The joy of my body

Lil appreciation post for my top surgery scars in all their strange beauty. Much love to all who have funky scars and all who see the beauty in them.

I’m gonna be honest I do not care if a trans boy teen is annoying and has horrible taste in music y’all are just mean.

I’d rather hang around with Karkat who listens to Cavetown than someone who is mean.

I’m gonna be honest I do not care if a trans girl teen is annoying and makes cringy jokes y’all are just mean.

I’d rather hang around Bridget who likes to make Blahaj jokes than someone who is mean.

I’m gonna be honest I do not care if a nonbinary teen is annoying and dresses weird y’all are just mean.

I’d rather hang around with Bug who is scene than someone who is mean

Things I think trans men and transmascs need to hear more (from my Twitter post here):

•You matter. You deserve to have community that lends you love and strength.

•You do not betray anyone or any group if you transition, you are not “crossing enemy lines” and you are not hurting women or feminism.

•Your masculinity is not dirty. Your femininity is not something which taints you.

•There is no one right way to transition, don’t let people force you into a new ill-fitted box with the idea that there is.

•You’re allowed to have conflicting thoughts about different aspects of your transition.

•You aren’t less of your gender if you have given birth to children or want to do so.

•Testosterone will not turn you into a monster, you will not become a danger to people by going on it.

•On that note, T isn’t a magic potion! It will not transform you within a few months. It’s puberty, it takes time! You aren’t failing if you haven’t seen the changes you expected to see, HRT is an individual journey that varies person to person. If you can, try to enjoy the ride.

•Finally, you’re allowed to be proud of yourself, your identity, your transition. It is joyous!

Friendly reminder to all my fellow trans men and transmascs.

You’re allowed to love yourself and your journey, it’s beautiful.

Thoughts and Response to "On Transmisogyny Exempt Privilege Dynamics"

Someone brought this article back to my attention and so I read it again and I would like to show some excerpts and say things. This is all in reference to this Medium article. My screenshots do not include the entirety of the article, just the parts I wanted to point out and speak on. This'll probably end up pretty long but let's go.

The only way this idea works is if its within a world where transitioning away from the forced category of woman to the self-selected category of man is met with acceptance and power, a world where transphobia does not exist (but somehow male supremacy still does?). Transphobia is far more pervasive than it is suggested here.

These are the last screenshots and the last I'm gonna write I think. I grouped these ones together because I think they tell a really important story so I'd like to rephrase what it's saying:

"Transmascs and trans men have little to no theory, and what they do have is simply reactionary in nature and/or fueled by cluelessness. This is due to the fact that this group of trans people have the position of privilege, identified entirely by their gender (regardless of whether or not that gender is 'man'). Trans men in particular are simply a different type of man in regards to their gendered position in society, and we can remove their gender from their transness when discussing their status as a gender minority. The dynamics of trans men and trans men are the same or similar enough that we can simply drop the 'trans' aspect. Trans men benefit as a group from just about every aspect of transmisogyny."

To me, this really does say it all. I see these types thinking and I honestly cant help but sit and scratch my head. Our transness cannot be removed from the conversation when the conversation is to do with gender. Trans people as a group are targeted and oppressed in pretty unique ways and its dishonest to pretend we can untangle that like one does not rely on the other.

Not sure how much I learned from doing this, but it did feel good to go through and write out exactly why all these different things stood out to me so much. Something I really cant understand though, is how a trans person exists within the trans community to any degree and has these thoughts.

Anyways, if you (reader) ever find yourself talking about other maginalized groups experiences with oppression as if it is less of a deal maybe stop doing that and instead listen more to these groups of people you're irresponsibly speaking about.

ants were farming other animals long before humans figured it out! here is a Cautolasius herdswoman with her livestock

many subterranean Lasius species cultivate flocks of plump root aphids, guarding them against predators and moving them to safe locations and fresh pastures. they “milk” the aphids for honeydew, a sugary waste product of the aphids’ digestion. I’ve read the ants will only kill and eat their livestock in times of famine.

when I flipped their rock, this ant grabbed the nearest aphid and ran it to safety. she’s another species of Lasius, this one in the subgenus Chthonolasius; I can’t tell if her colony’s aphids are different from the Cautolasius’ though.

Falin, Oil on paper and digital

new sticker designs :p

Sinner

“Focusing on fixing sexism instead of worrying about transandrophobia is going to benefit trans men more. Also, worrying about transandrophobia instead of sexism is like discarding women and instead trying to put trans men into male privilege to fix the problem instead of fixing sexism.”

I mean.

First of all, sure, fighting sexism will help many people. Absolutely. Cis women. Trans women. Trans men.

But would you tell a trans woman to stop fighting transmisogyny because it’s only helping her and other trans women? Would you tell her that fighting for transmisogyny is counterproductive and just putting trans women in a better position instead of fixing sexism? I sure hope not! Typically people who think that way are radfems. But it’s what you’re doing to trans men in conversations about transandrophobia right now, so I’ve gotta point this out.

And also, fixing sexism doesn’t magically fix transmisogyny or transandrophobia. Discarding either conversation to “just focus on sexism” will not be beneficial overall. Just a couple quick examples: even in places where abortion is fully legal trans men will still struggle to access it, even in places where cis women have full access to a space trans women will still struggle to access it.

We don’t need to have only one conversation. Conversations about sexism, transmisogyny, and transandrophobia have to exist in tandem with one another.

And I’m definitely bringing this back around to the fact that discarding other conversations to focus on “the only actual real problem” when that “only actual real problem” is sexism also rings a lot of radfem alarm bells in my head.

Murphys law of being a trans man is that you're only considered a man when it can be used to hurt you

i think too many people misunderstand what the whole privilege thing irt transmascs having privilege over trans women is supposed to actually be about. transmascs do not inherently have male privilege because that's not something you can magically identify into and it's not something you can broadly apply to all transmascs willy-nilly, that's true, but even if you're not passing as male and you're just passing for an (androgynous) woman or a GNC woman, you still have privilege over a trans woman for not being a trans woman.

another post said it better than i probably could, but the thing about trans women is that while non-transfems can experience situational transmisogyny, there is nothing a transfem can do to escape systemic transmisogyny, no matter how many surgeries they go through. even if they fully pass in every capacity, they cannot escape systemic transmisogyny.

being interpreted by others as a cis woman and/or otherwise not being interpreted by others as a trans woman regardless of how you identify is the privilege because trans women are seen as below cis women of any kind.

saying that transmascs have privilege for that is not inherently stating that transmascs have specifically male privilege. it's also not denying or downplaying the struggles that trans men go through, and if you believe that, you're reading posts like this in the worst possible faith and i highly recommend you reconsider viewing posts like this in that manner.

So if transmascs have privilege over transfems for not being the intended targets of transmisogyny, does that mean transfems have privilege over transmascs for not being the intended targets of antitransmasculinity? If not, why?

Not a sports guy but this is wonderful

Happy for their win, but why couldn’t they just compete in the women’s league if they wanted to play?

Fuck off and have a terrible day.

on the one hand, extremely funny to get told “get help” by a fortune cookie, on the other, i can’t believe betterhelp has breached influencers and podcasters and started getting fortune cookies to shill for them

We're in actual hell at this point.

Wow this is the grossest thing I’ve seen today awesome