TRANS FEM FRIENDS: What do you wish you could say to the person you were before transition who thought it was impossible to ever actually be a girl or be fem?
I sometimes think back and find myself at a loss at what would have supported that girl best. She was so sad, hopeless, and often dissociated or in fight/flight/freeze/fawn over her distress with how she felt like she couldn't fit in the world. And like, I know "it gets better" or "it really is possible" wouldn't have gotten through.
I talk to a lot of young trans folks who go through this still every day, and so would appreciate others thoughts on this!
It's in my bio but in case it wasn't clear, since today is the day, I'm a trans woman. I came out in 1998.
My number one wish for today: trans representation in popular entertainment. Representation, showing minorities as real people rather than caricatures, makes it harder for the haters to spread their venom and infect others.
For so many of us, coming out isn't just about ourselves--it's about the people we love most, and especially our partners.
But we do come out to them, and then the person we love the most is faced with the reality that, "Oh, s#!t, my partner just told me they're trans." What the fuck do I do?!
They deserve support in those tender first moments, and this week, I'm going to try and give them a little with a jumbo edition of #StainedGlassWoman!
Being trans shouldn't be such a big deal, because being different than others shouldn't be such a big deal, but the society I grew up was determined to treat anything but hegemonic gender as a threat, so here we are. But here I am, some weird glitches meant I had to figure out I was a lesbian and actualize that life in opposition to everything the world was telling me.
I wrote about Easter falling on the same day as #TDOV last week, when it was just a twinkle in conservatives' eyes.
At the time I didn't think it would take off bc it was too dumb. As usual I overestimated just how dumb and hateful this moral panic is. #trans#news#easter
Some (mostly cisgender) folks have expressed surprise that I identify as #trans, but being #nonbinary IS transgender. We are not part of the cisgender binary, therefore we exist in a state of transition. Not everyone who identifies as nonbinary identifies as transgender and that's fine, but to me the two are inherently linked. This does not mean I'm changing into something new, or rather in a sense I always am.
Most years, I forget that #TransgenderDayOfVisibility is coming up. I don't realize it until the day is actually happening until I see people posting about it. (And then I feel like a shitty ally. As I should.)
But this year, I know about it in advance, because the right wing is losing their minds over the fact that it coincides with Easter! And this will get it to stick in my head that TDoV is always on March 31.
So… way to spread the word and raise awareness, conservatives! Thanks! 😜
Trans people are mappers, and hackers, and cartographers, and have always been a part of the OpenStreetMap community.
The OpenStreetMap project is creating a freely licenced map of the world, based on how things actually are, based on how they act, and appear, not based on what some government says. OSM is trans positive.
I have to admit, I did not expect the nonstory that #TDOV happened to fall on Easter this year to become an all-consuming conservative obsession approaching the level of last year's nonstory that Dylan Mulvaney did an Instagram spot with Budweiser.
What this is about - what all of these stories are ultimately about - is an attempt to terrorize the #transgender community out of public life. #news#journalism
I love the selfies and the being ourselves, but it’s important we also use #TDOV to talk about the cost of visibility. Nex Benedict was visibly trans and he was bullied to death. Visibility is why we’re targets now.
Let this be the year we push these haters back. #VforVengeance
I don't show 'myself' online much anymore, may be said I'm still not, this pic is from before the pandemic.
Alas, but it is Transgender day of Visibility - and Easter. (nope, not awkward at all..)
Eh, time to resurrect a little of me back to the net maybe.. 🤭
I live in an odd crux of the transgender complex you really don't hear a lot about.
I don't feel like a success in this, and I never will most likely. I fought the insurance providers and the hospitals themselves for years and years..
Goal posts kept getting moved, animosity kept growing, so I fought. I did not comply.
Public insurance at the end of things would only allow me into a christian hospital system with no trans program of their own - and I walked away from all primary care.
That was about five years ago now..
On the other side of the coin - it means little to nothing..
I am who I've always been within this thing. HRT didn't define me, it was a tool to reach an objective.
I love the things I love, and you all get to see them.
it gets lonely here, especially being so rural there's a vast detachment from the community these days, at least physically.
So in a lot of ways I've been very thankful for the Fediverse, Mastodon, Pixelfed, etc.
At least I get to feel close to you all for a spell..