TamsinSays

@TamsinSays@transfem.social

I used to say "hi." Now I just say whatever I like.

An eldritch fey monstrosity and unquiet sex changeling cleverly disguised as a tired, white, middle-aged, #sapphic #nonbinary #transgender #woman with #ADHD and a sleep deficit like whoa. Cranky, #queer, and #trans as fuck, and completely uninterested in being polite, straight, or cis.

Happily monogamously married to my dream girl. Supportive of all ethical relationship styles. System-friendly singlet. #antiracist, #antifascist, #anticapitalist, and probably an #anarchist, but not ready to claim that out loud. A #bookworm, #TTRPG nerd, resolute #ProgRock fan, #musician (5-string #bass, #guitar, #keyboard, singer, songwriter), and Real Life™ #Witch.

In another life, I wrote a book about #gender, #sexuality, #queerness, and #magic. In this life, I fix #WordPress sites.

My verbose, vetted-followers-only NSFW alt happens over at @TimTams_After_Dark. (Chasers note: it's all words, very thinky, and probably not what you're looking for. Also, trans women are human beings, not objects. Don't be creepy, to me or to anyone.)

Avi: an overexposed photo of Tamsin, a white trans femme with red hair and glasses, wearing a black cami tank top.

Banner: a black-and-white image of an African death's-head hawkmoth (Acherontia atropos).

#DeathBeforeDetransition #IRememberIsabelFall #GirlsLikeUs

​:heart_pride:​ ​:heart_nb:​ ​:heart_trans:​ ​:heart_lesbian:​ ​:heart_synth:​ ❤️‍🔥 ​:black_drip_heart_2:​

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TamsinSays, to random

Okay, all my joke-but-not-really-posting about my too-small endowments aside for a moment, apparently my aforementioned endowments heard me, because my nips are currenly burning and aching like I'm on week six of estradiol and not, y'know, 3.5 years.

I mean, I'm not mad about it at all, but what the hell?

TamsinSays, to random

Just saw someone say that trans people can't be in "straight" relationships, but my trans mother-in-law is married to a trans man. What are they, if not straight?

Trans people are so gay that we actually QUEER HETEROSEXUALITY. (Yes, this is old news in queer theory spaces.)

I love this for us.

TamsinSays,

Submitted to the court: trans people are hated not because we're dangerous or evil, but because we confuse the shit out of people who prefer their boxes neat, tidy, and extremely binary, and that annoys them so bad they want to pass laws against our existence.

Basically, they're the gender HOA.

TamsinSays, to random

The Cass Review isn’t scientific. It’s political, and it should be treated as such.

TamsinSays, to random

Magneto was right.

TamsinSays, to random

My heart is aching for trans people in the UK, even more than it did before.

Rishi Sunak, Hilary Cass, and all the other transphobes over there are killing people, and it’s only going to get worse.

Nor will this be “just a UK problem.” US conservatives will latch onto this as ammunition in their war against us, sure as eggs is eggs.

I’m trying to find hope, but right now all my brain can do is scream “FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUUUUUCK!!!”

Impossible_PhD, to random
@Impossible_PhD@hachyderm.io avatar

I've been sitting on this all day.

My therapist took a vacation last week, and on the plane she happened to sit next to a trio of transfems. Apparently, they got to talking, and she offhandedly mentioned SGW.

And apparently all three of the transfems read it regularly.

When she told me, it just left me flabbergasted. It just seems so surreal for that sorts thing to happen, for people to be talking about my writing like that.

TamsinSays,

@Impossible_PhD Because it's vanishingly rare that people like us find clear, coherent, and cogent writing about our lives that we can identify with AND share with others in our lives as a way of building a bridge between us.

Your work does that, Zoe.

Recently I had someone thank me profusely for my book, and tell me about the impact it had on their life. I tried to be gracious, but the whole time I was thinking, "What? My book? That wasn't anything special, just me geeking about gender and sexuality and spiritual practice..."

My wife had to point out to me that what I think about what I wrote ultimately doesn't matter. My words touched someone else's life in a way they desperately needed.

Yours do the same.

TamsinSays,

@Impossible_PhD Oh! Yeah, I wrote a book about gender, sexuality, embodiment, and modern polytheist/pagan spiritual practice. It came out about six weeks before the pandemic shut down the world. 😅

TamsinSays,

@Impossible_PhD Saleswise? It did... okay. Further affiant sayeth naught.

However, I've had multiple people tell me it helped them come out to themselves as queer and/or trans, or to embrace some other part of their identities they'd been unable to accept. I've had multiple parents tell me they bought copies for their queer and trans kids (of appropriate ages). I've been told that a few different teachers have added it to their "required reading" lists.

In that sense, it has exceeded my wildest dreams and hopes.

Our work touches people's lives in ways we can't imagine, and has a far greater reach than we can ever know.

And I am most emphatically referring to your work with SGW here. 💕

TamsinSays,

@Impossible_PhD

Sales are nice, but honestly who cares about that.

My publisher probably has feelings about it. 😉 But I also know that my book helped to wedge open the door for other books that I'm pretty sure are doing quite nicely, so that's alright.

When I was writing the book, I said that if it helped even one person accept themselves, the whole thing would be worth it. Available evidence suggests that it's helped far more than one person. With that, I am content. 🥰

And the best part, from my admittedly selfish perspective, is that the first person it helped was me. My eggshell, already more cracks than shell by that point, shattered about ten days after the book was released.

