want to share something that you don't think deserves it's own thread? wanna chill with your trans homies? wanna support your trans comrades? do it here!
i was in a group thing and we were all going around saying our names and i went first and didn't give my pronouns, because i'm trying to be relatively stealth, i was wearing a skirt, and i have a very feminine name. literally everyone else gave their pronouns, so when i inevitably get clocked people are going to have to ask or guess, and the mostly cis crew are definitely gonna they me
i guess i should be glad i live in an area where people do that but mostly i'm just anxious
I experience most of these things as purely performative - like it's pretty easy to tell apart when people who never ask for pronouns ask me for pronouns and when people do it habitually. Obviously I think everybody should ask. I do shame people who ask me in an obnoxious way that makes me feel uncomfortable, like when they say "you can't tell anymore nowadays" before asking
I haven't really been in a large social space since I started transitioning and this honestly terrifies the fuck out of me. It's a surefire way that I've been clocked and it would make me feel dysphoric. I mean, sure, I'd prefer to be gendered properly, but I wish that it would just happen naturally.
I think it's important to establish pronouns as parts of personal introduction, especially since I am demi-gender, but I really resent "progressives" making a show about it in a way that shows they are not sincere and just want to show off.
Most groups I am in do it by habit now, thankfully, but once I was meeting a group with my partner and a familiar person from the other group went "we should do a pronoun circle" in the middle of the street while we were both presenting very femme and that person never usually does that. Something similar happened a bunch of times.
If it happens like right at the start, perfect, but I remember it happening a bit before I even cracked my egg and it would just come out of nowhere mid conversation most, if not all, of the time. That’s when it terrifies me.
It sucks to be misgendered but… 1. I’d rather do a pronoun circle than misgender someone on accident and 2. Non-binary people exist so idk what solution even would exist that could account for both asides from making pronoun pins mandatory at all social meetings of any kind.
Edit: If I end up “clocking” someone I have no idea if they’re non binary or not so my only choice is asking their pronouns and probably making them feel terrible or not asking them their pronouns… and probably making them feel terrible
that dam breaking vibe is very overwhelming, so I hope you're finding some optimism in all the realizations taking place. either way, happy and hopeful for you
it's really liberating.
my partner came out as nonbinary around the same time we both had basically been all wound up/weird about shit and it almost fucked our relationship up but after some months things got really solid
i think it really gave me permission to just actually go for it
>boymode for 6 years
>finally get to point where im comfortable enough to girlmode
>job market is fucked so cant switch jobshonestly i feel like im never gonna find another job bcus i feel like im visibly autistic and i got stuck in this shitty job that's kinda low code and the only actual programming i do is sql. i had 1(one) interview recently where they were super enthusiastic and then ghosted after.. idk if its bcus i came off too awkward or i said something wrong or its bcus i havent finished my degree yet?? fucking sucks
Show
(not trans, so I’ll delete if I’m overstepping here)
I have been in many job interviews, on both sides of the table. I have found zero correlation to interviewer enthusiasm or vibes from them, and whether I get an offer. I’ve had interviews that I thought went terribly that later made me an offer. I’ve had other interviews where they act like they’re the lucky ones that I’m considering working for them, but I hear nothing after.
As an interviewer, there’s been lots of times I’ve been enthusiastic about someone as much as I try to have a poker face, and I want to make them an offer but my boss or someone higher up looks at the resume and squashes the whole thing over something kinda petty. Or the funding dries up shortly after and we can’t hire anyone. Or we get really busy and hiring someone is the last thing on my mind for weeks just because I’m trying to hold everything else with my job together.
Hope that helps.
Hope that helps.
it does thanks :) it's so difficult though never knowing what i have to change
Yeahhhh I stopped getting callbacks after I started presenting
Had an interviewer make me read Bible verses then only say "I don't know if you'll get along with the executives" with no added explanation
I hope my degree will help
If there’s a God they’ll grant me sainthood for not going out and killing bosses after reading shit like this
man i love estrogen. i love feeling comfortable in my skin most of the time, and i love crying at emotionally affecting scenes in the art i like
(i was rereading the chimera ant arc, because someone on here said it was bad and i wanted to refresh my memory. pleased to report it's still good (politics aside) and the ending makes me cry like a baby. the pacing is good, the audience is mid)
i love crying at emotionally affecting scenes in the art i like
estrogen made me certified crybaby at most emotional stories 😭
most recent one was rewatching the haruhi movie for the third time
pleased to report it's still good (politics aside)
Mereum is less than a year old, probably has the political knowledge of a 15 year old when adjusting for his growth rate. I would assume he would grow out of his weird semi-fascist human inferiority phase the moment he discovered Marx.
