There are so many doubts and “have I lost my mind” kind of shit that comes with abuse, especially childhood abuse.

They confirmed for me what I already knew but had a hard time accepting and I feel like I have some level of closure now.

All of the crap my dad put me through for my learning disabilities, my mental illness (what he didn’t cause and even after that he targeted that shit), my gender, everything. 

And just to drive things home, folks, my horrific immediate family hid me from my Nana and Uncle and Aunt even though they would’ve taken me in when I was homeless. And my mom and dad knew I was homeless.

So my family purposefully kept me homeless to keep people from knowing I’m trans.

That I was dissociating out of this world at 5

Found out a lot of stuff about how crazy my family is, how good at denial my mom is (even when she was young) and how awful of a person my dad is. They were told not to get married, they were told not to have kids and they were told not to have more than one kid and I’m as fucked up as I am now cuz of my parents, that much is for sure.

My Nana, my uncle and my aunt were awesome though. Very accepting and the microaggressions were small and insignificant compared to the shit I normally deal with. Especially after having been gone from all of my kin for more than 7 years.

So best Christmas ever, I’d say.

decentkid:

genderbitch:

thebigblackwolfe:

alexandraerin:

genderbitch:

addingliberalbias:

genderbitch:

Questionable Content just got a trans woman character.

Don’t fuck it up Jeph

Don’t fuck it up

Seriously.

Don’t fuck it up

Don’t fuck it up

Especially after Tab’s bullshit.

DON’T FUCK IT UP

(but really, he kinda did already fuck up since she’s white so that’s not a huge jump in terms of inclusion)

at least he seems aware that he might fuck it up so hopefully even if he does he will be open to criticism?

hopefully

oh god

Um, generally the track record is not so hot for cis people.

So far, I’m really liking the fact that she has a brother she shares a mutual animosity towards but who doesn’t use cissexism as a weapon against her… though I cringe at the possibility that Jeph was just waiting until we knew she was trans to reveal that this is why he hates her.

I’m a little leery of the fact that she’s a student at “Smif” College… I doubt Jeph has given much thought to the issues a trans* woman faces when enrolling in a women’s college.

I’m really hoping that he doesn’t screw up, because he doesn’t handle criticism gracefully.

Well, he was the guy who made this comic:

so personally I wouldn’t hope for much.

Wow, that’s a lot of useless shoved into one comic.

He pretty much Grey Delisled all over the place.

If you look up the top of that comic, it says that it’s a guest strip and it’s not in his art style, so I’m guessing he had no hand in it other than someone made it using his characters. I’m a QC fan and I’ve never seen this comic on his site, so I don’t think he’s promoted it there either though I could be wrong.

Even being a casual fan I’m uneasy as fuck about the introduction of a trans character and how he’ll go with it. Fingers crossed it’s not a massive fuck-up

Ummmm

Pretty sure a webcomic artist/owner has to approve guest strips that go up and queue them and stuff.

Maybe I don’t understand how internets work and webpagery and php majicks but I have doubts he’d let people just add shit on his webpage without at least clearing it first.

freedominwickedness:

In 2009, the Democrat-controlled New Hampshire Senate killed a landmark trans rights bill — H.B 415 — while at the same time passing a same-sex marriage bill. The voting tallies made it blatantly obvious that Senate Democrats had agreed to dump basic civil rights for trans people in order to secure the votes they needed to give marriage privileges to cis gays: the one Democrat who voted against the same-sex marriage bill while it was before the Senate Judiciary Committee suddenly reversed her stance and voted for same-sex marriage on the floor, while the two pro-LGBT Democrats on the committee just as suddenly reversed their stances and voted against the trans rights bill.

What made this an especially huge betrayal was that same-sex marriage was merely a semantic upgrade for gay rights. New Hampshire had passed a “marriage in all but name” civil unions law just two years before, so gay couples already had full equality under state law. There was no real need for a same-sex marriage bill at all, and yet the usual LGb(t) lobbying groups not only demanded one, but convinced the legislature that trans rights should be sacrificed in order to get it.

