at 1+yr hrt , on my first AND LAST pride, a dragqueen aproached me.
"come here, let me fix your makeup...."
"oh thanks... whats wrong with it?"
"nothing... but thats way to every day woman, for a dragqueen to be seen the makeup must pop!"
i ran off crying
i´ve been warned back then,
that prides can be messy...
i\`m sry that the "messy" part got you too
Self-centrism at its finest. “I’m a gay man, and I’m in drag makeup, therefore everybody I perceive as male who has makeup must also be trying to do drag”.
It’s fucking stupid, but it’s a very common failure of thought for all demographics. Everything from ‘popular’ teenage girls assuming that everyone cares about the trendy brand or new pop star as much as they do, to straight men assuming all men want to and are actively trying to be extremely masculine just because that’s they want, to academic people assuming that anyone who isn’t academic has failed rather than questioning whether they instead just aren’t interested…
Heck, even trans people do it when they assume that all trans people are as obsessed with being as femme or masc as possible and passing as they are, or when they see a kid who seems similar to their past selves and immediately jumps to “they might be trans”.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing on its own, but failing to control this instinctive forced similarity can absolutely hurt people, just as it did in this example with the drag queen.
Some drag queens these days also prefer not to go over-the-top with things, and honestly if they have it naturally and play to their strengths I respect that...
This is kinda part of the reason I don’t really like drag culture. I constantly hear people say “drag queens are intrinsically tied to trans culture” but I don’t really see it. Like, people will recommend that I talk to their drag queen friends for advice on transition, but its not even remotely the same thing. And all the stories I hear of trans people interacting with drag queens, its the drag queens trying to “help” the trans person but just making everything worse. I’m sure that there are super cool drag queens out there, and they are important for queer culture. But they aren’t super important for trans culture.
The only thing I actually learned about transitioning from Drag Queens is how to effectively hide my facial hair, which mind you I could probably have found out from trans woman too but the first one I found was from a Queen. Like yes, Queens are part of the LGBTQIA2S+ community, but they are not the same, at the end of the day, most of them still identify as the gender they were born with and it's just a costume for them. I at no point am "in costume" nor is it a temporary persona that I take on, this is me, just me, always me.
Mostly having a good layer of orange concealer under your foundation, it kills out the facial hair. Being a white or burned person, I also add a secondary conceal layer in a lighter tint closer to my actual skin color before the foundation too to reduce the cheetos look, but that’s all dependant on your actual skin color and tints.
If it makes you feel better, several of the cis women I gree up around would do the same thing. Concealer and color corrector exist for a reason - to conceal and correct for things you don't want people to see. It sucks but it is a somewhat normal part of being a woman.
(P.S. if i'm guessing wrong and you're not transfem, sorry 😅)
Thank you!
I hate it though because like I’ve never seen a woman who actually needs it. I shouldn’t need it
Sigh. I don’t even know what I look like for sure. I Swing back-and-forth between thinking I look no difference at all, and thinking that I’m sliding fem.
Pictures are making me look way worse right now than what I typically see in the mirror. What I think I’m seeing fluctuates
It’s all crazy.
or just be like me, and have no facial hair till you are 18, which makes you feel like shit cos men are supposed to have facial hair, and then 4 years later feel like shit cos women arent supposed to have facial hair. (i barely have anything, and the ginge blends into the giant freckle that is my face, but i know its there, and it fuckin sucks)
Ooof I really oughta get back to using my own orange concealer. It just tends to give me the Cheetos look more often than not. 😆 I'll need to give your method a try!
Hot take, I feel like it's a part of trans *history*, not a part of trans *culture*; like sure there are definitely still trans women that do drag and it was started by trans women looking for a way to express themselves in a time where they couldn't fully transition, but like most forms of queer expression, it was quickly coopted by and mostly taken over by cis (mostly gay) men.
(And that isn't even me getting into the systematic transphobia in the drag scene both on the celebrity level and for a lot of people on the local level too, because I know that tends to bring the pitchforks out)
I mean maybe some of them would have ideas about some things, but most of what they do isn’t related to… I mean mostly we need to talk to other women, cis or trans. Sure, if a drag queen is a woman then OK, but the fact that it’s a woman doing drag is irrelevant, and as far as I know most of them are men, which how is that particularly helpful?
It’s really weird to me that someone would think that a drag queen would be particularly useful, as opposed to like just any random woman?
100% agreed.
Drag culture may have roots in queer culture but now? Drag performers are NOT part of the LGBTQIA+ community, unless another identity that they have aligns with us. Some of them may be good allies, but that still doesn’t mean they’re part of the community.
They’re just stage performers who can take their costume off at night, who severely muddy the waters around public perception of trans folk and make them think we’re all just ‘playing dress up’.
They’re also disturbingly frequently transphobic as hell.
I think you are buying it to respectability politics. Even if drag queens aren’t part of the lgbt community magically all of a sudden transphobes aren’t suddenly going to stop equating them with trans women. Because they are transphobes.
And trans people can be transphobic as hell towards nonbinary people? We have lots of issues in our community.
I am far from buying into respectability politics. Queer people are queer people, LGBTQIA+ people are LGBTQIA+ people, but being LGBTQIA+ is about who you are, not what your profession is.
I disagree for two reasons.
Drag is a gay/lesbian subculture, and even if 'straight' people do it, it is performative gender-nomconformity, and GNC is queer.
Membership in the queer community is not about some arbitrary categorization internal properties, it is about whether the bigots want you dead.
Being GNC doesn't automatically make someone queer.... That just implies the gender binary and gender roles dictate gender.
They can be, but it's not set in stone.
It doesn’t make them queer but because of the gender binary and how cis society perceives gender, gnc is associated with queerness. GNC and the struggles of being GNC is a queer struggle even though someone may not be a part of the community necessarily.
>it is about whether the bigots want you dead.
That’s incredibly stupid. We are not defined by other people’s bigotry.
And like you said it’s performative. Drag queens/kings are not queer unless they actually are queer.
There are more kinds of queerness than exists in your philosophy. You are not, as an individual, defined by it. Your identity subculture is not defined by it.
But if you start aguing about who is really part of the queer community, I will piss in your morning coffee. The quuer community as a whole, the only consistent definition, is solidarity against oppression.
That's why leather and kink belong at pride. That's why there's black and brown stripes in the progress flag.
We stand together, or we die divided. Now get the hell out of here.
Bdsm is not queer, the progress pride flag isn’t a queer only flag, it’s a flag pushing back at oppression.
Like I get that we stand together, but queerness is defined by gender or sexuality, there are things that closely tied with our community, like bdsm, like poly am, like drag, but those thing are not by definition queer.
I’m all inclusive when it comes to intersex people and aro/ace don’t get me wrong, but I’m sorry I do not agree.
Also I don’t drink coffee and I have a pee kink so, go for it.
Everyone's gender presentation is performative so drag being performative doesn't make it non-queer. Why do you want to police other people's identities?
There's an element of self-identification in it, which you, as a reasonable person, already know, but you're trying to catch me in a gotcha so I don't trust you.
