elon musk in 3 years: My fiancee [33F] says she’ll cancel our wedding if I [49M] don’t stop asking her if we can have a derp and derpina wedding cake topper
this might be shocking for some of you but being cis doesn’t mean you’re comfortable with your gender or “how you were born”. gender is like an inherently uncomfortable system and i don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that a lot of people who don’t fall into the category of “trans” experience alienation from their bodies, agab and how they’re read & treated by those around them on the basis of gender. and being trans isn’t about being uncomfortable with yourself! for me personally my transness is about learning to love myself for who i am. to reduce transness to being in a perpetual state of self hatred and discomfort really just shows that u don’t think trans people are capable (or deserving) of self love, and it sends a message to trans people who are sufferring rn that it can never get better. which is wildly irresponsible at best bro
let me just clarify that this doesn’t make any individual trans person’s distress less legitimate or worthy of care. it’s just reductive and harmful to posit suffering as the central defining aspect of The Collective Trans Experience when that’s simply not the case. transmedicalists get off my page
I saw this tagged as transphobia and while the laws and atmosphere that surrounds this is very much grounded in transphobia, I think it’s worth mentioning that that’s a cis woman.
So you know.
Fucking thanks, TERFs. Aren’t you glad bathroom laws trying to prevent “men” from entering the ladies room has caused two male police officers to eject cis women from the bathroom already? Since that’s the only women you care about maybe you might actually spend longer than .5 seconds thinking about possible fucking reprocussions of this shit now.
Oh my goooooddddd this shit is ridiculous. Like, this law has always been complete and utter transphobic bullshit, but here’s the god damn proof it will never work the way these idiots want it to. You cannot determine someone’s gender by the clothes they wear. Fuck, I get misgendered and called a man all the time. Do I need to bring my I.D. next time I take a shit? I am so tired of this garbage. Let people use the damn bathroom they want to.
But this is exactly the outcome of laws like this: policing and punishing people who deviate from the gender norm. The direct target is of course trans people (with the brunt of the focus on trans women), but anyone who doesn’t fit with the norms will also be impacted by the law because now there’s a witch hunt against anyone who doesn’t seamlessly blend in.
Isn’t it terribly ironic that this law was intended to prevent men from entering a woman’s bathroom and harassing women (which wasn’t actually happening) and it has directly resulted in male police officers entering the women’s bathroom and harassing a woman?
If you’re horrified at cis women being treated like this, you sure as shit better be horrified at trans women being treated like that too.
There have been at least 3 other incidents of cis men entering women’s bathrooms under the guise of “protecting” them from trans women. These bills literally gave cis men a better excuse for invading the women’s restroom.
*this is especially important: these days on Tumblr there’s a wonderful atmosphere of being able to talk openly about your mental illness or your struggle. And that’s great! But there’s a difference between sharing in order to help yourself and other people and sharing just because you have no other coping mechanisms. As much as you’re able, try to work on developing a different outlet. People aren’t qualified to be your therapist because they’re nice to you a couple of times. Please remember that they have lives too, and their job is not to make you feel better or pity you, no matter how difficult your life is.
And last but not least:
But…
I really don’t have a way to better this.
Your interests are your own. I can’t advise anyone to change their interests to fit in with a certain group of people – that’s stupid, and actually quite damaging to your sense of self.
Instead, I would recommend that, maybe if you feel like your topics of conversation are falling flat with this group of people, you move on to other, greener pastures. There are bound to be places where your ideas mesh better with an audience.
And of course – try to be considerate about what you say and how you say it.
Sometimes, what might seem like a harmless comment to you might be a very discomforting thought to another person. I recently had a conversation on a forum with a guy who was telling me that his headcanon was that Pearl (from SU) would soon get a male love interest who loved mechanics and weapons next, and that would be her best arc, because she would finally get a ‘healthy’ love interest.
His intentions were good, but he was entirely unaware of how cringey this kind of thing was to a bunch of (probably queer) people, who have spent their entire lives being told that the only ‘good’ character development for them would be to get a ‘male love interest’. No one wanted to be the jerk to say “fuck off, we don’t want that to happen” but everyone was answering him in a flat way, trying to discourage the discussion further. Instead of picking up on the hint, he bulldozed on, thinking he was having a ‘lively conversation’ which was, in fact, in its late stages of death.
I know I’ll probably get a few messages to this saying: What about people on the Autistic Spectrum? Sometimes, people can’t pick up social cues or ‘hints’. And if that’s the case, it’s incredibly difficult to understand why you’re not having any luck communicating despite your best efforts.
I feel that on a person level, please believe me. I made this infograph for THAT VERY REASON. Because I WAS that awkward kid who didn’t pick up on hints well. In fact, I still have trouble talking to people. If any of you have had the misfortune of being my conversational partner, you’ll know that I tend to be overly blunt and come off as very unfriendly. It’s something that I, myself, am working on currently in order to grow into a better person. It’s a struggle in progress, but I am aiming towards the progress side, and I just wanted to help out others while I was at it.
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