these terms…Can I just say that again. I FUCKING hate these fucking terms. Every time I see them used in a way that implies that “vaginas” = female and “penises” = men, which is always, I am just overwhelmed with a desire to throw up.(I am not kidding. You know that knot in your throat that travels down to your stomach and makes you want to go fetal, and sleep for the rest of the day…that.)  This is some divisive bullshit that simply needs to stop.

The most frustrating thing about them, is that they are primarily used by queer people that are trying to be “inclusive”. Guess what, you are failing. There are “male bodied” people who have “vaginas” and have periods, and there are “female bodied” people that have “prostates” and “penises”. I am not saying you can’t talk about your body or the experiences you have with it, but rather that doing so using group labels that totally deny or missgroup trans* people is total fucking bullshit. The identity of a body is the business of it’s owner, not something that should be left to the shape of it’s parts, or the constraints of outmoded scientific definitions used to describe them by others. This is the sort of shit that encourages me to exit scene on queer spaces for good. GET A CLUE.

All of this. The same goes for using the words “transmasculine” and “transfeminine”.

(via dolly-uncanny)

Source: chaos-muppet

auxil:

do people really think there’s this sudden influx of gay/lesbian/bisexual/trans* people because it’s “hip” and “cool” now or some shit you realize that there are just as many gay/lesbian/bisexual/trans* people as there were in any point in history it’s just throughout most of history you didn’t hear about any of them because it was REALLY FUCKING UNSAFE TO BE ANY OF THOSE THINGS.

(via shutthefuckupstraightpeople)

Source: nyathan

The question lesbian and gay people need to answer is not “Why are transgender issues suddenly demanding so much attention?” but rather “Why have we abandoned transgender people and their concerns in our rush for equality?”.
Transgender Communities: Developing Identity Through Connection
Lev AI in Bieschke et al (2007)

(via viraldivinity-deactivated201304)

Source: blueflamesrundeep

Trans* Men and the Erasure of Childhood Femininity

mighty-masturbator:

eggs1o1:

ghagiel:

I wrote a thing. Even if you don’t like my thing, please check out the mag anyway - it’s an awesome place to publish (all kinds of) queer voices.

The Rainbow Hub

Trans* Men and the Erasure of Childhood Femininity

Gender identity is far more complex than what you wear or what hobbies you partake in. It is more complicated than how you wear your hair or the toys that you played with as a child. Many trans* men proudly proclaim that they never liked dresses, they always kept their hair short, they were a ‘tom boy’. They keep anything ‘feminine’ close to their chest, secret and hidden lest someone clutch it and hold it aloft as ‘proof’ that they are not trans* enough.

This is my confession: in many ways, I was not a typically masculine child. My parents granted me the freedom to express myself without fear or judgement. I loved the Power Rangers and Polly Pocketequally. I had long, flowing blond hair and perpetually scabby knees. I dabbled in make-up, played dress-up and skateboarded too fast down steep hills like I had some kind of death wish.

These things are not what make me a man. Equally, they do not make me less of one.

The hardest part of coming out, for me, was not pronouns or family or work. It was the pressure to disconnect myself from certain aspects of my childhood, the person that I had once been (and still am, in many ways). To edit myself – talk about my eighth birthday and leave out the fairy castle cake, paint my experiences in blue rather than pink or purple. It was the sudden revelation that I could not talk about my first boyfriend, or any boyfriend, without it feeling somehow socially unacceptable, without someone double-taking or their smile freezing on their face.

I felt ashamed of the ballet class I took when I was five, the dress I wore to my prom, the snapshots on the walls that damned me for my ‘girlhood’. Like somehow, if I was a ‘real man’, I wouldn’t have or shouldn’t have partaken in these things. I erased whole sections of my childhood, consciously locked them away and didn’t talk about them for fear of being judged. Of being told I wasn’t really trans*, that my interests or hobbies or the way I looked took away my credibility.

I would never tell a cis boy that he can’t do ballet, or play with make-up, or dress up in pink. I would never tell him that those things mean he’s not a ‘real’ boy. Yet I still felt the shame associated with that, and still judged myself by those arbitrary standards.

Many of us boast about hating dresses from an early age, or about wanting to be Spiderman for Halloween like that somehow validates our masculinity. Like we have to dress up our childhood as a stereotypical boyhood in order to be real, or to be taken seriously. But if we liked to knit, or our favourite colour was pink, or we went to prom in a dress, that’s okay. It doesn’t define us. We can talk about that without being less of a man. It doesn’t make us fake, it doesn’t invalidate our gender, and it isn’t shameful.

We are not born knowing that the colour pink is for girls and that the colour blue is for boys. Gender isn’t formed by what you wear, what you do, what you like or how you express yourself. Gender is what’s inside you, and no one can define that but yourself. No matter what you looked like or how you expressed yourself as a child. My name is Michael, and I am a man who had a fairy castle cake for my eighth birthday. And I’m okay with that.

http://www.therainbowhub.com/home/?page_id=5

This is lovely, thank.

