Notices by Gwen the Trans Balrog (youshallnotpass@chaosfem.tw)

@shockwaver
Yeah, that's exactly how I felt. It didn't seem like it was worth the effort to say anything, but I guess I should have. I wrote them an email thanking them for their rethink though, because I bet they'll get some flack.

I use Tailscale for home purposes, mostly so I can access movies from other locations without having to deal with reverse proxies and security. It's great software. I'm just saying this as preface: I would recommend it to anyone looking for a remote networking solution.

Yesterday they sent out an email about various events they would have a presence at, general marketing stuff, mostly in tech hubs and cons. Nothing remarkable. One of the events was that they were sponsoring a family movie night with another company. The movie picked was Harry Potter, but most people don't care, and it's a fine family movie. I shrugged and moved on with my day. Life's too short to get pissed off about stuff like that.

Well, today they sent out an email apologizing for the choice of movie and promising to do better in future.

I'm not stanning a corp. I wish there were a decent open-source option (well, they're built atop the open-source option, but goddamn do they make it easier). But it was nice to see. In a world which has gone full-on transphobia and doesn't seem to think that Jowling Kowling Rowling is worthy of comment, I guess enough technical people who use Tailscale aren't assholes and complained, or who knows, maybe someone at the company pointed it out, but whatever the reason, they rethought the movie choice. And they didn't just do it, they apologized for it to everyone on their mailing list.

It's a small thing, but I thought I'd share it both to say that I will continue to use Tailscale because it really is good software, but also if you need a nice thing, I guess this is a nice thing.

I cannot afford women's shoes. I can't afford men's shoes either, but I really can't afford women's shoes because to get them in my size would require a minor miracle and a dispensation from all three popes including the super secret one who lives in the Vatican basement and eats spiders.

This is transphobic, obviously, but it's also misogynistic because women's shoes are too expensive in general.

I'm rubbish in a fight, but if they want me to be a terrorist, I'm sure I can think of some things which I could do.

@timberwraith
I'm considering the various things that one can do to tires, honestly. I might also ponder the interaction of expanding polyurethane foam with the enclosures used to house digital imaging equipment employed by government agencies to check vehicle velocity. I like to think things.

Imagining an Abbott and Costello routine, where Abbott is neogender:

Costello: Are you a boy or a girl?
Abbott: No.
C: So what were you born as?
A: Yes.
C: No, I mean what is your sex?
A: Yes.
C: Your sex is yes?
A: No, my sex is what.
C: That's what I'm asking!
A: Yes.
C: What?
A: Yes.
C: Yes what?
A: Now you're catching on.
C: But do you have a penis or a vagina?
A: Yes.
C: Yes which?
A: No, yes what.
C: What?
A: Yes.
C: What's in your pants?
A: Yes.
C: Yes is in your pants?
A: No, what's in my pants.
C: That's what I'm asking!
A: Yes.
C: So who's asking?
A: No, what.
C: What?
A: Yes.
C: So what's in your pants?
A: Yes.
C: What's its name?
A: What.
C: The thing in your pants!
A: No, what's in my pants.
C: I'm the one asking you that!
A: You're the one asking what that.
C: What?
A: Yes.
C: So I'm asking "Yes" what's in your pants?
A: No, what's in my pants.
C: *throwing up his hands and resorting to shtick* Third base!
A: No, home is in my pants.
C: So you've got home in your pants?!
A: No, what's in my pants.
C: Home?
A: What.
C: Who?
A: No!
C: Third base!
A: Home!
C: What?!
A: Yes!
C: Fine, I give, I'll use whatever pronouns you want if you'll just stop.
A: Use "what."
C: *head explodes*

via @alice

https://lgbtqia.space/@alice/114782355359545583

@timberwraith
Awww, thanks 😊

This will sound really silly, but I read some stuff you wrote recently about having to consider one's gender in a way cis people don't, and it made me remember a number of times when I'd read stories of girls who had been forced by their fathers to take on essentially male roles, even though their fathers weren't trying to make them male, per se. There's this really terrible movie which MST3K did called Carnival Magic which has a subplot about the father trying to keep his daughter from growing up to be a woman who will leave him. It sounds better than it is. The main plot is about a talking chimpanzee saving a failing carnival.

Anyway, it made me think of that, plus various gender-bend-y fairytale things I've read. There are also plenty of instances of mothers infantilizing their sons, "feminizing" them, for lack of a better word, but those are most often seen as sinister in a Psycho sort of way, and they reinforce the idea that femininity is somehow lesser for men, so I avoided them. But it struck me that it's a trope, and I don't think a lot of cis people realize what it means. They think it's just about girls becoming women, when in fact it's a form of transition that goes unacknowledged as such.

Anyway, one thing led to another 😅

This wasn't actually a fairytale. And that's not how it happened.

No, what happened was that Michael had no idea what he was experiencing. Fairytale characters aren't allowed to be gay, but if they had been he might have assumed that he was. But as it was, Prince Gideon went bachelor to his grave several years later after catching a particular virulent form of contagious gout.

