I realized I found men attractive around middle school. No one moment. Just realizing that those feelings I was having were sexual.
Immediately I started to panic about the fact that, from that point on, there were going to be a lot of people who hate me even though I hadn't done anything wrong. I supported gay rights but all I could think was that I didn't want that to be me.
I barely remember anything about those sexual feelings. I really just remember that fear.
That was a long time ago and I've accepted myself but it was a scary time.
This comment hit different, I’m sorry that discovering yourself was one of the scarier moments of life. I’m glad to hear you’re doing well, and I hope things get better for kids discovering who they are
I think it varies from person to person. Knew I was bi at like 13 because I thought as many guys and girls at my school were attractive. The trans stuff was something I struggled to grasp for a while, but I was jealous of the girls puberty while fearing my own because I didn't want body hair and a deeper voice. Also heard rumours that a girl I had a crush on was a lesbian, and I immediately thought "so I have a chance"
Although everyone has a different experience, for me it started with a message to a friend “you know sometimes I wonder what if I were a girl”.
Now, some background. When I was like 3-7, I would often choose the “girls option” for things. Like those products that are designed to appeal to the typical boy/girl. When I was in first grade I got bullied for not really fitting in with the boys. I learned to just try to fit in with the rest of the boys after that. Come fifth grade, I was bullied for not really fitting in with the boys.. again. Oh and I should add, when I was around 13 I was that “I’m not transphobic but [blatant transphobia]” type of person. This was mostly die to too much right wing YouTube and me trying to act more masculine.
And back to where I started this comment; I was 14 at the time, and I asked my friend the aforementioned question. She said something along the lines of “let’s see how you like being referred to as a girl” and so I told people on discord (I have very few friends irl) that I was questioning my gender and wanted to try stuff out. A few days of being called a she, I found it a bit weird getting used to but it just felt.. nice. I enjoyed being, at least as this little blob of pixels on the screen, a girl. A couple weeks later I come out to a classmate, and get my first skirt shortly thereafter. I didn’t look great, but it still felt kind of nice. Anyways my battery is about to die so I’ll have to end this post here
It was a gradual realization. I'm female to male so me liking men was seen as "normal." I was first exposed to transgenderism when I was 12-13 and eventually started seeing similarities between myself and the experiences of transgender men. I came out to my parents at 14 and was ignored and shut down. At 17 I came out again and my parents were forced by our family therapist to not ignore me. Currently, my parents are making an effort to gender me correctly, but are adamant that they will not be supporting any future medical transitions.
Ah yes, that great experimental platform lol
Funny enough porn has helped me understand that I’m NOT gay or trans. There’s a lot of bad baggage with porn but also a few benefits here and there, apparently
I knew since I was 5 I just didn’t have the explanation of those feelings until 12 years later. Semi big revelation was finding out other boys my age don’t hate their masculine features and wish they were born cis girls every day.
The realisation I was pansexual was basically instant. Had a moment of oh wait I find that guy hot. Do I find any other men hot? Yeah I guess so. Let me think on it while i ride thus bus home. By the end of the ride i realised I'm pansexual so that was pretty quick I think.
As to my gender, oh it was, or still is, a long convoluted road of self discovery, experimentation and constant questioning of self. First I thought I was simply transfem, now I identify as non binary. My pronouns have changed like five times over the course of last few years, since that journey begun. It's a thing yeah
For me a lot of pieces kind of just suddenly fell into place over the course of a week. Id been thinking about it for a while, wishing i were a girl, daydreaming about becoming a girl, imagining how my life would be so much better if i were a girl, but kept denying it and repressing it, until i kind of just gave up and accepted it, realizing there wasnt really any ignoring everything. Now after ive been out for a while ive remembered a lot of the signs that showed up years ago that if id recognized them i might have known i was trans.
I figured out I was gay at like 19. Drinking made me extremely gay and eventually I realized it was because I liked guys. I had had girlfriends but hooking up with a guy made me realize I ONLY like guys
I was questioning for a couple months since one of my friends came out and it made me think a lot about my own gender. Eventually I concluded that I was probably cis.
Then one day in maths class dysphoria hit me like a truck.
I knew I was trans since I was very young. I would look in the mirror and dissociate as early as age seven. Never felt like my body was my own but I used to feel like I was an alien inhabiting a human body if that makes sense. Always wanted to be a boy and told my mom constantly.
i realized i was trans thru a mix of the two, i had subtle signs before that made me question but always dismissed it quickly. i'd heard of trans people before and knee that they were a thing, but never quite put two and two together.
during the pandemic, i spent a lot of time y'know alone, and got to be a little more questioning about my sexuality and gender.
my family has never been accepting to any manner of lgbt folks, but my mom is slightly less weird about gay folks along with one of my aunts being more accepting. so sexuality was a gradual growth and evolution as i sorta figured shit out.
for gender, at some point late at night i finally put the pieces together and realized "shit, i'm not happy like this". i'd been struggling mentally during quarantine with body issues since starting puberty, and depression for a while. ever since i was a fuckin toddler i had a hard time seeing myself in the mirror and associating it with myself. when you live under a constant state of disassociation you don't realize what it's like to live without is the most coherent way i can put it. just like with depression, i just needed the word to explain it. then the implications of my future hit me and i spent the rest of the night up thinking lol
ALSO forgot to add but reading other comments i realized not everyone had the problem where you had to figure out whether you were attracted to someone or wanted to be them ☠️☠️ had that with my agab at first but that was just tryharding to ignore the fact that i am in fact trans, very interesting
did not intend for this to become so wordy sorry ab that
I'm a gay trans male, and in all honesty? Being transgender is terrible. Being gay or trans is not something one chooses, it is both a biological and environmental trait. I live in an extremely liberal area, and even still my experience being transgender has been very difficult. I am contently misgendered, despite my best attempts to look masculine. I am accepted in small social circles, but being transgender overall makes my life more difficult. I only want to be viewed as a cisgender male (born male) but that is something I can never have. I have received support and it isn't all bad, but generally it is in no way a positive experience. Also people tell me that I am "just a woman fetishizing gay men" which is extremely damaging.
My apologies if this is considered offensive, but may I ask why your avatar and name are more feminine if you are a trans man? I don't mean to say that men can't be feminine, but it's not something I've seen trans men usually identify with.
I have two OC's that I constantly rp as. One of them is "Princess Rosellia" she's not actually a princess but she makes everyone refer to her as that. She's an old online personality I created for myself and am attached to. My account doesn't reflect my actual gender.
People are a lot cooler these days where I live (not America) than they were 15 years ago, but being able to pass as a woman helps a lot.
People just don't really care if you're gay here, it's like 'oh you're getting married to a woman that's neat' and then you go to Pride and see Joseph from accounting with his bf and say hi.
I think my experience is good and I wouldn't change it for anything but getting kicked out of home when I was 16 and struggling to convince doctors to write a script for hormones was pretty shit. And just. Being trans is expensive, like I spent 15k on getting my dick cut off and it was the best thing for my mental health ever, not having something that felt wrong on me any more was great, but its a lot of money and I wish I could have gotten it done earlier.
Lost one best friend when I came out to him because he turned out to be a bigoted idiot, but I had another one that accepted me fully and supports me still in every step of the way and I love her more than my self.
Besides that, I live in a small town in poland, most homophobic country in the EU, and my mother isn't the most accepting so I am still in the closet for my family and public. Not planning to come out until i live alone and am fully independent from my mother either.
Fortunately I have friends who are either also queer or very supporting so I don't really feel isolated or alone in all that, so that makes me happy.
Honestly, being trans isn't great. It's got downsides and issues that come with it. But also if I could snap my fingers and suddenly be cisgender, I don't think I'd do it. My experiences shape the way that I am and the way I view the world and those in it, and if I hadn't been through what I've been through, I would be a fundamentally different person. But also, knowing that I'm trans, I'm so much happier than I was, sometimes it hurts more because I know, but I am undeniably glad that I found out.
Absolutely. I found my realization of being trans to simultaneously be the best and worst thing ever. I’ve wished that I could either blissfully be ignorant, or somehow be myself with no social risk whatsoever, but my situation has definitely helped me be a better person, and I wouldn’t have certain lovely people in my life without these circumstances.
My emotions were completely muted before i came out and started living as my true self. I never really felt anything strongly either way. Now, the lows are lower, but the highs are much higher, and theres nowhere to go but up.
I identified as bisexual, but honestly feel like T has changed my sexuality and I have come to realise that I wasn’t masculine pre-transition because I was a lesbian or attracted to women, but because I am a man. I’m mostly attracted to men, still figuring it out.
The only part of being gay that I like tbh is actually doing gay stuff lmao, getting to experience what is presumably very easy and natural for straight people, that is encouraged by society. Knowing that you’re not just broken or incapable of love, but gay, and the fulfilling relationships you feel you may never have can happen between you and a man. My first kiss with a man was like a realisation - this is how it’s supposed to feel. It was pretty amazing to not just be doing the fun thing of kissing, but the fun thing of kissing someone you find attractive in this almost magnetic way that just isn’t there for even aesthetically pretty women. As a trans man, I will say it kind of sucks knowing that a lot of gay men will never consider dating me, and that I have a very small dating pool.
Being trans fucking sucks lmao, not just because of dysphoria which I can kind of forget about sometimes. But because of how much money I have to spend on medicine I need to not want to kill myself, and how my country’s politicians are trying to make being trans illegal, and I have been bullied and had awful experiences with corrective SA. I have never experienced joy like the first few times I was called a man, or sir, in public though. Looking in the mirror and seeing something I like isn’t necessarily euphoria, but relief. I never have to go back to living how I was, with this constant level of wrong, and desire to be anyone but myself. When I see cis guys or especially trans guys that are further in transition, I’m filled with envy and dread that I will never be able to have that, which kind of makes me feel like a shitty person. I am, however, pretty glad I didn’t grow up w/ toxic masculinity and know how misogyny feels so I can better avoid it. I am worried I occasionally act in a way that can be perceived as sexist, though, because I feel casual using words like bitch or whatever that aren’t red flags coming from women necessarily. Being a man and having internalised male gaze and misogyny is fucking weird though.
