🌊 wavecrest-confessions  Follow

whenever I see someone making fun of the tidelords disappearance I get SO angry. Its just so insensitive to water dragons, and it ALWAYS comes from a wind, earth, or ice dragon. Like I don’t think you have any ground to stand on guys, your deities are still more neglectful than the tidelord and he’s not even here

❄️ ice-ice-baby  Follow

Dude your god has been gone for so long his long lost children came back before him

🪨 freshpebble-deactivated

Aren’t you the one who carved your fanart of femboy Icewarden into the side of the pillar.

❄️ ice-ice-baby  Follow

???? You’re literally a shade apologist

💫 see-the-stars  Follow

HOW ARE THERE SHADE APOLOGISTS ON DRUMBLR IN THIS DAY AND AGE I THOUGHT THEY WERE ONLY ON DRITTER

🍃 riding-high  Follow

are we gonna just brush over the femboy icewarden thing

🦅 talonafan2477  Follow

@ see-the-stars the Arcanist is the ORIGINAL shade apologist what are you talking about

🦅 talonafan2477  Follow

btw “ice ice baby” is apart of from clan froststep that has a history of supporting the gaolers during the freezeflash war and thus the destruction of the banescales

🌑 walkingshadows Follow

Yeah but what about the femboy icewarden thing

🔥 its-gettin-hot  Follow

you can excuse genocide but draw the line at femboy icewarden?

🌑 walkingshadows Follow

im not drawing the line i just wanna see it myself

🌺 bug-claws Follow

thats fair

I am a very feminine trans guy and sometimes I'm embarrassed or don't feel valid because I am infact feminine. It would honestly mean the world to me if you could write something about Vil x a reader who's going through my issue! (I hope this makes sense I'm not good at explain)

Vil with a Fem Trans Male S/O

A/N: I'm not really a feminine trans dude, i don't really dress fem unless it's for special events or cosplays (like once a year for one convention), but I do think feminine trans guys are valid. Sending feminine trans guys all my love.

Male reader, feminine male reader

Let's get one thing straight: Vil hates gender roles

He actively defies them, and he doesn't stand for anyone trying to enforce them

When Vil first met you, whether he knew you were trans or not, he really admired you for how openly feminine you were

While he didn't put the two of you on the same level in his mind, he did see view you better than most people at NRC

It was the catalyst for the two of you getting closer

You both bonded over how you expressed yourselves and how it made you feel

As the two of you got closer, you tried to hide those days where you felt like being fem was wrong from him

You knew it wasn't true, that the way you dress didn't determine who you were, but you couldn't help that little voice in the back of your head that told you otherwise

When the two of you started to date, it was practically impossible to hide it

You eventually had to open up to him

He caught you on one of those days, when you felt like the only thing you could do was put on a big hoodie to feel like you were valid in your identity

He noticed your change of usual attire, but didn't ask until the two of you were alone

He questioned you on why you dressed so differently that day, and you broke down, telling him how you felt

You told him about how you felt embarrassed to be feminine as a trans man, how it felt like you weren't really valid enough

He put a stop to that immediately, gently cupping your face and telling you that it wasn't how it worked

He assured you that you're valid in how you identify and that how you dress doesn't change who you are

He used himself as an example

He's a cis man, but dresses very fem and wears makeup almost every day

He does very feminine things, and it doesn't make him any less of a man, and everyone respects his identity as a man

After calming you down, he let you know that he loved you, and that who you are won't change based on how you dress

From then on he's constantly giving you small reassurances, whether you look like you need them or not

If you're comfortable with it, he might post you every so often and show you all the positive comments you get, and how everybody treats you just like him

Just like a man, the man that you are, feminine or not

hi, so i do have a question regarding trans people- i completely support trans people and people should have the right to do whatever they want to as long as it doesn't hurt anyone, and i would never side with those who try to take away someone's autonomy. that being said, why do people want to be the specific genders(men, women)- what exactly does one feel? is it identifying with gender stereotypes? wanting the other kind of body? i can understand why someone would want to be enby, but can't seem to understand specific reasons why people would want to be transmasc or transfem etc. i've read posts before where people have wanted to be women/men because of gender stereotypes- they wanted to play with dolls/liked feminine/masculine colors/clothes etc. but it's obviously something that shouldn't be stereotyped against and anyone should be allowed to play/like anything they want to, whether it's feminine or masculine. so what exactly is it that makes people want to be either? again, though even if i didn't understand why someone else felt that way, i fully support them.

I'm not even transgender in any flavor so I'm not the best person to ask, but I'm pretty sure the answer is going to be individual for every person.

I think like, the larger society has latched onto the narrative of "I always wanted to play with 'girl' toys and do 'girly' things" because that's what makes sense to a cisgender audience in a culture where behavior and clothing and toys are very obviously gendered.