Does HxH have Marx? Might explain how fucked up the world is.
meruem is i think at most 2 months old if my math is right. he could have gotten better for sure, he was already on his way there
and my comment on the politics was regarding the bad north korea stuff, though that really just feels like togashi having an idea for what the chimera ants should do and working towards that more than any actual commentary
I was going to say that NGO doesn’t seem like North Korea but then I remember the separate weird North Korea strawman thing. Very weird inclusion. Goddamit Togashi
yeah the second place the chimera ants infiltrate is very blatantly north korea
it's the ngl. you should get some sleep!
also i looked it up and the leader of east gorteau is named ming jol-ik and was a revolutionary who overthrew the government before taking power himself
my gal pal just came across some synthesizer-related issue that's so weird i can't even name it without potentially doxxing myself, and the first thing she thought of was asking me about it, and not only could i explain to her what was going on there, but had actually looked into that particular eurorack module doing all that weird shit in the past.
i don't think i've ever felt so understood than when i'm with her, she's such a treasure and it's so much fun being weird and gay with her. t4t will save your soul.
I'm sick and tired of HRT not giving me hips or an ass, so I'm taking matters into my own hands. I've been doing some lightish exercises with resistance bands to see how much it does and holy hell I started to see some results after a few days. Like noticeable to other people amounts of results. So now I"m super motivated and am going to go hard on this like I did my weight loss almost a decade ago. I'm going to have sick af hips and ass by year's end so long as my necessary 3 month break doesn't cause backsliding.
i have been motivated to train before I am getting hormones because of this, I hope that the more mass my body has to work with, the better the results when I get access to hrt.
Skipping leg day? Nah homie, in the transfem gym it's only leg day. 🍑 🦵 🍗
I had a guy tell me he misgenders ppl because "it's funny" and he's "an asshole" and I told an older black trans woman about it and she said she'd drop voice and beat his ass so that made me feel a lot better honestly
I'd beat his ass into the ground. Or pepper spray him into submission. Because it's funny. Don't fuck with trans folks and I won't fuck with you.
Start pissing on him and when he asks why tell him you do it because “it’s funny” and that you’re “an asshole”
I feel like at that point you could bill him for the service lol
Reposting this because it's been a while:
The Gender Accelerationist Manifesto
Death to gender! Freedom to the queers! But gender dies through eating its own tail. Gender is dying already. Its death rattle is upon us, but it still has time to save itself. It is on us to hurry it along to its final end. To speed it on. To make it...
Accelerate.
It's good. Just read it an hour ago. Long live gender communism.
alright im prescribing you one (1) infodump about a hobby/cool thing of your choosing to me (if you want)
Questioning, some descriptions of body image issues/dysphoria(?)
I've been thinking about gender issues for a while and I don't know what to do about it. It's something I think about a lot and there's a lot of other things tied into it which are hard to untangle.
I starting having these kinds of feelings about 3 years ago. I was hanging out in generally left-wing/LGBT-friendly online spaces before that, so I knew what trans people were, but I only really started having these feelings myself when COVID hit. I've always been relatively physically androgynous/feminine for an AMAB person, but even so I've been wishing that I was more feminine. I don't feel a huge incongruity with the way my body is, and sometimes when I look/dress particularly androgynous I actually kind of like the way I look. That being said, I've still been noticing that I have more facial/body hair compared to a few years ago (along with other subtle things I can't quite name) and I really do not like that, and I'm really worried about further changes like that. I feel like it's going to be hard to achieve/maintain the level of femininity I want without medically transitioning, but I'm not entirely comfortable with being physically a woman either.
In general, I act pretty much like the stereotypical "socially-awkward male nerd", and while that isn't a particularly "masculine" social role, I also sometimes wish to be perceived as more feminine in this regard. When I'm with people I'm close with, I generally act cool and sometimes sarcastic. I tease people a lot (in a friendly way, though I wasn't always good at controlling that) and I'm good at verbally sparring when they make fun of me back. But sometimes I want to act cutesy or be more openly affectionate, and I can't because I feel too vulnerable doing so. This makes me feel like I'm too cold and too closed off if I want to be feminine, (though IDK if it's great to think that because it's kind of buying into gender roles).
