I’m begging trans people to be more dangerous
this isn’t like a cutesy post I mean it I need trans people to arm and train themselves and not be victims to bigotry.
clippings from “women seeking women” personal ads in the baltimore sun, 1995
Source: Dyke Strippers; Lesbian Cartoonists A to Z , edited by Roz Warren
hope y’all know that when you say shit like “aro/ace is a white people thing” and “white people made up being nonbinary” you’re erasing queer people of color who ID with those labels and who have fought to be acknowledged and respected because of how white-centered queerness is. it’s especially ahistorical to ignore that the gender binary is a tool of white supremacy and that many african, indigenous, native american, etc communities were what we call nonbinary (two-spirit for native americans) long before white people came along (colonization). stop acting like queer people of color who ID with lesser known identities don’t exist because that only serves to keep white people at the forefront of queerness and lgbt politics.
and if you still need convincing, check out #nonbinaryisntwhite on twitter (or this post), and yasmin benoit’s “this is what asexual looks like” (link 2) (link 3)
obsessed with this photo series about trans love by photographer landyn pan (source)
8/28/22 - armed activists in roanoke, texas defend a drag event from right wing protestors.
Trans Pride London, July 2022
trans friends— this has been circulating a lot on the internet already but PLEASE stop ordering from gc2b. their quality has massively declined, they send the wrong size binders correctly marked, the stitching is extremely poor and rips often times when first putting it on. do not waste your money on them!
if anyone wants to know why im fundraising for new binders its because due to the quality decrease in gc2b, im currently relying on one binder ive had since 2018. three of my other BRAND new gc2b binders have already ripped and two others were marked size large but were a size medium or below. on top of that, they hurt my back an ungodly fucking amount, so please be careful with them, i know how hard this shit is for anyone else who is poor and/or financially constrained, and i really empathize, please bind safely and be careful!
Gc2b is also unsafe due to the way the binders don’t compress evenly. They will cause rib warping and permanent damage. Always go for even compression and it should never cut into your ribs while wearing it.
If anyone needs a replacement, I got mine from spectrum outfitters, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with those
oh reblogging again to climb onto my soapbox and yell:
do NOT use amazon as your alternative!!!!!!
This isn’t me being “fuck amazon” (though. fuck amazon), this is me saying I’ve been told by several sources that amazon binders are incredibly low-quality and incredibly unsafe.
It sucks that GC2B is bad now, but do not look to amazon as your new source. I know it’s usually cheaper, but please. Don’t hurt yourself.
(This goes double for amazon binders labeled as “for lesbians”, “for butches”, “for women”, and “for cosplay”, but like. I cannot stress enough that I have never heard a single person call any amazon binder “safe”.)
Nobody is providing alt links on this post directly so here, I will. Buy your new binders from UNDERWORKS: https://www.underworks.com/
Personally been using their binders since 2010. That long. I’ve only ever had one fall apart on me and it took 5 years of near constant wear and wash to do so, the other 2 I got in 2013 are still strong and fine, and I recently bought a new one that’s even higher quality than the old ones. Plus size, tall, and large chest friendly. I’m 6ft, 2xl, F cup. Their binders take me down to roughly a rounded b cup. They also have long binders that go over the waist/hips/butt to gently compress them if it causes you some dysphoria. Even post surgical vests!
No single item from Underworks in the binder category is over $45, with a 3 pack of binders being less than $100. Please don’t buy from random retailers on amazon or other shady websites when Underworks has been a well known, award winning binder brand for 20 years, and their binders are literally cheaper than gc2b.
i already rbed this but i wanna reblog w that addition too. used underworks from my first real binder until my top surgery. i had a gc2b one once (and this was years ago when gc2b had only been around for a couple years, so it was before this apparent quality drop) and it NEVER compared in comfort, breathability, practicality, or in the binding effect itself to my underworks binders. underworks has unfairly been considered an untrustworthy brand because their binders were originally meant for cis men with gynecomastia (breast growth), even though underworks has created a separate site (f2mbinders) specifically for their trans clientele which has measurements more accurate to pre/no hrt trans men, on top of the fact that its a fucking compressive shirt and the idea that it somehow wont work on you if you were afab is pretty bioessentialist. i fully endorse underworks and, as the above commenter, i especially recommend it for plus size folks and/or people with large chests, who gc2b binders imo were never inclusive of.