My main goal, honestly, is to reach a point where I don’t get constant reminders about what I lack. Glimpses in the mirror that make me think ‘I look like a woman’, or people on the phone calling me miss, or (funnily enough) feeling my boobs move around, or having to wear a binder. I want to just escape this. It’s not constant suffering, but occasionally I’ll get a stark reminder that I am not cis. They feel like reminders of womanhood, which is not a bad thing, but is just not something I can imagine having to live in forever.
Yeah! I have a very supportive environment and being my genuine self has made me so much happier. That being said, some environments are less friendly.
It's been a mixed bag.
I need to hide being bi from my family, so that really sucks. Dealing with general homophobia is just exhausting by now, not even hurtful anymore (just yesterday I was suggested a video saying Pakistan is "chad for not supporting LGBTQ+ people", and the comments were an absolute cesspool).
On the other hand, I have a friend who's also bi and it's really nice knowing someone who has had similar experiences as me. And with my male friends I can at least joke around, for example fake-flirting with them, then scaring them with a dead-pan "I mean it.".
And well, regarding my dating life... well there isn't any to speak of. But I certainly do look forward to it.
At the end of fallout new vegas the final cutscene intermittently flashes "YOU ARE TRANS" on the screen with rapidly changing colors, and the end credits are full of subliminal messages telling you to take hormones and go crossdressing. This has a 100% chance of success with the only outlier being Todd Howard
No it cures transphobia, you probably just kept blinking every time the message flashed on screen. Or you're Todd Howard, a possibility I forgot to consider
It's mostly due to the innate political themes of the game. Jokes slowly developed from it making people fascists, to it making people fascists or trans, to it making people trans.
I don't think there's a real explanation other than it is just a very popular game.
My two cents is that the assumption comes from the joke comes from the assumption that players are divided into those who recognize and understand the huge role politics plays in the game versus those who think it's "non-political" and just a fun future cowboy game.
I am not going to name names but I think you can figure out which political viewpoints the former and the latter tends to lean towards and their general views about LGBTQ people.
realistic LGBT characters and perks implying and allowing you to roleplay as gay/bisexual. Also there's an in-game rumor that the Legion likes to hump each other
I can go there for sure, but I also know the culture and some of the folks here?? Is it cool if I keep this here for now at least, assuming it’s not inappropriate?
Honestly that's fine, focus group ama subs are usually mobbed by people looking to make themselves a straw man. The best alternative is to make friends with someone and talk to them directly, the internet is anything but reliable.
Have and of you gay or trans folks here had any good experiences with religion? I’m no longer religious and can anticipate that many of the interactions with Christianity have probably been negative, but am curious if anyone has had experiences to the contrary
A good amount of us are atheists, but there are some of us who are religious. A decent amount of Christians are quite inclusive. In my experience it’s more so the vocal minority of Christians who are transphobic and homophobic.
I grew up Catholic, and while i can't say that my church is openly gay accepting, I had. a good experience with them so far and i probably wouldn't still be religious if I didn't have such a good church. Plus most other religious people in my life have been cool. However I KNOW that is not the norm.
His gender isn't quite 100% male, but is somewhere kinda near that. He uses he/they pronouns and wants to be seen as a guy, but his gender itself isn't entirely male from what I understand.
I’m not going to sugarcoat it. No.
Some religious people may not be homophobic, but in every instance this has gone against their wider community, and it is almost always a transgression of the actual text of their religious community’s practices. Almost every religion views me as deeply evil, and ones that don’t do not view my existence or life as as worthy as cishets. I’ve yet to have anyone tell me about an actual organised religion, not just ‘spirituality’ or a culture, that doesn’t view me as immoral, that doesn’t originate from a wider community that hates me deeply.
edit: tbh progressive religious people seem to have an air of shame or a chip on their shoulder when talking about their progressivism. Idk though
Personally it wasn't the transphobic christians that drove me away from the church, it was the knowledge that even the most progressive churchs would rather tolerate transphobia than go to bat for me.
i have had overall not a great experience with religion, with the way my childhood church functioned and the way my parents dealt with the matter of my sexuality. there have been some nice religious people such as my grandparents who have been accepting of me with no ifs, ands, or buts, and without any of the awkward tension my parents have generally given the matter. but they tend to be the exception and not the rule in my experience.
edit: saw a comment basically saying the opposite to what i did, so i should add that i grew up in a pretty conservative environment. and those environments (as you’ve likely seen based on your own upbringing) tend to be very “love the sinner, hate the sin” at best, which,, isn’t ideal.
I have a couple religious friends who are nice, one of them is actually gay and trans. My issue with religion is less individual people and more the organization part. And also the conspiracy theorist, but there are some of those in every group
What has been your best or happiest moment being gay or trans? (I’ve heard the phrase trans liberation or gay liberation is joy and really resonated with it)
made a trans joke to a friend, and thirty minutes later he was like WAIT UR TRANS?? i’ve always been insecure about passing but it made me feel good. the guy was really supportive and assured me i could pass as a cis guy even tho i’m really short. one of my cis male friends has offered to buy me a binder, and a lot of my cis friends speak up when people misgender or deadname me more than i do. it’s the little things that keep me going
What is a binder in this context? I'm just picturing one of those things that hold documents and homework inside but I'm pretty sure that's not what it means LOL sorry
I grew up in the South and a year ago I moved away. My happiest moment of queer liberation was the realization that the environment I grew up in was not universal. I can talk about my romantic interests, I can imagine being romantically involved with the people I’m interested in, and I can dress how I want without fear. It’s clear to me that, even acknowledging my identity, I had internalized a behavior because of the people around me. I feel free.
when the bar is on the floor, the little things can be absolutely golden. and honestly for me, it was this one time not too long ago when my mom happily showed me a little bit of pride month art her graphic designer friend made like “isn’t this cute?? :D” and i happily cried on the roof for like maybe an hour later that evening.
It’s gonna sound ridiculous but the first thing that comes to mind was a late night iHop run before seeing a movie with my friends. For context I’m gender fluid, assigned male at birth. I was wearing makeup and more fem clothing (which I don’t usually do) and the waitress just looked at me and said, “Honey I absolutely love your outfit!” And that was just like… damn, thanks, iHop waitress. I tipped her all the extra cash in my wallet 💀
Honestly, talking about "girl stuff" (such as dresses, feminism, etc.) with other girls makes me feel really euphoric, as well as wearing feminine clothes when I can.
Which is kind of funny since most of my interests (such as gaming and geek culture) are quite traditionally "masculine".
My ex came out to me as bi. And I was bi too.
Imagine just casually being able to admire people with someone who totally gets it. I got to actually enjoy being bi.
Shame that didn’t last. She was great, but I was dumb and couldn’t handle a relationship as a kid.
Is anyone in the sub multi-generational gay or trans? I know that ‘coming out’ to your parents is often a part of the experience and that it can be traumatic based on their reaction or wether or not you felt you could do so. But I’m interested if anyone knew that mom/dad would be okay with it because mom/dad/parent was already trans or gay?
So not exactly my case, no one in my direct family, beside me, is LGBT+ but I knew my dad would be ok with me coming out because he had already told me he was perfectly fine with me being gay before I even realize I wasn't straight.
We were redecorating my room and he was tossing around suggestions to what I could put in my walls and he said ''you could put poster or cute girls- or boys, if that's what you like''. So I wasn't scared at all coming out to him.
i had a similar experience with my mum. i didn't even really come out to her, just mentioned i was getting a pride flag pin for my bag and she was like oh that's cool pop off. later on she mentioned how glad she was that she created an environment where this kinda thing could be dropped so easily
Tbh, I think my mom is bisexual and doesn’t realise it. When my sister, who is bi, explained she was to my mom, she was very confused. My mom has talked about just giving up on men and dating women, and how she was bisexual in high school. She’s dealing with shame, I think, or at least a desire to be seen as normal and to live in the role she believes she has to. She does have a loving male fiancé though and is not going to be dating any time soon, so I’m not sure if her coming to terms with it is really necessary for her.
Tbh it was pretty traumatic coming out to her - she seemed 100% okay with my sexuality when I told her, but freaked out when I came out as trans too. She thought it was too much, or some failure of hers, and everything about me was wrong or freakish, and she wanted a normal child - in her own way, it was fuelled by a desire for my safety, the kind of safety she finds by living as a heterosexual. She did, I think because of her age, become very entitled to my body in terms of grandchildren. Realising that she barely tolerated my bisexuality, and the thought of anything else about me being different pushing her over the edge, was difficult to come to terms with. She has, over the course of about 5 years, come to realise that forcing me to be someone I’m not, or reacting in anger, will not make all of my problems go away. She could not make me straight, or cis, or hide - or at least, that would be worse for me than her supporting me in the face of the bigotry I would face. Her anger was in a sense a reaction of fear - she’d said so herself, I could never live as trans because if she let me it would be her fault if I was attacked. I try to empathise with her, it’s her first time going through this as much as it is mine. Sometimes it’s hard though, and I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive her fully. Despite all of this, she is my mom, and we have a normal relationship and don’t really talk about what happened, mostly because she is one of my fiercest supporters these days. I don’t know what changed for her, but I hope she may have learned self acceptance there too.
My mother is bisexual and is a very accepting person in general. When my younger sibling came out about questioning their gender and sexual orientation, my family (on my mom’s side) was quite supportive. So I have a moderately queer family.
I personally never felt like I was “in the closet” because I never felt the need to hide myself, I just didn’t tell my parents I was bi/pansexual because they didn’t need to know. It’s similar to how talking about sex or masturbation is an uncomfortable topic to tell your family about.
But when I began to think about my gender and my sex, I “came out” to my family so that I could get access to the clothing, medical treatment, etc that I needed.
To trans people in particular: (and please consider this in the sincerity and good faith in which I ask the question) why do you feel you identify as the opposite gender rather than as not a gender in the first place?