I like cross-stitching and sewing. When I was a kid I liked to dress up as knights and princesses. I also went to prom in a dress; it was beautiful; my mother made it for me. I always liked the idea of wearing a dress and looking pretty in it but when I would put one on I felt uncomfortable and wrong because people read me as a girl. I liked lego and knex and miniature cars but I also liked organizing the furniture in my dollhouse and I collected beanie babies. I hated sports and most of my friends growing up were girls.

I worked so hard to erase all those experiences when talking to medical professionals and it made me feel sick and disingenuous and I am done pretending that I was always 100% rough and masculine because that is a goddamn lie. 

this is good and i like it. i gotta mention: i used to be one of those that rejected femininity. i was scared of it; scared that any ‘feminine’ thing about me will be used to discredit my identity. i felt this way long before i knew i was a man. and of course i was right! as hard as i tried, there was still plenty for people to pick at to try and disprove my maleness - that i cry sometimes, that i don’t look in people’s eyes when they speak to me, what i’ve slept with men.

because of ridiculous cis ideals of what a man should be, i spent so many years rejecting a vital part of myself to the point of being a huge gross misogynist. 

my name is mihail and i threw out all the makeup relatives who didn’t know me got for my birthdays when i was younger. i had a closet full of fashionable clothes that my parents spent a ridiculous amount of money on that i never wore, instead stealing my dad’s shirts and my ex’s pants. i waited twenty years before trying nail polish, even though i wanted to do it earlier. i missed out on many potential friends because i couldn’t stand the thought of associating with women for years. i missed out on many potential partners because i refused to admit i was attracted to men.

much of this was done because of my dysphoria but it is not even close to an excuse for my misogyny, and the internalized homophobia that came from it.

i rejected anything society labeled as feminine and in doing that i hurt myself and i hurt others. so i’m done with that shit. i am making up for a wasted childhood. i love nailpolish and floral prints and cooking is cool and boys are cute when they’re not awful and women are powerful and wonderful and awesome and i am so lucky to have them in my life. and that’s more than ok. it’s great.

lord jesus fuck, there are tears, this (OP and commentary) is kind of exactly what i needed to read today.

i was going to make some kind of heartfelt commentary but all i can muster is:

my name is Grim and i love dresses and flowers and i sure as hell get a fairy castle cake for my birthday some day.

(via filthypolak)

Source: ghagiel

Here’s To The Fem(me)s in Hiding

boyprincessftw:

The femmes who long to be femme if only it didn’t mark them as targets

To the femmes who keep getting bras and dresses they can’t even look at without feeling dysphoric

To the femmes who can’t afford makeup or clothes and wouldn’t feel safe enough to wear them even if they could

Here’s to the femmes who are not just invisible, but terrified of being seen because of just how much it might cost them

The femmes who reblog glitter and heels and then criticize themselves for not “really” being femme because the world has made femme too dangerous for them to know they could survive it

Here’s to the femmes who feel like cowards, but who are alive

To the femmes I wish I could reassure that survival is brave in its own right

Here’s to the femmes who feel utterly fake, because it’s easier to deny an identity than to feel so completely unable to embrace it

(via hobbitdragon)

Source: theboyprincessdiaries

So far we’ve been invited to

mermaid-vision:

- UC LA
- UC Riverside
- UC Irvine
- Chapman
- Claremont Colleges
- A conference in Long Beach
- A conference in Sacramento
- Rocio’s high school in socal
- An organization in San Francisco

Who else wants in? I want to make this a thing!

Reblog if you want us to come in your area (on the west coast) to talk about trans* and queer focused sex ed, normalizing consent and negotiation, navigating dysphoria, exploring what feels better in sex, ways to be intimate that aren’t sexual, different kinds of relationships, deconstructing traditional relationship narratives, dealing with the cycle of abuse in our communities, the difference between intersex and trans* people, and any other questions that come up.

I am really grateful for how well the workshop went this weekend with people asking questions and sharing experiences. We were asked a lot of really good questions that showed where people need information and want to give the talk more so it can evolve and improve!

Please signal boost this, I really want it to be a thing!

BOOST!

(bold by me uff)

Why do some folks feel that transgender people need to disclose their history and their genitalia and non transgender people do not? When you first meet someone and they are clothed, you never know exactly what that person looks like. And when you first meet someone, you never know that person’s full history. Why do only some people have to describe themselves in detail—and others do not? Why are some nondisclosures seen as actions and others utterly invisible? Actions. Gwen Araujo was being herself, openly and honestly. No, she did not wear a sign on her forehead that said “I am transgender, this is what my genitalia look like.” But her killers didn’t wear a sign on their foreheads saying, “We might look like nice high school boys, but really, we are transphobic and are planning to kill you.” That would have been a helpful disclosure.

Dylan Vade, San Francisco Transgender Law Center (via mermaid-vision)

One of my most important posts. I appreciate how much it has gone around. It needs to be heard.

(via mermaid-vision)

(via miasmaplanet)

Source: mermaid-vision