How to Be an All-Inclusive Gender Thread

Hypatian wrote:

That was a few years ago. Still a nice selection of photos of folks, though. :)

I sent it to Domano and he pointed that out! It was recirculating, though, so almost like new fame

urgh. I was having such a good day too...then I got obsessed over reading comments on certain news stories (I'll spare the details but in summary, the usual "all lesbians find trans women disgusting" / the usual "not real women" bullsh*t) and now I've managed to really upset myself for the first time in ages. sh*t. stupid brain! wish I could control the part of it that thinks obsessing over web comments is a productive and healthy use of my time.

Pyx: You have always been, and will continue to be, a sweet, brilliant, talented lady. It's hard to remember that when you're consuming hate speech that could be directed towards you. Humanity never ceases to explore it's capacity for cruelty, so sometimes I feel like we have to consciously seek or create kindness to balance that out. Take some time to care for yourself.

So many internet commenters are just ignorant people saying ignorant things, willfully tearing down others because they're so godamned small. So riddled with fear and just blathering to fill the air full of their terrified sounds so they won't have to listen to whatever scared thing hides deep within themselves that they're projecting onto others.

So.

I've been thinking. A lot. Sussing, sorting. Considering words, motivations, and drives. Definitions of who I am and what I feel. How I feel.

I still get bouts of dysphoria. Body dysmorphism. Therapy helped with coping, a lot. I have tools to deal with it. I have clothes I can wear, and a big enough backpack to carry them on the days where I'm more likely to need it. Things to wear and do at home that ease things quite a bit. Being aware of cycles and planning accordingly helped a lot. Ways to take care of myself.

It has given me the ability to flex a muscle, as it were. Test waters, test grounds. It's given me the space to grow and be at peace, mentally. Not struggle against feminine convention, so much. Having an outlet for both, at different times, has given me great comfort.

Some things I've felt, and read, help crystalize a few things about identity and sexual attraction. This tweet, in particular:

Nailed it.

The more I thought about this, the clearer and clearer things are becoming. I feel at an impasse. There are many things I want, and some of those things are diametrically opposed. What I have now vs where I could potentially be.

Thanks Amoebic! Feeling much better this morning - I think I was just over-tired yesterday and got caught off guard somewhat.

I've also unfollowed the LGBT news site (Pink News) I was following on Facebook. On the one hand it was useful to keep informed but on the other, most of the stuff they post is negative with click-baitey headlines... and I couldn't help but end up jump into the comments where the same terf-aligned posters keep showing up to dig the knives in (or "LG" people who should know better wondering why they have to put up with hearing about the "B", "T" and "I" all of the time). REALLY not worth the added stress.

pyxistyx: I can also tell you from hearing a lot of first-hand stories that cis women who are into women who happen to be trans absolutely exist. (My partners at the moment are trans women and an enby, so no direct experience myself. But a former girlfriend who is also trans has gotten very very appreciated by local lesbians.)

And yeah, following some of those news sites can be very very very hard to take after a while. I basically just get mine from twitter now, and then only occasionally based on whatever people are tweeting about on my feeds. I can't imagine actively following a site like pink news. :X

Amoebic: That sounds interesting, although I don't entirely know what binds you are in. I'm always happy to chat or to put you in touch with people if you'd like more insight from folks in different situations, maybe more like yours. Whether you're a guy or non-binary, or a non-binary guy, or something else (even a non-binary woman!), you can be and express yourself however you wish. So I guess the question is: which words sing to you, and make your spirit soar? Who do you wish to be, in your heart of hearts, knowing that how you present that to the world can also be anything you wish?

Related: I recently started an AD account on twitter. Partially just because I needed an outlet for some really emotional things. And I wanted to be able to share some... er... rather more candid photos of myself to feel good about them. And partially because I'm in a phase of re-examining who I am and re-inventing myself. Just generally sorting out "what do I want out of life, and in general?"

Anyway... part of that experiment leads me to believe that I'm at least a sliver more non-binary when I drop all of my self-censoring than I am when I put on my public face. My public face is that of a woman who uses "Mx." as a form of address. My private face that is waiting to come out? I honestly don't know, except that it seems to care a bit more strongly about things.

I imagine my understanding of myself and my gender and my relationship with my body will evolve for some time to come.

ABC TV (Australia) is showing a series with people from different walks of life answering questions about their experiences that people are "too afraid to ask," and one episode features transgendered people.

