Tag: transgender

transgirlpinup:

starlingsongs:

starlingsongs:

When trans women are mocked and made into jokes in the media, I get very upset, and I am often told “Kay, you can’t go through life getting offended every time someone makes a joke.” And I sputter and object but they don’t hear me. So I want to be clear for once, about why the jokes make me angry.

I learned to hate myself for being transgender before I knew I was transgender. I laughed at the jokes in stand up comedy routines, and prime time sitcoms, and animated comedy shows, and in the movies, and in books, and in games, laughing at trans women for existing, about “men in dresses”, about people who “got their dicks chopped off”, and I learned to think that was worthy of ridicule.

And then a day came when I felt a pang of envy at what my female classmates were wearing and I repressed it, and felt guilty, and a day where I felt incomplete because I had no breasts and I repressed it and I felt disgusting
And a day when I realized the only images of romance that made me feel anything showed two women together and I repressed it and I felt like a monster
And a day when I realized I felt sick when I looked at myself in the mirror after every shower before work and couldn’t bear to look at my own face, and I hated myself.
And then there came a day when I hated myself so much, and I thought I could never understand why, and so I just wanted it all to end. And it was just a miracle that I swerved my car back into my lane in time.

And all of it started with a joke that I heard on TV, and then kept hearing from all the voices from the ether, over and over and over, worming an idea into my mind before I was old enough to realize I was absorbing it, the idea that a man in a dress is funny, and that changing your body parts makes you a freak, and that women who have penises instead of vaginas are liars and hurt men. And they’re still making these jokes. And somewhere out there right now, just like all those years ago, there is a little girl in a t-shirt and cargo shorts with buzzed off hair watching the TV, hearing that joke and absorbing it without knowing it, who will someday have to pry herself apart to tear it out of her head, just like I did.

That is, if she doesn’t kill herself first.

I know this is a really heavy post but if you read it and you appreciated it, I’d appreciate it in return if you reblogged it. This is really important to me and I want people to read it and understand it. Thank you.

1,000,000x this. Read it. Then read it again.

I know it’s about racism, but it applies just as well here:

You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught
From year to year,
It’s got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

trans-femmeboy-positive:

adogadogonedog:

kimerakincaid:

the asl sign for “transgender“ is basically the same as the sign for ”beautiful“ but signed at the chest instead of in front of the face.

so that’s cool.

this is my imperfect not-a-fluent-signer understanding but:

(based on a presentation by a deaf trans guy i was at in 2005 where he was promoting that sign)

it seems like that sign was invented and implemented by trans people over the last 10-ish years. before that the predominant vocabulary was “sex change” and then some deaf trans people were like “yo fuck that” and came up with the current sign, which starts off with the sign for “myself,” then motion that indicates both change and coming together, and ends with the closed hand held against the sternum.

and in the process it also mimics the sign for “beautiful”

and because of spatial grammar, things closer to the front of your body in ASL are generally more vital, more emphatic, more immediate, more present.

so it’s actually a case where the word coherently indicates “beauty” and “self transformation” and contains hints of the complete thought of “my self transforming, through a coming together of disparate factors, into something more real, immediate, and vital than I was before.”

so yeah. that’s just fuckin’ awesome.

and that’s just the way to express that concept now.

Thats really beautiful

thegayreich:

WW2 Veteran Comes out as Transgender aged 90

A WW2 veteran has come out as transgender at the age of 90 and is happy to finally be receiving female hormone treatment.

Patricia Davies says she knew since the age of three that she was a woman but lived in fear of how people would react for decades until doctors changed her medical records to “female” last year.

Even though she had opened up to her late wife about her feelings in 1987, who bought her jewelry and dresses to wear in secret, she remained living as Peter after receiving abuse from people in the street and fearing “electric shock treatment”.

The retired industrial photographer, who served in the army between April 1945-1948, has a distant aunt who once lived to 104 years old so hopes she has “similar genes” to keep her going so she can now enjoy life as a woman.

Patricia, from a village in Leicestershire, said: “It feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I was living a lie.”

“I have been keeping quiet. I have slowly started to tell some of my neighbors. Everybody said ‘don’t worry, as long as you’re happy.”

“I’ve known I was transgender since I was three-years-old.”