And Michael soldiered on, living the lie, until his parents died, leaving him the farm, which he tended, becoming old and bitter and withdrawn. No one said "gay" about him but everyone in the village was thinking it really hard. And when Michael died, the crown confiscated his land in probate and that was that.

That's depressing, right?

I said it wasn't a fairytale, and it wasn't. It was a parable. That sense of injustice and depression you're feeling right now is the lesson.

You might say, "Oh, things like that don't happen," if you're particularly slow on the uptake, but more likely you either got here two steps ahead of me or you're thinking, "Well that was a bit on the nose, wasn't it trans girl?" I never claimed it was a subtle parable.

Michael is every single trans person, only instead of his parents, it's society. If you feel any sort of human empathy at all, if you were rooting for Prince Gideon to find his Dahlia and a happy ending, you need to realize that trans people are currently living in a situation where the actual ending I gave, the non-fairytale ending of bitterness and confusion, is actually a far happier ending than the one which a lot of trans folks face. Michael lived out his life, sad though it was. A lot of trans people don't get to do that because they're murdered or driven to suicide. Or substance abuse. Or mental breakdown. Or any one of a myriad of other things which society would rather trans people do than simply blossom.

So here's your call to action. If you're cis and you felt something reading this, good. All that any of us want to do is be able to live our lives the best we can, and trans people, myself included, don't want you to do anything different for us. Just let us live.

But we're past the point where that's enough. You've got to actively facilitate us living. You've got to push back against the forces, both malevolent but also seemingly benign, that want to keep us from living as ourselves. Please.

There are no magical fairies coming to save us. This isn't that sort of story. Please do what you can.

4/4

Obviously word was getting around. It eventually reached the hinterlands where Michael and his family lived. The prince was looking for a bride named Dahlia and it was all anyone could talk about because that's what peasants do in fairy tales if they're not busy dying of plague or being eaten by ogres or dragons. Michael heard about it in the town when he went to run his father's errands.

Michael... Well, changes had taken place. The binding was becoming slightly tedious, and Michael was also fairly certain that other young men his age had an easier time of things fairytales don't talk about involving urination while standing up, for example. Plus, what was worse, those other young men, dirty, flea-ridden, prone to dying of plague, and ignorant though they might be, were starting to seem alarmingly attractive to Michael. He found himself thinking fond thoughts of Prince Gideon as well, deeply confusing thoughts and dreams of being swept off to live in a palace which Michael had thus far been able to write off as a desire to perhaps BE a prince and not have to shovel dung quite so much.

So it was into this situation that the realization that Prince Gideon was seeking a young woman named Dahlia was dropped from the back of the turnip cart, as it were. And while Michael tried very hard not to, he had this strange sensation that maybe his name should have been Dahlia. And let's face it, he was pretty aware at this point that boys generally did not bind their chests nor did they have curves in the way even his impoverished form managed.

Now, you know the rest of the story. Michael is really Dahlia, and she emerges from the cocoon of her family's imposition to blossom like only a mixed metaphor truly can, becoming a princess and marrying Gideon and living happily ever after.

Except...

3/

Of course, at a certain point he had to meet other people, but he'd reached the age where people in fairytales didn't ask to examine his genitalia, so for a while, his parents were safe. But eventually, well, the natural progression of things made it so that they had to explain a few things. Michael was a bit confused about the changes taking place in his growing body, as it were, but it's a fairytale so if I were going to talk about menstruation, I'd do it metaphorically anyway. Michael's mother taught him to bind his chest with linen bandages, his father taught him to shave, various other things happened, and Michael was prepared for polite society as best as they could.

Now, in the same kingdom there was a king, obviously, and as kings in fairytales typically do, this king had a son, Prince Gideon, who was coming of age. But because this is a fairytale, the prince was deeply vain and refused to choose a bride, despite his father's insistence. "There is no girl in the kingdom who is worthy of me," Gideon said whenever he was asked.

So the king had, you guessed it, one earnest wish: that his son would find a worthy wife. And wouldn't you know it, his wish was also heard by a passing fairy. Maybe the same fairy from earlier, or maybe a different one. Who knows? Fairies are complicated and confusing. Well, whichever fairy it was heard the king's wish and decided to grant it, but fairies are flighty, winged things with very little conception of humanity.

Prince Gideon awoke the following day with the sure knowledge that a girl existed who was worthy of him, and a vague idea of where to look. She wouldn't be a princess or a lady. She would be one of the common folk. But beyond that, he had only her name: Dahlia.

So the king sent messengers all over the kingdom looking for girls named Dahlia. They turned up more than a few, some of whom had mysteriously come into being just days before the messengers arrived, seemingly. They often wouldn't respond to that name immediately until their fathers or mothers cleared their throats or kicked their newly-minted Dahlias under the table where they thought the messengers couldn't see. The messengers shrugged and brought the girls anyway. Better safe than sorry.

But none of them satisfied the prince. Not that way. This is a respectable fairytale. He didn't like the look of them, that's all.

2/

Let me tell you a fairytale.