It's for others to learn and maybe understand rather than being explicitly for trans people, so not novel for most here but I'm sharing in case anyone is interested. Some of the questions are quite rude, and that's the point of the show, for real people to answer and address people's misconceptions.

It's A$1.50 on YouTube, not sure if the series got distribution anywhere else that you could see for free.

You Can't Ask That – Transgender

Edit: oh, I've found a very similar thing from the BBC that came before it, maybe it's the same thing that's been licenced to a production company here. I thought it was original, my world is shattered XD

Edit 2x: the Australian one is way better, way more tender and less jaunty music going on in the background. The BBC trans episode is one of the better ones, but the others, not all that great.

Here's a thing to throw some money at, if you fancy.

It's 2017--well after the "trans tipping point," or whatever--and yet to our knowledge, there hasn't been an anthology of comics written, drawn, and edited entirely by transgender creators.

We want to change that—and that’s why we’re asking for your help.

WE’RE STILL HERE, edited by Tara Avery and Jeanne Thornton, contains fifty-five stories by fifty-five different creators (or creative teams), all of us trans, and all of us telling stories that range from fiction to nonfiction, escapist fantasy to slice-of-life memoir and back again. Here you'll find all the hit trans content you crave: the weird stuff, the stuff that goes to uncomfortable places, the stuff that highlights little-known kinks and contradictions in the trans experience, and most importantly, the stories about trans people having a good, maybe sad time.

Big talk! But what does it mean in practice? Here's a sampling of the stories in We're Still Here:

An evening discussing the terrors of Donald Trump at a Japanese bar for trans men
A trans woman uses MDMA (with complex results)
A trans woman visits her grandmother for Christmas (with complex results)
Visual essay on sex work, trans masculinity, and testosterone
A practical guide to using paganism to navigate workplace terror
Trans women pilot giant robots with impeccable synch ratios
Toxic masculinity haunts a friendship between a butch lesbian and trans man
A devotional essay about angels beyond gender or understanding
Two trans women named Sweetness and Lightning blow up a car, watch Akira, and live happily ever after
If none of these appeal to you, that's okay: we’ve assembled roughly 300 pages of stories from creators both emerging and established, all of them driven by effective narrative, gorgeous art, and sardonic whimsy. We intend this to be the gateway drug to trans comics: a gathering of creators that represents many of the divergent roads that trans comics in the twenty-first century might take.

We would like this anthology to be swiftly made obsolete by many, many others like it! But the first step is to get this one done, and for that, we need your help!

I support trans and genderqueer rights and I still don't want unisex bathrooms. I'm a hypocrite?

Also, we need to not forget non-binary people. It doesn't matter how well they "blend in"*, they're going to end up having to be uncomfortable with the gendered choice of restroom in any case.

But this broader discussion should probably go over to the Trans Issues and Rights thread in D&D.

* which is a thing they probably have even less interest in doing than binary trans people who have determined that cisnormativity is a trap.

Oh hey. I came out on these forums five years ago tomorrow!

Hypatian wrote:

Oh hey. I came out on these forums five years ago tomorrow!

Wow, time sure does fly!! Five years already? It's one of those time paradoxes: it feels like it wasn't that long ago, and yet, when you look back, it seems like too much has happened for it to be only five years.
Anyway, wow and grats, Hypatia.

Congrats!

Hypatian wrote:

Oh hey. I came out on these forums five years ago tomorrow!

Ahhh, so you were using your mod powers to root around and look for that post... That would explain why that thread suddenly popped up in my recent activity, but with no actual activity.

Congratulations, and thank you. I have learned a lot from what you have shared on here.

Hypatian wrote:

Oh hey. I came out on these forums five years ago tomorrow!

Mazel tov, Hyp <3

Woo! Grats! <3

That means I'm not too far behind. September 25th, it looks like, although I came out in IRC awhile before then.

I'm glad your story has had such a happy ending, Katherine. I said then and I'll say now that you are a beautiful and wonderful woman. Your transition is inspiring. Cheers.

Hypatian wrote:

Oh hey. I came out on these forums five years ago tomorrow!

Since that post shows up to me as 'yesterday', I guess today is your coming-out-aversary. Congratulations! I've always read your posts with interest and enjoyment; you are articulate and have taught me a great deal. Your presence on this forum has definitely been a wonderful addition to the GWJ family. Allow me to raise a beer in your honor tonight!