“I have always been attracted to women but not in a sexual way. I’m not gay. My attraction to women was that I wanted to be like them. I would have liked to be like the pin-ups.”

“I was never totally unhappy. I always made the most of things and looked on the bright side of things. I’ve always had a wicked sense of humor.”

“Because of the general hostility of people I kept quiet. It wasn’t until recently that I felt safe to come out and I felt an overwhelming desire that I wanted to break free. So I came out and I’ve not regretted it.”

Patricia served in the army from April 1945 until April 1948, leaving when she was 21 and getting married only a few months later.

During her time in the armed forces, she served in the Far East, India, East Africa and Palestine.

Patricia said: “You took your life in your hands in the army. I lost a couple of mates and had a close shave myself.”

“I had to keep my mouth shut about being transgender, you couldn’t flaunt that as that would have been a disaster.”

“Transgender wasn’t really known in those days. I would have been classed as homosexual, which would have caused problems in the army. I would have ended up in prison. But I got through it.”

“But it was alright overall and I feel quite proud having served during the war and having done military service, in particular during the trouble in Palestine.”

“Perhaps Hitler got news I had joined in April 1945 and gave up. That’s what I like to think.”

“I feel quite relieved, quite happy. [The best thing about coming out] is being accepted as a woman. That has been something I’ve wanted all of my life.”

“If people don’t like what they see then I don’t care but no one seems to be causing me any trouble. Nobody questions it though. Nobody seems to bat an eyelid, they accept me as I am.”

“I’ve been made most welcome in the societies. I think people will benefit from being educated on this a bit more.”

Here’s to Patricia getting a couple more decades to live her best life.

uh, i guess this is an emergency. please read this.

cloudyjohn:

i’m homeless now i think. i dunno. my mom told me i could leave so i did. i’m, uh. kind of in shock i guess? i don’t know if this is real.

but uh. hi, my name’s john. i’m a seventeen year old transgender minor who has schizophrenia, autism, and dissociative identity disorder. i can’t drive, i don’t have a bank account, or a car, or a place to stay. i didn’t get kicked out, i’d probably be welcome if i went back home, but…i dunno. i’m trying to come to terms with things. i don’t know what i should really be asking for here. there’s three issues i’m worried about, i guess.

a) medication. i’m on a lot of really important medication that keeps me functioning (makes me less prone to unreality issues like hallucinations or delusions and the likes), one for my hypothyroidism that keeps me from gaining weight rapidly, antidepressants, and adderall. i’m a little bit worried about how i’ll do without them, but i don’t really know how anyone could help with that. 

b) money. i have a paypal account, and i recently got a bank account under my mother’s name, but. considering everything i’m sure she’s disabled my card by now, not that it matters considering i only had twenty dollars on it, but like, fuck. i guess i’ll put a donations link at the end of this post or something, and then see what i can do about getting a debit card.

c) shelter. i don’t have anyone in town who doesn’t know my mom/that wouldn’t take me back to her right away if i told them what happened, so i’m kind of pressed on that for now. i literally have no idea how to resolve this. the closest person to me that i trust is in WA, and the person i trust the most is in OH. i’m in UT, so i don’t know how to resolve that either. i don’t have any way of buying a bus ticket or anything until i get a bank account, which i don’t know how to do, because i’m underage.

i have my laptop, a cell phone that my mother has already disabled, my drawing tablet, a nintendo switch, a 3ds, two jackets, one sweatshirt, two pairs of pants, one pair of socks, one pair of shoes that need to be replaced, $2.12, and three pairs of glasses. i dunno why i picked up the things i did. i was kind of freaking out. i have no fucking idea what i’m going to do. 

if anyone has advice, or money to spare, i’d appreciate that. 

this is my paypal. anything you can give me will help somehow, i hope.

even if you can’t donate, please reblog this.

shychemist:

bi-trans-alliance:

A Christian Group Is Paying For Transgender People’s Surgeries To Atone For The Church’s Discrimination

Transitioning is a varied process that differs from individual to individual, so it doesn’t always involve surgery. But when it does, those surgeries might not be covered by insurance and are often expensive, which is why a Christian group is encouraging church members to donate to help transgender people with surgery costs.