The only person that I really trust that I've spoken to recently is an online friend who's a cishet guy (well, we've met in person but we live far enough apart that it's not super convenient), and he's supportive but it's not really something he knows how to help with. I've also talked about this with another online friend who is queer, but I haven't spoken to them a while (we drifted apart a bit due to circumstances in their life). I haven't told anyone IRL and it takes a long time for me to really trust people, so I basically don't have anyone to support me IRL. I don't think my parents are outright hateful, but I don't think they really understand LGBT stuff either, so I really want to be sure before I tell them anything. I'm also looking to work as a programmer, and I'm uneasy with presenting as not-male in my work life.
I've read through a bunch of the commonly linked trans resources but I still haven't really done anything about it. I live in one of the less awful states; there are informed consent clinics near me and I have enough money for that, so I feel like I'm fortunate compared to a lot of trans people. I've had some idle dreams about buying some feminine clothes, but I'm too lazy? scared? to even try that. I'm not sure if I'm that uncomfortable with my body or if I really want to be a woman that badly compared to the stories I've read. I'm worried that it's not a real feeling because I can't really recall any signs more than 3 years back. I'm unhappy in my life but there are a lot of reasons for that aside from (possibly) being trans. One part of me is scared of waiting too long to start transitioning, but another part of me is scared of having to learn to live as a trans person (or even just as not-male) in an increasingly fascist United States. I feel like I have to make a decision relatively soon, and it's just completely paralyzing.
There's a lot of other things I want to say but I'm not sure if this is coherent as is so IDK.
I feel like it's going to be hard to achieve/maintain the level of femininity I want without medically transitioning, but I'm not entirely comfortable with being physically a woman either.
E can do a lot of things but it doesn't really make you "physically a woman". It can change your moods (and overall psychology if you let it) to a slight degree, your appetite/metabolism, muscle/fat growth and by extension your physical appearance, but there are also transmasc and nonbinary people with similar bodily traits.
Whether or not you're a woman is a bit tautological, as it's based entirely on the belief of you being or not being a woman. This is even true of cis people, because gender is a social construct. You can be a woman right now, or you can be a man while on HRT, and the way you carry that mindset with you will color your bodily changes. HRT isn't a magic gender changer, it is a tool to upend the ways your body and mind are incongruous.
I also sometimes wish to be perceived as more feminine in this regard...But sometimes I want to act cutesy or be more openly affectionate, and I can't because I feel too vulnerable doing so.
The mood changes you get on E can absolutely apply some WD-40 to rusty and disused emotional availability. But it won't make you suddenly change your entire personality or interests — unless you've been looking for an excuse to open up and explore those things. I'm still a sarcastic asshole nerd affected by 2000s gamer culture, but now I can cry and enjoy the emotional warmth of other people without having a chip on my shoulder (and wear pretty dresses without feeling like I want to shed my skin).
I basically don't have anyone to support me IRL.
Having a support system makes things way less daunting. Even just having some people to videochat with would help a little if you can manage it
I'm also looking to work as a programmer, and I'm uneasy with presenting as not-male in my work life.
This is a legitimate concern, yeah...you might have to test the legitimacy EEOC at times. Some companies will be chill about it but you can generally sus this out in the interview process because they will act positively but a bit squirrely if they genuinely want to work with you. If they maintain the fake-nice facade all the way through they will weasel out of their responsibilities the moment you become inconvenient. That's just kind of the reality of being us.
I've had some idle dreams about buying some feminine clothes, but I'm too lazy? scared? to even try that. I'm not sure if I'm that uncomfortable with my body or if I really want to be a woman that badly compared to the stories I've read.
This kind of rhetoric is so common among questioning people who eventually come out that a lot of people would just start calling you an egg
at this point. Society 
puts so much pressure on people to conform to cis-normative ideals that when you start to question them you really can't pinpoint when exactly you stopped believing in them. Some of the most binary fem-presenting transwomen out there spent their early 20s as muscle bros trying to run away from femininity. Some of us end up being gamer dorks but slightly softer. Some are EDM composers or roboticists or welders who flip off the patriarchy when it questions why they don't build their personality around gucci handbags (not that it's wrong to like tradfem stuff, but the point is we shouldn't put femininity in a box and sell it. Cis women even have many routes of expressing themselves).Where you come from doesn't matter. If you truly believe that the simple act of being and becoming yourself comes before the pre-molded slot that patriarchy requires you to fill, then you're just as queer as the rest of us.
One part of me is scared of waiting too long to start transitioning, but another part of me is scared of having to learn to live as a trans person (or even just as not-male) in an increasingly fascist United States.
Show
I started 10 years after I knew. Do I have regrets? Sometimes. Do I appreciate how my life has been shaped by the path I took? Absolutely.