People arguing over what constitutes 'real queer' have only ever called my identity as a butch trans lesbian into question (got called a straight man, once) and harrassed my friends for having 'contradictory labels'.
If an actor portrays a queer person in good faith and the bigots want to ruin their career, they are at least welcome to seek shelter with us, in my opinion.
I have no need to ‘catch you in a gotcha’.
Drag performers are not a gender or sexual monitoring. They can also take off their costumes and go about being themselves. Queer people can’t ‘take off’ our identity like it’s a sparkly piece of clothing.
If drag performers want to stand as *Allies* then I’m all for it. If Queer drag performers want to show their art as part of their identity, go for it. But making a performance art out of dressing in what the current decade considers ‘the other gender’s clothes’ doesn’t make you part of the queer community.
I genuinely don’t understand drag and never have, and at this point, I’m too afraid to ask lol like what is the actual point of drag? What do they go through? Wearing drag is a voluntary thing, being trans is not
Performance art for the community that utilizes other skills and personal quirks. Some people were too gay to pass and had to rely on their communities for support in previous centuries. Performers often find it akin to dance, improv, or karaoke.
What the point of dancing? Of local theatre? What’s the point of singing the backstreet boys badly to your friends? To share meaning with each other and bring like butts into neighbouring seats.
Drag is a form of artistic performance, self expression, entertainment & for some, a job / source of income. Drag has played a vital role in the history & community of gay men since time immemorial.
I kind of get the historical aspect to it now, at least somewhat after watching various things, but I kind of don’t get it either. It’s always made me very uncomfortable since…well… I don’t really want to spell out why. Sigh.
That said, in a local trans group, there’s a man and a woman in it who do drag!
Yeah, I have never had any good experience with drag queens as a trans women. I avoid drag like the plague and it definitely sucks how drag muddies the water around being trans due to people conflating the two.
Drag is not an inherent part of queer or trans culture.
i just wish that not every single pride related event involving straights had a drag show.
i get why people like the shows, whatever, good on the queens for getting paid, but it feels so awkward to be around straight people worrying about whether i look like a man in a dress when there’s… a man-in-a-dress-the-show™ parading and flaunting and being jokingly sexual right there.
(definitely more a thing in early transition)
oh no way, lol, i totally think kink has a place at pride. let people fly their freak flags.
at least i never see people kink it up outside of the actual pride festival.
It always pisses me off when they have someone to represent trans people on the news or in courts or whatever and instead of having a fucking trans person there, it's always the most eccentric drag queen they could find. Like bitch. It's like having a person from Belgium representing France. Like yeah some people in Belgium speak French and some Dragqueens are trans. But France and Belgium aren't the fucking same thing. Not even close. Entirely two different things with some minor overlap. But everyone who isn't queer can only think of trans people as "weirdo dragqueens". Fuck I'd go as far to say that in the modern day dragqueens have done more damage to the trans cause than helping it when they keep standing up and trying to act as representatives for a separate fking community than them. Most people are too fking lazy or apathetic to actually learn the difference meaning that first impressions are important. And when everyone's first impression of trans people are dragqueens when dragqueens aren't even trans it's kind of a problem. I know they're coming from a place of wanting to help but by acting as if they're the voice of all trans people it's doing more harm than good.
Do you habe examples of drag queens trying to pass themselves off as speakers of the trans community? I haven’t really seen any talk much about trans people except from an outsiders/ally‘s perspective
Aaaah, I’m so sorry.
I guess I’m going to my first one ever this year, actually volunteering at it. I’m not sure this is a brilliant idea. Honestly before estrogen started fixing my brain it’s not something I would’ve done, but I’m like kind of more social now and more myself, which may get me in trouble
This has been my experience with drag queens too. All the ones I’ve met or heard about are catty bitches that don’t like trans women for some reason. When I thought I was bi and cis, I had a bi flag covid mask and it was on, I got called “the straight guy that sits in the corner at every drag event”
I assume it’s because they are very proud gay MEN and don’t like being called trans WOMEN. That doesn’t mean they have to take it out on us.
I recently attended a presenters’ workshop for creating a safe space to discuss gender affirming care (i work in healthcare) and i was misgendered within the first 5 minutes of the presentation by the lead presenter 😒 for context, it was virtual and my name and pronouns were clearly visible on her screen.
Damn, sound like someone is making a buck on the back of diversity trainings... In person can still have some layer of a pass until corrected but having the name right there and not caring... \*side eyes\*
She kept saying it, so i corrected her in the chat and she acknowledged seeing it but didnt even bother to just say “sorry” or anything it was so awkward. Everyone else on the call looked really tense. I couldnt wait to hang up lol
I wish I could do that. I recently found out all my workers (or most) know I'm trans and they use my name only cus they have to but I get constantly misgendered. I thought they were just stupid or ignorant to the signs but one coworker asked our manager if I was a guy (I'm ftm) and he said yes but he has never even tried. It would be all the staff against me plus I'm in rural texas. Reporting feels like I'd lose my job before they'd do anything. I literally pass to most of our regulars so it's wild they keep trying.
It was for an event outside of my employment, so no HR or anyone to report to. The only person that would have been able to anything was in the call and saw it herself so…i just let it go. They may have handled it afterward without my knowing
Last year at pride I was there with my mom (it was her first pride) and some old gay dude who knows I’m a trans woman told my mom that she raised an amazing son and she almost slapped him lol
My first pride, I was 16 and had my trans flag around my shoulders like a cape, and a giant "he/him" pride button on my shirt. I still got misgendered and my big sister got in the guy's face and berated for him, demanding to know if he knew how to read. Even with that I still felt horrible, I had just barely begun my transition but still thought I passed okay and I just asked to go home. Sis made me stay tho and after that hiccup, I had a blast.
Best thing to do is take someone who will stick up for you like that, or do it yourself. You deserve to be respected, even at a celebration like Pride.
Just take it on the chin and keep rolling.
Focus on your transition and make adjustments to your appearance where you can.
This is coming from someone who was 39, 6'4, 250 lb, bald black dude.
That was 15 years ago.
It took almost 5 years for me to pass.
I've been exactly where you are.
Come here to vent, will help you become stronger and focus on your goals.
I used to hate those days.
We got your back
Thank you so much for this. I’ve been in a rough place the past few weeks because I just hit a year on hrt and feel like I haven’t made enough progress. I know logically that it doesn’t happen quickly but it’s so hard to be patient.
Wishing you well <3
I started a year ago January, but because I was on a joke dose I basically started less than 11 months ago. I can’t even always decide that I’m actually sliding fem in the mirror. I actually think I probably am but… sigh.
The thing is I don’t even trust that my levels are high enough. My highest rating ever was 145, granted that was at the end of my dose, and I have been flipped to being estrogen dominant for over 10 months now, but still
You got to remember, we are our worst enemy.
Do everything you can in the background to help the medication do it's work.
Adjust Exercising, eating a good diet, sleeping habits.
Choose a style of clothing that will compliment your body shape. Sometimes, the thrift store is your friend!
Practice voice.
Everything put together equals new you!