Why am I bringing up something that happened three years ago? Because earlier today, a retiring New Hampshire legislator explicitly admitted that it really happened:

Now let’s get a transgender anti-discrimination bill through the House. The previous attempt failed when transgenders were thrown under the bus after our landmark marriage equality bill was passed.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/TaxiManSteve/stacie-laughton-new-hampshire-legislator-elected_n_2092893_204131747.html

To this day, trans people in New Hampshire have zero civil rights protection. State level and national level LGBT rights groups continue to be totally dominated by marriage-focused cis gays, who have exclusively focused all political resources on protecting same-sex marriage from a Republican-led repeal attempt.

youreatransmisogynistwhen:

You expect CAMAB trans people to spend thousands of dollars on hormones and surgeries (both of which being things that they may not even want)  before you’ll respect their pronouns and gender identity.

confrontingmywhitegirlprivilege:

genderbitch:

confrontingmywhitegirlprivilege:

strugglingtobeheard:

thegoddamazon:

genderbitch:

Oh boo hoo, penis makes you uncomfortable.

My penis won’t harass you, attack you, or even beat you up if it finds out you’re in the bathroom with it. 

But cis people will absolutely harass and attack trans people, trans women especially and with massive amounts of (possibly lethal) violence for trans women of color when found in a bathroom.

Cis people also rape trans people more than trans people rape cis people (funny how privilege and oppression works) and that includes cis women raping trans women.

But boo hoo, a penis in the bathroom that you don’t even fucking see cuz of stalls.

Gasp, what massive reasons to be fearful.

Maybe cisfucks should be kicked out of all bathrooms for OUR safety if you really wanna talk about caution for safety.

Cuz I sure as fuck am still afraid of cis people in a bathroom. They sure as fuck make me uncomfortable. Cuz cis people in general as a goddamn fact are actually dangerous. Unlike trans woman penis in general.

But I don’t matter. None of us do.

I honestly don’t get it either, to be honest. What restrooms are these people using that they’re seeing all of this? I thought only in bootcamp were the restrooms devoid of doors…

amc was my first experience with stalls open to anyone it was an uneventful experience except for that my trans woman friend was able to be in there with no harassment (and by uneventful, no one was shocked, appalled, and it was going to the damn bathroom tho i can’t speak for the room with urinals). but it’s like… people are going to fucking pee and shit. all that fear plays into this false idea of stranger danger and also makes the people experiencing the most oppression the most visible. the chances of anyone lurking in the public restroom to attack people is so low and then to assume it’s gonna be trans women and Black/brown trans women most likely just feeds into more bullshit. on top of all the things genderbitch has already mentioned about who is truly at risk from whom.

^^ Commentary ^^.

Also, let’s think for a second: how “safe” is any bathroom, in reality? You could be assaulted or raped in any multi-stall bathroom if someone decided to follow you in. 

I feel like this whole idea of “zomg trans people in our bathrooms = rape” reinforces this idea that rape is a crime of passion/opportunity (thereby allowing rapists the excuse of “losing control”).

Whereas it’s really something that is deliberate, with little to no relationship to opportunity (ie. short skirts, gender-neutral bathrooms) and almost total relationship to someone’s desire to rape. 

Having an all-women’s bathroom doesn’t make you safer, just more “comfortable.” A rapist can follow you in a normal, all-women’s bathroom; it’s not as if bathroom doors are some kind of magical gender-detecting barrier…

You should also try remembering that cis women do in fact rape other cis women. In fact, there’s kind of a rape epidemic in cis lesbian circles, largely cuz that shit goes unreported and erased.

Yeah, that’s why I wrote rapists, not men (**EDIT** or in this case, the alleged trans women raping cis women). Although the same issue holds for men’s bathrooms. I had no idea about the lesbian rape epidemic…

Oh, I was confused cuz you said “rapists following you in” and “magical gender detecting barrier”. When a rapist cis chick may already be in the bathroom and a magical gender detecting barrier doesn’t make any sense at all if you meant rapists and not men. 