Essentially I’m interested in the difference in peoples experience or perception as trans rather than as gender fluid or non binary
Edit: typos
Hi, non-binary person here.
First of all, genuinely glad that you reached out and asked questions when you didn’t understand. Good on you.
And uh, transgender refers to anyone who doesn’t identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. Sorry for the confusion, even I’m confused by the more niche terms.
The term you are probably looking for is “MTF trans people” (male to female” or “FTM trans people” (female to male).
Yes because they can also feel gender dysphoria and decide to transition but to what lengths and how varies from person to person (this is also true for mtf and ftm)
It’s hard to explain why other than “I just do,” but I’ll try my best.
Since I was very young, a lot of ideas of masculinity had always made me very uncomfortable, especially so when people like my father tried to push them on me. It may partially be my autism, but being told that it was inherently “wrong” for me to not want to follow a specific mindset made me uncomfortable to no end (not to mention how utterly boring masculinity can be, especially with fashion!).
I think the biggest factor that detached me from masculinity is how women are treated. I feel like I can never even mention a female friend around some people without them immediately assuming there’s romance involved or something like that, and seeing a lot of guys talk about women like they’re some kind of commodity is just disturbing to me. I know not all guys are like this, but the amount I’ve seen have been enough to make me feel really uncomfortable with the idea of masculinity and sometimes even guys in general.
I’ve always had a pretty even number of male and female friends, and I suppose that discomfort made it easier to relate to girls a bit more. Femininity just feels more comfortable to me than masculinity, and I also like the feeling of rebelling against what society wants me to be in that way.
I guess I never considered non-binary identities because the thought never came to me, I just like being a girl.
Being a woman, having estrogen in my body instead of testosterone, looking in the mirror and seeing a woman, are things that make me feel right and good. Before that happened there was something that felt wrong and bad, and the more I acknowledged it the worse it felt.
Being me - who happens to be a woman, in a woman's body - feels freeing, feels true, feels right. And living with that every day improved my mental state drastically.
I'm MtF, nonbinary, and very slightly genderfluid (gender is a spectrum). Honestly you don't really choose your gender, it just kinda is a thing that exists outside your control.
I initially thought I was a demiboy (like between boy and a "neutral" gender) when I first realised I wasn't cis but over time sort of realised that I was just shying away from femininity due to internalised transphobia.
Hello little gay people in my phone!
I initially tried to respond to everyone. But there’s now far more than I could possibly get to in this post. I’ll still be around but I wanted to let you all know that this was absolutely lovely. You were all very patient and kind and I’m very glad to have talked to you.
Cheers!
Are there any cis/het people here that used to be homophobic or transphobic that aren’t anymore? What changed?
Trans and gay people too, for that matter
Yes. I listened to Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson, and didn’t know many trans people irl. I was an “indirect” transphobe meaning i never committed hate crimes but i was very invalidating and unsupportive of the few i knew, especially if they were early in their transition and it took any effort for me to remember they were not the gender they looked like to me. I had a lot of false beliefs about transgender identity from those two asshole podcasters and i never went out of my way to challenge them.
I started learning about trans identity from trans people, i learned that transitioning helps people not die from suicide, i learned about chromosomal variation, i learned that trans people were just people and i didn’t need to be afraid of them.
I’m not proud of who i was back then and how i treated people. I’m trying to indirectly make amends by being an ally. I’m friends with trans people, i work with them on community projects, i work hard to be respectful and affirming. I try to advocate for the rights of trans students in my state’s school system where i worked last year.
Actually if anyone who reads this wants to give me advice here please do. I’m thinking of one person in particular who i frequently misgendered, and just generally didn’t support. I’ve felt badly about it since i came around on trans issues. I’m not sure if i should reach out to this person and apologize for my behavior or if it’s best to leave them alone. Any suggestions either way?
Around 4 years since we last spoke i think. We were friendly but never close. i only hesitate to reach out for fear that me reminding them of my assholery causes more harm than it solves.
IMO you should apologize, just don't expect anything in return. Let the person know that you realize you hurt them and how wrong you were for it, whilst being aware you can't erase the pain you caused. Whether they forgive you or not will come from only from themself. But I believe they deserve an apology.
I think you’re probably right. The main reason i haven’t already is fear that me popping into their DMs and reminding them of me being an ass to them 4 years ago would cause more harm than it solves.
The fact that your biggest fear is not any potential backlash, but the potential of hurting them further by digging up bad memories, speaks volumes about how much you've changed. That's incredibly humble and empathetic.
I believe in you!
Probably all of us. I sure was, it was just kinda cool at the time to make “attack helicopter” jokes. I kinda got bored because they aren’t funny even ignoring how rude they are, and went forward to have exclusively pleasant experiences with trans people and realized they literally just want to exist without harassment.
There was a period of time where I was transphobic. What turned me around wasn't really that much to do with transphobia itself, but learning that the media I had been consuming at the time was kind of just bullshit. It was the 2016 "sjws destroyed" type stuff. Ben Shapiro and the like. Eventually I came to realize that these videos weren't made in good faith, and that a lot of it is just straight up propoganda. Things I was told to get mad about, like a gay character, or black actors, or trans headcannons, they all just stopped mattering to me. The question went from "why" to "why not?"
Similar story with "mansplaining." I would hear stuff like "all men do this" and such and such. At some point, I realized that the people being offended by those kinds of things were the kinds of people to identify with toxic masculine stereotypes. I realized that wasn't who I was, and that I shouldn't worry about it. I learned that I don't have to care about defending others so that I could feel slightly better about myself. I learned that the way I interact with and consume media can be harmful.
I consider myself an optimist. There was good in the world, and I felt I could prove it. A transgender girl in my Dungeons and Dragons group said I had a cute laugh. A bisexual friend asked me to draw some things for them because they like my art. Someone once said that a piece of music I had composed was one of the best pieces of 'video game'-esque music they had ever heard. Sometimes, when I'm outside, or at school, people compliment my boots. It feels nice for people to be nice. And it feels nice to *be* nice. These people are good people. I think there's good in everyone.
More importantly, it felt bad to be mean. But I learned that I couldn't be nice to everyone. That some people held convictions, beliefs, that the people I loved were bad people. There was one last part of me, able to humour a conversation with someone who made jokes where the punchline was a racial slur. I stopped letting "jokes" slide after my brother, who is transgender, had to switch to at-home, video chat schooling because people would not stop harassing him.
There is *bad* in the world. Sometimes, it hides in the good. Sometimes, it overshadows the good. People are not born racist, or homophobic, or transphobic. Those values are given to a person, taught. My most important lesson was a recent conversation with someone who had gotten a 24 hour mute on a discord server for transphobic remarks. He dm'd me, asking why I thought he hated lgbtq+ people just because he doesn't accept their identity. Talking to this person taught me a valuable lesson: I am not equipped to talk to people who are not ready to listen. What I did, was remind him that he was *muted* for a reason, and told him to shut the fuck up. This is because that person had said certain things. They had said that LGBT and Transgenderism is unethical, and unnatural. Their bio stated that marriage was between a man and a woman, and sex for straight people. This was not someone ready to listen. This was a person who went into my dm's looking for a fight. Looking to *get mad.*
Things that are taught, can be untaught, or taught over and on top of. People who are ready to listen (like you!) can be better people, by changing how they think of things. I see in you, myself. Here's an example: I used to think neo-pronouns were bullshit. Decide to maybe google it. I find out that they mostly function like second names, that the user identifies, and is comfotable, with. I think they're fine now, because I *understand them*. What you're doing is good! Asking questions (in good faith) is good! And so, I'll give you a quick summary, in the form of a TL;DR.
TL;DR: I had realized that the information I was consuming, that the people I called my "friends," that the jokes I made, and that the world view I had, was all crafted by people who hate those that I care about. Next, I had realized that I don't need to defend myself *for others* if a statement didn't include me. Next, I had realized that being understanding, and giving people the benefit of the doubt, was good practice for becoming a better human being. I had realized the good in the world. Next, I had realized the bad in the world. That I wasn't equipped to fight it, and that fighting it wrongly could have dire concequences. I realized that I didn't even need to open the door to it. And now, I am here, dumping a rediculous amount of pretty much nothing on you just to say... "I was bad, but being bad didn't feel good so now I'm nice"
I've been typing this for almost an hour now, and I want my life back, so good day, and I hope you learn everything you wanted to know about!
I also had a very brief ban Shapiro phase! I almost think that it’s a normal phase for a a cis/het/ white kid before you realize other people exist and you’re not a special prophesied chosen one and being a dick doesn’t make you cool
I think this might be more common than people think. I think many homophobes might be trying to over compensate and present as ultra straight because they feel less than straight privately
Growing up in Texas Conservative thought was omnipresent, I generally took these hurtful beliefs as facts. I grew up Christian and believed the word of god. What sparked a change in my belief was when a good friend of mine came out as gay. He’s a great guy, and I couldn’t bring myself to believe, despite years of indoctrination, that he was a sinner. This chasm between what I was taught, vs what I saw, lead to me choosing to support my friend.
i was homophobic for a little bit when i was 12-13. problem is, that only popped up after i found out i was queer. so it was mainly just me trying to compromise my parents’ beliefs and my identity as a lil gay idiot. what changed is that i became more involved in lgbt+ circles and started to realize that i shouldn’t have to compromise those things. and in the end, i couldn’t even reconcile them even slightly.
How important is being gay or trans to your identity? Is it something you think/thought about often, or does it only matter when other people make it matter?
It isn't so much my identity as who shares it. Heteronormative culture is so pervasive so it's really important for me to be able to talk about queer things in a safe environment. Otherwise, it's very easy to feel "other"
It isn’t important to me but people force it to be if that makes sense. I don’t care that I’m trans I don’t think I’m better or worse for it but there are people who will not let me forget I’m trans and bring it up at every chance they get.