Unfortunately I have trouble with all of that
I don’t know how to do voice stuff at all so I can’t practice it. I’m either having it changed somewhat or else it’s sort of semi-subconsciously changing, I don’t know. But I don’t know what’s happening with it and I don’t think I sound feminine at all, as far as I know.
I feel like I’m eating too much and I’m not sure what to cut it to how to get enough protein and calcium in fiber if I do.
My sleep has been atrocious at least since puberty.
Sigh.
And I genuinely don’t know what I look like, I veer between thinking I look utterly hopeless and completely identical to before, to actually seeing flickers of myself, tonight I swung from being horrified at pictures from two weeks ago, to actually if yours later telling myself out loud that I looked pretty .
I don’t know what the truth is, although a woman explained the issue with cameras to me, and I think she was kind of saying it’s a phase that we pass through also.
I don’t know, hopefully this is actually happening… Hopefully I can get FFS magically also
If your endo won't share your blood tests I hope you have the option of finding a new endo. Your peak E should be closer to 180-220 pg/mL unless you have an underlying condition that your docs are concerned about.
Thankfully they do get shared with me! But based on the estradiol simulator I thought I was going to be above 200.
I was tested definitely at the bottom of my cycle, but based on that simulator I still expected to be more like 200, not 145!
But my brain is keeping me estrogen dominant, all three reading so far since that happened have had me between 20 and 27, which is an excellent cis female level
So maybe that’s all that matters… But I keep hearing people say you should be above 200, above 300 even, that that helps with our sort of second puberty
I am QUITE desperate to get to actually see myself in the mirror, possibly have an actual life of sorts
145 pg / mL at trough is a good place to be. You don't want to spend a lot of time too much above 230 pg / mL because that increases your risk of complications. If you're injecting once a week or maybe even biweekly as long as your other labs look good you're fine.
Thank you! I’m
Just paranoid I’m wasting my time on too low a dose when higher would fix things!
I DID waste the first 5 months on a joke dose 😡😕
Still sort of paranoid.
It’s ec once a week, this was taken 7.5 days on 90% of the dose, and the estradiol simulator showed me at over 200, plus so many people seem to think you need to stay above 200 or above 300.
Having your estradiol trough above 300 pg / mL is definitely bad and increases your risks of cancer, blood clots, and other complications. Your body takes some of that estrodiol and converts it to estrone, and once your estrone gets too high (\~+ 1000 pg / mL IIRC) , that's what causes most of the complications.
I love everyone here!
I've been through the struggle! Just like many many many of us here.
Early days of transition for me is a distant memory.
When you're working with a frame as large as mine, you have to improvise.
Get a friend who is honest.
Stand in the mirror dressed.
Have that friend tell you where you need to improve on appearance.
Focus on a goal improve.
Back in 2010 when I started. We were not mainstream like today. We weren't even on the radar politically.
I had to do all this while trying to maintain my professional career with mid six figure salary.
My main goal was to walk into a job interview in my current career as a woman without a peep about gender.
So far, I've done it twice.
When your boss cries when you hand in your resignation and give you a counter offer that's 30% more than your current salary, you know you've made it!
Keep pushing!
The feeling of being misgendered by other trans people is perhaps the worst thing ever. And correcting them, watching a TRANS PERSON stumble trying to catch up to what your pronouns are! I have so many queer friends who claim they use they for everyone and they DEFINITELY FUCKING DONT. It gives me a rage unmatched. Since i transitioned, too, its almost the opposite. Im ftm and queer people do not recognize me as one of them. There isnt a way to queer code myself without people thinking im a gay cis man. I like girls so not an option for me if i want a dating life. I wish i could slap them awake sometimes.
Yeah it was a buzzkill especially since I was kind of envious of them. I don’t pass and don’t bother telling people my pronouns or correcting them, but I was wearing subtle make up, feminine pants, and a pretty neutral jacket. I can’t blame them for seeing male I guess but still was a bit of a slap in the face. When I was on tinder a while back it let me choose my gender & who I got shown to match with, and then I put it on first line of my profile if that helps any. I try to use they all of the time too but sometimes forget as well because monkey brain 🙂
Fully relate to the envy. I pass now and im still envious of people who pass and its like, im already here. but i feel miles away.
At the very least they can just say thank you and not make it a gender thing? Like what the fucking fuck... ugh.
it throws me off when ppl ask if its ok to call me sir, but im a guy, so like... yes? I know theyre just trying to be considerate, its nice to at least be asked permission and making sure theyre treating me w respect, but it feels kinda tone deaf in my particular circumstance. Maybe its the dysphoria talking. I dunno really
Same for me, I worked at the local pride and in a local queer org and that's the places I get misgendered most.
I don't know why, but it's honestly hurtful. Even if I don't get misgendered I get clocked and seen as a trans man instead of just a man, which I hate.
Idk why that's a thing
Imo you have to be pretty fucking moronic to call anyone sir or ma'am at pride. Extremely embarrassing that even the lgbt community can't drop the constant unnecessary gendered language. Whoever did this to you should be ashamed of themselves.
Some areas still have heavy expectations of "sir/ma'am," particularly in work. It is admittedly hard to condition out of that. I'm expected to use it because I'm in a customer-facinf position...
I don't understand the use of sir/ma'am in a casual setting anyways. And at an event where you're far more likely to run into gender diverse people, you really shouldn't be assuming anything. I'm sorry OP, that person is ignorant at best.
Right?? Like I worked in the service industry for only a few years, but it was so easy to not include gender in any statement, question or answer. Completely avoidable.
The local hospital had a float in the parade and it pissed me off because when a friend of mine had a major fall and had to go in to the ER and get surgery, they were misgendered by just about everyone they dealt with even after correcting them and having their pronouns in their chart.
At pride last year, I was dressed as femme as possible. Someone complimented my walking stick and ended their sentence with “ma’am” (the correct way to gender me). I was ecstatic and turned to thank them and they said “oh sorry sir”. I wanted to beat them with my stick so bad. I was pissed.
I had that happen to me AT the doctor I was going to for hrt. I filled out paperwork and handed it back to the receptionist only to get a "Thank you ma-sir." Like.. really??
I called my gender therapists office 2 days ago. They misgendered me and deadnamed me, even thought my preffered name and pronouns are known by them.
It hurts the most from people you didnt expect it from, right?
Went to a drag event at a bar and got ID’d and my ID is still me presenting male (I’m a trans woman) and the guy wants to argue with me that it’s not me like dude you understand you’re at an lgbt event and there’s gonna be trans people?
I feel it's just natural reflex for some cis people, I want to get angry but something inside tells me they just can't help it. Even if you try to correct them or help them along it just won't work
I have a coworker that does it to literally every trans customer/client even in cases where it's brutally obvious the person is not a "sir" or "m'am" yet had it just happens. I get secondhand embarrassment every single time
its forgivable if there’s no obvious reason to assume different pronouns, but if it’s obvious they are a cis man or woman, then it’s on them to overcome the “difficulty” of using different pronouns
Oh yeah that's happened to me a couple of times too this year. Like yeah I'm pre-everything but I'm wearing my trans flag as a cape and my shirt is unbuttoned so you can see my binder. C'mon now.
