garden in the void

you know i think i’ve come to the conclusion that the answer to “but what if a cis woman is traumatized by men/male presenting people/whatever?” irt safe spaces is this: if you can’t be in the same room with someone you assume to be male or a man without feeling triggered, it probably means you have a lot more solo therapy and healing to do before relying on group therapy or other communal healing.

because how do you decide who gets to stay and who gets kicked out based on a cis woman’s trauma response? is it based on appearance? should intersex women with facial hair not be allowed because beards are triggering? should butches and studs not be allowed because masculinity is triggering? should tall broad shouldered trans women who don’t want to voice train not be allowed because low voices are triggering? is it based on identity? should a pre transition trans man who came out two days ago not be allowed because he’s a man? is a nonbinary person with a full beard and deep voice allowed because they are not a man?

because if you base your entire set of rules for who’s not allowed in the safe space on what makes cis women uncomfortable or triggers them, you’ve just made that space unsafe for trans people. and you need to decide if you’re ready to own that.

to the "what if a cis woman is traumatized by men/male presenting people" thing: well, then she needs a fuckton of therapy to work through that, because demanding a space that's free of an appearance or identity that bothers you is not realistic and it's not only counterproductive to your healing but makes you a danger to others. right after I'd been diagnosed with ptsd, i got put in two mixed-gender therapy groups. one was a dbt group, the other one was an actual for-credit class on the physiology of ptsd. at the time i was still identifying as mostly a girl, although kinda-sorta starting to question it.

i really really didn't want to be in mixed gender groups. i was in a state of extreme hypervigilance like 99% of the time. i was having flashbacks and panic attacks at the drop of a hat. and you know what my therapist said when i asked if i could be in groups without men?

she said no, and that it would be a crucial point in my healing process to learn that men aren't inherently dangerous. i was petrified, because i was twenty years old and in the worst mental health of my life, but i showed up to the groups and did the homework and sat next to the men i was scared of, and you know what? my therapist was absolutely right! getting to know those men in my groups was one of the most healing experiences i could've had, because i was forced to stop seeing them as a monolithic boogeyman and start seeing them as individual human beings! not to mention quite a few of them were also rape/sa survivors and therefore made up a safer and more understanding space than any of the non-survivor social groups i frequented.

i distinctly remember having an anxiety attack having to sit next to a guy i didn't know in dbt group. i remember apologizing, because i did want him to know he didn't personally do anything. he had vaguely similar features to my ex and in the state i was in at the time, that was a trigger. he told me it was okay, he totally understood because he was the same way with guys who looked like his dad, and then seat swapped me so i could have my back to the wall instead of the open room. just like that.

my ptsd physiology class was me and a bunch of big burly ex-military guys. i was feeling brave one day and piped up about how if someone touched me, i could feel it for hours after and felt like i needed 50 showers. this big bearded guy in a muscle shirt snapped his fingers and went, 'dude, EXACTLY!!' it led to a very educational discussion on dysregulation in individuals with ptsd and how your startle response just Doesn't Wear Off, as well as all of us sharing/brainstorming ways to cope with that when it happened. we all learned a lot and me and that guy both learned we weren't alone.

all that to say: you're responsible for learning to manage your triggers. someone's appearance or identity being a trigger for you means you are gravely, critically ill, and need a lot of help to work toward being okay and being able to function as a person. if you can't handle being around anyone you read as a man or as remotely masculine, there's a very strong chance you're sick enough you shouldn't be in groups at all until you have enough of a handle on your shit to not pose a danger to yourself and others.

"you're responsible for learning to manage your triggers. someone's appearance or identity being a trigger for you means you are gravely, critically ill, and need a lot of help to work toward being okay and being able to function as a person"

louder for the people in the back

Did you know that after they switched to blind auditions, major symphony orchestras hired women between 30% to 55% more? Before bringing in “blind auditions” with a screen to conceal the the candidate, women in the top 5 major orchestras made up less than 5% of the musicians performing.

so I believe it was actually more complicated than that, in interesting ways. Because at first, when they did blind auditions, they were STILL hiring more men.

…Then they put down a carpet, so that high heels didn’t clack on the floor,  and BOOM women were suddenly getting hired.

The testers didn’t even know that’s what they were picking up on, which just goes to show how tiny of a cue it takes for misogyny to kick in.