But that's not, like, what "makes" someone transgender—it's a way of explaining it.

I mean, okay, maybe I can talk about this a little. I'm a cis woman. I've thought about it! I like being female, it feels comfortable to me, and experimentally imagining anything else feels...bad.

This has nothing to do with gender stereotypes—I don't shave, I don't wear makeup, I usually cut my hair super-short, I'll wear my brothers' clothes if I like them, I always actively hated the "girl" toys as a kid (though I was never labeled a 'tomboy'—I feel like autism overpowered any specific gendered label that would otherwise apply to me, for complicated reasons. I was a Weird kid). It's just...I don't know. It's nice when one of my friends in chat in a game i'm playing calls me "she"—like hell yeah! Your mental concept of me is a girl :D

If anything, I started to feel more "woman" when I started dressing and styling more masculine—it was actually seeing pictures of butch lesbians online that made me see an image of myself I liked for the first time. I wanted to be a woman who's like a guy at the auto parts store.

I think some people just have no internal sense at all about their gender, and some of these people probably ID as non-binary, and some of these people probably just identify with whatever they were assigned because that's what's convenient. There are no wrong answers here, right?

And some people have a really strong unwavering internal sense about it, and it's not exactly able to be distilled down to feelings about your body or clothes or interests or whatever, but it exists. I know that I "feel" like a woman even though I couldn't say why. It's somewhere in between "this feels accurate" and "this feels nice."

the tma/tme distinction is really interesting for me as a feminine trans guy who's been on T for almost 4 years. i generally look like a cis dude and i have a deeo voice but i'll admit, i often dress or act in a pretty fem way and i've definitely had people assume i'm a trans woman before

see and this is why the tme/tma dichotomy is simply unrealistic. it presumes a LOT of things but especially it presumes that every person's transition - even binary trans people's - is linear. from one sex to the "opposite," with the implication that you attempt to, or even want to "pass." we have got to let go of this notion that every single person we see is "clockable" (and even if they are, being able to clock that someone is/is likely trans doesnt tell you their ASAB inherently) which is for some reason controversial to say. there is no single label that dictates whether or not an entire class of people is or isn't affected by gendered violence and/or bigotry because inevitably huge swathes of people in the "unaffected" group WILL in fact experience the exact same things as someone in the "affected" group. you cannot cleanly separate something as diverse as gender into this dichotomy and you'd think that out of anyone, trans people would understand this

i keep seeing that post about how after you stopped wearing makeup and cut your hair you started being treated worse.

i have never worn makeup, cut my hair very short, have a bit of a mustache, and dress neutral/masc most of the time, and i still find that people are very friendly/nice. i live in a sorta-progressive area, but also... not really. we have legal protection from the state but locally the area is much more conservative. maga signs etc. and i am not white (hispanic).

so i guess my question is, do you think the way you were treated has more to do with the perceived loss of your femininity than just the fact that you started presenting more masc? like, if they hadn't already known the avishai with the makeup and long hair, do you think they'd've treated you better?

no, because i noticed it in interactions with strangers too. i don't know which of my posts this is referencing so i'm not sure if i mentioned it in the post, but it definitely had a lot to do with the fact that fat women (which i was being perceived as) are expected to perform hyperfemininity as a sort of apology for fatness. so when i stopped doing that, i stopped getting the shreds of respect i was getting before in exchange for that performance.

now that my body is being read a million different ways depending on the situation, it's always a crapshoot whether if i dress feminine people will first perceive me as a feminine man or trans woman (MaleTM not adhering to the assigned Gender Rules) or fat cis woman (FemaleTM who should be punished for fatness), or when i dress masculine or just wear a tshirt and shorts if people will perceive me as a fat guy (Gross and Bad) or a fat masculine woman (Gross and Bad and also not adhering to the assigned Gender Rules or making the Necessary Apologies for being fat). of course all this also depends on what they think when they see my kippah, especially if it's a bukharian kippah bc sometimes they'll decide actually they don't care if i'm a man or a woman or fat they just hate that i'm Ethnically Other. it's been a weird and stressful experience, and ngl these past few weeks i've avoided going out because of it.

