It will surprise no one that my reblogs have not been fun recently.

I wouldn't hold out hope for them being so again.

Tumblr does not feel safe.

The Queerest Place On The Internet.

I don't usually draw stuff, I'm sure someone else could have done this better than me, hell someone else might have had this idea already and done it or something similar. But I couldn't get this out of my head today.

I've seen so many of my friends, mutuals, and artists I follow on here get censored just for existing. For the crime of being openly transfem on this website. At best, many of them have had their blogs permanently marked explicit. At worst, some have had their accounts terminated completely with no hope of being restored.

Tumblr is the loudest and proudest LGBTQ+ website on the internet, as long as you don't dare bring up the T.

I'm not going to back down though. I'm going to continue being happy, being proud of myself and my friends. My loved ones. No matter what happens here, they can't take trans joy away from me.

I don't often make personal posts like this and I especially don't often tempt staff's itchy trigger finger for banning transfems, but this post is worth it. It's something that I needed to say.

Absolutely hate that the Predstrogen situation is about Matt's meltdown. We all saw this coming when people started posting the hammer car memes but it's just sickening. Transwomen aren't the focus even when we're the victims.

always love transfems more than you love dunking on transmisogynists. love transfems more than you hate terfs. don't just reblog transfem funnyposts; love transfem music, art, writing, fashion, photography, selfies. love transfems. love transfems. love transfems with your whole heart.

A cute guy likes me on a dating app. After chatting with them for weeks, we decide to go on a date. They are very flirtatious and forward over the app, but not when we meet in person. He admits he thought I was transmasc like him, we laugh about it because his mistake is funny and means I'm not passing but in a silly backwards way. I think his sudden awkwardness in person may be nervousness and flirt with him in ways less forward and aggressive than he'd been flirting with me earlier, and they become cold and distant for the rest of the date. By the time I get home they've blocked me on the app we met on. This case of being mistaken as a transmasc on a dating app will happen 3 more times, and in 2/3 times it results in a similar sudden lack of interest where once they were coming on to me. None of these people will be cis.

I am in a self defense class for queer people, learning hand to hand combat as a community. I have been here months. I notice I'm the only transfem in the classes but there are other trans people there so I don't think much of it. Today I have some stubble as I did not have time to shave before the early morning class. When discussing unrealistic action movie and anime fight scenes I describe on of my favorites, quoting the lines as I pantomime the goofy moves. They smile and laugh along until the word bitch leaves my lips in one quote, then the bisexual woman who only ever they/thems me glares at me like I've committed a grevious crime, and the rest of the class looks at me like a freak in awkward silence for a moment before moving on. I learn bitch is not a word a clocky bitch can "reclaim". I am quiet in classes now, and when I go I focus primarily on the training, when I see other trans women try it out they often give me a sad look and do not return for a second class. I get a sinking feeling that if I ever use this training to save my life one day I'd be branded a violent man instead of a strong woman.

I am texting with a good friend of years who was one of the people who helped me realize I was trans like them and even the one who helped pick out my name loves talking about our shared interests and sharing their favorite smut with me. We bond over favorite stories, artists, characters, and kinks as well as our trans experience. Yet they constantly tell me they could never date someone who's AMAB because of the trauma of being "female socialized" and their genital preferences for vulvas. Every compliment they have ever given me on my appearance or outfit is followed up by "but in a non-sexual way, I could never date you". Today I finally have the courage tell them they don't need to say that every time. They ignore this response. We keep talking for awhile, but they start taking months to respond to my messages and respond with a short sentence at most. They no longer share details about their life and shut me out when I ask or share details about mine, even the most mundane and chaste details. I stop talking to them. A birthday gift I bought them months before this falling out happened looms at me in my closet. I cannot use it as it doesn't fit me but can't bring myself to throw it away, just in case we reconcile one day. I feel pathetic for craving friendship with someone who sees me as "abuser-bodied", that so much of my early stages would've been impossible without their help. I feel a little more lost without them.

I am at a queer/trans/enby kink dance party with some friends. I am scantily clad and wearing a skirt and high heeled boots. I do not pass well so this space is one of the few places I feel safe and free dressing like this. It is packed with queer and trans people just like me engaged in delightful debauchery and wearing very little. The music hurts my ears but I'm happy to be here, I feel overstimulated but alive and authentic. I am approached by a beautiful stranger from across the dance floor, she is graceful and stylish, like some modern Galadriel clad in leather, white lace, and industrial piercings with impeccable voice training. She compliments my outfit, I compliment hers. She tells me I need to shave my armpits if I want to look like a real woman. My two friends stand up for me and yell at her. They assure me she was just being an asshole, that women were supposed to be hairy, but I can't help but notice how both of them have hairy armpits and yet the "advice" targeted me. The wide range of bodies that people here tonight find desirable on cis women don't seem to apply to the women like me. I am the only one of us that doesn't go home with a hookup at the end of the night. I realize now she likely spoke from experience. I am still hurt by her words, but realizing the kinds of experiences she must have had herself to feel her words were kind advice hurts far worse.