The case of blind auditions for orchestras and how it dramatically changed the gender makeup of orchestras is a very illuminating example of gender bias, and an interesting possible way of countering it.

You can be sexist without knowing it. You can be racist without knowing it. This is not a moral failing; it is a moral imperative to remember that you are fallible, and take steps to limit the damage your squishy ape brain’s foibles can cause.

Not my usual content, but I made something I wanted to share...

— Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine

ashnikko: i am the moss king, green apple eyes. you sang the song, now our destinies are tied 🌿🌱🔮

embracing the patterned ambiguity of gender and sex as more or less social constructs can grant you so much more precision in thinking about so many concepts in science.

like, if there was a study (and I'm just making this up as an example) showing women suffer from mosquito bites more than men do

you could do the ~"Gender Critical"~ thing and go "see!? mosquitoes get it!!"

OR

you could go "that's interesting" and start asking more questions, like:

because in fact the study i made up just then could lead to a huge variety of conclusions. from my description above you can't tell the difference between studies that show:

etc etc etc

you're just not going to understand actual Gender Science, and therefore reality, if you can't put "hmm, but what do they mean by woman this time" in your mental toolkit in a relatively neutral way.

rb to make a biological essentialist mad <3

People ask, “How many genders are there?” a lot - sometimes out of innocent wondering and sometimes to try to ridicule/shame the trans community.

The thing is, asking how many genders there are is like asking how many colors there are. Yeah, there are a few main ones, but you could never name every. single. color. Plus, there are many shades that fall outside of or in between the few labels that we’ve created to categorize them. Asking a nonbinary person if they’re a boy or a girl is like asking if turquoise is blue or green - it’s somewhere in the middle, and that’s okay. 

 That’s why color is a spectrum, and that’s what we mean when we say that gender is a spectrum. Furthermore, just as with gender, everyone’s perception and experience of color is different.

the existence of terfs honestly continuously blows my mind because like…. i’m a queer cis woman. but i was dramatically less happy about being a woman before i gained a bunch of trans friends and started following trans people and reading their stuff.

cis ppl who never have gender feelings, talking to them is like Introduction To Gender 101 shit. talking to trans people about gender is like PhD level classes. they literally just know more about it and how to think critically about it.

and yeah, today i bawled my eyes out about Abigail Thorn bc I’m so happy for her, to have yet another trans voice to listen to. because transfemme people make womanhood as a whole better, more rounded, more welcoming. just knowing the people who have dug deep into this and explored it, it lets me know that if I were fucking miserable about being a woman, I wouldn’t have to be one anymore! and that’s okay.

and that alone, having that option, having it pioneered already by others and being able to talk to and listen to them, that is the thing that made my own femininity palatable.

trans women are not women with an asterisk or “woman, but.” they are literally the people who make womanhood… fucking not a prison! and I can only imagine the same is true of trans men! and I know nonbinary people are like– like someone has passed me a key and whispered “yo, if you want, we can blow this joint.” and I don’t want to, personally, but fuck, having that option is everything.

when i say “fuck terfs” what I mean isn’t just “transphobes suck and everyone deserves to be treated kindly.” what I really mean is “this ideology is what makes gender toxic, and deplatforming and removing them from our spaces is paramount to my safety and yours.”

anyway. i wish every trans person a good day. also if you wanna check out more from Abigail Thorn, I super rec the Royal Family video as well as the Queer video. also i have a strong soft spot for the Abortion vs Ben Shapiro one, it’s tremendous.

I also think trans women really provide a reason to love womanhood. When you don’t have it questioned, as a cis woman, it’s easier to go, “well, life would be 100% better as a man”, and while that’s probably largely true; when you see women who are forced to pretend that they are men, who have to justify every day *why* they “want” to be a woman - who get into the feelings and euphoria that comes off of being a woman… it helps. Like sure, not all of gender euphoria is a “good model”, but the things we do notice: stuff like how women stick up for each other in bad situations, how we talk to each other so openly, how we get to express stuff so much more in many cases. And sure, the patriarchy puts a stain on all of that. But it’s a lot easier to see that being a woman as a whole is a good thing; that what’s hard is being a woman in a patriarchy, and I think the first idea would be overwritten more by the second if there weren’t women who specifically have to figure out for themselves what they like about being a woman.

it’s like I DO want to be feminine in the way a man is feminine. if I’m performing feminity I don’t want it to be read as an inherent reflection of my gender and who I am. I don’t want someone to call me ma’am or be called a girl. like. it’s drag. only it can’t be drag for me, because it’s not actually subverting anything, is it? so I’m in this spot where I either cannot allow myself any femininity or I do and accept the consequences of perception. my wearing eyeliner isn’t a subversion, a quiet rebellion, it’s perceived as fulfilling an expectation. somehow I can never be masc enough to be percieved as I want to be, so any introduction of femininity feels like a defeat. and yet sometimes I want to wear the pretty things that are still in my closet! or play around with makeup. but it isn’t a young boy getting into his mother’s vanity and heels, it’s growing up into the fulfillment of the wants of the mother and the rest of society as a blank whole.