Oh yeah. Meant to say... my "year of experience" nonsense is up as of about September 11th, so my Doctor's sending off a letter to see about getting me on the waiting list for surgery.

In theory that could maybe happen as soon as December/January but I'll probably most likely push it back until round about june/july next year, since it's obviously going to knock me for six for a couple of months and thus I need to make sure it's during my summer break, else it'd probably really screw up me getting my degree! Annoying, but I figure I can wait a handful more months.

My only concern is my doctor is thinking about retiring next year, which means someone new taking over in his place, hopefully someone just as competent! The surgeon they use is ALSO retiring next year but he's apparently training up a couple of replacements anyway, so hopefully that's not going to be an issue either.

NSMike wrote:
Hypatian wrote:

Oh hey. I came out on these forums five years ago tomorrow!

Ahhh, so you were using your mod powers to root around and look for that post... That would explain why that thread suddenly popped up in my recent activity, but with no actual activity. :)

Actually, it was my normal user powers. It ended up popping up because I edited the coming-out post for formatting (it used the no-longer working [em]emphasis[/em] bbcode tags) since I was going to share a link to it.

And thanks, all! This is still a great, supportive place to be and I'm super happy to have come out here and been able to share things with everybody. <3

Congrats, and happy anniversary!!!

So Pyre, which I've been enjoying very much, has you choose pronouns near the start, with a they/them option in addition to the binary choices. I've been generally continuing to use masculine pronouns day-to-day, despite my genderqueerness because I didn't think pronouns were all that important to me, but figured given the option I'd try they/them out in the game. It felt good. And what's more, when a bug/patch changed switched it to using he/him, I got really upset about it, almost to the point that I was going to quit the game (until I found the menu option they added in to change it back). Some of that was just frustration at "game not doing what I told it to/respecting my choices" but some of it was more than that. So I guess pronouns are more important to me personally than I thought.

I am not sure whether to put this in the Love thread or here, but this might be way more topical here.

I love my (Canadian) government.

Here is the document "Support for trans employees: A guide for employees and managers" that one of the federal government departments up here (Public Works and Government Services, to be precise) just released. Only about 1/4 of the way through, but it seems like a pretty damned good first start (to this cis-white dude). I know from various articles, that there were a number of people who worked on the document who have transitioned (is that the proper term? I plead ignorance and forgiveness if not) while working for the government. It covers a lot of stuff, including who to contact to get things changed, what you need, where to get those documents and a lot of good advice for managers.

For example, there is a part on speech therapy that says.

Speech/Voice therapy is usually undergone by MTF (Male-to-Female) individuals transitioning in order to acquire a more feminine voice. These therapies are typically conducted by a voice therapist or a speech pathologist and usually occur closer to the starting date of transition/"real time experience". Through weekly or bi-weekly hour-long sessions and daily voice exercises in the morning and evening, the individual will work on intonations, raising the pitch of their voice and perfecting nuances. For many trans-women, speech therapy is one of the most taxing and difficult processes involved in the transition. The process involves dedication and commitment, and can be both physically and mentally exhausting.

Due to the practicing frequency and the type of exercise, the individual going through this type of therapy should refrain from speaking for extended periods of time in order to prevent strain on the vocal cords. The individual undergoing this process will eventually start using and maintaining their new voice in the work environment. This complex process can take a significant amount of time, and cannot be achieved overnight. Coworkers should be advised of this transition in advance in order to promote a safe, understanding, and respectful environment for the transitioning employee.

If the individual is not satisfied with the end result of the therapy, vocal surgery can be undergone. Depending of the type of surgery, the individual may be required to refrain from speaking for many weeks in order to properly heal the vocal cords.

Getting a wee bit more comfortable with taking photos of me'self. A little bit. So long as I can control which ones end up unleashed in the wild!

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/img_38551.jpg)
(not shown: cool Wonder Woman earrings I got for my birthday)

Also, been playing around with nail colours...

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/img_3858.jpg)

...which I am still incredibly crap at doing myself, but I'm slowly getting to the stage where I don't look like I've just been dunking my fingers in the bottles half the time.

You look great!

thanks!

Oh hey, I spy a total cutie. :>

:3

Canadians will soon have the ability to put X (as opposed to M or F) on our passports.

http://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.4261667

mudbunny wrote:

Canadians will soon have the ability to put X (as opposed to M or F) on our passports.

http://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.4261667

Good news! Though just for me personally I'm not sure how comfortable I'd actually be travelling with that.