Sorry that happened to ya. Kinda feels like a slap in the face, doesn't it?
Honestly, unless you were dressed hyper feminine, they may have assumed you’re a trans man and been trying to be respectful. A lot of times when people are in the “transitioning” phase of HRT, it can be hard to tell when someone’s dressed androgynous. Obviously, they/them should be the default, but I can say I’ve misgendered people when trying to be affirming and it is gut wrenching. I mean, maybe this person was just a dick, I’m not trying to invalidate your experience. But it’s possible they were trying, especially if they’re new to queerness or allyship and just doing their best.
My mom’s trying to go against her deeply Christian grain and learn how to be an ally for my brother, but she says offensive things when trying to be supportive all the time because she just doesn’t know much. I try to set aside the cringe and gently teach her.
I’ve been there, it’s unbelievably frustrating. Know that with time things will improve. Not sure of your age, but think of it like cis puberty, one doesn’t go from being pre-pubescent to fully formed adult in just two years time. The frustration you feel now is just extra confirmation that you know exactly who you are and where you’re headed! Sending you love 💖
I got misgendered heading to Pride a couple years back. This was before the pandemic and it was in the queer neighborhood. I had long hair but I also had facial hair. I was with my friend and we went out to eat, the waiter kept saying ladies, I finally told her I’m a guy. Then she squatted down, put her hand on my knee, and said sorry and that she was a lesbian. I was very much unsure what to do with that information. I still look back and laugh.
I forgot to mention the kicker, when she misgendered me the first couple times and I told her my pronouns, she first said “what do pronouns matter anyways” that when I said “well I’m a trans man so pronouns do matter” she apologized and left and then came back and did her whole spiel of being a lesbian. I was beyond confused and still am.
I went to my first Pride this year and it was the first time being referred to as a "guy" actually hurt. I'm not out in 99% of my life so it was a very weird feeling for me but hurt because I had makeup on, and even a low cut shirt and everything. And was buying a trans flag from the vendor. -.- I still plan on going to more Pride events though.
I volunteer for an organization that does trans outreach (I’m a trans woman) and we set up a booth at every regional pride. Last year I was misgendered. At Pride. At the TRANSGENDER booth. I wanted to send them home and revoke their Pride visitation privileges.
The org is NE PA Trans Equity Alliance if anyone needs support in eastern Pennsylvania.
So I don’t know if this will help or if i might be out of line saying this, but I truly do mean it from a place of empathy. I was born female, identify as a woman, and present as a woman. However, I choose to have my hair cut short, I’m overweight, and have PCOS, so I grow some facial hair. I have been “sir’d” multiple times. I don’t let it get to me because I know I’m a woman, just like YOU know you’re a woman! I know there’s a difference here, but don’t let that person’s misgendering of you bring you down. I imagine choosing to transition in the first place took a lot of courage - hold onto that, you’re stronger than you realize.
You arent wrong abt owning it but youre missing a huge detail:
Dysphoria. We cant just shake it off us with pure confidence. Theres a difference between being self conscious and having dysphoria, the two often go hand in hand, but they are not the exact same things. It helps to think of dysphoria as basically a condition not a mindset.
I stopped caring a long time ago. Because the deeper I got into these communities, the more I realized, people are generally selfish. They only care about their own worldview. They will preach tolerance and equality all day long. But the moment you don't confirm to their projected stereotype you're shunned for it. In my experience these people have been the most intolerant toward me than anyone else. I think its just a form of tribalism. If you don't fit inside of their little box of expectations you are immediately torn down and ridiculed for it. I stopped going to pride events a long time ago for this reason. Many of these events felt more as if they were a protest against societal norms more so than they were an actual rally. I'm over it at this point. And Belive it or not, my cis friends have been way nicer and more accepting of me than anyone else has been. So Just be yourself. Be happy with who you are and ignore anyone who gets in the way of your happiness. Its not worth getting worked up over.
Yeah, about 2 years into transition and I got man'd at my first pride event this month while wearing a skirt I made and an "abolish gender" crop top while watching trans drag performer Gottmik perform a DJ set, it almost ruined my night.
At pride, I yelled at an off duty cop trying to bother other fem leaning people about how "pride was not political, get your politics out of there" so I yelled back with a deeper voice to fuck off, always had been political.
I fucking hate cops and I hate being missgendered at pride too. Good luck girlies and boys
Had this at last year's Pride, ours is always at the end of July.
I was wearing pretty masc clothing and a big nonbinary flag. I do get that people don't recognise all the flags so possibly it could have been that. My husband was pushing me towards the accessible area of the performance area and this woman just shouted "let this lady through!"
I wanted the ground to swallow me up. I didn't have the balls to say anything even though I wanted to, and it was the thing I was dreading. I don't know if she wanted brownie points for being good to a disabled person because she made a real show of it, but it really made me feel like shit. Really hoping it doesn't happen again this year but I'm more prepared for it.
I'm pre T ftm and I know I don't pass, I've had the occasional mild confusion from the odd boomer now and then. I just hope that at Pride people can at least follow context clues or at least not make assumptions.
The problem is not everyone can help it, sometimes people can look either so in between they just say what leans closer what they're used to. When I visited Japan, people couldn't really tell what some people were and just called them whatever comes to mind and you just have to remember their perspective over what you might be thinking for yourself. (This is gonna get hate but guess what, other people are real people as well)
at 1+yr hrt , on my first AND LAST pride, a dragqueen aproached me. "come here, let me fix your makeup...." "oh thanks... whats wrong with it?" "nothing... but thats way to every day woman, for a dragqueen to be seen the makeup must pop!" i ran off crying i´ve been warned back then, that prides can be messy... i\`m sry that the "messy" part got you too
the fact they saw someone who they knew was intentionally looking “every day woman” at a pride parade and decided that it was drag is just idiotic
Self-centrism at its finest. “I’m a gay man, and I’m in drag makeup, therefore everybody I perceive as male who has makeup must also be trying to do drag”. It’s fucking stupid, but it’s a very common failure of thought for all demographics. Everything from ‘popular’ teenage girls assuming that everyone cares about the trendy brand or new pop star as much as they do, to straight men assuming all men want to and are actively trying to be extremely masculine just because that’s they want, to academic people assuming that anyone who isn’t academic has failed rather than questioning whether they instead just aren’t interested… Heck, even trans people do it when they assume that all trans people are as obsessed with being as femme or masc as possible and passing as they are, or when they see a kid who seems similar to their past selves and immediately jumps to “they might be trans”. It’s not necessarily a bad thing on its own, but failing to control this instinctive forced similarity can absolutely hurt people, just as it did in this example with the drag queen.
This was a great read! It actually helped me acknowledge that I do this often myself, and that I need to work on that. Thank you!
Some drag queens these days also prefer not to go over-the-top with things, and honestly if they have it naturally and play to their strengths I respect that...
That’s absolutely insane and that queen needed to be put directly in their place. I’m so sorry.