So you phrased that kinda poorly.

Cis chick on cis chick DV is also a big problem in the lesbian community too cuz no one is really dealing with it right now. The erasure is the biggest problem causing that crap right now.

confrontingmywhitegirlprivilege:

strugglingtobeheard:

thegoddamazon:

genderbitch:

Oh boo hoo, penis makes you uncomfortable.

My penis won’t harass you, attack you, or even beat you up if it finds out you’re in the bathroom with it. 

But cis people will absolutely harass and attack trans people, trans women especially and with massive amounts of (possibly lethal) violence for trans women of color when found in a bathroom.

Cis people also rape trans people more than trans people rape cis people (funny how privilege and oppression works) and that includes cis women raping trans women.

But boo hoo, a penis in the bathroom that you don’t even fucking see cuz of stalls.

Gasp, what massive reasons to be fearful.

Maybe cisfucks should be kicked out of all bathrooms for OUR safety if you really wanna talk about caution for safety.

Cuz I sure as fuck am still afraid of cis people in a bathroom. They sure as fuck make me uncomfortable. Cuz cis people in general as a goddamn fact are actually dangerous. Unlike trans woman penis in general.

But I don’t matter. None of us do.

I honestly don’t get it either, to be honest. What restrooms are these people using that they’re seeing all of this? I thought only in bootcamp were the restrooms devoid of doors…

amc was my first experience with stalls open to anyone it was an uneventful experience except for that my trans woman friend was able to be in there with no harassment (and by uneventful, no one was shocked, appalled, and it was going to the damn bathroom tho i can’t speak for the room with urinals). but it’s like… people are going to fucking pee and shit. all that fear plays into this false idea of stranger danger and also makes the people experiencing the most oppression the most visible. the chances of anyone lurking in the public restroom to attack people is so low and then to assume it’s gonna be trans women and Black/brown trans women most likely just feeds into more bullshit. on top of all the things genderbitch has already mentioned about who is truly at risk from whom.

^^ Commentary ^^.

Also, let’s think for a second: how “safe” is any bathroom, in reality? You could be assaulted or raped in any multi-stall bathroom if someone decided to follow you in. 

I feel like this whole idea of “zomg trans people in our bathrooms = rape” reinforces this idea that rape is a crime of passion/opportunity (thereby allowing rapists the excuse of “losing control”).

Whereas it’s really something that is deliberate, with little to no relationship to opportunity (ie. short skirts, gender-neutral bathrooms) and almost total relationship to someone’s desire to rape. 

Having an all-women’s bathroom doesn’t make you safer, just more “comfortable.” A rapist can follow you in a normal, all-women’s bathroom; it’s not as if bathroom doors are some kind of magical gender-detecting barrier…

You should also try remembering that cis women do in fact rape other cis women. In fact, there’s kind of a rape epidemic in cis lesbian circles, largely cuz that shit goes unreported and erased.

seraseatscissers:

southcarolinaboy:

I haven’t finished reading all the articles listed in this post, but I have them open in tabs, in the process of it now.

This part:

And by 2005, at a time when trans men were beginning to be welcomed into the queer women’s community as “sexy”, “cool”, “radical”, “beautiful”, and “powerful”, I knew my place. I quietly slinked away from the queers and dove into solitude. It was a solitude that was every bit as destructive as anything I’d known before it.

But I wasn’t chased away from the community — not directly. I wasn’t directly told I should be disgusted with myself, or that I’d never find a partner who could love me. I was never told directly that a ‘freak’ like me didn’t deserve love. Instead, all the messages added up to an established story — a canon. Once I realized that it wasn’t that we were “threatening” gender or sex as systems; once I realized that it wasn’t that I was transsexual; and once I realized that it was the fact that I was a trans woman, that was when I knew that I wasn’t welcome anywhere.

Originally, I had just added my commentary to the thread, but after I did, I realized it could be seen as derailing, or centering the discussion on trans men, so I’ll say this here.

