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   timberwraith (timberwraith@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Jun-2024 06:49:04 JST timberwraith

   I think I have a post in me before I wander off to do that cooking and packing thing for my trip...

   It's not one of my darker posts, so you can pull the mouse away from that "X".

   😉

   • Embed this notice
     timberwraith (timberwraith@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Jun-2024 06:49:01 JST timberwraith

     in reply to

     I refer to this bit of writing of mine a lot but this blog is not only a discussion of toxic masculinity, it was at the core of a series of revelations in my 17th year that framed my understanding of how much "boyness" and masculinity were profoundly wrong for me and that I had to embrace the female part of myself to survive living in this world.

     It was a break in my psyche that cracked my proverbial egg so wide open that I'd never return to maleness.

     https://hauntedtimber.wordpress.com/2023/11/24/in-a-world-where-boyhood-is-weaponhood/

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     timberwraith (timberwraith@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Jun-2024 06:49:01 JST timberwraith

     in reply to

     And there are so many parts of my womanhood and sense of self as an adult female person which were inextricably shaped in direct reaction to what I learned about masculinity and society's malformed construction of it in 1986 (and it's continued malformed construction in 2024).

     The woman I am is a direct product of the horrible things I learned about what this world insists on masculinity and maleness taking the shape of under a violent and brutal patriarchy.

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     timberwraith (timberwraith@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Jun-2024 06:49:01 JST timberwraith

     in reply to

     To be sure, I'd be a woman regardless of patriarchal culture. I think this part of myself is soul-deep.

     However, those 17 years served as a rocket-powered source of trauma which drove me forward into the arms of my real self with elemental force.

     And I feel no shame over this. I understand things that I might not have were I a cis girl during those 17 years.

     And I judge the world's lust for patriarchy and brutality accordingly.

     What I know shapes who I am and the woman I am.

     Bill repeated this.
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     timberwraith (timberwraith@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Jun-2024 06:49:01 JST timberwraith

     in reply to

     To make this more of a general observation, dear reader, I know you had a series of experiences during your life in which you tried to be someone that was profoundly disconnected from who you really are.

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     timberwraith (timberwraith@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Jun-2024 06:49:02 JST timberwraith

     in reply to

     The woman that I am today would not exist without the miserable femmy kid trying to boy in the 1970s/80s.

     I wouldn't be here as the me that I and you know.

     My womanhood and what I understand about how much I value my existence in this life as a woman is causally and intimately bound with my 17 years of feeling like a bag of misery pretending to be a boy.

     Those 17 years are a part of my womanhood and my femaleness.

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     timberwraith (timberwraith@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Jun-2024 06:49:03 JST timberwraith

     in reply to

     So, about the whole "I didn't experience girlhood like other women." thing...

     That always bothered me. It bothered me for the longest time after I transitioned. Stuck in my thoughts like a splinter in the mind's eye.

     I felt kind of like a fake because I spent the first 17 years of my life trying to play a boy but fucking up in fairly fucked up ways. I was bad at it but I tried. I really tried.

     And a part of me has felt a bit of inadequacy and shame over the fact that I bothered trying.

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     timberwraith (timberwraith@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Jun-2024 06:49:03 JST timberwraith

     in reply to

     I imagine some of you might understand this.

     You aren't alone.

     It brings a whole lot of messy feelings for trans women of many walks of life, I'm sure.

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     timberwraith (timberwraith@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Jun-2024 06:49:03 JST timberwraith

     in reply to

     But you know, this is the thing that has struck me recently.

     Yeah, I tried to "boy really hard" and ironically, that was a part of the process of me realizing that I fucking hated being a boy and I'd rather be taking a peaceful dirt nap than living the rest of my life that way.

     In a very real sense, learning that being boy/man/masculine identified/etc. was a misery inducing affair for me was very much a part of the process of me understanding that I'm female.

     They are entwined.