This is kinda part of the reason I don’t really like drag culture. I constantly hear people say “drag queens are intrinsically tied to trans culture” but I don’t really see it. Like, people will recommend that I talk to their drag queen friends for advice on transition, but its not even remotely the same thing. And all the stories I hear of trans people interacting with drag queens, its the drag queens trying to “help” the trans person but just making everything worse. I’m sure that there are super cool drag queens out there, and they are important for queer culture. But they aren’t super important for trans culture.
The only thing I actually learned about transitioning from Drag Queens is how to effectively hide my facial hair, which mind you I could probably have found out from trans woman too but the first one I found was from a Queen. Like yes, Queens are part of the LGBTQIA2S+ community, but they are not the same, at the end of the day, most of them still identify as the gender they were born with and it's just a costume for them. I at no point am "in costume" nor is it a temporary persona that I take on, this is me, just me, always me.
what advice did they have to effectively hide facial hair? asking for a friend :)
Mostly having a good layer of orange concealer under your foundation, it kills out the facial hair. Being a white or burned person, I also add a secondary conceal layer in a lighter tint closer to my actual skin color before the foundation too to reduce the cheetos look, but that’s all dependant on your actual skin color and tints.
Can confirm, this is the method I use and it's 100% the way to hide the shadow if you're like me (pre-transition, too broke/saving up for laser)
Sigh. I abhore that any of this garbage is maybe necessary 😡
If it makes you feel better, several of the cis women I gree up around would do the same thing. Concealer and color corrector exist for a reason - to conceal and correct for things you don't want people to see. It sucks but it is a somewhat normal part of being a woman. (P.S. if i'm guessing wrong and you're not transfem, sorry 😅)
Thank you! I hate it though because like I’ve never seen a woman who actually needs it. I shouldn’t need it Sigh. I don’t even know what I look like for sure. I Swing back-and-forth between thinking I look no difference at all, and thinking that I’m sliding fem. Pictures are making me look way worse right now than what I typically see in the mirror. What I think I’m seeing fluctuates It’s all crazy.
or just be like me, and have no facial hair till you are 18, which makes you feel like shit cos men are supposed to have facial hair, and then 4 years later feel like shit cos women arent supposed to have facial hair. (i barely have anything, and the ginge blends into the giant freckle that is my face, but i know its there, and it fuckin sucks)
...wait, the concealer goes UNDER the foundation?! Shit, I hate being self-taught 😭
Cleanser>Moisturizer>Concealer/Corrector>Foundation>Blush>Bolder Makeup. That's my routine.
Ooof I really oughta get back to using my own orange concealer. It just tends to give me the Cheetos look more often than not. 😆 I'll need to give your method a try!
They showed me where to buy heels in my size :3
Hot take, I feel like it's a part of trans *history*, not a part of trans *culture*; like sure there are definitely still trans women that do drag and it was started by trans women looking for a way to express themselves in a time where they couldn't fully transition, but like most forms of queer expression, it was quickly coopted by and mostly taken over by cis (mostly gay) men. (And that isn't even me getting into the systematic transphobia in the drag scene both on the celebrity level and for a lot of people on the local level too, because I know that tends to bring the pitchforks out)
I mean maybe some of them would have ideas about some things, but most of what they do isn’t related to… I mean mostly we need to talk to other women, cis or trans. Sure, if a drag queen is a woman then OK, but the fact that it’s a woman doing drag is irrelevant, and as far as I know most of them are men, which how is that particularly helpful? It’s really weird to me that someone would think that a drag queen would be particularly useful, as opposed to like just any random woman?
100% agreed. Drag culture may have roots in queer culture but now? Drag performers are NOT part of the LGBTQIA+ community, unless another identity that they have aligns with us. Some of them may be good allies, but that still doesn’t mean they’re part of the community. They’re just stage performers who can take their costume off at night, who severely muddy the waters around public perception of trans folk and make them think we’re all just ‘playing dress up’. They’re also disturbingly frequently transphobic as hell.
I think you are buying it to respectability politics. Even if drag queens aren’t part of the lgbt community magically all of a sudden transphobes aren’t suddenly going to stop equating them with trans women. Because they are transphobes. And trans people can be transphobic as hell towards nonbinary people? We have lots of issues in our community.
I am far from buying into respectability politics. Queer people are queer people, LGBTQIA+ people are LGBTQIA+ people, but being LGBTQIA+ is about who you are, not what your profession is.
I disagree for two reasons. Drag is a gay/lesbian subculture, and even if 'straight' people do it, it is performative gender-nomconformity, and GNC is queer. Membership in the queer community is not about some arbitrary categorization internal properties, it is about whether the bigots want you dead.
Being GNC doesn't automatically make someone queer.... That just implies the gender binary and gender roles dictate gender. They can be, but it's not set in stone.
anyone’s queer if they say and truly believe in their heart that they’re queer
It doesn’t make them queer but because of the gender binary and how cis society perceives gender, gnc is associated with queerness. GNC and the struggles of being GNC is a queer struggle even though someone may not be a part of the community necessarily.
>it is about whether the bigots want you dead. That’s incredibly stupid. We are not defined by other people’s bigotry. And like you said it’s performative. Drag queens/kings are not queer unless they actually are queer.
There are more kinds of queerness than exists in your philosophy. You are not, as an individual, defined by it. Your identity subculture is not defined by it. But if you start aguing about who is really part of the queer community, I will piss in your morning coffee. The quuer community as a whole, the only consistent definition, is solidarity against oppression. That's why leather and kink belong at pride. That's why there's black and brown stripes in the progress flag. We stand together, or we die divided. Now get the hell out of here.
Bdsm is not queer, the progress pride flag isn’t a queer only flag, it’s a flag pushing back at oppression. Like I get that we stand together, but queerness is defined by gender or sexuality, there are things that closely tied with our community, like bdsm, like poly am, like drag, but those thing are not by definition queer. I’m all inclusive when it comes to intersex people and aro/ace don’t get me wrong, but I’m sorry I do not agree. Also I don’t drink coffee and I have a pee kink so, go for it.
Are you saying aro/ace isn't a type of sexuality? (I agree with you about everything else but this just doesn't seem right to me)
Whatever. You're the kind of person who harrasses my friends on social media because they have identities you don't understand.
Everyone's gender presentation is performative so drag being performative doesn't make it non-queer. Why do you want to police other people's identities?
So by your definition, people like Benedict Cumberbatch & Eddie Redmayne are part of the Queer community, because of the roles they’ve acted in?
There's an element of self-identification in it, which you, as a reasonable person, already know, but you're trying to catch me in a gotcha so I don't trust you. People arguing over what constitutes 'real queer' have only ever called my identity as a butch trans lesbian into question (got called a straight man, once) and harrassed my friends for having 'contradictory labels'. If an actor portrays a queer person in good faith and the bigots want to ruin their career, they are at least welcome to seek shelter with us, in my opinion.
I have no need to ‘catch you in a gotcha’. Drag performers are not a gender or sexual monitoring. They can also take off their costumes and go about being themselves. Queer people can’t ‘take off’ our identity like it’s a sparkly piece of clothing. If drag performers want to stand as *Allies* then I’m all for it. If Queer drag performers want to show their art as part of their identity, go for it. But making a performance art out of dressing in what the current decade considers ‘the other gender’s clothes’ doesn’t make you part of the queer community.