TamsinSays,

@Impossible_PhD Yeah, my "holy shit I'm a girl" moment happened a bit later than was convenient, so my book is saddled with a pre-transition author photo and the wrong pronouns. C'est la vie. ​:nkoShrug:​

It DOES give me a pretty hilarious transition timeline, though. The "moody-spooky-queer-boi-author to cheerful-middle-aged-witchy-trans-girl" pipeline is real, y'all.

18+ Tattie, to random
@Tattie@eldritch.cafe avatar

There's absolutely nothing wrong with folks having a "non-binary phase" before deciding they're just a trans woman/man. Sometimes identities do shift; that's something to celebrate!

But for god's sake that doesn't mean that every non-binary person is on that same trajectory. Do not imply to us that it's "just a matter of time" before we embrace the binary. It's patronising and invalidating.

There's enough pressure from cishet society to conform to the gender binary in order to be accepted. We don't need more of the same from our own community.

Non-binary people deserve a space to define and explore our own identities, play with presentations, in our own time and our own terms. Some binary trans folk, respectfully, need to learn to be more comfortable granting us that space, that autonomy.

Even those who had a "non-binary phase" themselves. Especially them, in fact. 🙃

TamsinSays,

@Tattie Hell yes. In fact, someone describing me as nonbinary “for now” might well have pushed my realization of my own gender out another six or seven years. I’m happily a nonbinary trans woman now, but it was a rough fuckin’ go there for a bit, and I STILL feel like I have to explain how I can call myself both “nonbinary” and “trans woman” without feeling like I need to give up one or the other. Because y’know what trans people really need? More policing. 🤦‍♀️ So, yeah. Solidarity.

TamsinSays,

@Tattie Yup. Exactly this. Why is it so hard to grasp the concept of “just be supportive and welcoming, and don’t force people to live out your narrative?”

TamsinSays, to random

Day 1523. Still trans. Beginning to suspect this might not be a trend.

TamsinSays, to transgender

I'm reading @juliaserano's WHIPPING GIRL for the first time, and the more I read, and see both myself and the transmisogyny around me accurately depicted in its pages, the more I start to identify not only as , but .

So, yeah, that's new. Points to ponder, I guess.

Freyja, to random French
@Freyja@eldritch.cafe avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    TamsinSays,

    @Freyja @che5hire That's wishful thinking on their part.

    TamsinSays, to random

    Over on the butterfly site, someone I follow wrote, "There is no anarchism, only anarchists."

    These six words broke my brain. In the best way, but still.

    I’m so used to thinking of -isms and the entities that coalesce around them as real things that I keep forgetting something very simple, and desperately important:

    Those entities don’t exist.

    We just believe in them. And beliefs can change.

    This isn't limited to "anarchism," whatever that means. ALL -isms are imaginary. All nations, religions, philosophies, belief systems, and intellectual constructions are just ideas, thought experiments that we've all as a culture agreed to act as though they were real, tangible entities.

    There are no -isms, full stop. There's just people. People choose to do things. And we can always make different choices.

    TamsinSays,

    So, does that make me an anarchist? I dunno. I've literally had less than 12 hours to think about this.

    But I do know that I'm going to be unpacking those six words for a long time.

    TamsinSays,

    @jessamyn American culture, at least, likes Big Movements. We like spectacle, and titles, and pomp and circumstances. We like Being A Part Of Things.

    The idea that the real work is done by unsung heroes who don’t get a parade or even a note in a history book sounds… morally wrong.

    I kinda like that. 😁 And thank you for the book mention! Do you recommend it?

    TamsinSays, to random

    After careful consideration, I must respectfully decline your suggestion that I should be "one of the good ones," and will in return make the counteroffer that you shove it up your ass.

    TamsinSays, to random

    I never expected “oversharing explicit details about my gender identity, sexual orientation, and psychological history with complete strangers” to be a life skill I would have to develop in order to access and pay for medical care, instead of just being a charming personality quirk, but here we are.

    TamsinSays, to random

    An interesting milestone I just realized that I missed observing:

    My wife and I flew home from California, where I had facial feminization surgery, on January 18th, four years to the day since the evening she asked me if I was a woman, shattering whatever was left of my egg and forcing me to confront the reality that I was indeed.

    Depending on how you count, I've been transitioning for just over four years, or for more than ten, when I first came out as nonbinary.

    Huh. You'd think my tits would be bigger.

    Oh, well. A belated happy tranniversary to me, anyway. ​:heart_trans:​

    TamsinSays,

    @Frances_Larina Thanks! ​:trail_yay:​ I'm still recovering from the surgery, but everything looks good so far. The salt-and-vinegar chips were amazing, so much so that I'm thinking of having more. And despite the whole "being cast as the villains in the current rising-tide-of-fascism drama playing out in multiple places in the world" situation, the trans thing seems to be working out! 😅

    TamsinSays, to random

    Apparently I have a masochistic streak, which rears its head in weird ways. To wit:

    I'm still recovering from facial feminization surgery. This included a lip lift and fat grafting to my lips, and mandible (jaw and chin) contouring, which they did by going through the inside of my mouth. I'm swollen, I'm sore, and I have sutures all along the crease where my lower gumline meets my cheeks and lower lip.

    I currently have a ferocious craving for salt and vinegar potato chips. ​:neocat_scream:​

    lisamelton, to random
    @lisamelton@mastodon.social avatar

    I doubt it's what you'd expect, but here's what I think about on Groundhog Day:

    https://lisamelton.net/2024/02/02/groundhog-day/

    TamsinSays,

    @lisamelton My condolences on the loss of your marriage. I hope the new year brings you new opportunities and joys. 🕯

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