"oh saying ur tme/tma doesnt reveal anything personal it just tells us whether ur affected by transmisogyny"

first of all, everyone is affected by transmisogyny to an extent, not just transfems. intersex people, androgynous people, nonbinary people, people of color, gnc people, cis women with 'masculine' features, cis men who dress a little too feminine for society's liking, 'non-passing' transmascs, literally anyone. it is. not exclusive to transfems by any means, it is a type of oppression enforced to fit a quota, when you exclude people who are affected by it from it you are, whether you notice it or not, enforcing that. you are enforcing a binary onto a community built BECAUSE WE DIDNT FIT IN A BINARY!

second of all, if someone say theyre trans (because ngl its awesome and it should take pride in it), and uses, lets say, they/it, and then they say theyre TME, you can pretty fucking easily tell it's a transmasc. so yes, they do share information personal to them for your 'comfort', its just not directly.

you guys need to stop treating transfems like theyre special. they are, but because theyre trans and unique in their own individual way, not because theyre transfems. and dont act like I dont know you'd exclude non-passing (specifically: "not even trying") transfems from your stupid rhetoric

sincerely, a "TMA" being who is so fucking sick and tired of this shit.

kie/kir only if you're gonna gossip about me, and if a radfem interacts Ill bend their spine into the shape of an ampersand istfs.

Hello! I hope you don't mind this, but I've been trying to better understand He/Him lesbianism, but google isn't very helpful and I've heard a lot of explanations and I wanted to hear your side of it since your Megatron seems to align with that? Your explanations tend to make more sense to my neurodivergent brain 😅

-Bi lady trying to better understand the peeps around her ❤

I mean, I’m probably not the best person to explain this and you’re probably better off asking someone who is one, since everybody’s reasoning and experience is different. I’ll try to give a basic overview to get you started, but I really can’t claim to speak to everyone, if even very many, people’s experience:

The basic principle is that pronouns are social arbitrage and are indicative of how other people in society perceive you, but they are limited to describe the scope of gender experience. you may not be a man, but still identify strongly with masculinity and “benefit” from some of the social consequences of presenting and performing masculinity—or, in many cases, the rigid expectation of femininity is just way too narrow and suppressive. The tragic fact is there really isn’t a lot of precedent or understanding for women who aren’t feminine or perform feminine roles, and those expectations are so ingrained that they infect the core of people’s expectations of womanhood. I’ve heard butches describe that sometimes it’s just easier to use masculine identifiers because it helps people understand, which is something I’ve experienced to a lesser degree (even now as I’ve become less ambivalent with my gender I still frequently call myself “guy” and “man” and similar things).

All that being said, presenting socially as masculine doesn’t necessarily change who you are, or how you experience the world. Butchness is very performative and masculine, but deep down most butches have a connection to women and femininity that is extremely strong. Womanhood is an isolating and often dangerous experience, and, historically, lesbianism isn’t JUST about relationships, but the effort of women to find protection and support from sexism, oppression and violence within themselves. Being butch, even to the point that you “pass” and don’t experience as much targeting for being feminine, doesn’t erase your connection and experience with the feminine, and with womanhood. Whether you are cis or trans, your experience of the world and your treatment at the hands of other people has, and probably will always be, affected by that overarching social expectation, and often detriment, of womanhood.

Being butch is a personal celebration of the fluidity of one’s gender and the performance of masculinity, but just because it rejects the appearance of the feminine, that doesn’t mean it dislikes or “rejects” femininity. This is something I’ve struggled to reconcile for myself, but it feels demonstrably true. Your physicality, appearance, and social role may appear masculine, but manhood is more than just short hair and pants, just like womanhood is more than long hair and dresses. They’re simple blanket statements intended to describe a range of human experience that is extremely vast, both socially and biologically. Your pronouns can describe you to strangers and peers, but they don’t always represent your experience and reality, and that’s where you get he/him lesbians, who are masculine in performance, but feel a connection and allegiance to womanhood that is far deeper than someone who identifies as a man might.

that being said in Megatron’s case (can’t believe we got here from a transformers question), while I use he/him pronouns for him, they aren’t his only ones, nor are they even the ones I’d say he’d choose. I see him as ambivalent, and a performer; he presents a very exaggerated, masculine persona to hold power and communicate strength, so masculinity is something others see and expect from him. In a situation where power games weren’t mandatory, I could honestly see him preferring other pronouns. I guess that does kind of tie in with what I described, lol.

Anyway, I hope this helped, at least a little bit! I got kinda rambly there, apologies. I feel like the nightmare scenario of guy whose interests include gender study nonsense and transformers. once again, I am just one person and I’m definitely not the best qualified, so please seek out other material if you’re confused, and remember that everybody’s relationship with gender is completely different!

