(((I Will Outlive)))

You don't have to define your relationship if you don't want to. Every relationship is unique and not every one needs a label.

— Unknown

— C. Perry (via aslfan)

Tranphobic👏jokes👏are👏just👏as👏transphobic👏when👏cis👏LGB👏people👏make👏them👏

👏Enbyphobic👏jokes👏are👏just👏as👏enbyphobic👏when👏binary👏trans👏people👏make👏them👏

It's understandable if you see the world as cruel, harsh and full of dangerous people.

If you see the world that way, it's probably because of experiences you've had. It makes sense to keep seeing the world that way and be on the lookout for the possibility of being hurt again.

I hope that as you grow and heal, you can make space to recognize that there is also kindness and softness in the world.

You deserve more than the bare minimum.

You deserve so much more.

You're not responsible for other people's prejudices. It's not your fault of people willfully misunderstand or make assumptions about your identity.

Here is a complete list of the people who can decide if someone is LGBTQ+:

1. The person themselves

Wanting not to be touched doesn’t make you a mean person. Wanting people to respect your personal boundaries doesn’t make you annoying. You shouldn’t have to put yourself through things that hurt or upset you just because other people think they are harmless.

You’re not asking too much if you want a non-normative type of relationship. And there are other people out there who are interested in the same thing you are.

People on Twitter sharing mental health advice that helped them

torinomon replied to your post “Man, everybody keeps on repeating how conservative and insert-phobic…”

The US doesn’t even have regular nationalised health care, so it doesn’t entirely surprise me that they wouldn’t have parental leave either. It’s still fucked up, though.

In Japan, up until 2014, men who took parental leave were eligible for government benefits that covered up to 67% of their salaries, but only if they didn’t work more than 10 days a month. The current law is that they can work up to 80 hours and can receive up to 80% of their salaries.

Many companies in Japan do have more flexible paternity leave now, but a lot of men still don’t tend to take time off from work - only about 3%, and sometimes only for 1 or 2 weeks. There’s still that societal expectation that taking care of children is the “woman’s job”, but many Japanese men who have taken parental leave have talked about how their relationship with their wives was so much better and that they felt more connected to their family. The women themselves had nothing to say but positive things, as they were able to share the housework and taking care of the newborn with their husbands as a shared experience. The majority of pressure against paternity leave tends to be from the grandparents and older people who expect the man to put his work first, and not from the new father himself. [source]

And yeah, a lot like western comic books with the underground press of the 60s and 70s, niche anime and manga (meaning not mainstream, obvs) will usually be part of a counterculture in some way. Geicomi takes a lot of inspiration from western LGBT+ counterculture of the 70s and 80s, and I know that Tagame has specifically mentioned Tom of Finland as being a big influence in the development of his art.

I’ve also talked before about the development of “kawaii culture”- and how that was essentially counterculture to the “refined” expectations of modern Japanese women, and that’s just one among many Japanese countercultures.

If you’re curious about more, I suggest looking up Superflat and Ero Guro art movements, Go Nagai (of Devilman fame), Shintaro Kago and Suehiro Maruo, gekiga and underground manga magazines from the 60s, such as Garo, or even the works of Edogawa Ranpo - many of which contained that which was called “abnormal sexuality” at the time and thus was deemed ‘grotesque’. One example was The Demon of the Lonely Isle which involved a gay doctor that was in love with one of the other main characters - something very unheard of when it was written in the 1920s! (Ranpo and his friend Junichi Iwata actually had a friendly competition on who could find the most books about erotic desire between men - Ranpo focusing on western books, and Iwata focusing on Japanese books. Iwata passed away before the ‘competition’ could be finished, so Ranpo published Iwata’s findings in his memory.)

Your trauma is valid if it came from people being prejudiced against you. 

Being discriminated against can absolutely be traumatizing and it’s 100% valid whether it’s a small part, the main source or even only cause of your trauma. Some examples of prejudice can include, but are not limited to: ableism, homophobia, racism, sexism, and transphobia. 

It’s not talked about enough but it can absolutely be traumatic to have to hide your true self from those you want to be accepted by.