I can see why that would be, and that sounds like it sucks. I’m really lucky to identify with my assigned gender so that I can just go about my business without everyone making a big deal
about it
Not that being trans or gay is ‘unlucky’ or bad, but it might be inconvenient in context
Incredibly inconvenient is a fairly accurate way to describe it. It fairly often tips into actual danger, but since we’re fairly used to it, it feels like ‘oh, another hate crime, this is going to make me late for the bus’ or ‘man, my doctors are threatening to take away my life saving meds again, how annoying’, and then you sit and think about it and feel this pit in your stomach.
Can you elaborate further on what you mean by this? I don't think about being gay at all, but I would say it's important to my identity. Not sure what you mean! Would appreciate extra context.
It matters to me a lot, a lot of my and other people's struggles stem from it or are tied to it in some way, so it is a big part of my identity. That's why I hate comments of "I can tolerate gayy people as long as they keep it to their bedroom" sort. It is not a kink; it is something that it a huge part of who we are and when you endure constant repression you want to feel free and show who you are when you have the occasion
I personally adore this. You're looking for a safe place to ask respectable questions in a community you feel safe in. Thank you for wanting to learn more about minorities, the world needs more open minded people like you.
God you're so sweet 🥺 I just got into sharing it with the people i know IRL... my coworkers LOVE IT!!! if you ever have any questions on bisexuality don't be afraid to hit me up in dms!!
So the commonality does help, but we definitely aren’t immune to these issues. I think the main place I see racism happening in queer spaces is when people feel like the commonality actually gives them a pass as fellow minorities to dictate what racial minorities should or shouldn’t do
Oh yeah it’s a huge problem. A lot of bigotry against trans people is completely unwarranted. In most situations, people hate only because other people hate. Some people’s default reactions to something confusing isn’t “Why?” but instead just hate out of confusion. On the second part of your question: I think everyone inside of the trans community understands the hardships and pain that comes with transitioning, both relating to the self, and relating to the societal aspect. I have no personal comment on what being a minority means for the community, since I only have outsider bias.
Can’t really comment on this directly, but you may be interested in reading about intersectionalism if you haven’t. From my loose understanding, it’s an analytical model of how different aspects of someone’s identity (class, race, sexuality, etc.) carry their own discriminations and privileges. I dunno if it’ll shed any light on the question, but it may help.
I’ve never met someone that identifies as pan! May I ask how it differs from bisexual, if it means you’re attracted to both genders? Does it mean that it includes non-gender identifying folks as well?
Both bi and pan include non-gender identifying folks, anyone really that doesn't fit into the gender binary.
The biggest difference between the two is that bi means attraction to two (or more) genders while pan means simply all. I don't have a preference while a bi person might prefer female partners with only a slight attraction to, for example, feminine men, to use one of my friends as an example.
As a bi person, I'll add another example. While I could be attracted to anyone, I'm more likely to be attracted to you the more to the middle of the gender spectrum you present. That goes for all genders. cis, trans, nb, etc. So, like your friend, I'm more into feminine men but also more into masculine women.
Interesting! This may be too personal, so you’re totally free to not answer, but can I ask what features you find attractive in general? Being pan do you still have a “type” even if that type isn’t determined by gender?
I’m Interested because mine are largely determined by gender, so I’m interested in how it works with an absence of gender (and I know you don’t speak for all pan people or anything)
Edit: typos
In have been asked about my type a lot and I never have a good answer honestly. The biggest part of it is someone's personality as cliché as that sounds but it's true; someone's gender plays a secondary role. As to actual physical appearance I find that I am quite attracted to people who present themselves in gender non conforming ways; tomboys femboys etc but also goths, punks, muscular women, petite men, there is really a lot. That said I do also find conventionally attractive people hot of course
Have any of you read the stonewall reader? My book club did last week and boy howdy. Gay/trans is punk as fuck.
Can’t recommend enough if you haven’t gotten to it yet
I fuckin love retro queer stuff. I know it was objectively an awful time to be queer, but I do kind of want that sort of scene or culture, like a real gay society that isn’t as sanitised and marketable as neoliberal LGBTQIA++ stuff is these days. It’s like wanting to live in some time in the past; 1800s dresses are lovely, but so is penicillin.
For FtM and MtF folks, what are your thoughts or experiences with transitioning and gender affirming surgery?
With the latter, (surgery) do you think it’s necessary? (Or was it for YOU in particular?) Are there any reasons a trans person should or shouldn’t transition?
I think anyone should be able to transition (including HRT, record changes, surgery, etc.) with only informed consent. The whole idea of cis therapists deciding whether a person is "trans" enough to be allowed to feel happy in their own body is fucking disgusting.
Also, not wanting to transition doesn't mean you're not "trans" enough, so there are no necessary procedures or surgeries imo. Trans people should be allowed to transition if they want to, though it's reasonable to hold it off for any reason too (such as abusive family).
Surgery isn't necessary for everyone, but a lot of people want it.
Three reasons I can think of a trans person shouldn't transition: 1. Lack of money (if you can't afford it, don't buy it) 2. Medical reasons (sometimes it does more harm than good) 3. If you live in a country where you'd most likely be killed for doing so (unfortunately there are some countries that do this)
It's going good, luckily I'm in a decent area but we are a majority catholic area so it's not the best. Scared I might lose all progress because of my state's insane governor and legislators. Always been jealous of the pnw, been there a couple of times and always loved the weather and fog. And yeah, the amount online i see people always say that the south is an absolute cesspit of trans and homophobia here is crazy, but honestly southern hospitality is real. Most people won't just be transphobic and will call you by your name atleast in public.
it is very important to me that i pass. i don’t want to get misgendered because well, it hurts my feelings a lot. even if i’m not out to the person it makes me feel bad and not masculine looking. sometimes i even get confused who people are referring to when they call me she
maybe it’s something dumb too that i think is misgendering without them even speaking to me. for example i’m almost don’t with high school, but middle school girls still walk up to me and tell me “my friend thinks your cute” that lets me know that to them im not passing because i know they think im a young masc lesbian and not a male who’s MUCH older than them, they don’t approach them. so that automatically makes me feel misgendered, invalid and bad about myself
sometimes i will not try to pass if the people are too ignorant and give up; people call me she/her and treat me as a lesbian. it’s easier to be a masc lesbian than a trans guy, you don’t get as many questions or weird looks. if it’s not a place i’ll be back to, i’ll just deal with it until it ends.
hi i grew up in a very conservative/ religious environment (stilll kinda in it tbh). just wanted to share bc i appreciate your curiosity and the fact that you were able to leave that horrible mindset as well. also i have a tom of trans gay friends as well as being both myself , if you wanna ask anything >_>
if you see anyone who enjoys the anime Ouran High School Host Club there's a 90% chance they're part of the lgbtq+ community they're probably specifically trans
Source: every trans man in my school
just answered all of the questions on here i could reasonably answer, and i just want to say: good on ya for making an effort to talk to people personally about this. a lot of the problems i have with the way homophobic/transphobic conservatives function is the fact that they look at lgbt+ people like weird little bugs under microscopes and try (and fail) to dissect us like odd little scientific specimens. it’s the bare minimum, but i appreciate that you’re not over here doubt that lmao. as bad as that probably sounds in practice.
and as someone who grew up in a religious/conservative environment, i completely get where you’re coming from here and i wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors!
holy shit dude “little gay people in my phone” fucking killed me. I’m sitting in the middle of an Italian cafe and I’m trying so hard not to laugh like a stupid motherfucker
How did you know you were gay or trans? Was it a gradual realization or sudden?
I play as boy penguin in club penguin as joke but then realize I like being boy penguin
The penguin to boy pipeline
Fuck.
Mine is similar to that as well actually! I started being a guy online and realised that's how it should be.
I realized I found men attractive around middle school. No one moment. Just realizing that those feelings I was having were sexual. Immediately I started to panic about the fact that, from that point on, there were going to be a lot of people who hate me even though I hadn't done anything wrong. I supported gay rights but all I could think was that I didn't want that to be me. I barely remember anything about those sexual feelings. I really just remember that fear. That was a long time ago and I've accepted myself but it was a scary time.
This comment hit different, I’m sorry that discovering yourself was one of the scarier moments of life. I’m glad to hear you’re doing well, and I hope things get better for kids discovering who they are
Thanks bud. I appreciate it.
I think it varies from person to person. Knew I was bi at like 13 because I thought as many guys and girls at my school were attractive. The trans stuff was something I struggled to grasp for a while, but I was jealous of the girls puberty while fearing my own because I didn't want body hair and a deeper voice. Also heard rumours that a girl I had a crush on was a lesbian, and I immediately thought "so I have a chance"
was sitting in bed one night and genuinely just randomly struck that i was attracted to guys lmao
Based.
Although everyone has a different experience, for me it started with a message to a friend “you know sometimes I wonder what if I were a girl”. Now, some background. When I was like 3-7, I would often choose the “girls option” for things. Like those products that are designed to appeal to the typical boy/girl. When I was in first grade I got bullied for not really fitting in with the boys. I learned to just try to fit in with the rest of the boys after that. Come fifth grade, I was bullied for not really fitting in with the boys.. again. Oh and I should add, when I was around 13 I was that “I’m not transphobic but [blatant transphobia]” type of person. This was mostly die to too much right wing YouTube and me trying to act more masculine. And back to where I started this comment; I was 14 at the time, and I asked my friend the aforementioned question. She said something along the lines of “let’s see how you like being referred to as a girl” and so I told people on discord (I have very few friends irl) that I was questioning my gender and wanted to try stuff out. A few days of being called a she, I found it a bit weird getting used to but it just felt.. nice. I enjoyed being, at least as this little blob of pixels on the screen, a girl. A couple weeks later I come out to a classmate, and get my first skirt shortly thereafter. I didn’t look great, but it still felt kind of nice. Anyways my battery is about to die so I’ll have to end this post here
This is so similar to my story lmao, am sorry for all the childhood traumas tho, it sucks
It was a gradual realization. I'm female to male so me liking men was seen as "normal." I was first exposed to transgenderism when I was 12-13 and eventually started seeing similarities between myself and the experiences of transgender men. I came out to my parents at 14 and was ignored and shut down. At 17 I came out again and my parents were forced by our family therapist to not ignore me. Currently, my parents are making an effort to gender me correctly, but are adamant that they will not be supporting any future medical transitions.