I know that clothes ≠ gender but sometimes I feel like I'm faking and I'm not a "true" genderfluid person, because I really do like dresses and frilly clothes and girl-ish stuff in general… But sometimes I like to wear them even in my masc days, and I feel like I don't have the right to ask people to refer to me with he/him pronouns because of it…

Idk if somone else feels like this, but I'd appreciate if someone had a solution to it!!

i definitely understand feeling like your gender somehow isn't valid because of your traits or hobbies or likes or presentation.

so how to deal with it?

disclaimer that often it takes some time to get over internalized transphobia, just keep working at it and reminding yourself that you are valid and can be whoever you want to be. forever.

ok first of all: everything gendered is totally arbitrary. there is nothing that is inherently masculine or feminine, technically. humans just like to make categories and put labels on things even when there's no true meaning or reason behind it. if you lived in a different country or a different time period, different things would be considered masculine. different things would be considered feminine. it truly doesn't matter in the scheme of who you are. whether you're a girl who likes tech or a guy who collects american girl dolls, you're still your gender.

second of all: do a little thought exercise for me and think of it in terms of other people. flip the genders - for instance, if a girl was really into weightlifting and other "masculine" hobbies, she'd just be a tomboy or butch girl. you would still respect her as a girl, right? and if you knew a guy who likes frills and pretty things, wouldn't you still respect him as a guy? why should it be any different for you? i mean this in a completely positive way - you are not the specialest person in the world, and that's a good thing. and i have to tell myself this too lmao. there is nothing that makes you so fundamentally different from other people that you don't deserve your gender and identity respected regardless of how you present.

third of all: look for cis men who are really feminine. look for cis men who are just kinda feminine. look for feminine men. find media with gender-non-conforming characters. there are plenty of them. number one: it will make you feel more normal. number two: would you question their identity because of how they present or what they like? no. at least i hope not lol.

fourth, maybe: create OCs that are like you. create art about your experience. find other people who are genderfluid and like feminine things. find friends who you know will accept and respect your identity. remind yourself that you deserve to be respected.

p.s. my younger brother has a bed full of plushies, wears makeup sometimes, and owns a corset that im lowkey jealous of but i can't steal bcos we don't wear the same size *pouts grumpily*. my ex-boyfriend liked skirts and split dyed his hair white and red. boys are all different. you're as valid as a boy/masc person (when you are one) as everyone else.

i hope something in this helped! go listen to your favorite song n be kind to yourself. you rock!

Not saying you're not dysphoric at all, just saying your belief that it doesn't matter if you have gender incongruence or not is inherently harmful to the wider trans community, and maybe you should do more research.

Of course I'm pissed at the control cis people have, but I also want to make sure non-dysphorics don't GET dysphoria from transitioning to a gender they aren't.

I don't want to see them suffer through a mostly irreversable struggle just because they made a bad decision.

Gender dysphoria ≠ gender incongruance.

Gender incongruance is just feeling as though your gender doesn't align with the gender you were assigned at birth. To provide a few examples of what a non-dysphoric trans person may experience:

-Someone who doesn't hate the gender they were assigned at birth/being referred to as such, but feels a whole lot happier with another gender identity, e.g, a non-dysphoric trans woman may feel indifferent about being referred to as a man, but she's a whole lot happier as a woman and being referred to as such.

-Someone who does not experience physical dysphoria and does not wish to pursue physical transition, e.g, a trans man who chooses not to bind, go through the process of hrt, or get any surgeries, and possibly may not present as traditionally masculine, but is still a man and wants to be referred to as such.

-Someone who is unable to define what dysphoria would feel like for them because their identity exists outside of the binary, e.g, an agender person who does not feel dysphoric about their body, nor euphoric about the idea of possessing a "masculine" or "feminine" or even androgynous body.

And there's plenty of other ways, I'm sure, but those are a few examples of friends and people in my life.

Gender dysphoria is feeling distress from gender incongruance - the source of that dysphoria may be from specific body parts, from certain aspects of one's character, from the way one is expected to behave or dress, from situations one may be placed in, and from being misgendered and misperceived as another gender. But not everyone who experiences gender incongruance experiences distress from it and thus, not every trans person is dysphoric.

It's also impossible to make a perfect checklist for gender dysphoria. What happens when a bigender person decides they want to keep their chest and get phallo, but doesn't feel male, and therefore is denied the surgery? What happens when a nonbinary woman wants to keep her facial hair and told she's not a real woman when she chooses to grow a beard? What happens when a genderfluid person wants to get a neo vagina but doesn't want hrt? Hell, what happens when a binary trans guy, who does experience gender dysphoria, decides to wear a dress and gets denied access to hrt?

Using dysphoria as a determining factor as to whether someone can be allowed to transition or not is a very dangerous game. It's been used to forcefully sterilize trans folks -- people who had to prove they were truly trans, truly dysphoric, by giving up their autonomy.

And what about those people who don't fit into binary boxes, who don't meet the expectations determined by cisgender people? What happens when you step out of line, and it's used against you, by people who insist it's for your own good and that you'll regret it?

What other people do with their lives and their bodies isn't up to you. Sure, some people are going to regret it. People regret serious decisions all the time - the decision to get married, to have plastic surgery, to throw themselves into decades of debt to pursue a career they hate, ir even the decision to get a tattoo. There are and will continue to be people who transition and regret it, and there's many more people who were unfairly held back from transitioning because they didn't meet the criteria. You can't do anything for the people who will regret it. It's not your body and it's not your choice. It's not fair to suggest that other trans people should have to suffer to prevent a few more people from making decisions over their bodies and lives that they'll regret.