Co-signing as a fat enby with 44G breasts. Underworks binders may not come in a lot of colors (just black, white, and beige) but they are comfortable, breathable, wick sweat, and flatten like a boss. They also distribute well so you don’t get back pain wearing them AND they don’t give that weird breasts-bunched-under-the-arm thing some binders do to you if you’re fat and/or have a lot of breast tissue to contend with. I cannot recommend them enough.
very much not the point of this post! older gc2b stuff seems to be fine; I haven’t heard about these specific problems with the new ones, but I don’t think they’ve had these issues long enough for any real studies to be conducted in order for that to be confirmed.
Nor do I think they’ve found that with gc2b binders, or even binders in general- the “binders will definitely for sure always permanently warp and damage your body irreparably” thing is a myth often circulated by TERFs and concerned allies/people who legit don’t know any better in order to discourage transmasculinity. iirc the one study I’ve seen done into health and safety issues with binders found that bandages and duct tape caused a lot of problems, but not dedicated compression binders (and transtape hasn’t been around long enough to be included at all).
If done improperly (too small, poorly constructed, too much time at once) there can definitely be impacts on your health as well; if there’s conclusive evidence that even safe practices lead to consistent health impacts I’d love to see it, but afaik that’s just not true.
Listen to your body with this stuff. If it hurts or feels uncomfortable, or if you notice something is off, stop doing it. Re-evaluate. Sometimes it’s that your body does better with certain methods over others, sometimes it’s that the specific binder is not well-constructed or well-fitted, sometimes it’s that you need to be taking more breaks and scaling back how much time you’re spending with it on. Experiment a little, check in with yourself, and figure out what’s right for you.
And definitely dont take these kinds of “all binders always” claims for granted.
I also recommend Shapeshifters! They are made to your measurements by trans folx. I can’t bind often but I do love my Shapeshifters.
Hi, I'm a trans man and I'm 40 this year. I'm from a backwards little bullshit town full of backwards little bullshit people, and I got away from all that and let myself grow. It was really difficult but I did it. I left home at 21 with not much and struggled to make it. I thought about just giving up and dying, a lot. But I didn't do that. I lived and I'm here. I wanted to see what was next. Now I'm a man in the world, like I was always meant to be. I love people and they love me back. I am confident now. When I was younger, I could not look people in the eye because I felt like no one would ever see me. But they do now. I'm not alone on this earth and neither are you. We are out there, living. We aren't new or experimental or a trend. We aren't a threat. We aren't under some vague evil influence. We aren't the broken daughters of the ignorant. We're the good sons they choose not to see. We have always been around and we always will be. Don't listen to willfully ignorant people saying stupid shit for money or clout. Your knowledge of yourself and your needs is truer than anyone else's notions of who you are
This is the most hopeful thing I've ever read. Thank you, anon!
[Pride (2014), dir. Matthew Warchus, wr. Stephen Beresford.]
We’re here, we’re queer, and you should live in fuckin fear.
Yeah well you didn't need to put trans men down to get your point across.
You could have just said the second part without implying we're accepted with no effort every time. Stop fucking throwing us under the bus.
Almost every single anti transmasc caricature that's meant to imply that this is a "privileged cis woman faker" features a fat person.
What the fuck is that person talking about?
I’m not sure I’ve connected any dots here but I find it real weird how transandrophobes either describe transmascs as skinny pretty boys or ugly gross fat guys depending on what’s convenient for their narrative.
Yeah, we apparently shape-shift into wither hyper privileged white boys when we're oppressors, and fat ugly theyfabs when we're stupid females.
Oh yeah, and don't forget the "ugly" they always call our features ugly. Like huh really wish I wasn't degraded in that way.
Like ugly in what way? How would you describe ugly? Is it 'anything other than the Eurocentric/white beauty standard".
Also notice how they sexualize our bodies? Always drawing the "cis woman faker " (not a fucking thing) as someone with revealing clothing, and a huge chest like embracing your femininity or sexuality as a transmasc is a bad thing to do.
What they want transmascs to be is this ↓
God forbid they look like this
(Picture of me fyi)
Or this
Or this
Or this
Or this
Remember when mullets were like, a staple in queer fashion but then transmascs jumped on the mullet train (bc get this, mullets can be excellent for androgyny and closeted trans men) and suddenly mullets were ugly and there were all these memes about "saving transmascs from mullets" or whatever? I specifically remember this happening about a year ago when tiktok especially had a lot of transmascs showing off their mullets and stuff.
