the circus was in town that day 🤡

trans lesbian = tresbian = très bien (very good)

happy lesbian visibility week

80% of "passing" is having enough money to purchase the clothes and services that will allow you to pass. Please stop holding being able to stealth up as the pinnacle of trans achievement. That place belongs to surviving. It belongs to finding joy. It belongs to love and community, not people who are rich enough to have professional makeup artists and tailors.

Shout out to the people who wake up a woman and go to bed a man. The the people who wear lipstick and have a beard. To the people whose gender is complicated. To the people who need a minute to think about it. To the people who don't really care. To the people who never stop thinking about it. To the people whose gender and sexuality are the same thing. To the people who like people in a way they can't explain. To the people who don't like anything. To the people with a thousand crushes. To the people who never had one.

The idea that if your masturbation sessions are better or easier with porn, it must be because you're addicted to porn, is so bizarre to me. Like, oh, you like to eat more when the food tastes good? You must be addicted to good food. You need to learn to like mediocre food. If you don't like mediocre food, it's because your brain is dependent on good food. The idea that added sensory stimulation aids in arousal is not that far-fetched!

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what's so striking to me about younger queer generations rn isn't the lack of knowledge about queer history, but the complete unwillingness to engage with it, when confronted with an identity or history they haven't heard of before they react with disgust rather than curiosity. (for example) instead of asking where the leather pride flag came from and what the leather community is and represents they immediately question the need for something like that to exist, not even willing to listen and learn from both elders and peers. this is also more broadly a problem in leftist spaces in general, being reactionary is somehow the default now, and anything that's different or unknown must be an attack and bad. really hoping y'all manage to grow out of this deeply conservative way of interacting with the world.

Ok so there's this thing I've been thinking about ever since I came out as not-aroace and as I've been trying to figure out my labels and I think I've just had a breakthrough.

I always used to think, when I identified with ace and aro, that the SAM (split attraction model), though not often used by allos, can be very helpful for anyone in figuring out labels. But somewhere between realizing I'm not aro/ace and trying to identify what I AM, I completely forgot this. And it's given me a lot of grief in this whole process.

My shameful secret is that even though I keep calling myself a lesbian to any and everyone who will listen, I think I am attracted to men as well. Masculine features are, actually, nice to look at, and I enjoy reading mlm fiction probably most out of any fiction (though whether that's due to actual preference or the lack of well-written lesbian fiction, I'm still not sure).

I just... don't want to date them. It's just not something that interests me.

I've been wrestling within my own brain for over a year at this point about whether I just want to be gay so badly that I'm ignoring my attraction to men or if my attraction is really just gender envy in disguise or some secret third reason, and I think the answer is just that my attraction (as I experience it at this point in my life, because sexuality is fluid) is just split. I am the dreaded bi lesbian, come to take away the rights of all pure lesbians everywhere!!

I'm not really sure what to do with this information. I think the SAM is still so niche that I don't really see it getting adopted into society as a whole for a LONG time, despite its utility. I mean, come on, most people don't even know there's a difference between ace and aro unless they know someone who is aro or aceallo, or unless they're particularly well versed in queer issues. It's just something I came to realize is helpful to myself, so I wanted to share.

I've been reading queer-specific books for a writing project I'm working on lately and yes it did include Fun Home and it was even better than the first time I read it (my fixation on certain panels of that comic really should've tipped me off to my lesbianism sooner) BUT also I read Gender Queer for the first time and OH MY GOD

Some panels I related to SO hard that I had to screenshot:

LITERALLY!!!!!!

This is actually always how I have experienced crushes and is why I was never able to identify them as such until very recently (because I just thought they were cool and I emulated everything they did). Also why I have almost never actually known any of my crushes very well if at all.

I have nothing to add or change here, this is literally my exact experience.

I watched an episode of Say Yes To The Dress when I was super young where like the main lady or whatever got breast cancer and had to chop hers and I thought this a lot in those years as mine got bigger. I like them for the most part now, especially since I've gotten more comfortable with the sexuality of my body, but there was a while when I wanted to have a flatter chest. I think if they grew any bigger I would be super uncomfy with them but my B cups are perfect for my genderfluid ass.

I got so much out of this book, which I didn't expect, really. Mostly I just included it in my list because my mc who I'm writing about is genderqueer and I wanted a resource on it to draw from (alongside my own experiences, of course). Even though my experience has been a lot different from Maia's, I really related to eir story in so many parts (none of these panels are even including the whole section e included about reading gay fiction and writing fanfic, like, bro, it's ME). Highly recommend, 5 star read for me.

tbh it doesn't rly hurt teenagers to incorrectly id as ace like... what's the worst than could happen? they don't have sex till they're older?? lol

I can't believe how close I can to never knowing I could be a sexual being (let alone knowing I like girls). Lately I've been in a good enough place to finally go to therapy and psychiatry and I've been testing out a few different SSRIs for anxiety, and one of the main side effects is lowered libido.