And the cis people who dictate who gets to transition based on dysphoria don't have your best interest in mind. They want to prevent as many people from transitioning as possible, especially if those people aren't binary, and especially if these cis people perceive them as "weird" or "abnormal."

I can't find a post where you described it, but if I remember right, you said you feel like your feminity feels less like the feminity a cis woman might have, and more like the type of feminity that a drag queen might; have I remembered right?

Well, that stuck with me for a while, and I didn't know why, but I think it's because that's actually a pretty good description of my relationship to femininity, and I just didn't realize it for a long while.

I consider myself fully male, but I am also transfemme. And it has led to this really funny phenominon where I present in a way that is technically completley gender confirming to binary feminine standards in every physical way, but I look at myself in the mirror and my mind goes "Boy!"

And I have this desire for everyone else (at least the people close to me) to see me as fully male like I do, even though I would pass as a cis girl if I just didn't say anything.

At least based on what I remember you saying (which may be wrong and I am sorry if it is, haha), it feels simular to your experience, it's just that I have a more fixed connection to the concept of being male, rather than a less specific underlying masculinity, if I understand it right?

I realize this turned into another one of the "tell me your gender" ask which I realize you are not accepting anymore, haha. But my intention was moreso just to share that I related to that description of your experience a lot, and it made me feel really good and think about some things related to my own identity in a new light

So thank you, I guess for just existing, haha

Yes, that is totally a way that I have described my gender multiple times! Despite being afab I don't feel inherently feminine at all, so when I dress femininely it feels like drag to me. And when I identify as a guy (since I'm genderfluid) I often feel like doing even more intense makeup and feminine looks because it again, feels like drag to me. But obviously this just makes me look like a chick (albeit a freaky one sometimes lol). But like, if you're trans and gnc that doesn't make your gender any less valid, right? So like, same deal! Whether you're gnc or not, whatever your appearance is or how you like to dress, that doesn't change who you feel you are on the inside. I like wearing dresses bc they're cool and pretty! But I'm still a guy (sometimes) and if I had a different body I would dress the same way. I am so happy that me talking about my gender was able to help you learn more about yourself and make you feel seen! Sending you love and peace thru the universe 💖💖💖

When it's 'acceptable' to be androgynous or hyperfeminine, and when it's not

When I first started presenting more masc, I cut my hair insanely short and dressed as boyish has possible. Like we’re talking straight up jock here. It was gender euphoric and helped me pass more when I was pre-T and in the early stages where HRT hadn’t done it’s magic yet. It was nice, but it wasn’t me.

I’ve always been the type to wear jewlery, whether it be subliminal layered necklaces, bracelets, earrings, rings, I even have an eyebrow piercing. I started wearing it again. I’ve always liked having longer hair than short hair, so I grew it out since I’ve had it buzzed into a fade and no longer have an undercut. It’s a mullet shag kind of look that just suits me better. My style has been less jocky and more ‘androgynous boy nextdoor’ and I shave all the time, take care of my skin, keep up on grooming, etc. All of these things are just habits of an old routine and a personal style.

None of these things help me pass. I’m popular on multiple social media platforms. I get comments like ‘you don’t pass’ ‘you look like a lesbian’ (leave lesbians alone omg) ‘i can tell you’re trans’ which I could care less for because I know it’s just a few trolls with nothing better to do. People in real life approach me as a woman only sometimes, but it comes in subtle ways like when men offer for me to get on the public transport bus first. (to which I say thank you in my voice that’s dropped like 100 octaves)

What I don’t get is why it’s invalidating for me to be feminine as a trans masc person. I see people fall head over heels for the ‘boy that looks pretty like a girl’ trope on tiktok all the time. The memes, jokes, or comments about ‘boys with long hair >’ and ‘guys who aren’t afraid to be feminine’ ‘androgynous guys>’ that people praise online and in real life. They should emphasize they’re talking about cis guys.

When I do any of these things I’m clocked or am told by my audience ‘you’re not really trans’ and ‘you don’t pass’ and other transphobic things and also the ‘you don’t pass’ comment from cis people. I just don’t get it because an attractive cis guy can do it and he gets praise, but me as a transmale, I am just met with transphobia. I can’t dare to be hyperfeminine or even a little bit fem because I’m just faced with transphobia. Like …the gender box of hypermasculinity cisgender people have made on the transmasc community is paralyzing. You either gotta be hyperfeminine or hypermasculine according to the gender you’re transitioning into or you’re not acceptable. I hate it here.

tw// vent, cocsa, gender dysphoria, bad body image

Since I was a kid I’ve felt like I was born to be a guy, (as a cis girl). Someone close to me groped me at a young age (we were close in age).

