When i transitioned i had to give up my versatile singing voice and all my skirts and heels. I miss them all equally even though i dont regret a single thing about transitioning. I haven't worn a dress in five years but that doesn't mean i don't want to. My four-inch-heeled blue sequined boots still fit me and sometimes i wear them around the house even if i'm too shy to be gnc in public.

These feelings stopped me from transitioning for a long time and they didn't change when i finally did. I hope that resonates with you

bless you anon! i'm really glad that it's something you don't regret, and i'm glad you're living closer to the you that you want to be - but i also hope you can conquer any fears you have and present to the world the way you want to be seen. i think life's too short to make compromises!

me, i don't think i could go all the way - i think there's a lot about myself i just - i don't want to change. (i'll be honest, the biggest thing i'm scared about with T is what goes on between your legs. i'm terrified of that. i know it's different for everyone, but that makes it even scarier. i'm so familiar with what's down there. i don't want to wake up one morning and it's different. the horrors of one puberty was enough for me. i'm still recovering from my first puberty. i don't want to go through it again. not again. oh dear god.)

i think that's another part of why i thought "oh, i must not be a boy. because i don't want to transition. i have top dysphoria, and Dear God I'd love Top Surgery, but i like what i have between my legs. i like my voice. i like being soft. i like my girlish hobbies. if i like being feminine so much, how does it make sense to claim i'm a boy?" and i think that's a silly line of thinking i had. and i only realised how silly that sounded when other people said it to me. someone said they were worried about identifying as non-binary because they're very pink and very femme. i said - the whole point of non-binary is that it's something you define. pink and femme have nothing to do with it. it's a label you don't have to qualify for! you don't have to qualify to be trans. i know a lot of people trick you into thinking that but - it's just not true. whatever shape you are, whatever preferences you have, whatever you're comfortable wearing, whatever you're comfortable proclaiming - it's on your terms. nobody can tell you what you're meant to feel or how you want to be seen. that's you. you have to define yourself, i guess. nobody else should be able to do that on your behalf!

so i'm a boy, i guess. right now. i'm allowed to be. i declare it so! i'm allowed to be a boy. even in my pink sneakers and my little love-heart chains and all my girlish ways.

Faded Labels

I'm not one to excuse reprehensible behavior, but I also wonder if the term lolcow hasn't fallen out of fashion in today's more salient Progressive standards. I was watching a few horror-themed and True Crime videos last night, and came upon a creator who focused on what he called "horrorcows", or terminally isolated and awkward YouTube creators who'd ultimately gone off the deep end. Popular examples included Christine Chandler, who needs no introduction, Randy Stair and Elliott Rodgers.

Speaking as a disabled man, I've always been aware of what it feels like to be marginalized, and I've seen what happens when a failure to integrate these people in due time is manifest. I've had to deal with social workers despite my having been raised in a happy family because of my disability's needs, and as such quickly picked up on what happened with kids less fortunate than I was.

Imagine that you're born different. It probably starts with something simple, something we have a name for today - like gender dysphoria, or maybe some easily-diagnosed and treatable mental illness. Or maybe you're autistic but your parents just don't know which resources to reach for or trust. In any case, imagine that what you have is either treatable or addressable with adequate support. Now, what happens when you don't get said support?

You might start to decay, to find other means to issue cries for help. Said cries might become unconscious as you disconnect from a reality that's unfavorable to you. See Chandler's complete decompensation, sometime after declaring herself to be trans. it sort of follows that if nothing's done to bring you back, you might even start to abandon basic aspects of morality.

In simple terms, these people are and were sick, quite deeply so. Considering, it seems uncharitable to me to go from labelling them as "lolcows", which was already cringe IMO, to "horrocows".

We live in an era that sees people grow increasingly isolated from one another despite levels of interconnectedness that would stagger your ancestors not but three generations ago, and statements were already published regarding loneliness as an epidemic - especially in the Gen Y and Millennial basins.

Considering, pointing and sneering at kids who fall off the deep end and who, in their own flawed ways, tried to enact some form of change, seems misguided. It's easy to take Stair's murders or Chandler's incest at face value if you're a well-adjusted and supported individual - but what if you weren't?

I know I wasn't, for the longest time. I was lucky, however - I had family and love to bolster me in the face of my society's unwillingness to assist me. It dulled blows and allowed me to recover, but I know exactly what it feels like to have no options whatsoever and to be aware that if I wanted, I could just jump off the proverbial deep end, leave all my issues to the wider world and turn into something pitiable, barely aware and possibly grotesque.

As I grow older and as I'm now an established adult, I'm perfectly aware of how I can't take my current stability for granted.

I could've been someone else's Lolcow - so I tend not to give that term the slightest bit of acknowledgement.