The road to living authentically under capitalism is inherently risky. So, as you're aware, it's imperative that you treat each decision you make with care and respect. But to live in paralysis will not allow you to discover who you really are. We're not just talking about a costume that you wear around to put on a show for others. What we're asking here is who are you? Who is nightshade? Is it worth risking your life to become you? Is it worth risking you to continue as you are?
If you can answer those questions, the question of whether or not you need hrt to express yourself will be small potatoes by comparison.
Also feel free to ask questions if you've got em.
Thank you for responding.
Clarifications and more questions
E can do a lot of things but it doesn't really make you "physically a woman". It can change your moods (and overall psychology if you let it) to a slight degree, your appetite/metabolism, muscle/fat growth and by extension your physical appearance
I guess that what I meant by that is that there are some major draws to HRT, but I'm scared that some of the effects might go further than what I wanted. Like, having less facial/body hair is something I want for sure, but I don't know if I'd be entirely comfortable if I had a lot of breast growth. I'd want to have a bit of an androgynous/twink-ish figure compared to an average woman. But I'm also worried that if I don't start HRT then my body will start changing in ways I don't like. I know it's an old adage, but I'm pretty young now and I feel like there are some physical qualities I like about myself that I would lose if I wait too long.
This is a legitimate concern, yeah...you might have to test the legitimacy EEOC at times. Some companies will be chill about it but you can generally sus this out in the interview process because they will act positively but a bit squirrely if they genuinely want to work with you. If they maintain the fake-nice facade all the way through they will weasel out of their responsibilities the moment you become inconvenient. That's just kind of the reality of being us.
One of the idle fantasies that I've had is to get to the point where I can pass as either male or female based on how I dress or style my hair. I would present as an effeminate guy for the next few years my work life and only dress up fem for friends. But as of right now, I don't have any to go out with IRL, and am I really going to get dressed up to stay home and play video games? IDK.
This kind of rhetoric is so common among questioning people who eventually come out that a lot of people would just start calling you an egg at this point. Society puts so much pressure on people to conform to cis-normative ideals that when you start to question them you really can't pinpoint when exactly you stopped believing in them. Some of the most binary fem-presenting transwomen out there spent their early 20s as muscle bros trying to run away from femininity. Some of us end up being gamer dorks but slightly softer. Some are EDM composers or roboticists or welders who flip off the patriarchy when it questions why they don't build their personality around gucci handbags (not that it's wrong to like tradfem stuff, but the point is we shouldn't put femininity in a box and sell it. Cis women even have many routes of expressing themselves).
IDK, I want to try clothes that look more feminine, but the kinds of clothes I like are more towards the androgynous end. I'm not sure how to describe what I like; I don't want to be too girly girl but "tomboy" and "butch" aren't quite the right way to label it either. Like, generally I just imagine long-sleeved shirts and pants, which is what I wear right now. I know that clothes made for women generally look subtly different, but at the same time I'm worried that those subtle differences will be hard to see with the way my body is now. I always get anxious about spending money and I don't want to buy stuff that I end up not liking.
The road to living authentically under capitalism is inherently risky. So, as you're aware, it's imperative that you treat each decision you make with care and respect. But to live in paralysis will not allow you to discover who you really are. We're not just talking about a costume that you wear around to put on a show for others. What we're asking here is who are you? Who is nightshade? Is it worth risking your life to become you? Is it worth risking you to continue as you are?
The part where I struggle with this idea is that I feel that under capitalism, living inauthentically is necessary to some degree anyways. I'm not really openly about my beliefs IRL; while most of the people I interact with in person aren't outright awful to be around, there's still the occasional attack helicopter joke or dumb political comment and I don't have it in me to argue about it (I know my beliefs should require me to confront people more often but I'm too much of a coward). When I speak with people I'm not friendly with, I generally feel like I'm just reading off a script to get through the conversation. Especially in the work life example; if I'm expected to pretend I don't find capitalism abhorrent for 40 hours a week anyways, is it really that much worse to pretend one more thing to avoid discrimination? I don't want to put on a show for other people all of the time, but sometimes I feel like I could put up with doing that part of the time to avoid trouble. I wish that I was more brave, but there's already so many things to worry about, and the idea of adding the pressures from being trans or being a girl on top of that seems daunting.
Like, having less facial/body hair is something I want for sure
It's not super noticeable as far as I've seen. Most of us are still shaving, epilating/waxing, and/or using laser hair removal to take care of the majority of this. It will, however, stop male-pattern baldness in most cases.
I don't know if I'd be entirely comfortable if I had a lot of breast growth.