She’s very feminine. Short, small face, neck, and shoulders. She looks like a woman. I’m tall (5’7), lanky, with broad shoulders, a long face and deep voice. She’s a tomboy, while i try to look feminine.

I wear any shoe that doesn’t have support to be shorter, flowery earrings and lipstick, dresses or loose clothing. I still look like a guy. My small breasts don’t help at ALL i’ve tried every diet, exercise, subliminal but nothing ever works. i hate looking like this. there’s always a thought that its her fault. she touched me so my body thought i was a guy. i know thats immature and makes no sense.

i want to look like a female. i want to look up at everyone instead of down at them. i want guys to like me instead of looking at me and whispering “i thought that was a dude” i tried telling my dad but he doesn’t get it. all my siblings look like girls. they’re all so pretty. i’m so masculine and revolting. i hate this.

Hi anon,

I'm sorry about what happened to you.

As a GNC AFAB I understand the frustration in being misgendered frequently. But with this insight, I would ask yourself what makes you feel like you have to prove your gender identity to people who misgender you. It's not necessarily something you should tolerate but sometimes it is inevitable. Although gender expression is often dependent on others' ability to perceive it, I personally try to remember that people who misgender me, their perception of my gender isn't essential to me, and my gender exists independent of whether or not they comprehend it.

Another thing that may be worth exploring with yourself is asking yourself what is so revolting about your masculine traits, and if there are any experiences that reinforced these ideas for you. Because while it's understandable to want to eliminate these masculine features due to your more feminine gender identity, there may be features that you interpret as masculine that may not be able to change. For example, I have been told by transphobes that my jawline is so thick that I must be AMAB. I'm not going to go out and get cosmetic surgery to refine my jawline, I'm going to redefine my jawline as feminine, or whatever is most comfortable to me. I'm going to remind myself that AFABs will have physical traits others interpret as masculine and that doesn't make them any less AFAB, feminine, or whatever describes them best.

While it's okay to associate femininity with being petite, it can also be useful to think of feminine as taking up space. You don't have to be short, small, or slender to be feminine. You also don't have to have big breasts to be feminine. You can define femininity on your own terms.

I also just want to say that it's not immature to say that "she touched me so my body thought i was a guy" and in fact this can make a lot of sense. This may not be exactly what you're experiencing but for some people, trauma can affect the ways in which we perceive and express our gender identity (and sexuality).

I think ultimately it's about learning to love yourself in your totality, and potentially finding ways to reinterpret the parts of you that you deem to be masculine. This is definitely easier said than done.

I hope I could help. Please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

hi chay, dont mind me just a curious lad with a silly question. if someone is generally very masculine about the way they dress and act like and talk abt themselves, does that mean they can't be genderfluid? like, i as an afab who's very confused abt my gender, i love to dress up in a feminine way, i love dresses i love make up i love long hair and i do "act" like a girly referring to myself as she/her and all of that /sometimes/ more in public tho. i love all of my feminine features. but sometimes i do wanna dress up in a more "masculine" way yk? i wear my dad's or brother's clothes sometimes and act like a lad. and i do sometimes find myself more comfortable in that kind of attire. im not trying to be stereotypical abt this but idk how else to express this im sorry. so i just can't help but wonder that if a man, a queer man to be more specific, who is so "masculine" all the time, wears laddy clothes calls himself a lad and all of that stuff and just is very kinda cis in expressing himself most of the time, and it might not be pretense ok but then why does the idea of him wearing dresses at home so bothersome? there are people who say its disrespectful to assume that every queer guy is flamboyant or genderfluid in some way or the other, that it's stereotypical. but if lgbtq and just gender in general is a spectrum of infinite colors, isnt it just as stereotypical to assume that just bc someone dresses and acts a certain way they can't do other stuff? just bc a laddy lad acts like a typical cis lad with everyone, he can't wear dresses at home just for the mere fact that he finds comfort in it? and if assuming that about someone is rude then assuming the opposite should be to! or should it not?

im just very confused abt the whole thing and im like very very new to this, all of this, like a baby queer if you can call me that so I'm really sorry if anything i said up there came out sounding offensive or one-dimensional or like idk not ok, i genuinely apologize that was not the intention. im just very confused about a lot of things rn and this is just me trying to make sense of stuff. feel free to ignore this or tell me off if i said anything wrong. also sorry for the rant

Hi love!!

you don't have to apologize you're totally fine!