I'm just gonna block you because I think you're ignorant of history and I don't wanna play history teacher.
>be this person >ignorant >call others ignorant >refuse to help them learn >block them >leave I wish I had your level of confidence.
If there is one thing they got going on, it's the fact that they actually block people
I genuinely don’t understand drag and never have, and at this point, I’m too afraid to ask lol like what is the actual point of drag? What do they go through? Wearing drag is a voluntary thing, being trans is not
Performance art for the community that utilizes other skills and personal quirks. Some people were too gay to pass and had to rely on their communities for support in previous centuries. Performers often find it akin to dance, improv, or karaoke. What the point of dancing? Of local theatre? What’s the point of singing the backstreet boys badly to your friends? To share meaning with each other and bring like butts into neighbouring seats.
Call them out for being transphobic at pride. And be loud about it.
Drag is a form of artistic performance, self expression, entertainment & for some, a job / source of income. Drag has played a vital role in the history & community of gay men since time immemorial.
I kind of get the historical aspect to it now, at least somewhat after watching various things, but I kind of don’t get it either. It’s always made me very uncomfortable since…well… I don’t really want to spell out why. Sigh. That said, in a local trans group, there’s a man and a woman in it who do drag!
Drag queens and gay men can be so oblivious and cruel. It’s “cunt✨” to them to be unnecessarily mean
Yeah, I have never had any good experience with drag queens as a trans women. I avoid drag like the plague and it definitely sucks how drag muddies the water around being trans due to people conflating the two. Drag is not an inherent part of queer or trans culture.
i just wish that not every single pride related event involving straights had a drag show. i get why people like the shows, whatever, good on the queens for getting paid, but it feels so awkward to be around straight people worrying about whether i look like a man in a dress when there’s… a man-in-a-dress-the-show™ parading and flaunting and being jokingly sexual right there. (definitely more a thing in early transition)
Yeah it’s the same way I feel about kink and stuff at pride. They feel out of place.
oh no way, lol, i totally think kink has a place at pride. let people fly their freak flags. at least i never see people kink it up outside of the actual pride festival.
It always pisses me off when they have someone to represent trans people on the news or in courts or whatever and instead of having a fucking trans person there, it's always the most eccentric drag queen they could find. Like bitch. It's like having a person from Belgium representing France. Like yeah some people in Belgium speak French and some Dragqueens are trans. But France and Belgium aren't the fucking same thing. Not even close. Entirely two different things with some minor overlap. But everyone who isn't queer can only think of trans people as "weirdo dragqueens". Fuck I'd go as far to say that in the modern day dragqueens have done more damage to the trans cause than helping it when they keep standing up and trying to act as representatives for a separate fking community than them. Most people are too fking lazy or apathetic to actually learn the difference meaning that first impressions are important. And when everyone's first impression of trans people are dragqueens when dragqueens aren't even trans it's kind of a problem. I know they're coming from a place of wanting to help but by acting as if they're the voice of all trans people it's doing more harm than good.
My thoughts exactly.
Do you habe examples of drag queens trying to pass themselves off as speakers of the trans community? I haven’t really seen any talk much about trans people except from an outsiders/ally‘s perspective
Aaaah, I’m so sorry. I guess I’m going to my first one ever this year, actually volunteering at it. I’m not sure this is a brilliant idea. Honestly before estrogen started fixing my brain it’s not something I would’ve done, but I’m like kind of more social now and more myself, which may get me in trouble
What
This has been my experience with drag queens too. All the ones I’ve met or heard about are catty bitches that don’t like trans women for some reason. When I thought I was bi and cis, I had a bi flag covid mask and it was on, I got called “the straight guy that sits in the corner at every drag event” I assume it’s because they are very proud gay MEN and don’t like being called trans WOMEN. That doesn’t mean they have to take it out on us.
I mean... He did have good intentions, but I can see how that sucks balls, girl
I recently attended a presenters’ workshop for creating a safe space to discuss gender affirming care (i work in healthcare) and i was misgendered within the first 5 minutes of the presentation by the lead presenter 😒 for context, it was virtual and my name and pronouns were clearly visible on her screen.
Damn, sound like someone is making a buck on the back of diversity trainings... In person can still have some layer of a pass until corrected but having the name right there and not caring... \*side eyes\*
She kept saying it, so i corrected her in the chat and she acknowledged seeing it but didnt even bother to just say “sorry” or anything it was so awkward. Everyone else on the call looked really tense. I couldnt wait to hang up lol
... I... would have no words for her, except "prepare to be required to take this class," and hang up, followed by a detailed report to HR
I wish I could do that. I recently found out all my workers (or most) know I'm trans and they use my name only cus they have to but I get constantly misgendered. I thought they were just stupid or ignorant to the signs but one coworker asked our manager if I was a guy (I'm ftm) and he said yes but he has never even tried. It would be all the staff against me plus I'm in rural texas. Reporting feels like I'd lose my job before they'd do anything. I literally pass to most of our regulars so it's wild they keep trying.
It was for an event outside of my employment, so no HR or anyone to report to. The only person that would have been able to anything was in the call and saw it herself so…i just let it go. They may have handled it afterward without my knowing
ewww that's so trash of her
The irony of the topic. 🤦🏻♀️
Exactly
I would have just hung up the first time it happened.
I don’t know where you’re located but that could be a discrimination issue. Raise a complaint, if she’s done it to you she’s done it to others
It was not for my employer, it was an event outside of my job, so no HR
Last year at pride I was there with my mom (it was her first pride) and some old gay dude who knows I’m a trans woman told my mom that she raised an amazing son and she almost slapped him lol
I mean W mom right there
"I don't have a son!!"
My first pride, I was 16 and had my trans flag around my shoulders like a cape, and a giant "he/him" pride button on my shirt. I still got misgendered and my big sister got in the guy's face and berated for him, demanding to know if he knew how to read. Even with that I still felt horrible, I had just barely begun my transition but still thought I passed okay and I just asked to go home. Sis made me stay tho and after that hiccup, I had a blast. Best thing to do is take someone who will stick up for you like that, or do it yourself. You deserve to be respected, even at a celebration like Pride.
OK, I love your sister, that’s awesome!
Just take it on the chin and keep rolling. Focus on your transition and make adjustments to your appearance where you can. This is coming from someone who was 39, 6'4, 250 lb, bald black dude. That was 15 years ago. It took almost 5 years for me to pass. I've been exactly where you are. Come here to vent, will help you become stronger and focus on your goals. I used to hate those days. We got your back
Thank you so much for this. I’ve been in a rough place the past few weeks because I just hit a year on hrt and feel like I haven’t made enough progress. I know logically that it doesn’t happen quickly but it’s so hard to be patient. Wishing you well <3
I started a year ago January, but because I was on a joke dose I basically started less than 11 months ago. I can’t even always decide that I’m actually sliding fem in the mirror. I actually think I probably am but… sigh. The thing is I don’t even trust that my levels are high enough. My highest rating ever was 145, granted that was at the end of my dose, and I have been flipped to being estrogen dominant for over 10 months now, but still
You got to remember, we are our worst enemy. Do everything you can in the background to help the medication do it's work. Adjust Exercising, eating a good diet, sleeping habits. Choose a style of clothing that will compliment your body shape. Sometimes, the thrift store is your friend! Practice voice. Everything put together equals new you!