All of us who are trans but who are not trans women (or nonbinary people who other people believe are “men” because of cissexist standards) need to pay attention to stuff like this.

Our experiences are not the same. We’re not “all trans, and that’s all that really matters.” Women aren’t being divisive when they bring this up.

yep.

That a haircut idea could make me flinch.

So fuck anyone who compares trans dissonance to feeling “dissatisfied with one’s body”. Fuck that bullshit every which way.

There’s a lot of good reasons to take off or at least adjust the DSM entry for gender identity disorder. Pathologization of gender existence, medical gatekeeping, defining it as more of a bodily issue for just the folks with bodily dissonance and leaving everyone else alone so that needed medical care can be gotten and no medical “care” is forced on those who don’t need it, etc etc etc

But one reason that isn’t a good one? The “we’re not crazy” one. Maybe it’s the implementation that makes me wanna punch my own people in the face when they say this shit, maybe the underlying concept is okay; the whole, “it’s not a mental disorder, it’s a bodily disorder at most and a social concern otherwise” thing.

But fuck if I just want to throw bricks at the dipshits who toss around just how “not crazy” all the trans folks in the world are as tho being mentally ill is the most awful shite in the universe.

What about the trans people who are *gasp* mentally ill? A lot of us end up with anxiety, trauma related stress disorders, severe depression from our experiences as trans people (throw race, womanhood, size and/or poverty in there and things become infinitely worse, social treatment and mental health wise). And what about the trans people who don’t have disorders coming from what we go thru, they’ve just got mental illnesses in general. Schizotypy class disorders, BPD, bipolar, already existing anxiety and depression, etc.

Too many of these types in the community seem to think that if you are crazy, you shouldn’t be transitioning (provided you need to transition at all).

I’m batshit fucking nuts and I know this and that shouldn’t in any way stand in the way of my womanhood. All of this “we’re not crazy and that makes us valid” bullshit just gives more ammo to the cissexist ableist/psychobigoted douchcanoes who are looking for any reason to fuck with us who are crazy and are also trans.

How about y’all stick with offering the good reasons to yank trans stuff out of the psych field’s hands and/or fix up what little of it should be handled medically, instead of throwing your crazy siblings to the wolves.

Cuz we’re just as fucking important as y’all are, neurotypical abled fucks. 

All of you do it.

Not one of you, even the people I am following (minus the trans folk, obviously) have avoided messing up on this. It is subtle, it is small and every time you do it you hammer the nails into our feet a little deeper.

Every time you equate penis with sexism, erasing those women and nonbinaries with penises.

Every time you equate childbirth with motherhood and women, erasing those men and nonbinaries who give birth

Every time you evoke vaginal wording to describe sisterhood or womanhood, whether it’s “cunt power”, “sisterhood of the clit” whatever, you stab every woman who has no vagina, no cunt, no clit, no vulva, no uterus, no nothing of that sort in the back and toss us out of the sisterhood that we have as much right to as you.

Every time you wonder if society got rid of social gender, would trans people stop existing, you walk on our faces.

Every time you say transwoman and transman, as though we’re not really women or men but a merged concept, you erase our genders.

Every time you sum up gender as a binary, or even just a spectrum between poles, you erase every single person with a gender that doesn’t fit that zone (and there are many)

Every time you say women and trans women or women, men and transgender, you tell us that our genders are not valid, not as real as yours.

Every time you do these things, you don’t see it. You’re feminists. You’re anarchists. You’re vegans. You’re anti racists and anti Islamophobia advocates. You’re advocates of birthing rights and socialists, anti capitalists, multiculturalists. You’re disability advocates and womanists. Fat positive, anti body policing, anti rape, social activists and writers. You’re friends and family, lovers and colleagues.

And you all do it. Every cis person I know.

Every. Last. One.

Yes.

Even you.