Once upon a time, there was a poor farmer and his wife who lived on a poor farm in a kingdom of little note. Now this farmer was getting older, and all he wanted, his dearest wish, was for a son to help ease the burden of his farming. But he and his wife had no children, and it was beginning to look like they never would. But at night the farmer would silently wish his one wish, that he would have a son and heir, long into the night when he should have been sleeping.

Well, you know how fairytales go. A passing fairy heard the farmer's silent wish and decided to grant it, but fairies are flighty, winged things with very little conception of humanity. Still, the next morning the farmer's wife awoke with the sure knowledge that she was going to have a child. And sure enough, the farmer's wife's belly grew and as this is a fairy tale there were no complications or gruesome details, and in the prescribed time the farmer's wife gave birth to a healthy baby. I guess if it had been one of a certain sort of fairytales, the child would have grown out of a flower or something, but it isn't.

Unfortunately, it turned out that the baby was a girl.

Yeah, it's one of those fairytales. It's a sexist romp. Stick with it for a bit.

The farmer was beside himself. It seemed like fate was torturing him. This was worse than having no child at all. He was all set to throw himself into the nearest river or volunteer for military service in the arrow-blocking division of the kingdom's not-insignificant armed forces. But his wife, who was miraculously totally unfazed by having recently given birth, calmed him down. "So it's a girl. You can still have your heir. We'll just raise her as a son. We'll call her... HIM Michael. No one will ever know."

So they did. Michael was a small boy who stayed home to help his parents, but it was several centuries or millennia or maybe eons before the invention of public schooling so it wasn't hard for his parents to keep up the facade. Michael certainly didn't know better. He was a happy enough child and if the farm work was hard, his parents were kind and did all they could to make sure he wanted for nothing much that a poor farmer's son could want for. He was a little lonely, perhaps, but hey, it was a fairytale and he managed not to die of dropsy in infancy.

1/

Apparently it's controversial to say that I, a trans woman, support trans men, as well as trans people of other genders and of no gender, and further people who don't identify as trans of other genders and of no gender?

I don't get it. I really don't. If a cis person said the same thing, we'd put any controversy down to transphobia or more broadly perhaps queerphobia. So... how is it not when I say it? How is it not transphobia for my statement above to be controversial?

Beyond that, what possible reason could trans women have for failing to support trans men, trans nonbinary people, and other genderfucky sorts of people (I'm sorry if I'm excluding someone and I don't intend to, it's just that there's no simple collective noun for "the non-cis of all genders" because even that category isn't perfect)? I mean, I guess there are individuals who fall into the category of "people who aren't cis but who also aren't trans women" who are assholes and shouldn't be supported, but that's true of pretty much any category of people. It's no reason to deny support to everyone else.

Anyway, my trans masc siblings, I love and support you and I think you're amazing. My trans and non-trans siblings of various or no genders, I love and support you and I think you're amazing. Anyone who I've missed who isn't cis in some way or other, I love and support you and I think you're amazing and I'm sorry I can't be more specific and you're not last or least.

And this isn't to imply that I don't love and support my trans women sisters. My love and support isn't a limited quantity or mutually exclusive. There are plenty of things I love and support which I haven't listed here. Fedi, please be nice.

@RamenCatholic
Cishet person: But which of you has the braincell?

Grant me the serenity to tell people to get fucked, the horniness to get fucked myself, and the stamina to enjoy both eventualities.

@valhalla
I've never considered it, but that's mostly because I'm lazy. Plus I like the look of DeWalt tools.

Yes, I'm that basic DeWalt bitch your parents warned you about.

I am a power tool lesbian. I will repeat this at regular intervals when dysphoria makes me want to sell all my power tools. Girls are allowed to be handy with tools. Hell, cishet girls with lipstick and skirts are allowed to be handy with tools. I am not one of them, but I will fight for their right to have a preference in tool manufacturers just like the rest of us.

Girls who like power tools are sexy, actually. We're not all professional computer touchers (though there's nothing wrong with that either).

Nonbinary femmes, you're allowed to use power tools too, obviously. It doesn't make anyone any less femme to be handy with tools.

And get your damn minds out of the gutter, degenerates. Or don't. I'm not your mother. I'm a power tool lesbian.

The whole concept of autogynophilia rests on the assumption that doing something because you find it sexy is wrong. Which, fuck that. If there are guys out there who genuinely derive sexual pleasure from the idea of being women and yet somehow they aren't actually trans, excelsior to them I say. I support them in their quest for sexual satisfaction.

I mean, that's horseshit obviously, but if it weren't, it still wouldn't be a good reason to deprive trans people of their rights.

You should be allowed to transition just because it gets you off. There, I said it.

@ryanhoulihan
Why does she need our support? What's happened?

Normalize having to ask for people's names and pronouns even if you've met them before.

"Are you biologically male or female?"

Not sure. Never been tested.

"No, but were you born a man or a woman?"

I was born a baby.

"What sex were you then?"

Not sure. I was too young to understand the distinction.

"What does it say on your birth certificate?"

I'm pretty sure it lists my name and date of birth. Other than that, I can't really remember.

"So are you biologically a man or a woman?"

How can one tell?

"..."

If you're asking me to give you a private striptease, I should warn you: I don't work for free.