I discovered massive cock
Achievement unlocked
Porn
Ah yes, that great experimental platform lol Funny enough porn has helped me understand that I’m NOT gay or trans. There’s a lot of bad baggage with porn but also a few benefits here and there, apparently
I did the pipeline
The fallout new vegas - femboy pipeline or a different one
The he/him he/they they/them she/they she/her Except it was he/him he/they he/they/she h/they he/they/she he/they she/they she/her
damn you went through the whole sewer network
Quite the pipeline
h/they
I was befriended by the local fairy gay mother and began to question, am I sure I'm straight
I knew since I was 5 I just didn’t have the explanation of those feelings until 12 years later. Semi big revelation was finding out other boys my age don’t hate their masculine features and wish they were born cis girls every day.
I saw a frog in real life once, I touched it and it instantly turned me bi.
The realisation I was pansexual was basically instant. Had a moment of oh wait I find that guy hot. Do I find any other men hot? Yeah I guess so. Let me think on it while i ride thus bus home. By the end of the ride i realised I'm pansexual so that was pretty quick I think. As to my gender, oh it was, or still is, a long convoluted road of self discovery, experimentation and constant questioning of self. First I thought I was simply transfem, now I identify as non binary. My pronouns have changed like five times over the course of last few years, since that journey begun. It's a thing yeah
For me a lot of pieces kind of just suddenly fell into place over the course of a week. Id been thinking about it for a while, wishing i were a girl, daydreaming about becoming a girl, imagining how my life would be so much better if i were a girl, but kept denying it and repressing it, until i kind of just gave up and accepted it, realizing there wasnt really any ignoring everything. Now after ive been out for a while ive remembered a lot of the signs that showed up years ago that if id recognized them i might have known i was trans.
I figured out I was gay at like 19. Drinking made me extremely gay and eventually I realized it was because I liked guys. I had had girlfriends but hooking up with a guy made me realize I ONLY like guys
I was questioning for a couple months since one of my friends came out and it made me think a lot about my own gender. Eventually I concluded that I was probably cis. Then one day in maths class dysphoria hit me like a truck.
I knew I was trans since I was very young. I would look in the mirror and dissociate as early as age seven. Never felt like my body was my own but I used to feel like I was an alien inhabiting a human body if that makes sense. Always wanted to be a boy and told my mom constantly.
i realized i was trans thru a mix of the two, i had subtle signs before that made me question but always dismissed it quickly. i'd heard of trans people before and knee that they were a thing, but never quite put two and two together. during the pandemic, i spent a lot of time y'know alone, and got to be a little more questioning about my sexuality and gender. my family has never been accepting to any manner of lgbt folks, but my mom is slightly less weird about gay folks along with one of my aunts being more accepting. so sexuality was a gradual growth and evolution as i sorta figured shit out. for gender, at some point late at night i finally put the pieces together and realized "shit, i'm not happy like this". i'd been struggling mentally during quarantine with body issues since starting puberty, and depression for a while. ever since i was a fuckin toddler i had a hard time seeing myself in the mirror and associating it with myself. when you live under a constant state of disassociation you don't realize what it's like to live without is the most coherent way i can put it. just like with depression, i just needed the word to explain it. then the implications of my future hit me and i spent the rest of the night up thinking lol ALSO forgot to add but reading other comments i realized not everyone had the problem where you had to figure out whether you were attracted to someone or wanted to be them ☠️☠️ had that with my agab at first but that was just tryharding to ignore the fact that i am in fact trans, very interesting did not intend for this to become so wordy sorry ab that
I had my first gay crush in 4th grade but then I knew I was bi in 7th when I saw a femboy lol
8 inches long flacid
but 4 inches long erect 😞
my dick a slinky
It gets really long on the stairs
HA
You are funny
heyyyyyyy
5 inches, but it's thick
Has your gay or trans experience been a good one for you thus far?
Being trans makes me want to bash my head into a wall Being bi is fine ig?
:c
First time in history someone has used something other than :( to make a sad face
i love it tho, sadness hits harder :c
D:
This
I'm a gay trans male, and in all honesty? Being transgender is terrible. Being gay or trans is not something one chooses, it is both a biological and environmental trait. I live in an extremely liberal area, and even still my experience being transgender has been very difficult. I am contently misgendered, despite my best attempts to look masculine. I am accepted in small social circles, but being transgender overall makes my life more difficult. I only want to be viewed as a cisgender male (born male) but that is something I can never have. I have received support and it isn't all bad, but generally it is in no way a positive experience. Also people tell me that I am "just a woman fetishizing gay men" which is extremely damaging.
My apologies if this is considered offensive, but may I ask why your avatar and name are more feminine if you are a trans man? I don't mean to say that men can't be feminine, but it's not something I've seen trans men usually identify with.
I have two OC's that I constantly rp as. One of them is "Princess Rosellia" she's not actually a princess but she makes everyone refer to her as that. She's an old online personality I created for myself and am attached to. My account doesn't reflect my actual gender.
Unfortunately, reddit doesn't grant username changes.
People are a lot cooler these days where I live (not America) than they were 15 years ago, but being able to pass as a woman helps a lot. People just don't really care if you're gay here, it's like 'oh you're getting married to a woman that's neat' and then you go to Pride and see Joseph from accounting with his bf and say hi. I think my experience is good and I wouldn't change it for anything but getting kicked out of home when I was 16 and struggling to convince doctors to write a script for hormones was pretty shit. And just. Being trans is expensive, like I spent 15k on getting my dick cut off and it was the best thing for my mental health ever, not having something that felt wrong on me any more was great, but its a lot of money and I wish I could have gotten it done earlier.
Lost one best friend when I came out to him because he turned out to be a bigoted idiot, but I had another one that accepted me fully and supports me still in every step of the way and I love her more than my self. Besides that, I live in a small town in poland, most homophobic country in the EU, and my mother isn't the most accepting so I am still in the closet for my family and public. Not planning to come out until i live alone and am fully independent from my mother either. Fortunately I have friends who are either also queer or very supporting so I don't really feel isolated or alone in all that, so that makes me happy.
> homophobic country in the EU Most homophobic country in EU is hungary 🇭🇺 🙏🔥🔥i hate it here😍👌👍
NOO!! 1! 1! POLAND NUMBER 1 !!!
BRASIL!!!! BRASIL CAMPEAO MUNDOOO!!!!
Honestly, being trans isn't great. It's got downsides and issues that come with it. But also if I could snap my fingers and suddenly be cisgender, I don't think I'd do it. My experiences shape the way that I am and the way I view the world and those in it, and if I hadn't been through what I've been through, I would be a fundamentally different person. But also, knowing that I'm trans, I'm so much happier than I was, sometimes it hurts more because I know, but I am undeniably glad that I found out.
Absolutely. I found my realization of being trans to simultaneously be the best and worst thing ever. I’ve wished that I could either blissfully be ignorant, or somehow be myself with no social risk whatsoever, but my situation has definitely helped me be a better person, and I wouldn’t have certain lovely people in my life without these circumstances.
My emotions were completely muted before i came out and started living as my true self. I never really felt anything strongly either way. Now, the lows are lower, but the highs are much higher, and theres nowhere to go but up.
I identified as bisexual, but honestly feel like T has changed my sexuality and I have come to realise that I wasn’t masculine pre-transition because I was a lesbian or attracted to women, but because I am a man. I’m mostly attracted to men, still figuring it out. The only part of being gay that I like tbh is actually doing gay stuff lmao, getting to experience what is presumably very easy and natural for straight people, that is encouraged by society. Knowing that you’re not just broken or incapable of love, but gay, and the fulfilling relationships you feel you may never have can happen between you and a man. My first kiss with a man was like a realisation - this is how it’s supposed to feel. It was pretty amazing to not just be doing the fun thing of kissing, but the fun thing of kissing someone you find attractive in this almost magnetic way that just isn’t there for even aesthetically pretty women. As a trans man, I will say it kind of sucks knowing that a lot of gay men will never consider dating me, and that I have a very small dating pool. Being trans fucking sucks lmao, not just because of dysphoria which I can kind of forget about sometimes. But because of how much money I have to spend on medicine I need to not want to kill myself, and how my country’s politicians are trying to make being trans illegal, and I have been bullied and had awful experiences with corrective SA. I have never experienced joy like the first few times I was called a man, or sir, in public though. Looking in the mirror and seeing something I like isn’t necessarily euphoria, but relief. I never have to go back to living how I was, with this constant level of wrong, and desire to be anyone but myself. When I see cis guys or especially trans guys that are further in transition, I’m filled with envy and dread that I will never be able to have that, which kind of makes me feel like a shitty person. I am, however, pretty glad I didn’t grow up w/ toxic masculinity and know how misogyny feels so I can better avoid it. I am worried I occasionally act in a way that can be perceived as sexist, though, because I feel casual using words like bitch or whatever that aren’t red flags coming from women necessarily. Being a man and having internalised male gaze and misogyny is fucking weird though. My main goal, honestly, is to reach a point where I don’t get constant reminders about what I lack. Glimpses in the mirror that make me think ‘I look like a woman’, or people on the phone calling me miss, or (funnily enough) feeling my boobs move around, or having to wear a binder. I want to just escape this. It’s not constant suffering, but occasionally I’ll get a stark reminder that I am not cis. They feel like reminders of womanhood, which is not a bad thing, but is just not something I can imagine having to live in forever.
It's been good for me. I know a lot of people I wouldn't otherwise. I'm lucky enough to be in an accepting community.
Yeah! I have a very supportive environment and being my genuine self has made me so much happier. That being said, some environments are less friendly.
It's been alright imo. Just have to wait to transition for personal reasons which is sad. But I really like being a woman.