Faithfully LGBT, an organization that seeks to share the stories of LGBTQ people of faith, has started a campaign called the Tithe Trans Campaign to raise money for the transgender community. The campaign takes its name from a practice in which some Christians donate a tenth of their earnings to the church.

Faithfully LGBT is collecting donations to send to the Jim Collins Foundation, a non-profit organization that raises money to provide grants to cover gender affirming surgeries.

(read more)

Direct link to the crowdfunding campaign:

Christians Give Your Tithe Towards Trans Surgeries

So far they’ve raised 5% of their goal of $10,000.

shiraglassman:

Announcing the re-release of “Eitan’s Chord”, my erotic f/f/f short about Chanukah fairies gathering together to grant a poor queer Jewish human couple’s wishes while they sleep! Meet “cute butch Latke, enthusiastic party girl Dreidl, and their elegant leader Menorah”, seen above in art by @agaricals. (The beautiful new cover is by Jane Dominguez.)

The new version has a couple of minor improvements, such as Latke being on the fairy roller derby team now. Oh, and now it’s only 99¢! 🕎

BTW the human portions of the story are trans m/cis f romance and completely G-rated; the fairy portions are “heat level all nine candles.” 😏😏😏

Gender and pleasure

scripturient-manipulator:

hobbitsaarebas:

So much of the Euro-American understanding of being trans (or anything other than 100% constantly identified with your assigned gender) focuses on discomfort. 

Some people take this idea to an extreme and claim you can’t be trans unless you hate your body and want every surgery available to you. As many other writers have said before, that’s not true. It’s perfectly possible to be trans with only mild dysphoria or none at all. It’s perfectly possible to be trans and have a mental map of your body that looks just like the one you already have. 

But I’d like to push even harder against the idea that trans=discomfort. I’d like to offer this: sometimes the exploration of one’s gender can be motivated by pleasure rather than discomfort. 

Let me give an example. Let’s say there’s a person named Cal. Most people think of Cal as a boy, and Cal’s all right with that. So far as Cal’s concerned, a boy isn’t a bad thing to be. But sometimes, Cal likes to imagine being a girl and being treated as a girl. Those fantasies are always accompanied by feelings of pleasure, satisfaction, anticipation, and warmth. Eventually, having had these thoughts for years, Cal asks people to use ‘she’ pronouns in private and to refer to her as a girl. Cal does this for another year before claiming the label “trans”. 

Some people would say a person like Cal can’t be trans because there’s no dysphoria, self-hatred, distress, or even discomfort. There’s just a pleasure-based preference. But why is distress necessary? Why are trans people supposed to be defined solely by our pain and self-hatred?

It’s my opinion that defining trans people solely by discomfort is an aspect of transphobia. The idea behind trans=discomfort is that being anything other than 100% cis is so awful that no one would do it unless the alternative were unlivable. Think about that: defining trans people solely by their experiences of discomfort means believing that being trans is so awful that only misery could drive us to it. And to me, that sounds like the thinking of someone who really hates trans people.

So I’ll come out and say it: sometimes transition or self-exploration of gender is not just about lessening discomfort, but is about improving and deepening the pleasure we take in our lives. 

I’ve never considered that angle (despite having my own gender ?????? which has resulted in me identifying as cis-ish) and I love it, that’s such a good point.

This is really important. I’d seen this related to disability acceptance, but not to gender, and it works. You’re allowed to love yourself, your body, how it feels. It doesn’t make your identity any less valid.

lethargiclesbian:

lethargiclesbian:

caeruleorum-corvorum:

lethargiclesbian:

Hey can cis women stop doing this to trans women’s posts, its incredibly disrespectful and unless you’re going to end it with “I agree” / ”I support this” (spoiler alert none of them said this) leave us the fuck alone with your cis nonsense, we don’t fucking need it.

Also if you leave “as a female” like the first one i will literally come to your house and kill you.

is it okay for cis people to reblog this?

Yes, definitely!

Anyone who isn’t a trans woman can totally reblog this and it is super appreciated!

I tend to tag things of this nature with ‘transgender’ and ‘ally’ rather than feeling the need to state my own gender. Is this appropriate? I understand that language is a moving target, and I am trying to be neutral on my own part but supportive.