That's not something anyone can really predict for you. Anecdotally it seems to mostly hinge on family history, the age you start, dose method (people seem to think injections work best for breast growth), and whether you take progesterone. I've heard arguments for and against most of these. Whether or not your body decides to undergo major visible changes will be up to a roll of multiple dice, basically. In my case I look a little bit like my mom when she was my age.
For transfems in the very-binary mindset, I try to urge them to be content with the path their body takes them on (as surgery can be prohibitively expensive for most), but in your case I can't make any guarantees. Breast reductions in transfeminine people are probably a thing that exist, but I personally wouldn't know how to navigate that, as western medicine tends to have a very set path of progression designed for binary transpeople.
As an aside, I would personally not recommend edging your E extremely close to zero (I've heard people mention this to avoid the risk of major body changes) as it will negatively impact bone growth and make them quite brittle over time.
But I'm also worried that if I don't start HRT then my body will start changing in ways I don't like.
E won't stop you from changing or aging. I have grey hairs; you can still get female-pattern baldness. I didn't have stretch marks before. It's become quite difficult to maintain any muscle when it used to feel effortless, and you'll tend to hold onto more body fat. Some of these things may be desirable, some might not. You might be able to wrangle them to a small degree with diet, exercise, and lifestyle changes, but if you're spending all your time alive fighting your own gene expression I think there's a point where you'll have to sit down and decide what is a priority for you. I take hrt because it makes my life more bearable. If it didn't then I wouldn't have bothered.
One of the idle fantasies that I've had is to get to the point where I can pass as either male or female based on how I dress or style my hair.
This is pretty doable, possibly even right now. In the hegemonic culture, most people tend to base their judgement of someone else's gender presentation based on visual signifiers and vibes. They struggle to really understand identity in a way queer people do, so if you drastically change your presentation they tend to just go with what you show them instead of what you tell them. In queer spaces identity will trump presentation regardless of what your body is up to.
But as of right now, I don't have any to go out with IRL
Anything stopping you?
am I really going to get dressed up to stay home and play video games?
You could get dressed up to videochat with people? Also I wear women's pajamas when I stay at home and play video games.
I always get anxious about spending money and I don't want to buy stuff that I end up not liking.
The best way to handle this is to just continually try stuff on at the store until you find something you're happy with. Most of my early clothes were thrifted and I didn't make any larger purchases until I had a good idea what sizes and styles suited me. It's just something that takes a bit of patience, but once you figure it out it gets more intuitive.
living inauthentically is necessary to some degree anyways.
As someone who's spent the past decade pursuing this, I don't think so. I think it can seem necessary to live inauthentically if you value your identity like a fashion accessory. But I know people for whom this is a life or death question. For them, living authentically is something they are absolutely willing to give up a lot of comfort for, and for whom living inauthentically feels like a death sentence.
Taking on the pressure of being trans is daunting, of course. I'm not saying it isn't or that you're morally required to categorize yourself. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be scared to take the plunge, because most of us are. But at the heart of it, which more or less reiterates my last comment, this is about your very core, the definition of yourself, and what you value as a human being. Aesthetics are part of it but they aren't the whole of it. So if the question of what it means to live begins and ends at aesthetics, then I don't think hrt will bring you closer to your goals. Estrogen will fundamentally change the basic functioning of every cell in your body.
If you keep coming back to transitioning no matter how hard you try, I would sit with a little thought experiment for a while. Give yourself permission to transition and see if it changes anything. Once the anticipation is gone, the way you feel about it might surprise you.
also seconding what Ideology said, and adding that your description is super similar to me, so feel free to send any questions if that helps. Regarding the paralysis for me I eventually decided to trust in my instincts instead of trying to rationalize everything, but that had to do with how strong my conscious-level self repression was. Letting my emotional instincts open up then let me start recognizing bits of euphoria and dysphoria and start addressing those individually without worrying if they aligned with any kind of social gender i had in mind, which works well for me. Also nice account name, nightshades are my favorite group of plants.
seconding basically everything ideology said
i can't say whether you're trans or not, only you can do that. but i know that i spent years more or less looking for permission to let myself be trans and to let myself transition. once i freed myself of that, and made the decision on my own, i entered the best years of my life. your words are almost identical to the things i said to myself, to the things i've seen other trans people say to themselves, to the point where if you edited the tenses i would just be like "yeah. this is a trans woman reminiscing on how she was before coming out, basically in line with every other one of these."
don't have anything to add from what others have said, or any crumb of wisdom to pull from my life to help yours.
But all you've said here resonates so much with me, it's like an echo. I've been thinking about it a bit longer, and I've (finally, slowly) managed to make decisions about it. Hopefully you can too!
