A single unified LGBTQ+ conversation

Correct. A transgender person may still be straight (indeed, for many years, non-straight trans women were gatekept from transitioning).

And you'll find no shortage of antifascist trans folk, so I'd say you made the right choice.

...Huh.

This...this actually never came to me until right now. I guess I should add this to my growing list of "Things I didn't know about LGBTQ until very recently."

Speaking of things I didn't know, one of the books in my reading list is Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity, by a Canadian biologist Bruce Bagemihl. I'm going to check that one out, because it turns out that homosexuality in natural world is surprisingly common and hardly "unnatural."

Oh, and according to the Wikipedia article about the author, "his book on homosexuality in animals was cited by the American Psychiatric Association and other groups in their amici curiae brief to the United States Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas, the case which ultimately struck down sodomy laws across the United States"

Very interesting...!

That sounds like a useful resource! I’ll have to check that out one day.

If you want to hear more/some funny stuff about gay animals, I highly recommend the Lesbian Seagulls episode of You're Wrong About.

Y'know, when I typed that on Google, I got a song from Beavis and Butthead movie, as well as an article with this line:

Judging from the jokes, the writer of that article definitely is a parent.

Someone I'm close to has been questioning their cis-ness to me recently, but has realised they have a sort of mental block around the subject which has been distressing them - they described it to me that it "feels like touching a hot stove" and so they reflexively avoid thinking about it, and they aren't sure how to slip around or undermine that barrier. (There are a few other topics that they've had a similar reaction to before.)

I'm doing my best to help by asking indirect or provocative questions, but it isn't really something that was part of my own experience. Any advice?

Edited by Noaqiyeum on Feb 16th 2024 at 8:08:50 PM

I did recently (as in the past week) come to the conclusion that I am in fact a trans woman. And I also had kind of a similar reaction to it. I've known for like ten years, maybe, and had gender thoughts from a young age. But possibly relating to some childhood trauma and fear of rejection, I just pushed it back and tried to find other ways to express myself.

I can't really say what could break the barrier for anyone else either. My mom asked me very nicely about it ten years ago when I was dating a trans girl, and I panicked and just shut down.

Well, I don't know any trans person IRL(As far as I know, anyway), so I have no idea how to answer that.

Do hypotheticals count as a mental block to genderfeels?

Allow me to explain, since I've only just now found the words to really convey something akin to how I feel without going into thumpable levels of personal details and venting.

I am not a boy.

I don't feel like a boy. I hate being perceived as a man, and imagining myself to be male distresses me in a way that I'm afraid of describing in fear of being misconstrued to be a transphobe.

And yet, sometimes I find myself wondering what it'd be like I were a boy. It's important to mention that the thoughts are never "I want to be a boy" but rather "What would my life be like if I were a boy? Who would I meet? Who would I be interested in, be friends with? Would I have a better relationship with my dad?" What might tip some of you off is that whenever I have these thoughts, these musings on what my hypothetical "male life" would be like, my brain always tries to force in other hypothetical musings, like "What would my life be like if we lived closer to my grandparents like Mom wanted?" or "What would I look like if my mom married some other guy?" It's as if my brain tries to walk all over myself whenever the Genderfeels pop up in an attempt to save or distract me from them somehow.

It applies to more than things about possible boyhood; the moment anything about my girlhood even slightly inconveniences me, my brain immediately moves to "this shouldn't be here at all," when that's not true. I don't want it to be true! It doesn't fit who I am, who I want to be, who I aspire to be and who I want people to see me as, and I fucking hate how my brain near instantly tries to give up the moment that I'm hit with the harsh realities of what I am and what I'm trying to become!

I found a youtube video. In it, an AFAB enby described what their non-binary-ness meant to them in a way that found a resonance with me on a level that I, as an AFAB person, had been subconsciously seeking for what might have been ages but only became apparent recently - as in, the last two years or so. I can't for the life of me find the video, so I can't post the exact quote or remember enough of it to summarize it here, so instead I'll describe my current ideal Genderfeel in terms as concrete as I can scrounge up:

I was born a girl, and to my knowledge, that is what I (mostly, it's complicated) identify as now, and plan to identify as for the foreseeable future. I don't want to be a boy. I don't like being perceived as male or trans male. And yet, I want to be perceived masculinely. I love the feminine; I love the poofy dresses and flowing hair and curves and all that girly shit. I like looking at it, and I like embodying it in how I present myself. Yet I want there to be a noticeable masculinity to my femininity. Like how male Glam Rockers and Hair Metal stars created a warped, stylish androgeny through their adoption of wild dress and girly makeup, I want my feminine features to carry a masculine edge as I present them, like a tomboy (although I wouldn’t exactly call that a gender identity). I'd like to think I'm doing a good job at achieving my gender presentation goals, but something feels off. Like I'm not doing enough to be who I really want to be, but I have no idea what that truly is, and I'm not sure if I ever will. And that upsets me, because if my brain loves anything, it's closure. Closure that I know I might never get.