I feel this in my soul, and, as a nonbinary afab person who has been feeling very happy wearing skirts recently, can I offer some advice from my own experience?

The whole point of traditional femininity is a specific sort of heternormative attractiveness, so one way you, as an afab person, can subvert that is by wearing it in ways that are subversive of that model.

Want to wear a skirt subversively? Wear it low on your hips and/or with a baggy shirt over it so that your waist is entirely undefined. Bonus points for a really swishy skirt. Also bonus points for playing in the mud while wearing said swishy skirt.

A loose dress with obviously unshaved legs and combat boots is also a goddamn look.

As is a skirt in an obnoxious color or one with big pockets.

Oh, also no bra (or a sports bra) can be a look /if it's comfortable for you/ because those garments or lack thereof don't give your chest a "traditionally feminine" shape

Want to wear makeup subversively? Use it in ways that are not traditionally attractive but feel you. Bright lipstick in strange colors like blue, purple, or green? no foundation and eyeshadow? black eyeliner but purposefully messed/square/uneven? Purple/green/neon eyeliner? Eyeshadow smudged across half your face? Here For It. (Also buzzed/slicked back hair + makeup)

Also could wear super feminine clothes, but no makeup and highlight any non-(western)traditional-feminine-beauty attributes you may have. Rock that unibrow if you are blessed with it.

But also, it's 10000% ok to look "traditionally feminine" if looking a way that other people consider feminine is you. Your clothes don't define you, you define your clothes. If you say that dress isn't goshdarn feminine it ain't goshdarn feminine. (Noting that I feel this post with my entire being)

Hello you need to see this drag performer talking about quantum physics, queer existence, and non-binary identities.

[Video Description: A drag queen — who is credited as Amrou Al-Kadhi / Glamrou, a drag performer, writer, and filmmaker — stands in front of a microphone and explains,

“Quantum physics is this incredible sect of of physics, which basically…

With like, Newtonian physics — I think of it as heteronormative physics — where its basically ‘What are the fixed universal principles that govern the world? If I do A, will B happen? What are the formulas that’ll tell us anywhere in the universe, “What will happen if I input this?”’

Quantum physics is equally a “real” sect of physics that basically looks at subatomic particles — so the very smallest things in our universe, not the macro things — and they contradict basically everything that Newtonian physics shows us. So, the most famous experiment is the Double Slit Experiment, where you fire an electron and it should go through the left or right hole. And then every now and then, it goes through both at the same time. And we don’t really know why. And sometimes, the same subatomic particle is in different locations at the same times.

And quantum physics shows that actually reality itself is basically a majority approximation of what’s happening sub-atomically. So when people spew the biological essentialism argument on me. Like, particles themselves are non-binary, and do things that contradict each other all the time, we just can’t see them all the time. And that gives me a lot of comfort, that if subatomic particles defy constructs all the time, why should we believe in fixed constructs of gender, or any kind of reality?” END DESCRIPTION]

“Newtonian physics is heteronormative” is not the take I expected to see on my dash today, but it is 100% inspirational.

let’s take a moment to appreciate how goth culture has allowed many closeted trans ppl the opportunity to wear jewelry, makeup, and nail polish, under less scrutiny from the cishet world

or, conversely– combat boots, waistcoats, oxford shoes, ties, stud belts, wallet chains, and other “traditionally masculine” accessories

#the total and utter blurring of the gender binary is honestly this style’s biggest sourceof power lbr#we got dudes in corsets and gals in tuxes and some folks wearing both at the same time. (@ninjagiry)

gender weirdos be like

‘if your chromosomes are XY you are a man that’s it, nothing changes it, you’re a man forever’

but then at the same time be like

‘if your son touches too many pink things he WILL become a girl instantly’