rainbowvictor:

support fic writers! 

psshaw:

hobbitkaiju:

So much of the Euro-American understanding of being trans (or anything other than 100% constantly identified with your assigned gender) focuses on discomfort. 

Some people take this idea to an extreme and claim you can’t be trans unless you hate your body and want every surgery available to you. As many other writers have said before, that’s not true. It’s perfectly possible to be trans with only mild dysphoria or none at all. It’s perfectly possible to be trans and have a mental map of your body that looks just like the one you already have. 

But I’d like to push even harder against the idea that trans=discomfort. I’d like to offer this: sometimes the exploration of one’s gender can be motivated by pleasure rather than discomfort. 

Let me give an example. Let’s say there’s a person named Cal. Most people think of Cal as a boy, and Cal’s all right with that. So far as Cal’s concerned, a boy isn’t a bad thing to be. But sometimes, Cal likes to imagine being a girl and being treated as a girl. Those fantasies are always accompanied by feelings of pleasure, satisfaction, anticipation, and warmth. Eventually, having had these thoughts for years, Cal asks people to use ‘she’ pronouns in private and to refer to her as a girl. Cal does this for another year before claiming the label “trans”. 

Some people would say a person like Cal can’t be trans because there’s no dysphoria, self-hatred, distress, or even discomfort. There’s just a pleasure-based preference. But why is distress necessary? Why are trans people supposed to be defined solely by our pain and self-hatred?

It’s my opinion that defining trans people solely by discomfort is an aspect of transphobia. The idea behind trans=discomfort is that being anything other than 100% cis is so awful that no one would do it unless the alternative were unlivable. Think about that: defining trans people solely by their experiences of discomfort means believing that being trans is so awful that only misery could drive us to it. And to me, that sounds like the thinking of someone who really hates trans people.

So I’ll come out and say it: sometimes transition or self-exploration of gender is not just about lessening discomfort, but is about improving and deepening the pleasure we take in our lives. 

“Think about that: defining trans people solely by their experiences of discomfort means believing that being trans is so awful that only misery could drive us to it.”

howboutthatbreadtho:

themintycupcake:

idreamofteenieme:

anacondas-sacred-buns:

captain-stormie:

madamehearthwitch:

letitrainathousandflames:

I just. I don’t like this view of “millennials vs Gen Z”. This is NOT supposed to be a competition of who got fucked over the most and who’s “actually fighting back”.

Millennials are fighting back just by surviving in a job market where the minimum wage doesn’t cover the living cost. Millennials are awesome at “killing” the diamond, golfing and napkins industries. Millennials are using the internet to make sure things that corporations want to keep in the dark are exposed. They’re open LGBTQIA-friendly business, they’re supporting each other with online donations so everyone can survive this shitty economy.

And the Gen Z kids? The Gen Z kids are rad. I remember a post about something like the millennials making a collective promise to never become a disenchanted generation that only criticizes the next one and I want to point out that this “millennials vs gen z” trend is trying to do exactly that: split us apart. Prevent millennials from being the older siblings that teach the younger siblings to throw a good punch and turn them into the annoyed adult complaining about “those kids” on their lawn. We are the two groups that grew in a connected world of information. We are two very unique generations.

I think that it’s our duty for us millennials, as a disrespected, underpaid, very angry generation to stand up by our younger siblings, and fight together the oppressive systems that brought us all to this point.

They’re trying very hard to pit Millennials and Gen Z against each other because I honestly think they’re terrified of what the two will accomplish together.

@little-boyking @anacondas-sacred-buns

As I said, fuck it up kids.

And don’t forget: millenials are at voting age. We just won the house and a ton of governorships despite the rampant voter suppression by turning the fuck out at the midterms. Once Gen Z reaches voting age, we’ll be unstoppable together.

Gotta build that inter-generational alliance to fight for our collective freedoms, across race, gender, sexuality, and class lines. In and out of the voting booth, we’re in this together.

wigglyflippingout:

also, i miss squicks.

that was such a good fandom term. let’s bring it back.

while i respect and appreciate trigger warnings i feel like often it comes with a burden. like at the very least you have to be out and open with the fact you have a panic disorder and have triggers. and too often i’ve seen this become “i’ll only respect your triggers if you disclose your mental health diagnoses”, which is bad and wrong and real damn stupid. it’s downright anti-recovery. somebody can’t recover if you want them to be able to retraumatize themselves telling you the details and then seeing if you judge them worthy or not.

squick is good. you can tell someone it’s a squick instead of a trigger, and not be forced to give up your dx. it’s very curb cutter effect. you get to normalize that request of “hey, let me know so i can avoid x”.

and it’s so nice for people who just have squicks! if you only got trigger warnings then you have people who are like, “ah jeez, i really dislike seeing this and i want to avoid it, but is it a trigger? do i have the right to ask for it as an accessibility thing? am i co-opting a struggle if i ask for people to tag it as one??” and like… shit, maybe sometimes it IS a trigger, they just aren’t at a place where they feel like hey can officially name it one. or maybe it’s just shit they don’t wanna see! and that’s FINE!

someone can give you a low-key “don’t like that” and have it respected and it’s GREAT! it’s just a thing that gets respected anyway!

bring back squick basically