TLDR: I don’t know if my brain is gaslighting me out of being able to discern what I truly am or not, and I'm scared. What does that say about me?

This is another complicatedly relevant question, because I have broached this topic with them before. When I first came out to them, I drew a portrait of how they might look as their binary opposite gender, and thinking about themselves that way nauseated them and they asked to never see it again. We both interpreted that as a strong dysphoric response. The hot-stove reaction is something different - it reminds them of how they've felt about other things that they'd internalised they Weren't Supposed To Be Interested In, which I think says something in itself.

So far I've mostly been asking questions about how they feel about specific pronouns, and gendered terms, and names, and I think it's gone cautiously okay but still more "gender performance" than "gender identity". I know at least a couple of the other things that used to give them hot-stove feelings no longer do, but I think they did that by compartmentalising their changing beliefs on "what is gender" away from "but what is my gender".

I don't remember ever having "not safe to think about" feelings, only intense "not safe to talk to anyone about" feelings. I did learn a lot from other trans people talking about themselves (whom I never dared ask directly, this is something I still struggle with), but I'm not sure what I would have done if I'd been reflexively unable to compare myself to them.

Another important thing I neglected to mention in my initial post is pronouns. Again, I don't like being perceived as male, and when someone uses male pronouns to refer to me (usually online - misgendering usually happens to me, if at all, in places where people can't physically see me) I am quick to correct them. When I'm referred to by female pronouns, it kinda throws me off a bit. I feel shocked and delighted when people call me a she, particularly online, because it means that whoever's addressing me cared enough to check out and use one of my preferred pronouns.

It's the non-gendered pronouns, funnily enough, that throw me off the least when I'm referred to by them. I dunno, something about them being used for me feels cool. It means that people aren't assuming my gender, which delights me for some reason.

I've mentioned this in the thread before, but I don't feel trans, and I don't feel particularly comfortable with calling myself a "non-binary woman" either. I'm not sure what to call myself anymore. I'm not even sure what "myself" even is, really.

All I can say, as a binary trans woman, is that what you're describing for being described with femme pronouns is identical to my experience with gender euphoria from being properly gendered.

This is exactly how I feel about it, and while this may not apply to you it was one of the main reasons I eventually started thinking of myself as non-binary. (I later started calling myself as trans as well, but I still don't think one is a subset of the other).

Edited by Noaqiyeum on Feb 16th 2024 at 12:11:20 PM

I'm not exactly sure non-binary would be the best way to describe the Genderfeels(tm), and if is correct about this being a gender euphoria thing, then I gotta be a woman to at least some degree.

@Noaqiyeum, to clarify, what do you mean by "dysphoric response" in the context of this post? Dysphoric in the "I wish I were this" sense or the "I'd hate to be this" sense?

The "I'd hate to be this" sense. They'd never considered being (or being seen as) a different gender before, and neither of us expected how repulsive they found it.

This is, more or less, how I feel too - can't stand being referred to as "he/him" or male (though weirdly enough I mind this less irl, rare as it is, than online? Maybe because the latter is likely to be from some "everyone on the internet/this website is a guy" assumption which I thought we should have gotten past by now), while I'm sometimes pleasantly surprised when people call me "she" and also happy about being called "they". I've also in the past years taken a liking to "ze/zir" pronouns - I just think they sound cool and kind of "work" for me? (Though of course, this isn't something people would be likely to refer to me to with unless they read my pronouns list somewhere)

Edited by Zanreo on Feb 16th 2024 at 2:42:06 PM

These days I sometimes feel like I'm forcing myself to want to develop a female body, but my body being as masculine as it is never quite made me that comfortable and I genuinely did have problems with it. The body hair is my biggest issue; with my voice I have learned to accept having a deep voice a lot more, but I still miss having upper registers a bit. It would be pretty interesting to have a lighter/softer voice but I actually value the lower ranges as well.