You don’t see it. But we do. We feel the knife go in. We watch the painful hypocrisy of people who make it their career, their life’s work to fight privilege and make people see through its fog, to fight white supremacy, or sexism or ableism or fatphobia or millions of other horrific systems of supremacy and dominance and control exerted against people, exercising their cissexism, the boot firmly planted on our necks and they don’t even see it.

But we feel it.

Next time you talk about childbirth, remember not everyone who gives birth is a mother. Next time you talk about how many women are raped, remember that a significant group of those women, of us, don’t have vaginas. Next time you talk about sisterhood, try to remember that you have nonbinary siblings and brothers with the organs you use to label your sisterhood and sisters who lack them. Try to remember that penis is not the enemy because women have them too. Try to remember that theorizing about gender isn’t very helpful when you don’t know shit about the people who experience it most directly, most vividly, most painfully.

Try to remember to look past your cis privilege and maybe take that damn boot off our necks once in a while instead of looking into the distance and ignoring the choking.

Because I’d like to be able to breathe.

Just a bit.

-Edited to avoid appropriation-

A boy met a girl.

She seemed very familiar,

not to the point of being strange or creepy.

She did like to stare at him,

Which he found a bit odd.

But it wasn’t a serious problem.

The boy spoke to the girl.

“You’ve been watching me for a while now.”

She smiled and nodded,

“of course. For a very long time.”

He shrugged, pondered and moved on.

The boy enjoyed the company of the girl.

“I feel like I’ve known you my whole life.”

She grinned and laughed,

“what a terrible pick up line.”

He laughed at the purposefully misread intention.

The boy grew to be friends with the girl.

“I always wondered why you sought me out”

She thought and smiled,

“I’m just curious.”

He looked quizzical but moved on.

The boy grew close to the girl.

“So what is it that you’re curious about?”

She laughed and laughed,

“About when you’ll figure it all out.”

He looked confused but had to go.

The boy was intrigued by the girl.

“Will you tell me what I’m figuring out?”

She shook her head and giggled,

“That would ruin the surprise.”

The boy decided he would go sleep on it.

The next day he realized what it was.

He had been talking to the mirror all along.

One day.

A girl met herself.

And now she is free.

…knowing that when I was 17, I had a full goatee, short curly hair, a flat muscular chest, a boxy body shape, a deep rumbling voice and no conception, no idea whatsoever that I would one day be the woman I am now.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and just go, “holy shit, I have breasts” or “holy shit I look so different.”

Sometimes I fall back on my bed and stare at the ceiling and go, “wow, I’m a girl.”

You fight so hard, just to get even one iota of leeway to be you, and sometimes you forget. You forget what it is you’ve gotten. What it is you are because you’re too busy fighting these battles, too busy not getting a chance to breathe; too busy being a battle maiden, sword dripping with blood, slashed and torn and still fighting; too busy just trying to survive.

But those times when I remember. They are so amazing.

When I realize how far I came from that scared little kid who made breasts out of clay on his chest in the basement and didn’t understand why the weight felt right.

How far I came from the confused high schooler, with a thick goatee and cropped hair, who still held water balloons under his shirt for just a moment, thinking that looked right.

How far I came from the college student who used being into metal music as an excuse to grow out his hair and hilarious hijinks as an excuse to go to crossdressing parties when all he wanted was to be a her.

How far I came from the frightened young woman, trapped in an abusive relationship with a rapist because it was the only place she could be herself, dress like herself and be called her and the alternative was more painful than being struck, being screamed at, being afraid.

How far I came from the incremental flow of halting progress, when I thought that laser would be enough and then crossdressing part time would be enough and then crossdressing full time would be enough and then breastforms would be enough and then tucking would be enough and then going by a girl’s name would be enough and then maybe I couldn’t escape hormones after all…

…I lay on my bed, look down at myself, my breasts, my curves, my widened hips, my legs, my arms, my shoulders; I feel my hair, the softness of my skin and the shape of my face; I speak with my mid toned and rumble-less voice. I stare at the ceiling and I think,

“Wow. I’m a girl. And I made it happen. I fought and won.”

I’m a girl. I did this.

My victory.