It's been a mixed bag. I need to hide being bi from my family, so that really sucks. Dealing with general homophobia is just exhausting by now, not even hurtful anymore (just yesterday I was suggested a video saying Pakistan is "chad for not supporting LGBTQ+ people", and the comments were an absolute cesspool). On the other hand, I have a friend who's also bi and it's really nice knowing someone who has had similar experiences as me. And with my male friends I can at least joke around, for example fake-flirting with them, then scaring them with a dead-pan "I mean it.". And well, regarding my dating life... well there isn't any to speak of. But I certainly do look forward to it.
Open ended question: I don’t understand the connection between fall out new vegas and being trans someone please help
At the end of fallout new vegas the final cutscene intermittently flashes "YOU ARE TRANS" on the screen with rapidly changing colors, and the end credits are full of subliminal messages telling you to take hormones and go crossdressing. This has a 100% chance of success with the only outlier being Todd Howard
Counterpoint: I've played New Vegas and I'm not trans Counter-counterpoint: I've never beaten New Vegas
Counter-strike point: rush b
Extra counterpoint: I beat new Vegas and didn’t like it and I’m non-binary. What does this mean for me?
Satan, strike team inbound
I beat the game but I'm not trans, did I do anything wrong?
yes, see an optometrist
Damn, just saw one. Says my eyes are transphobic smh.
No it cures transphobia, you probably just kept blinking every time the message flashed on screen. Or you're Todd Howard, a possibility I forgot to consider
It just works
Fuck you.
And again, it just works
Fellow chalkeaters fan?
See that mountain? You can climb it.
Honestly we don't know either. It just is.
I’m realizing this lol
So I'm not trans, but as far as I understand it, it's just that a lot of trans folks enjoy New Vegas
To be fair, everyone enjoys Fallout New Vegas
It's mostly due to the innate political themes of the game. Jokes slowly developed from it making people fascists, to it making people fascists or trans, to it making people trans.
I don't think there's a real explanation other than it is just a very popular game. My two cents is that the assumption comes from the joke comes from the assumption that players are divided into those who recognize and understand the huge role politics plays in the game versus those who think it's "non-political" and just a fun future cowboy game. I am not going to name names but I think you can figure out which political viewpoints the former and the latter tends to lean towards and their general views about LGBTQ people.
Popular game of choice I guess
[ Removed by Reddit ]
realistic LGBT characters and perks implying and allowing you to roleplay as gay/bisexual. Also there's an in-game rumor that the Legion likes to hump each other
It’s a popular game with nerds, a lot of trans people are nerds
I realized I was queer before playing fallout, I cheated
I feel like are slash asktransgender is part of what you're looking for
I can go there for sure, but I also know the culture and some of the folks here?? Is it cool if I keep this here for now at least, assuming it’s not inappropriate?
Honestly that's fine, focus group ama subs are usually mobbed by people looking to make themselves a straw man. The best alternative is to make friends with someone and talk to them directly, the internet is anything but reliable.
Okay I’m glad! I like the vibes around here so I wanted to ask here, and everyone has been absolutely lovely. Not a single troll so far
There was that mf that did a completely fake ama here about being a gay Russian trucker lmao
And thank you for the comment in the first place, didn’t know that sub existed
Have and of you gay or trans folks here had any good experiences with religion? I’m no longer religious and can anticipate that many of the interactions with Christianity have probably been negative, but am curious if anyone has had experiences to the contrary
A good amount of us are atheists, but there are some of us who are religious. A decent amount of Christians are quite inclusive. In my experience it’s more so the vocal minority of Christians who are transphobic and homophobic.
I grew up Catholic, and while i can't say that my church is openly gay accepting, I had. a good experience with them so far and i probably wouldn't still be religious if I didn't have such a good church. Plus most other religious people in my life have been cool. However I KNOW that is not the norm.
I'm an atheist, but one of my friends (who also happens to be a nonbinary trans man) is Catholic and a pretty awesome guy.
Sorry if it's offensive to ask, but how does "nonbinary trans man" work? Just curious. :)
His gender isn't quite 100% male, but is somewhere kinda near that. He uses he/they pronouns and wants to be seen as a guy, but his gender itself isn't entirely male from what I understand.
I'm personally agnostic cus who the fuck knows
I’m not going to sugarcoat it. No. Some religious people may not be homophobic, but in every instance this has gone against their wider community, and it is almost always a transgression of the actual text of their religious community’s practices. Almost every religion views me as deeply evil, and ones that don’t do not view my existence or life as as worthy as cishets. I’ve yet to have anyone tell me about an actual organised religion, not just ‘spirituality’ or a culture, that doesn’t view me as immoral, that doesn’t originate from a wider community that hates me deeply. edit: tbh progressive religious people seem to have an air of shame or a chip on their shoulder when talking about their progressivism. Idk though
Personally it wasn't the transphobic christians that drove me away from the church, it was the knowledge that even the most progressive churchs would rather tolerate transphobia than go to bat for me.
i have had overall not a great experience with religion, with the way my childhood church functioned and the way my parents dealt with the matter of my sexuality. there have been some nice religious people such as my grandparents who have been accepting of me with no ifs, ands, or buts, and without any of the awkward tension my parents have generally given the matter. but they tend to be the exception and not the rule in my experience. edit: saw a comment basically saying the opposite to what i did, so i should add that i grew up in a pretty conservative environment. and those environments (as you’ve likely seen based on your own upbringing) tend to be very “love the sinner, hate the sin” at best, which,, isn’t ideal.
I have a couple religious friends who are nice, one of them is actually gay and trans. My issue with religion is less individual people and more the organization part. And also the conspiracy theorist, but there are some of those in every group
What has been your best or happiest moment being gay or trans? (I’ve heard the phrase trans liberation or gay liberation is joy and really resonated with it)
made a trans joke to a friend, and thirty minutes later he was like WAIT UR TRANS?? i’ve always been insecure about passing but it made me feel good. the guy was really supportive and assured me i could pass as a cis guy even tho i’m really short. one of my cis male friends has offered to buy me a binder, and a lot of my cis friends speak up when people misgender or deadname me more than i do. it’s the little things that keep me going
What is a binder in this context? I'm just picturing one of those things that hold documents and homework inside but I'm pretty sure that's not what it means LOL sorry
It squisha da booba real flat
I grew up in the South and a year ago I moved away. My happiest moment of queer liberation was the realization that the environment I grew up in was not universal. I can talk about my romantic interests, I can imagine being romantically involved with the people I’m interested in, and I can dress how I want without fear. It’s clear to me that, even acknowledging my identity, I had internalized a behavior because of the people around me. I feel free.
when the bar is on the floor, the little things can be absolutely golden. and honestly for me, it was this one time not too long ago when my mom happily showed me a little bit of pride month art her graphic designer friend made like “isn’t this cute?? :D” and i happily cried on the roof for like maybe an hour later that evening.
It’s gonna sound ridiculous but the first thing that comes to mind was a late night iHop run before seeing a movie with my friends. For context I’m gender fluid, assigned male at birth. I was wearing makeup and more fem clothing (which I don’t usually do) and the waitress just looked at me and said, “Honey I absolutely love your outfit!” And that was just like… damn, thanks, iHop waitress. I tipped her all the extra cash in my wallet 💀
Honestly, talking about "girl stuff" (such as dresses, feminism, etc.) with other girls makes me feel really euphoric, as well as wearing feminine clothes when I can. Which is kind of funny since most of my interests (such as gaming and geek culture) are quite traditionally "masculine".
getting married to my wife :)
My ex came out to me as bi. And I was bi too. Imagine just casually being able to admire people with someone who totally gets it. I got to actually enjoy being bi. Shame that didn’t last. She was great, but I was dumb and couldn’t handle a relationship as a kid.
Is anyone in the sub multi-generational gay or trans? I know that ‘coming out’ to your parents is often a part of the experience and that it can be traumatic based on their reaction or wether or not you felt you could do so. But I’m interested if anyone knew that mom/dad would be okay with it because mom/dad/parent was already trans or gay?
So not exactly my case, no one in my direct family, beside me, is LGBT+ but I knew my dad would be ok with me coming out because he had already told me he was perfectly fine with me being gay before I even realize I wasn't straight. We were redecorating my room and he was tossing around suggestions to what I could put in my walls and he said ''you could put poster or cute girls- or boys, if that's what you like''. So I wasn't scared at all coming out to him.
i had a similar experience with my mum. i didn't even really come out to her, just mentioned i was getting a pride flag pin for my bag and she was like oh that's cool pop off. later on she mentioned how glad she was that she created an environment where this kinda thing could be dropped so easily
Tbh, I think my mom is bisexual and doesn’t realise it. When my sister, who is bi, explained she was to my mom, she was very confused. My mom has talked about just giving up on men and dating women, and how she was bisexual in high school. She’s dealing with shame, I think, or at least a desire to be seen as normal and to live in the role she believes she has to. She does have a loving male fiancé though and is not going to be dating any time soon, so I’m not sure if her coming to terms with it is really necessary for her. Tbh it was pretty traumatic coming out to her - she seemed 100% okay with my sexuality when I told her, but freaked out when I came out as trans too. She thought it was too much, or some failure of hers, and everything about me was wrong or freakish, and she wanted a normal child - in her own way, it was fuelled by a desire for my safety, the kind of safety she finds by living as a heterosexual. She did, I think because of her age, become very entitled to my body in terms of grandchildren. Realising that she barely tolerated my bisexuality, and the thought of anything else about me being different pushing her over the edge, was difficult to come to terms with. She has, over the course of about 5 years, come to realise that forcing me to be someone I’m not, or reacting in anger, will not make all of my problems go away. She could not make me straight, or cis, or hide - or at least, that would be worse for me than her supporting me in the face of the bigotry I would face. Her anger was in a sense a reaction of fear - she’d said so herself, I could never live as trans because if she let me it would be her fault if I was attacked. I try to empathise with her, it’s her first time going through this as much as it is mine. Sometimes it’s hard though, and I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive her fully. Despite all of this, she is my mom, and we have a normal relationship and don’t really talk about what happened, mostly because she is one of my fiercest supporters these days. I don’t know what changed for her, but I hope she may have learned self acceptance there too.