I actually feel like a more 'complete' person when the part of me that feels more 'fem' and wants to develop a female body is present. I feel a little bit more empty or uncanny whenever it's not present. The rest of me seems to clash with that more fem part and tries to drive it down whenever it feels like it's trying to take me in a direction the rest of me is uncomfortable with. Is it because I haven't learned to properly integrate that part of me? Or because I've had trouble fully accepting this part of me that's asserted itself back at the beginning of the decade?

I've definitely been heading in much more of a nonbinary direction with my gender identity recently; I am tired of trying to fit myself in a masc or fem box.

That talk about a "mental block" honestly resonated with me, just not in any way relating to my gender since I feel very comfortable being male, but rather my sexualuty.

I have identified myself as bisexual for a few years now, but before then did something in my brain immediately reject even the vaguest thought that I might have interest in other men for over two decades.

And even when I finally managed to get past that phase did I only allow myself to be attracted to very specificly feminine men and constantly had that though in my head that in the end I would still always prefer women overall.

Now after years of slowly chipping away at that block I am in a very different spot. While I would still say that there is a larger range of women I find attractive, my taste in men has broadened drastically and thinking about cute guys just has a much storger feeling of intimacy and passion to it for me now.

I have been unsure about what exactly my romantic orientation is for a while, but now I am seriously considering the possibility of being homoromantic.

RE: wantig to be a man like glam rockers are men. I mean, I can relate, I want to be a woman like female rock stars like Patti Smith and Joan Jett are.

Based opinion right there. This is SO valid to me I can't even-

One thing I've come to notice is that, for as much as my ideal gender identity/presentation is built around 80s glam rock, my current wardrobe doesn't really reflect that outside of a few band t-shirts. I've found a few ways to potentially glamorize my wardrobe, but all of the stuff I like either doesn't fit me, is too expensive, or my mom won't let me wear it.

Good to see that my Geometry Dash hyperfixation is being acknowledged by somebody.

Edited by Pogakure on Feb 20th 2024 at 12:37:46 PM

Hey, this isn‘t exactly LGBTQ-relevant, but Pogakure, I gotta say that I love your current signature

I feel like there's a lot of push for representation of ace people who don't have sexual attraction but do have sex, but not a lot for ace-spec people who may have limited sexual attraction but don't want to actually have sex, which IMO should count under the label. (I know celibacy is a thing, but that carries the subtext that you're not outright disinterested in sex, you just have some other caveat preventing it.)

I feel like every time someone discusses asexuality in the context of not having sex, there's always someone like "but some aces do have sex!" which is fine and all but sometimes makes it feel weirder to not want to have sex, which is a pretty ironic feeling to have among the ace community.

In general I think sometimes people need to understand when a sentiment isn't generalizing the whole community even if it doesn't have an asterisk saying "this doesn't apply to people who don't xyz." Like a post talking about the troubles with sexual stigma in the queer community isn't a post meant to spite ace people, it's just talking about an issue that affects some of the community more directly.

Anyway this is just random musings from someone who may or may not be ace but genuinely can't tell what's supposed to "count" as sexual attraction.

That whole discussion reminds me of a tumblr post I came across recently that put it pretty well:

A lot of the time, "ace people can still have sex/aro people can still be in relationships" responses come of as, unintentionally or not, trying to show that we can still be "normal" or whatever, even if a significant amount of people within those groups would be uncomfortable with doing so!

You Tube will likely be censored by the new KOSA bill, which hasn’t changed at all just been reworded, GOP Marsha Blackburn and Democrat Blumenthal are the co sponsors of the bill and has gotten 62 Co Sponsors in the Senate to support the bill and this is the last week to stop it from passing.

Here’s a link to the electronic frontier foundation talking about it and how this will affect websites like You Tube;

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/02/dont-fall-latest-changes-dangerous-kids-online-safety-act

This will also be used to affect…other real life events since they can censor information that is pro/anti-conflicts they don’t like. Indeed the wording is meant to make it as roundabout as possible but ensure they can do this. Though of course this information shouldn’t be brought up since that’ll just make them support it more

This video about KOSA includes the clip where Marsha admits this will target LGBT+ works online. Marsha Blackburn stated this is a weapon against the “Trans agenda” and naturally plenty of Democrats have chosen to support it as well with the Republicans.

This will affect more than US politics since it will effectively force social media and the web to accomadate for it

Edit: The clip starts around 3:30 in the vid

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Feb 21st 2024 at 1:48:00 AM

Random musing.

I find it amusing how Jonathan, the 192 years old Seychelles giant tortoise and the oldest living "land animal", is actually bisexual with strong male preference.

To quote from a Washington Post article:

Pretty interesting, I must say.