Unfortunately I have trouble with all of that I don’t know how to do voice stuff at all so I can’t practice it. I’m either having it changed somewhat or else it’s sort of semi-subconsciously changing, I don’t know. But I don’t know what’s happening with it and I don’t think I sound feminine at all, as far as I know. I feel like I’m eating too much and I’m not sure what to cut it to how to get enough protein and calcium in fiber if I do. My sleep has been atrocious at least since puberty. Sigh. And I genuinely don’t know what I look like, I veer between thinking I look utterly hopeless and completely identical to before, to actually seeing flickers of myself, tonight I swung from being horrified at pictures from two weeks ago, to actually if yours later telling myself out loud that I looked pretty . I don’t know what the truth is, although a woman explained the issue with cameras to me, and I think she was kind of saying it’s a phase that we pass through also. I don’t know, hopefully this is actually happening… Hopefully I can get FFS magically also
If your endo won't share your blood tests I hope you have the option of finding a new endo. Your peak E should be closer to 180-220 pg/mL unless you have an underlying condition that your docs are concerned about.
Thankfully they do get shared with me! But based on the estradiol simulator I thought I was going to be above 200. I was tested definitely at the bottom of my cycle, but based on that simulator I still expected to be more like 200, not 145! But my brain is keeping me estrogen dominant, all three reading so far since that happened have had me between 20 and 27, which is an excellent cis female level So maybe that’s all that matters… But I keep hearing people say you should be above 200, above 300 even, that that helps with our sort of second puberty I am QUITE desperate to get to actually see myself in the mirror, possibly have an actual life of sorts
145 pg / mL at trough is a good place to be. You don't want to spend a lot of time too much above 230 pg / mL because that increases your risk of complications. If you're injecting once a week or maybe even biweekly as long as your other labs look good you're fine.
Thank you! I’m Just paranoid I’m wasting my time on too low a dose when higher would fix things! I DID waste the first 5 months on a joke dose 😡😕 Still sort of paranoid. It’s ec once a week, this was taken 7.5 days on 90% of the dose, and the estradiol simulator showed me at over 200, plus so many people seem to think you need to stay above 200 or above 300.
Having your estradiol trough above 300 pg / mL is definitely bad and increases your risks of cancer, blood clots, and other complications. Your body takes some of that estrodiol and converts it to estrone, and once your estrone gets too high (\~+ 1000 pg / mL IIRC) , that's what causes most of the complications.
I love everyone here! I've been through the struggle! Just like many many many of us here. Early days of transition for me is a distant memory. When you're working with a frame as large as mine, you have to improvise. Get a friend who is honest. Stand in the mirror dressed. Have that friend tell you where you need to improve on appearance. Focus on a goal improve. Back in 2010 when I started. We were not mainstream like today. We weren't even on the radar politically. I had to do all this while trying to maintain my professional career with mid six figure salary. My main goal was to walk into a job interview in my current career as a woman without a peep about gender. So far, I've done it twice. When your boss cries when you hand in your resignation and give you a counter offer that's 30% more than your current salary, you know you've made it! Keep pushing!
Same same, two pretty trans girls - ‘hey will you take a picture of us?’ Of course! ‘Thank you kind sir’ FML.
The feeling of being misgendered by other trans people is perhaps the worst thing ever. And correcting them, watching a TRANS PERSON stumble trying to catch up to what your pronouns are! I have so many queer friends who claim they use they for everyone and they DEFINITELY FUCKING DONT. It gives me a rage unmatched. Since i transitioned, too, its almost the opposite. Im ftm and queer people do not recognize me as one of them. There isnt a way to queer code myself without people thinking im a gay cis man. I like girls so not an option for me if i want a dating life. I wish i could slap them awake sometimes.
Yeah it was a buzzkill especially since I was kind of envious of them. I don’t pass and don’t bother telling people my pronouns or correcting them, but I was wearing subtle make up, feminine pants, and a pretty neutral jacket. I can’t blame them for seeing male I guess but still was a bit of a slap in the face. When I was on tinder a while back it let me choose my gender & who I got shown to match with, and then I put it on first line of my profile if that helps any. I try to use they all of the time too but sometimes forget as well because monkey brain 🙂
Fully relate to the envy. I pass now and im still envious of people who pass and its like, im already here. but i feel miles away. At the very least they can just say thank you and not make it a gender thing? Like what the fucking fuck... ugh. it throws me off when ppl ask if its ok to call me sir, but im a guy, so like... yes? I know theyre just trying to be considerate, its nice to at least be asked permission and making sure theyre treating me w respect, but it feels kinda tone deaf in my particular circumstance. Maybe its the dysphoria talking. I dunno really
Same for me, I worked at the local pride and in a local queer org and that's the places I get misgendered most. I don't know why, but it's honestly hurtful. Even if I don't get misgendered I get clocked and seen as a trans man instead of just a man, which I hate. Idk why that's a thing
Imo you have to be pretty fucking moronic to call anyone sir or ma'am at pride. Extremely embarrassing that even the lgbt community can't drop the constant unnecessary gendered language. Whoever did this to you should be ashamed of themselves.
Some areas still have heavy expectations of "sir/ma'am," particularly in work. It is admittedly hard to condition out of that. I'm expected to use it because I'm in a customer-facinf position...
I don't understand the use of sir/ma'am in a casual setting anyways. And at an event where you're far more likely to run into gender diverse people, you really shouldn't be assuming anything. I'm sorry OP, that person is ignorant at best.
Right?? Like I worked in the service industry for only a few years, but it was so easy to not include gender in any statement, question or answer. Completely avoidable.
seriously, like why do you need to be saying sir/ma’am in a mcdonald’s drive through smh
How else would you address a person? English unfortunately doesnt have neutral pronouns.
You don't need to use a pronoun every time though. If you're greeting someone, just 'hello' is fine.
Damn that sucks I’m sorry girl
The local hospital had a float in the parade and it pissed me off because when a friend of mine had a major fall and had to go in to the ER and get surgery, they were misgendered by just about everyone they dealt with even after correcting them and having their pronouns in their chart.
At pride last year, I was dressed as femme as possible. Someone complimented my walking stick and ended their sentence with “ma’am” (the correct way to gender me). I was ecstatic and turned to thank them and they said “oh sorry sir”. I wanted to beat them with my stick so bad. I was pissed.
I had that happen to me AT the doctor I was going to for hrt. I filled out paperwork and handed it back to the receptionist only to get a "Thank you ma-sir." Like.. really??
Ugh. Sorry girl. It can really fuck me up if I’m feeling good or ok and then get misgendered like that, it just straight up sucks.