Wtf these are good questions
My mother is bisexual and is a very accepting person in general. When my younger sibling came out about questioning their gender and sexual orientation, my family (on my mom’s side) was quite supportive. So I have a moderately queer family. I personally never felt like I was “in the closet” because I never felt the need to hide myself, I just didn’t tell my parents I was bi/pansexual because they didn’t need to know. It’s similar to how talking about sex or masturbation is an uncomfortable topic to tell your family about. But when I began to think about my gender and my sex, I “came out” to my family so that I could get access to the clothing, medical treatment, etc that I needed.
To trans people in particular: (and please consider this in the sincerity and good faith in which I ask the question) why do you feel you identify as the opposite gender rather than as not a gender in the first place? Essentially I’m interested in the difference in peoples experience or perception as trans rather than as gender fluid or non binary Edit: typos
Hi, non-binary person here. First of all, genuinely glad that you reached out and asked questions when you didn’t understand. Good on you. And uh, transgender refers to anyone who doesn’t identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. Sorry for the confusion, even I’m confused by the more niche terms. The term you are probably looking for is “MTF trans people” (male to female” or “FTM trans people” (female to male).
Good to know! So the term transgender can apply to non binary people?
Yes because they can also feel gender dysphoria and decide to transition but to what lengths and how varies from person to person (this is also true for mtf and ftm)
emphasis on the "can", the only real requirement for being nb in my eyes is to feel that way, that it represents what you really are inside
It’s hard to explain why other than “I just do,” but I’ll try my best. Since I was very young, a lot of ideas of masculinity had always made me very uncomfortable, especially so when people like my father tried to push them on me. It may partially be my autism, but being told that it was inherently “wrong” for me to not want to follow a specific mindset made me uncomfortable to no end (not to mention how utterly boring masculinity can be, especially with fashion!). I think the biggest factor that detached me from masculinity is how women are treated. I feel like I can never even mention a female friend around some people without them immediately assuming there’s romance involved or something like that, and seeing a lot of guys talk about women like they’re some kind of commodity is just disturbing to me. I know not all guys are like this, but the amount I’ve seen have been enough to make me feel really uncomfortable with the idea of masculinity and sometimes even guys in general. I’ve always had a pretty even number of male and female friends, and I suppose that discomfort made it easier to relate to girls a bit more. Femininity just feels more comfortable to me than masculinity, and I also like the feeling of rebelling against what society wants me to be in that way. I guess I never considered non-binary identities because the thought never came to me, I just like being a girl.
Just liking it makes sense to me. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that. Thank you!
Being a woman, having estrogen in my body instead of testosterone, looking in the mirror and seeing a woman, are things that make me feel right and good. Before that happened there was something that felt wrong and bad, and the more I acknowledged it the worse it felt. Being me - who happens to be a woman, in a woman's body - feels freeing, feels true, feels right. And living with that every day improved my mental state drastically.
I'm MtF, nonbinary, and very slightly genderfluid (gender is a spectrum). Honestly you don't really choose your gender, it just kinda is a thing that exists outside your control. I initially thought I was a demiboy (like between boy and a "neutral" gender) when I first realised I wasn't cis but over time sort of realised that I was just shying away from femininity due to internalised transphobia.
Hello little gay people in my phone! I initially tried to respond to everyone. But there’s now far more than I could possibly get to in this post. I’ll still be around but I wanted to let you all know that this was absolutely lovely. You were all very patient and kind and I’m very glad to have talked to you. Cheers!
☕👍
Are there any cis/het people here that used to be homophobic or transphobic that aren’t anymore? What changed? Trans and gay people too, for that matter
Yes. I listened to Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson, and didn’t know many trans people irl. I was an “indirect” transphobe meaning i never committed hate crimes but i was very invalidating and unsupportive of the few i knew, especially if they were early in their transition and it took any effort for me to remember they were not the gender they looked like to me. I had a lot of false beliefs about transgender identity from those two asshole podcasters and i never went out of my way to challenge them. I started learning about trans identity from trans people, i learned that transitioning helps people not die from suicide, i learned about chromosomal variation, i learned that trans people were just people and i didn’t need to be afraid of them. I’m not proud of who i was back then and how i treated people. I’m trying to indirectly make amends by being an ally. I’m friends with trans people, i work with them on community projects, i work hard to be respectful and affirming. I try to advocate for the rights of trans students in my state’s school system where i worked last year. Actually if anyone who reads this wants to give me advice here please do. I’m thinking of one person in particular who i frequently misgendered, and just generally didn’t support. I’ve felt badly about it since i came around on trans issues. I’m not sure if i should reach out to this person and apologize for my behavior or if it’s best to leave them alone. Any suggestions either way?
I guess it depends on how long it’s been since you’ve spoken to this person. Who knows if they even remember you
Around 4 years since we last spoke i think. We were friendly but never close. i only hesitate to reach out for fear that me reminding them of my assholery causes more harm than it solves.
Might as well go for it. At the very least you'll stop being haunted by the thought.
IMO you should apologize, just don't expect anything in return. Let the person know that you realize you hurt them and how wrong you were for it, whilst being aware you can't erase the pain you caused. Whether they forgive you or not will come from only from themself. But I believe they deserve an apology.
I think you’re probably right. The main reason i haven’t already is fear that me popping into their DMs and reminding them of me being an ass to them 4 years ago would cause more harm than it solves.
The fact that your biggest fear is not any potential backlash, but the potential of hurting them further by digging up bad memories, speaks volumes about how much you've changed. That's incredibly humble and empathetic. I believe in you!
Probably all of us. I sure was, it was just kinda cool at the time to make “attack helicopter” jokes. I kinda got bored because they aren’t funny even ignoring how rude they are, and went forward to have exclusively pleasant experiences with trans people and realized they literally just want to exist without harassment.
There was a period of time where I was transphobic. What turned me around wasn't really that much to do with transphobia itself, but learning that the media I had been consuming at the time was kind of just bullshit. It was the 2016 "sjws destroyed" type stuff. Ben Shapiro and the like. Eventually I came to realize that these videos weren't made in good faith, and that a lot of it is just straight up propoganda. Things I was told to get mad about, like a gay character, or black actors, or trans headcannons, they all just stopped mattering to me. The question went from "why" to "why not?" Similar story with "mansplaining." I would hear stuff like "all men do this" and such and such. At some point, I realized that the people being offended by those kinds of things were the kinds of people to identify with toxic masculine stereotypes. I realized that wasn't who I was, and that I shouldn't worry about it. I learned that I don't have to care about defending others so that I could feel slightly better about myself. I learned that the way I interact with and consume media can be harmful. I consider myself an optimist. There was good in the world, and I felt I could prove it. A transgender girl in my Dungeons and Dragons group said I had a cute laugh. A bisexual friend asked me to draw some things for them because they like my art. Someone once said that a piece of music I had composed was one of the best pieces of 'video game'-esque music they had ever heard. Sometimes, when I'm outside, or at school, people compliment my boots. It feels nice for people to be nice. And it feels nice to *be* nice. These people are good people. I think there's good in everyone. More importantly, it felt bad to be mean. But I learned that I couldn't be nice to everyone. That some people held convictions, beliefs, that the people I loved were bad people. There was one last part of me, able to humour a conversation with someone who made jokes where the punchline was a racial slur. I stopped letting "jokes" slide after my brother, who is transgender, had to switch to at-home, video chat schooling because people would not stop harassing him. There is *bad* in the world. Sometimes, it hides in the good. Sometimes, it overshadows the good. People are not born racist, or homophobic, or transphobic. Those values are given to a person, taught. My most important lesson was a recent conversation with someone who had gotten a 24 hour mute on a discord server for transphobic remarks. He dm'd me, asking why I thought he hated lgbtq+ people just because he doesn't accept their identity. Talking to this person taught me a valuable lesson: I am not equipped to talk to people who are not ready to listen. What I did, was remind him that he was *muted* for a reason, and told him to shut the fuck up. This is because that person had said certain things. They had said that LGBT and Transgenderism is unethical, and unnatural. Their bio stated that marriage was between a man and a woman, and sex for straight people. This was not someone ready to listen. This was a person who went into my dm's looking for a fight. Looking to *get mad.* Things that are taught, can be untaught, or taught over and on top of. People who are ready to listen (like you!) can be better people, by changing how they think of things. I see in you, myself. Here's an example: I used to think neo-pronouns were bullshit. Decide to maybe google it. I find out that they mostly function like second names, that the user identifies, and is comfotable, with. I think they're fine now, because I *understand them*. What you're doing is good! Asking questions (in good faith) is good! And so, I'll give you a quick summary, in the form of a TL;DR. TL;DR: I had realized that the information I was consuming, that the people I called my "friends," that the jokes I made, and that the world view I had, was all crafted by people who hate those that I care about. Next, I had realized that I don't need to defend myself *for others* if a statement didn't include me. Next, I had realized that being understanding, and giving people the benefit of the doubt, was good practice for becoming a better human being. I had realized the good in the world. Next, I had realized the bad in the world. That I wasn't equipped to fight it, and that fighting it wrongly could have dire concequences. I realized that I didn't even need to open the door to it. And now, I am here, dumping a rediculous amount of pretty much nothing on you just to say... "I was bad, but being bad didn't feel good so now I'm nice" I've been typing this for almost an hour now, and I want my life back, so good day, and I hope you learn everything you wanted to know about!