I'm going to be talking about libido and the effects that the meds have had on me in that way in this post, so it's not quite sfw but also I'm not going to get too TMI. Just a head's up.

The first I tried (Lexapro) took it away from me entirely, before I even got beyond a starter dose, and the one I'm on now (Zoloft) seems to have made the highs and lows of my cycle WAY more apparent (though I've only been on it for just over a month so it's hard to tell if that's exactly what it's doing, but whereas my libido was pretty one-note before with the occasional Horny Day, in this past month it went away completely around the two weeks surrounding my period and now, just as I noticed I was ovulating, it is back more intensely than before).

And in the times when it's been gone, I've felt... confused, to say the least. Discovering my individual sexuality was the main part of what helped me figure out my sexuality relating to others just over a year ago, and without that to fall back on, it's felt like I was ace again (disclaimer that theres obviously nothing inherently bad or disappointing about not being attracted to others sexually, it's just disappointing for ME PERSONALLY because I am not ace and the idea that I won't be attracted to anyone is disappointing in a kind of intrinsic way that I can't really explain fully. It makes me understand why amatonormativity exists, although obviously it's dumb as hell because different people have different wants and values and experiences and just because something is intrinsic to me does not make it intrinsic to every human being)

Anyways. Sorry, I keep tangent-ing. If my mental health had been good enough any earlier for me to start working on my mental health (oh the paradox of mental health services) I may not have ever known I had a libido, full stop. Lexapro OBLITERATED it, before I even got past 10mg (and even during the first week when I was only on 5mg it lowered significantly). I wasn't even enjoying reading fanfic as much anymore, it made me disinterested in romance as a whole. I've been OBSESSED with romance since I was 11 (puberty oop).

I just can't believe my religious upbringing had me so far in the closet with myself that I may have missed out on this entirely. This is exactly why abstinence only education is bad and does not work (AMONG OTHER REASONS, I AM NOT SAYING THIS IS THE ONLY REASON IT SUCKS) and why we need to combat the stigma for masturbation early, especially in people with a vulva. Self exploration is so so necessary to feeling like your most realized self, and it's so easy to miss entirely when you're never taught how to look for it, when you're taught to look away until "the right time." And my religious upbringing was on the tamer side, too. Education about sexual topics is so important, and adults treating it like taboo only ever hurt me.

god gives his most specific, hard to explain genders to his strongest dykes

people fixate of bi-lesbians as being problematic despite bi-gay men existing (as well as any and every combination of sexuality and romantic attraction you can thing of) because terfs and radfems deliberately don't want bi women to associate with lesbians and are deeply invested with framing attraction to men As Bad. a sentiment which has invaded queer culture inside and out, intentionally And incidentally.

people fixate on straight cis aromantic men when straight cis aromantic women exist because framing aromantic people as inherently predatory and dangerous by the simple nature of existing is easier to do when you intentionally force the association with predatory dangerous behavior displayed by (and associated with) misogynistic men.

people are still bigoted against bi-gay men and woman aromatics (and any flavor of trans within these groups), but pay attention to the way these conversations are Framed and it's clear the way gender essentialism is being used as a tool to control the narrative.

radfems' gender essentialism says you're supposed to think men are inherently scary, inherently take advantage of women, so Naturally (it is assumed) a man who is sexually attracted to women but not romantically attracted them Must Inherently be predatory and scary. and now you're being asked to take that feeling unease you've been manipulated into feeling and associate it with the entirety of a sexuality.

bi-lesbians are threatening to radfems because they want to draw inherent lines between these two groups. insist that attraction to and with a man is inherently dirty and dangerous. the same reason why "gold star lesbian" is a radfem concept. if it turns out that the lines between sexualities, between identity as a whole, is blurrier than they want it to be then that Must be framed as inherently dangerous.

if a single Kind of a marginalized group is being singled out to convince you that this group is dangerous or that they don't belong It's For A Reason. they're trying to manipulate you based on Biases (their biases and the ones they hope you have). the reaction to this isn't to abandon the type of person they're convinced are the worst of these groups, it's in solidarity.

aromantics who are men aren't any different from aromantics who are women, bi-lesbians deserve to live in peace just as much as bi-gay men. don't let people control the narrative Either by cutting down vast array of experiences that exist within any given identity, Or by convincing you that particular kinds of people within your communities are lesser than.

YOU! respect butch lesbians!

I'll have more thoughts on this later, but there's a thing my local queer communities did, especially in the twenty-teens, where they tried to be as inclusive as possible while still drawing a hard line between insiders and outsiders and it functioned in practice as a big ol Fuck You to anyone with OCD

"yeah gender is infinite and all but you can only have 1 of 4 sexualities and if you label your sexuality in a way i deem wrong you're a bad person" genuinely how some of you sound sometimes.

“Thought that was a beautiful butch lesbian but it’s just a man” did you know these things aren’t mutually exclusive