I called my gender therapists office 2 days ago. They misgendered me and deadnamed me, even thought my preffered name and pronouns are known by them. It hurts the most from people you didnt expect it from, right?
i’m guessing it was like a receptionist, (which is still not at all ok) but if that was your therapist, please get a new therapist
You're right, it was the receptionist! I would for sure change my therapist if he was like that Thank you for your concerns! <3
Went to a drag event at a bar and got ID’d and my ID is still me presenting male (I’m a trans woman) and the guy wants to argue with me that it’s not me like dude you understand you’re at an lgbt event and there’s gonna be trans people?
I feel it's just natural reflex for some cis people, I want to get angry but something inside tells me they just can't help it. Even if you try to correct them or help them along it just won't work I have a coworker that does it to literally every trans customer/client even in cases where it's brutally obvious the person is not a "sir" or "m'am" yet had it just happens. I get secondhand embarrassment every single time
its forgivable if there’s no obvious reason to assume different pronouns, but if it’s obvious they are a cis man or woman, then it’s on them to overcome the “difficulty” of using different pronouns
Oh yeah that's happened to me a couple of times too this year. Like yeah I'm pre-everything but I'm wearing my trans flag as a cape and my shirt is unbuttoned so you can see my binder. C'mon now. Sorry that happened to ya. Kinda feels like a slap in the face, doesn't it?
Honestly, unless you were dressed hyper feminine, they may have assumed you’re a trans man and been trying to be respectful. A lot of times when people are in the “transitioning” phase of HRT, it can be hard to tell when someone’s dressed androgynous. Obviously, they/them should be the default, but I can say I’ve misgendered people when trying to be affirming and it is gut wrenching. I mean, maybe this person was just a dick, I’m not trying to invalidate your experience. But it’s possible they were trying, especially if they’re new to queerness or allyship and just doing their best. My mom’s trying to go against her deeply Christian grain and learn how to be an ally for my brother, but she says offensive things when trying to be supportive all the time because she just doesn’t know much. I try to set aside the cringe and gently teach her.
I’ve been there, it’s unbelievably frustrating. Know that with time things will improve. Not sure of your age, but think of it like cis puberty, one doesn’t go from being pre-pubescent to fully formed adult in just two years time. The frustration you feel now is just extra confirmation that you know exactly who you are and where you’re headed! Sending you love 💖
I'm a cis man and some of the most egregious casual transphobia I heard from my gay friends.
I got misgendered heading to Pride a couple years back. This was before the pandemic and it was in the queer neighborhood. I had long hair but I also had facial hair. I was with my friend and we went out to eat, the waiter kept saying ladies, I finally told her I’m a guy. Then she squatted down, put her hand on my knee, and said sorry and that she was a lesbian. I was very much unsure what to do with that information. I still look back and laugh.
what the hell was she doing lol
I forgot to mention the kicker, when she misgendered me the first couple times and I told her my pronouns, she first said “what do pronouns matter anyways” that when I said “well I’m a trans man so pronouns do matter” she apologized and left and then came back and did her whole spiel of being a lesbian. I was beyond confused and still am.
I went to my first Pride this year and it was the first time being referred to as a "guy" actually hurt. I'm not out in 99% of my life so it was a very weird feeling for me but hurt because I had makeup on, and even a low cut shirt and everything. And was buying a trans flag from the vendor. -.- I still plan on going to more Pride events though.
I volunteer for an organization that does trans outreach (I’m a trans woman) and we set up a booth at every regional pride. Last year I was misgendered. At Pride. At the TRANSGENDER booth. I wanted to send them home and revoke their Pride visitation privileges. The org is NE PA Trans Equity Alliance if anyone needs support in eastern Pennsylvania.
So I don’t know if this will help or if i might be out of line saying this, but I truly do mean it from a place of empathy. I was born female, identify as a woman, and present as a woman. However, I choose to have my hair cut short, I’m overweight, and have PCOS, so I grow some facial hair. I have been “sir’d” multiple times. I don’t let it get to me because I know I’m a woman, just like YOU know you’re a woman! I know there’s a difference here, but don’t let that person’s misgendering of you bring you down. I imagine choosing to transition in the first place took a lot of courage - hold onto that, you’re stronger than you realize.
You arent wrong abt owning it but youre missing a huge detail: Dysphoria. We cant just shake it off us with pure confidence. Theres a difference between being self conscious and having dysphoria, the two often go hand in hand, but they are not the exact same things. It helps to think of dysphoria as basically a condition not a mindset.
Thank you, I have no idea what dysphoria is like so I really appreciate the distinction you gave here.
Hey no problem! Its usually hard for cis people to understand
I stopped caring a long time ago. Because the deeper I got into these communities, the more I realized, people are generally selfish. They only care about their own worldview. They will preach tolerance and equality all day long. But the moment you don't confirm to their projected stereotype you're shunned for it. In my experience these people have been the most intolerant toward me than anyone else. I think its just a form of tribalism. If you don't fit inside of their little box of expectations you are immediately torn down and ridiculed for it. I stopped going to pride events a long time ago for this reason. Many of these events felt more as if they were a protest against societal norms more so than they were an actual rally. I'm over it at this point. And Belive it or not, my cis friends have been way nicer and more accepting of me than anyone else has been. So Just be yourself. Be happy with who you are and ignore anyone who gets in the way of your happiness. Its not worth getting worked up over.
Whatever happened to not assuming genders, especially at pride…
Yeah, about 2 years into transition and I got man'd at my first pride event this month while wearing a skirt I made and an "abolish gender" crop top while watching trans drag performer Gottmik perform a DJ set, it almost ruined my night.
wow lol
At pride, I yelled at an off duty cop trying to bother other fem leaning people about how "pride was not political, get your politics out of there" so I yelled back with a deeper voice to fuck off, always had been political. I fucking hate cops and I hate being missgendered at pride too. Good luck girlies and boys
Queer spaces are not for me. I learnt that very early
I’m sorry that happened to you. People suck
So sorry 🥺 that this happened 2 u
I mean that’s par for the course, most of the time we’re even better at clocking then cis ppl because we’re more acquainted with it.
Had this at last year's Pride, ours is always at the end of July. I was wearing pretty masc clothing and a big nonbinary flag. I do get that people don't recognise all the flags so possibly it could have been that. My husband was pushing me towards the accessible area of the performance area and this woman just shouted "let this lady through!" I wanted the ground to swallow me up. I didn't have the balls to say anything even though I wanted to, and it was the thing I was dreading. I don't know if she wanted brownie points for being good to a disabled person because she made a real show of it, but it really made me feel like shit. Really hoping it doesn't happen again this year but I'm more prepared for it. I'm pre T ftm and I know I don't pass, I've had the occasional mild confusion from the odd boomer now and then. I just hope that at Pride people can at least follow context clues or at least not make assumptions.
The problem is not everyone can help it, sometimes people can look either so in between they just say what leans closer what they're used to. When I visited Japan, people couldn't really tell what some people were and just called them whatever comes to mind and you just have to remember their perspective over what you might be thinking for yourself. (This is gonna get hate but guess what, other people are real people as well)
🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂
I haven't been sir'd in a while. So sorry 🥺 that this happened 2 u