I specifically remember in a groupchat i ran with some friends, there were 3 trans dudes (including myself), 3 nonbinary folks, one of whom identified as a lesbian. one of the trans dudes started talking about wanting to cut his hair into a mullet. most of us were super supportive! like hell yeah! get that mullet!! do what makes YOU feel best!! I even admitted to wanting a mullet. then the lesbian started going in hard on how ugly mullets are and how the dude shouldn't do that. anyway, long-story short the trans dude got a mullet, and the lesbian once again made their opinions loudly known about how ugly mullets are. again, their wording left no room for interpretation, it wasn't a "I don't personally like mullets for myself", it was a full "mullets are ugly/hideous" and when the dude would post selfies there was always a comment like "You're handsome but I still think mullets are ugly!"
the next month I got a mullet-like haircut. it was a bit too long to be an actual MULLET but it was close enough to qualify and I largely stopped posting selfies. but then the lesbian started sharing memes privately to me SPECIFICALLY about lesbians saving their transmasc friends from the barber and shit like that. I didn't wanna be aggressive so I kinda went "haha that's funny, but on the flipside this seems to follow a trend where anything transmascs do to feel good about themselves gets deemed ugly and/or cringe even if we're following trends that already existed in the community" and they did not take that well.
like this is ONE example I fully lived thru since starting my transition that was in an ENTIRELY QUEER space.
AND FINALLY, trans men are not ACCEPTED more than trans women, even in queer spaces not specifically geared toward gender inclusivity. transmascs are talked down to A LOT, are treated like babies, and there are a troubling amount of cis gay ppl who truly believe that transmascs are just lesbians with internalized homophobia.
To go back to the sexualization real quick, I'm surprised no one commented on the fact that "slut" is written on the bodies of one of those "cis women fakers" they really can't stop seeing transmascs as sexual objects. Or I guess as broken sexual objects that need to be punished for not being pretty enough.
I'm guessing that's referencing the transmed belief that "A true trans man would NEVER have vaginal sex because he would be TOO dysphoric!"
So it follows that any trans man who doesn't get bottom surgery and still has sex must be a faker.
I remember Kalvin going after one specific trans sex worker and calling him a faker because he had (kinky) vaginal sex.
Before going to bed, I made a painting of Marsha P. Johnson. That night, I dreamed that I woke up to find her standing at my desk, looking at the canvas. When she noticed I'm awake she said, "You made my chin too small," threw glitter at me and disappeared in a shower of glitter.
@madphantom well show us the art, would you as soon as you fix Marsha's chin okay
Here's the final thing, I think her chin is still a tad bit too small but she has not since complained, so I assume she's satisfied.
I love it so much, it's beautiful!
Not all dykes are women and not all dykes are lesbians. You're foolish to think otherwise. To think that you can put queerness on a binary system.
Your identity politics can not stop the butch bisexual who has been beaten and called a dyke from reclaiming her identity and from being a part of our community.
Your hatred of men can not stop the transgender man who has been raped and called a dyke from reclaiming his identity and being a part of our community, you can not deny that they have helped to build the dyke community and identity.
Your disgust of the transmasculine stone butch lesbian can not stop him from discarding womanhood and embracing butchness and dykeness as his gender and identity, he himself built the dyke community you stand on.
Your transmisogyny can not stop the transfem nonbinary dyke from reclaiming their identity as they are spat on and called a faggot, they have every right to stand in out community and embrace their identity, to reclaim the word and identity that has been withheld from them, on the basis of assumed genitals.
You can not put an end to the genderqueer femme and zir pronouns and their identity, as they are attacked from all sides, called a dyke and confused woman, zey are with us.
Dykeness will not be forced into a static identity, it has survived 80+ years of cishetnormativity and violence. It has survived abuse, corrective rape, murder, transphobia, and separatism. It will not bow to petty cisbians who desire a mono existence.
c. jacob hale, whose body is this anyway? from genderqueer: voices from beyond the sexual binary, edited by Joan nestle, clare Howell, and riki wilchins
I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but people in LGBTQ+ marketing behave as if they're allergic to masc. Queerness.
E.g. a poster about pronouns might include she/her and they/them as examples, but rarely he/him. I saw he/they once, though.
This is a loose post but there is something to be said for the masc-shy presentation of queerness to the world.
Photos taken from Jess T Dugan’s series To Survive On This Shore.
Wait a second, is this the same Mike and Sky from Catherine Opie’s photo of the young trans couple together in the 90s? Nice to see that they’re still together these days (?) and (hopefully) doing well.
If the pic didn’t load on your phone, this is them 28 years ago :)
Excerpts from “Queer Action Figures” zine #3, 1996. NYC.