A local queer photographer who's work I follow is looking for women & non-binary models for a photoshoot. I have become comfortable with getting photos taken of me for the first time in my life since my egg cracked, and had a few small time modeling gigs under my belt. With something like this I could actually have the beginnings of a portfolio. I reach and am told that they are not looking for trans women models, "only women and AFABs". Getting the same line I get from agencies from an independent queer photographer repackaged in "woke" terminology stings. I see many queer and nonbinary models I looked up to take part in the shoot. I have to wonder if they knew that the photographer's definition of woman didn't include trans women, or if like me in my martial arts class they noticed no transfems were there but didn't think much of it because there were other trans people there.

It is years ago and I am still an egg. I am with my partner of 4 years. I am exhausted after a long day. She asks me for sex in the voice that I know means saying no will hurt her. I learned from her long ago men have high and insatiable sex drives, therefore saying no meant I wanted to have sex, just not with her. So I say yes. The sex is painful and unsatisfying, and I simply do my best to thrust through the discomfort until she cums. I feel numb and hurt. She enjoys herself but seems sad I did not cum. I assure her I love her. When we hold eachother after my obligation has been met and I finally feel comfortable and safe. We begin talking. She talks about the trashy women she saw on the street today, describing their cringe outfits and ugly styles and bad hair. All the styles and clothes and hair I yearn to try myself in my deepest and most repressed desires. I change the subject and ask her about work and family. She asks if I'd still love her if she were a man and I say yes. She says she would still love me if I were a woman. Something in that statement feels like a lie. It is months later when we break up and I move out. Now that I am a woman I look back and know from our years together that if I were a woman then she'd hate the kind of woman I'd become. That if I were a woman she'd still have the same expectations of me as a man, that her refusal of sex equated an impersonal not being in the mood but my refusal of sex equated a cruel refusal of love.

A lesbian group begins organizing a queer woman's strip night event. A safe place for amateur performers to shine and women to perform and enjoy sexuality away from the male gaze. I see no transfems in the promotional material or leadership team, and I've learned not to think nothing of it just because there are other trans people there. I do not go.

I am talking with my therapist. They are trans too and an amazing therapist, often providing insights and advice only someone else with the lived experience of being trans can. I express distress and suicidal ideation at the fact I feel like I need to pass before I can dress the way I want. That until I get expensive hair removal procedures and FFS I can never feel safe and welcome presenting authentically. I lament how these things are expensive and may never be accessible to me. They tell me I need to deal with my "internalized transphobia", as if these feelings aren't a result of constant rejection and othering by external forces even within queer spaces. As if the scrap of womanhood others sometimes acknowledge in me does not rely on their perceptions of me.

There is a publication accepting works from trans people of all stripes to document trans experiences. It gets flamed for not having a single transfem as a contributor. The people behind it apologize profusely, they say didn't notice no transfems had sent work in and would do a sequel publication that was transfem-centric. I wonder if anyone had noticed there were no transfems but didn't think much of it because there were other trans people there. I think about the kinds of spaces I've seen like that, and the implications it has about how they treat transfems, and I am unsurprised no transfems submitted.