look between how you identify with gender and how you express it can be lots of intimate and interchangeable links but also these two are at the same time separate realms. you can identify as gender fluid, agender, nonbinary, trans, cis, etc but how you express this identity (meaning your pronouns, your name, your clothes, etc etc) is your art, is whatever you want it to be, whatever makes you feel good, validated, and whatever makes you feel at home with your skin. so if you feel like expressing your gender today in a more feminine way (how you see femininity and how you define it) then perfect, if tomorrow you feel like you wanna express it in a more masculine way (again how you see masculinity and how you define it) then its all so perfect! you can always explore your gender and redefine it the way you want.

for the second part about the ''lad'' thing, everyone has a gender expression whether you're cis or trans/ gender non-conforming, of course, there is systematic discrimination and power balance that comes with reversing gender expectations and also some personal stuff you have to deal with, there is more layers when it comes to that.

however, for example, lad culture is a way for lads to express their gender, very injected by a cultural setting, by a class, by certain things that define what is a lad and they conform to it, however, it does not erase the possibility of exploring your gender while being a lad, you know, a lad can deff wear dresses, can wear makeup, can redefine the ''laddiness'' and reshape their gender expression, regardless of how they identify their gender

and about the stereotypes, look I personally don't like the idea of pushing the argument of ''you cant assume this, this is just a stereotype'' you can say this to cishets who their judgment can be rooted in the system that benefits them but as queer people, our history is linked by the things others say its ''stereotype'', recognizing that a gay man can be effeminate and present as masculine or sometimes be okay with being feminine or whatever they want is not stereotyping is just another complex reality of a queer person.

idk if I answered your questions love, but please do come back if you have more or something wasn't clear <3

Getting down in words how I think Heinkel’s gender identity works bc I am not an expert, I am cis but I do have an enby sibling, and I just wanna Express My Thoughts woergwiergjw. I’m sure someone could take one look at this and immediately tell me what identity this counts as so hey, feel free to do so ha ha

Details under the cut, discussion of intersex anatomy, mentions of transphobia and shitty handling of puberty by adults

Okay so my interpretation of Heinkel is heavily based on her having 5AR2D, which is a disorder that can cause intersex in XY individuals. Google exists if you want more specific details than that, but essentially I see Heinkel as having *approximately* female genitalia (large clitoris, fused labias, very small vaginal canal), but that is literally it for female body characteristics. Like most other individuals with 5AR2D, when puberty hit Heinkel had the usual changes a genetically male person might. 5AR2D doesn’t inhibit testosterone production (testes are present, just undescended) or keep that from having impacts, so yeah, physically Heinkel looks like a cis male, just with a lot less body and facial hair (I PROMISE this is a real part of the disorder weroijgweoirjgo)

WITH THAT OUT OF THE WAY, keeping all of this in mind, growing up Heinkel was raised as a girl at the orphanage. She always had to share rooms with other girls, she was made to wear feminine clothing (although Father Anderson was very supportive of stretching that definition for her), and out of her friends (mainly Yumi and Enrico), she got along with girls better. In general, as a kid, the most Heinkel ever considered herself was a tomboy, and for the most part no one gave her too much shit for that. And then puberty hit.

All of a sudden, Heinkel’s finding that literally all of her roommates, including Yumi, are changing in Very Specific Ways, and her experiences don’t match up with those at all. Heinkel realizes at some point oh shit, I’m starting to look like a guy, which she doesn’t hate! She likes looking like a guy, she likes dressing like a guy, being masculine and looking masculine feels good. Her appearance isn’t what bothers her about all of this, it’s how people start treating her.

Because her whole life, she’s been told she’s a girl and she’s roomed with girls and experienced things from a female perspective, and now suddenly everyone at the orphanage pushing for her to dress feminine are realizing that this young teen who by all accounts looks like a teenage boy, looks less ‘’’’’’’’’proper’’’’’’’’ in feminine clothes. And Heinkel is facing a strange reversal where now she’s ONLY allowed to wear masculine clothes and she gets her own room, which might be cool except everyone else rooms with a bunch of other boys or girls and it makes her feel weird, and suddenly no one cares if she acts like a tomboy. And Heinkel doesn’t HATE that people are expecting her to be more masculine, but she hates that she’s ONLY allowed to be masculine now. 

If someone were to ask Heinkel if she was a man or woman, she’d probably say it doesn’t really matter, she’s a bit of both. If SPECIFICALLY asked if she was a man, she’d say no, but if asked if she was a woman, she’d probably say kind of? Sorta? In the way that carbonated water is pop, she is a woman. But it’s not something that she thinks about really, because she was raised in an extremely conservative environment where there are ONLY male and female, and out of those two options yeah, she’s picking female. I don’t know if Heinkel, at least in the time Hellsing canon exists in, would ever encounter terms like nonbinary, and even if she did, I really don’t know how open she would be to them? 

