Notices by timberwraith (timberwraith@mastodon.social)

YUP. I remember being deathly afraid of the christian god as a little trans kid. I was convinced that their god was going to torture me with fire for all eternity, burning me over and over again after I died because I was queer.

I literally spent an entire summer in elementary school obsessed with and depressed over my impending death because of toxic religious crap.

The religion is social control through fear and abuse. The christian god is a divine embodiment of an abusive father archetype.

TLDR: I've always known that most of the world thinks I'm a bad person simply because of who I am, and to be myself, I've had to grow comfortable with not caring if people think I'm awful. So... I don't care.

"Don't make egg jokes about cis people."

You know, just by saying that, I want to make egg jokes about cis people EVEN MORE.

I mean, lets be honest here. Being an asshole when making these kinds of jokes is *part* of the fun. The point is to piss people off.

You just implied that making these jokes is an asshole thing to do, which only serves to motivate people like me even more. Thanks! 😃

I know I'm a broken asshole by the standards of Jane and Joe normal.

So I just lean into that. I'm OK with being an asshole because that frees me to just be myself, and the human world has always thought I was a weird, broken asshole.

Since I know where the cards lie on that one, I've grown not to care.

Hey, I'm going to be real here. Most of the human populace already thinks I'm an immoral and broken person just for daring to be myself.

On some level, I've known that for decades. I don't need recent public opinion surveys to drive that point home. I already knew this on some level.

To survive in human world like this, I've had to eventually get to the point where I just don't give a fuck about what people think of me.

"You are neither a nice nor a good person."

I never claimed to be.

I never personally found community in sports. I found emotional abuse, violence, trauma, and exclusion. I found a reason why other children despised me and wanted nothing to do with me. (Because I was so terrible at most sports.)

In a word, sports was the opposite of community for me.

Being alone was preferable.

I spent much of my childhood alone.

I will always, firmly stand on the issue as favoring the abolition of the institution of sports as a publicly funded institution, leaving it to be a hobbyist's pursuit only.

I know that's a radical position. I don't actually give a shit.

I will always associate the pursuit of sports as entwined with social hierarchy and oppression.

I had some pretty good personal evidence to that effect. About 11 years worth of evidence.

Only 11 years, because thankfully, I wasn't required to take phys ed in my senior year of high school.

What a relief. 11 years of abuse was more than enough.

Just entering into the gym at public school would set off my anxiety.

My body instinctively understood sports environments as a literal threat.

I want to add another thought, as I read someone else's essay on the sports issue.

I know that what I said in the quote below loses the respect of most people.

That's OK. The feeling is mutual. I don't hold much respect for most people.

Yeah, yeah. That makes me the baddie. I don't give a shit.

https://mastodon.social/@timberwraith/116852197652598260

When you're feeling bored or depressed, remember this:

You can always sneak into your local church and put bubble bath in the baptism pool.

I have no desire to go back to using "transsexual" to describe myself. There is a movement, for whatever reason, to re-adopt the old term. Suit yourselves.

I like that "transsexual" fell away and was replaced by the more inclusive term "transgender" and that was shortened to just "trans."

The term includes many different kinds of people who push against the boundaries of "You are what we label you as at birth."

I *want* to share solidarity with everyone who fits under that umbrella.

Here are some more thoughts on the whole terminology discourse that's happening at the cerulean butterfly place:

"Transgender vs. Transsexual: A duel of frustration & dyspeptic muttering"

It doesn't matter which terminology we use because cis people will *always* weasel around until they find the most hateful interpretation of the nomenclature which props up their preexisting bigotry. Always.

I've seen cis people cis around across the decades. It's just what they do.

https://mastodon.social/@timberwraith/116846023877922318

Maybe, just to fuck with people, I'll start referring to myself as a "transasexual."

I'm trans and asexual. It has a ring to it, you know?

Yes, I'm being a smart ass.

"I just love the warm analogue sound!"

OK, that's cool. But what about the scratches, dust, and worn out cartridges? Seems annoying and pricey.

Maybe that's a part of the romance? Have fun, yeah?

I'm not into doing variations of separatism. I tried that decades ago, and I grew to despise the "My group first! My group is best!" undertones that inevitably entwined with that kind of perspective.

So, I'm just "trans" or "transgender" as I have called myself for about 20ish years now.

I guess you can call yourself transsexual while you listen to music on vinyl. There were good reasons why folks gave up on that too, LOL.

"It doesn't matter what clothes you wear, how much makeup you slather on your faces, or what medical procedures you under go, you were still raised as a boy and socialized to be a man. People saw a boy and man for most of your life and treated you like they treat all boys/men. You have a man's expectations, a man's upbringing, a man's privileges, and you are prone to the same arrogant, sexist, violence laced ideations that males are socialized into."

Most of us started out the decade still calling ourselves transsexuals, for the most part. Ah, the good old daze. We left the other side of the decade calling ourselves transgender. It was kind of a thing.

But at the start of that decade, it didn't matter that we used a word which implied that we were actually, truly, honestly transforming our physical sex from Category A to Category B.

No one gave a shit other than us, because the Cis Feminist Informed™ response was:

(NOTE CW in next post)

But OK, let's flash back on the Bush II years when drunken frat boys as presidents were a fresh new concept and organic, free range TERFs still roamed the fruited plains of usian feminist discourse and were still respected as Important People with Important Ideas.

You know, the 2000s. That era...