One of my closest friends for years is very supportive of me when I first begin crossdressing and experimenting with they/them pronouns. She gives me suggestions on cute clothes to wear and takes me shopping as well as asks for pictures. We had helped eachother discover we were both queer as young teens, come to terms with it, and navigate it in a hostile environment, so I have complete trust. We are close enough we are frequently asking eachother advice on serious life choices & relationships, sending nudes for critique + tips before sending them to our partners, and sharing our most secret and vulnerable moments. She often asks me for tips on getting her straight boyfriends into pegging and crossdressing that make me slightly uncomfortable but I don't mind, she is a loyal friend I would endure a great many discomforts for. I host a lunch for us one day, and come out to her as a trans woman. I tell her my new name, say I no longer use he/him pronouns, and thank her for her support on my journey thus far. She launches into a monologue about how by changing my name I am throwing away all our memories together and spitting in the face of my family. Taken aback by her sudden heel turn after being so supportive of me being nonbinary and GNC, I excuse myself to go to the bathroom to get a break and give her some time to process. When I am in the bathroom trying not to cry, she is on the phone. I overhear her misgendering me as she is talking about me being bisexual in a frightened voice. She sounds truly afraid that I intend to be sexually violent towards her. When I leave the bathroom and sit back down I pretend not to have heard. She gets off the phone, saying she was just chatting with her boyfriend. We talk a bit longer, she explains how "the surgery" is dangerous and experimental and she hopes I won't get it. I assure her I won't and do my best to change the subject and hope she comes around after some time to process things, hurt and shocked that what I saw as a natural shift in the path I was already on marked me as frightening in her eyes after knowing eachother for over a decade. That a fellow bisexual suddenly saw my bisexuality as dangerous now that I was asserting myself as a trans woman. I say goodbye to her, and she says goodbye to me using my deadname, I do not risk an argument to correct her. It is months after the meeting we have not seen eachother since and she has not responded to any messages I sent. After reflecting on her reaction further I decide that I don't really want to spend time with someone who thinks these things about me for my own safety and mental health, regardless of our history. A friend of 14 years who supported my queerness and transness gone the instant I crossed an intangible woman-shaped line that marked me as a predator and invader in her eyes.

I log online and day after day see trans women getting banned and harassed. Seeing baseless callout posts calling them groomers and abusers getting taken seriously by other queer and trans people. Seeing proof that deep down so many people I consider kindred spirits see me and people like me as worthy of intense scrutiny and policing to keep "the queer community" safe and united. The blocklist grows but everything stays the same. I treasure the people in my life who don't take part in this and would do anything for them, but it seems they get fewer each time.

I'm not making this post to seek sympathy, I am used to this kind of shit and far worse has happened to myself and others. I just make this to illustrate transmisogyny is not some "online-only" issue like people claim. Even if online issues weren't "real" (as healed is fond of saying, "online is real") this has tangible effects in the way trans women are treated offline as well. By communities, friends, partners, colleagues, systems, etc. That's why we talk about it.

So much of the discussions people have paint transmisogyny as some online oppression olympics maliciously trying to divide the community, smear transmascs, and "reinvent bioessentialism". That is not what it is about. Discussions about transmisogyny is about how we are treated for being what we are, and while related to transphobia and misogyny it is seperate because it often represents doors other trans people and women can walk through that transfems cannot. It has affected me in my most intimate moments when I was with other trans and queer people I felt safe around, and taught me that I need to carefully manage my persona and presentation at all times lest my authenticity be branded "male socialization". I am even terrified to express attraction to people who express attraction towards me because I'm so used to being treated like a predator upon reciprocating or being used and abandoned by people I trusted. I am terrified to be too excited about shared interests with friends lest I be too loud or talkative about it and branded with aggressive male socialization. So I make myself quiet and small, and shrink from the community and people I care about, and become more and more isolated.

Anyways, stop platforming anons who spread lies about trans women, stop hopping on TERF harassment campaigns because the trans gal they're smearing "gave you bad vibes", and maybe consider carefully if in your own life where you draw the line for a transfem's behavior is any different from where you'd draw the line for anyone who's not one.

I can already tell that things are "going back to normal", that people think they don't have to care about transmisogyny as much anymore since the incident is already over and in the past. Breathing a sigh of relief that those obnoxious 'transwomen' likely will shut up about it. I don't have a lot of hope that anything changed or that people actually fix their shitty behavior. Especially not since there are so many transfems gone either to termination or because they fled the site. Idk. Every day gets harder to be transfem online. Love us while we are around and support us even when it isn't convenient or easy. Don't just do it to look good

support your local transfem today. be the meat in her fridge. be the leather in her jacket. be the polished bones in her jewelry and the hair in her stuffie and the fertilizer in her garden. be a real ally.

Talking about trans creators in the indie tabletop RPG space can be awkward because a lot of people want to act like it's a recent phenomenon, when the fact of the matter is that several very big names from the 1990s and a large portion of the luminaries of the indie renaissance of the early 2000s are trans – but it's difficult to give specific examples because most of them are trans, but not out. They transitioned socially before the Internet became a panopticon hell and have never been publicly known under their birth names. The only reason I know they're trans is because I've been in the game for thirty years. Every time the topic comes up I've gotta be like: "Well, so-and-so is trans, but is that public knowledge? Would I be outing them by citing their work as an indie RPG by a trans creator?" Which I freely admit is a very petty problem to have compared to the shit that actual trans creators have to deal with, but still.

i love finding poetry in the mundane, and yesterday i stumbled upon something that just hits that spot

So, my partner has an old phone- It served them for many years now, but it has one issue: Charging it is hard. Their current charger is hanging on by a thread (literally), and can barely do its job. The phone and the charger came together: They’ve never used another charger for said phone.