To like, be even more specific, at some point Heinkel absolutely has to get those undescended testes removed, whether it’s of her own volition or some doctor in Iscariot goes They Gotta Come Out (MAJOR cancer risk), and absolutely Heinkel would be on T after that. I think she likes having masculine characteristics and would want to maintain them

Maybe I’m overanalyzing and this is just a butch lesbian I’m describing because Heinkel is hella gay and is too busy having a crisis over being gay to think too deeply about her gender identity as a teen lmao. She’s going ah FUCK why are girls so fucking hot, girls aren’t supposed to be hot I’M a girl,,,,,,,

You know, I’m not sure if I’ve said this somewhere before, but I’m a little bit worried about transitioning. I know I want top surgery, and I’m pretty sure I want to go on low-dose t, but, once I’m further along in my transition, what will I do if I need to use a public bathroom? Because heaven knows there aren’t that many gender-neutral bathrooms around. I could go into the men’s room, but idk how well I’ll pass as a guy (especially since I’m short and like having long hair; not to mention I don’t want to look entirely masculine) and, tbh, I feel more comfortable using the women’s room, since that’s what I’ve used my whole life and I don’t really have a problem with it. But say I use the women’s room. When they see me with masculine features and a deeper voice, they might get uncomfortable with me around. Either way, I run the risk of being harassed. It’s funny; I feel like I’m blowing this out of proportion because I’ve never been harassed for my trans identity before. I mean, I have experienced a little bit of transphobia before. Turns out that my ex-boyfriend had been misgendering me behind my back. Also, when I came out to my grandma as non-binary and told her my new name (which was Fynn at the time; nowadays I go by Rooke), she told me she liked my deadname better. Which actually kind of stung a little. Not to mention the concern my family voiced when I first said I wanted to transition, saying that they were worried I hadn’t thought this through. I mean, maybe they were justified in that. I had just recently figured out I wasn’t cis and was suddenly obsessed with thinking about whether or not I wanted to do these things to my body. I honestly don’t know. But I’ve never been harassed. Maybe because I live in an area that’s particularly accepting; maybe because I tend to dress femininely and therefore people assume me to be a cis woman; maybe for both these reasons. But I know that when I go through with this, I don’t think I can avoid it forever.

Anyway, I just wanted to get that off my chest. Also maybe to ask for some support and encouragement? Idk. But I know I’m not the only one who worries about this kind of stuff. It’s a harsh reality that we have to worry about these kinds of things because the world isn’t friendly towards us. I just hope that future generations of trans people won’t have to do the same.

I’ve been questioning my gender in a space safe enough to do something about it and it’s insane

Transitioning was never an option before and suddenly I have a traditionally male haircut and getting called she hurts when it didn’t a week ago. I feel like most people still see me as a girl and I don’t know how to change an initial perception like that but I don’t know. I can finally be one of the guys and navigating the world is so much weirder bc suddenly I don’t know what I am perceived as.

Suddenly I’m experiencing dysphoria with feminine earrings and euphoria at looking like a guy and it’s so sudden and new

I wish I could know whether it’s just another facet of shock of moving out but I remind myself that cis people don’t do this

Cis people don’t go in the bathroom trying to hide their hair under a beanie just to see

Cis people don’t try to find an excuse to cross dress for Halloween

Cis people don’t hyperfixate on guys which similar features because it feels like finding a doppelgänger and what could’ve been

Cis people don’t joke about repressing a gender crisis because they know it’s not an option but don’t want to commit to being a woman forever

But I was happy presenting as female and really fucking good at it

I can’t tell if I just got really good at faking from a young age

I think i did actually

I think back to kindergarten, and reading a story about not being able to fake things forever because eventually it’ll eat away at you

And even then I felt like something was off about me because I could tell I wasn’t my full self

I was special can beautiful as a child and now I’m a guy

So much loss but so much more opens up and I can’t tell where I am

But why didn’t I have more friends who were guys growing up. Nevermind scratch that. I did but I remember when I got to a point where I couldn’t because I knew I’d never be one of them. The only way to be close to boys was to date and I didn’t want that I wanted friendships. I have a beautiful friend group from high school and my bf and I found each other although closeted as hell. But even so I do have amazing other friends who are genderqueer as well. I do regret how I was limited in my friendships bc of my gender expression I feel like I missed out on the depth of what those could have been.

It’s wild looking back and realize how I became hyper fem bc it hurt too much to be a tomboy, too close to pretending to be a boy without being the real thing. I had traditionally feminine interests and found comfort in that, but it never felt right. No wonder I dissociated so much while I danced. No wonder I hated the idea of all women schools and colleges. No wonder I enjoyed using male gendered terms for myself under the guise of gender neutral. No wonder I enjoyed copying male mannerisms and being dominant in a room and questioning gender roles.

And now everything makes sense. I can dance and feel at home in my body. I can take pictures that aren’t perfectly posed or just right in candidness and it finally looks like me.