I also had a very brief ban Shapiro phase! I almost think that it’s a normal phase for a a cis/het/ white kid before you realize other people exist and you’re not a special prophesied chosen one and being a dick doesn’t make you cool
I use to be homophobic to convince myself I didn’t like boys
I think this might be more common than people think. I think many homophobes might be trying to over compensate and present as ultra straight because they feel less than straight privately
Can’t say for myself but most people simply grow up. If you want to find a concentrated pile of transphobia just visit a middle school
Growing up in Texas Conservative thought was omnipresent, I generally took these hurtful beliefs as facts. I grew up Christian and believed the word of god. What sparked a change in my belief was when a good friend of mine came out as gay. He’s a great guy, and I couldn’t bring myself to believe, despite years of indoctrination, that he was a sinner. This chasm between what I was taught, vs what I saw, lead to me choosing to support my friend.
i was homophobic for a little bit when i was 12-13. problem is, that only popped up after i found out i was queer. so it was mainly just me trying to compromise my parents’ beliefs and my identity as a lil gay idiot. what changed is that i became more involved in lgbt+ circles and started to realize that i shouldn’t have to compromise those things. and in the end, i couldn’t even reconcile them even slightly.
How important is being gay or trans to your identity? Is it something you think/thought about often, or does it only matter when other people make it matter?
It isn't so much my identity as who shares it. Heteronormative culture is so pervasive so it's really important for me to be able to talk about queer things in a safe environment. Otherwise, it's very easy to feel "other"
It isn’t important to me but people force it to be if that makes sense. I don’t care that I’m trans I don’t think I’m better or worse for it but there are people who will not let me forget I’m trans and bring it up at every chance they get.
I can see why that would be, and that sounds like it sucks. I’m really lucky to identify with my assigned gender so that I can just go about my business without everyone making a big deal about it Not that being trans or gay is ‘unlucky’ or bad, but it might be inconvenient in context
Incredibly inconvenient is a fairly accurate way to describe it. It fairly often tips into actual danger, but since we’re fairly used to it, it feels like ‘oh, another hate crime, this is going to make me late for the bus’ or ‘man, my doctors are threatening to take away my life saving meds again, how annoying’, and then you sit and think about it and feel this pit in your stomach.
Can you elaborate further on what you mean by this? I don't think about being gay at all, but I would say it's important to my identity. Not sure what you mean! Would appreciate extra context.
It matters to me a lot, a lot of my and other people's struggles stem from it or are tied to it in some way, so it is a big part of my identity. That's why I hate comments of "I can tolerate gayy people as long as they keep it to their bedroom" sort. It is not a kink; it is something that it a huge part of who we are and when you endure constant repression you want to feel free and show who you are when you have the occasion
I personally adore this. You're looking for a safe place to ask respectable questions in a community you feel safe in. Thank you for wanting to learn more about minorities, the world needs more open minded people like you.
Thank you! But it’s really the absolute bare minimum lol no awards needed for not being shitty
I respect you so much for asking questions and clarifying things. Seriously most people won’t make half the effort you’ve put in to understand us
Also I have a compulsive habit of looking at peoples post and I love your cross stitch
God you're so sweet 🥺 I just got into sharing it with the people i know IRL... my coworkers LOVE IT!!! if you ever have any questions on bisexuality don't be afraid to hit me up in dms!!
Is racism or other kinds of prejudice or bigotry a problem in trans communities? Or does the commonality of being a vulnerable minority prevent that?
So the commonality does help, but we definitely aren’t immune to these issues. I think the main place I see racism happening in queer spaces is when people feel like the commonality actually gives them a pass as fellow minorities to dictate what racial minorities should or shouldn’t do
Oh yeah it’s a huge problem. A lot of bigotry against trans people is completely unwarranted. In most situations, people hate only because other people hate. Some people’s default reactions to something confusing isn’t “Why?” but instead just hate out of confusion. On the second part of your question: I think everyone inside of the trans community understands the hardships and pain that comes with transitioning, both relating to the self, and relating to the societal aspect. I have no personal comment on what being a minority means for the community, since I only have outsider bias.
Can’t really comment on this directly, but you may be interested in reading about intersectionalism if you haven’t. From my loose understanding, it’s an analytical model of how different aspects of someone’s identity (class, race, sexuality, etc.) carry their own discriminations and privileges. I dunno if it’ll shed any light on the question, but it may help.
I'm pansexual and non binary I feel like I'm your target demographic
I’ve never met someone that identifies as pan! May I ask how it differs from bisexual, if it means you’re attracted to both genders? Does it mean that it includes non-gender identifying folks as well?
Both bi and pan include non-gender identifying folks, anyone really that doesn't fit into the gender binary. The biggest difference between the two is that bi means attraction to two (or more) genders while pan means simply all. I don't have a preference while a bi person might prefer female partners with only a slight attraction to, for example, feminine men, to use one of my friends as an example.
As a bi person, I'll add another example. While I could be attracted to anyone, I'm more likely to be attracted to you the more to the middle of the gender spectrum you present. That goes for all genders. cis, trans, nb, etc. So, like your friend, I'm more into feminine men but also more into masculine women.
Interesting! This may be too personal, so you’re totally free to not answer, but can I ask what features you find attractive in general? Being pan do you still have a “type” even if that type isn’t determined by gender? I’m Interested because mine are largely determined by gender, so I’m interested in how it works with an absence of gender (and I know you don’t speak for all pan people or anything) Edit: typos
In have been asked about my type a lot and I never have a good answer honestly. The biggest part of it is someone's personality as cliché as that sounds but it's true; someone's gender plays a secondary role. As to actual physical appearance I find that I am quite attracted to people who present themselves in gender non conforming ways; tomboys femboys etc but also goths, punks, muscular women, petite men, there is really a lot. That said I do also find conventionally attractive people hot of course
My first thought was “wow that’s a wide variety” but then I was thought “well ya dumbass that’s the point” lol
Have any of you read the stonewall reader? My book club did last week and boy howdy. Gay/trans is punk as fuck. Can’t recommend enough if you haven’t gotten to it yet
What's it about?
It’s a collection of memoirs and interviews before during and after the stonewall riots.
I fuckin love retro queer stuff. I know it was objectively an awful time to be queer, but I do kind of want that sort of scene or culture, like a real gay society that isn’t as sanitised and marketable as neoliberal LGBTQIA++ stuff is these days. It’s like wanting to live in some time in the past; 1800s dresses are lovely, but so is penicillin.
For FtM and MtF folks, what are your thoughts or experiences with transitioning and gender affirming surgery? With the latter, (surgery) do you think it’s necessary? (Or was it for YOU in particular?) Are there any reasons a trans person should or shouldn’t transition?
I think anyone should be able to transition (including HRT, record changes, surgery, etc.) with only informed consent. The whole idea of cis therapists deciding whether a person is "trans" enough to be allowed to feel happy in their own body is fucking disgusting. Also, not wanting to transition doesn't mean you're not "trans" enough, so there are no necessary procedures or surgeries imo. Trans people should be allowed to transition if they want to, though it's reasonable to hold it off for any reason too (such as abusive family).
Surgery isn't necessary for everyone, but a lot of people want it. Three reasons I can think of a trans person shouldn't transition: 1. Lack of money (if you can't afford it, don't buy it) 2. Medical reasons (sometimes it does more harm than good) 3. If you live in a country where you'd most likely be killed for doing so (unfortunately there are some countries that do this)
Hi i'm trans and gay and live in the south and yeah idk if you have questions i have answers
Oooo being from the south. How’s that going? I’m PNW. Are the stereotypes about homophobia and transphobia as bad there as they’re made out to be?
It's going good, luckily I'm in a decent area but we are a majority catholic area so it's not the best. Scared I might lose all progress because of my state's insane governor and legislators. Always been jealous of the pnw, been there a couple of times and always loved the weather and fog. And yeah, the amount online i see people always say that the south is an absolute cesspit of trans and homophobia here is crazy, but honestly southern hospitality is real. Most people won't just be transphobic and will call you by your name atleast in public.
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FtM and MtF folks: is it important to you that you’re passing? Are there times when you try or don’t to pass, and if so why?
it is very important to me that i pass. i don’t want to get misgendered because well, it hurts my feelings a lot. even if i’m not out to the person it makes me feel bad and not masculine looking. sometimes i even get confused who people are referring to when they call me she maybe it’s something dumb too that i think is misgendering without them even speaking to me. for example i’m almost don’t with high school, but middle school girls still walk up to me and tell me “my friend thinks your cute” that lets me know that to them im not passing because i know they think im a young masc lesbian and not a male who’s MUCH older than them, they don’t approach them. so that automatically makes me feel misgendered, invalid and bad about myself sometimes i will not try to pass if the people are too ignorant and give up; people call me she/her and treat me as a lesbian. it’s easier to be a masc lesbian than a trans guy, you don’t get as many questions or weird looks. if it’s not a place i’ll be back to, i’ll just deal with it until it ends.
So I'm not the only confused fella here
Not everyone here is trans, gay, or knows what’s going on, yes, lol
hi i grew up in a very conservative/ religious environment (stilll kinda in it tbh). just wanted to share bc i appreciate your curiosity and the fact that you were able to leave that horrible mindset as well. also i have a tom of trans gay friends as well as being both myself , if you wanna ask anything >_>
if you see anyone who enjoys the anime Ouran High School Host Club there's a 90% chance they're part of the lgbtq+ community they're probably specifically trans Source: every trans man in my school
This is such a cool post idea damn
just answered all of the questions on here i could reasonably answer, and i just want to say: good on ya for making an effort to talk to people personally about this. a lot of the problems i have with the way homophobic/transphobic conservatives function is the fact that they look at lgbt+ people like weird little bugs under microscopes and try (and fail) to dissect us like odd little scientific specimens. it’s the bare minimum, but i appreciate that you’re not over here doubt that lmao. as bad as that probably sounds in practice. and as someone who grew up in a religious/conservative environment, i completely get where you’re coming from here and i wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors!
I'm cis and as straight as it gets so i can't awnser anything for you, but its still interesting to see other peoples comments
wait is this an actual gay sub?
Technically no, it's just a meme sub that happens to be very open to LGBTQ+ especially trans.
sick ty, sometimes all the memes and references get over my head
holy shit dude “little gay people in my phone” fucking killed me. I’m sitting in the middle of an Italian cafe and I’m trying so hard not to laugh like a stupid motherfucker