Now, they’ve tried to replace the charging cord several times. But it doesn’t matter how much they’ve searched what damned specific charger the phone uses, none of them work. They finally decided to bring it to a phone shop and ask what should they use.

The guy at the shop looked at the phone for a bit, and explained: “The port itself is broken. The charger you have works with this phone because they’ve mutually broken each other into the same shape, in a way that no other charger is shaped. The port itself has corroded in a way that only accepts the charger that shaped it like that in the first place.”

And while this is of course a frustrating situation for my partner, I feel like there’s a metaphor here. I could write a goddamn story about this. These two half-broken old things have been together for so long they’ve destroyed each other in a way that keeps them from working with anything else. They’ve hurt each other in a way that barely keeps them functioning together, and have been rendered useless with literally anything else.

This too is toxic yuri to me-

the thing i keep coming back to us that it's just agreed-upon that The Bad Trans Women are out there. people disagree about which ones they are and how you can tell but nobody questions that they exist just as imagined

for trans women it becomes about proving that you aren't one of them. for avowed bigots it's about arguing that we're all like that. but for the third and most subtly dangerous category, which i tend to think of as liberals who haven't done the real work, whose politics is correct when things are easy and reactionary when they are not -- to these people, trans women in general are not automatically bad, but they also haven't questioned their axiomatic belief that The Bad Trans Women are out there. and so they can be relied upon to turn on any trans woman on whom the least suspicion falls.

this is one of the Bad Ones, you see, and in order to be a Good Ally they have to protect the reputation and good name of abstract, general trans women by unpersoning this literal, actual trans woman. never mind that the abstract people never benefit, or that the real individual is socially murdered. bring a Good Ally means helping judge which trans women are Bad, see?

i genuinely don't think it matters if avery was breaking ToS or not. a website where ToS is only applied to posts that get staff's attention and where terfs consistently organize to get trans women's posts brought to staff's attention is de facto a website where the rules only apply to trans women. the purpose of a system is what it does and all that innit

the people defending photomatt are indicative how a lot of people view bigotry, transmisogyny, in this case, as something you can partake in as long as you don't say it.

he can misgender and degender a transfem, he can paint her as violent, he can harass avery both on and off tumblr, but as long as he doesn't outright say he hates trans women, then it's worth giving him the benefit of the doubt that he's "doing his best," because hey, he promises he isn't a transmisogynist! eat glass.

now is a good time to be listening to our black sisters, our jewish sisters, our asian sisters, our polynesian sisters, our latina sisters...we cant let the "first they came for the [x]" continue.

this shit has been happening especially to those who protest the injustices done to their people prior to this major incident, and now that we have all but confirmation that these designs are on purpose and working as the architects intended then we cannot disregard each time it continues to happen to one of us. especially for our POC sisters, and especially for our black sisters that get punished for daring to protest a system that all but wants them dead and out of the way. that shit has gone on for too long

we need to learn not just from the mistakes but the intentional cruelties and mismanagement of these systems and work together to improve things for everyone. all power to all people

lrb is so true like it is so easy to say "well its just blogs being banned yknow its not like people are dying" and obviously it is a stretch to 1-1 say that being banned from tumblr is going to kill anyone but like do you think trans women on this site circulate posts begging for money for, like, fun?

oh hey cool cool. yeah threaten trans women with the fbi and cops for saying mean things about the moderation on this website. yeah yeah cool totally normal and sane behavior from the CEO of a site that still allows and defends the transphobes behind these hate campaigns

hi everyone please pay attention to this

a fellow black trans mutual of mine, @rulerofpurple was terminated today for criticizing tumblr's unjustified banning of trans women and black people on their platform. @rulerofpurple 's partner was banned as well.

here are the screenshots of his cohost post discussing it.

please spread this around! @rulerofpurple was terminated and wants his mutuals to know!

like jfc i saw firsthand the vile harassment, stalking, and hate campaigns against avery and they were CONSTANT. the shit terfs and other freaks were sending to her here on the daily were so fucking vile i wouldnt repeat them if you waterboarded me. and were any of them deleted, banned, or warned? no. this site and its staff hates trans women