So, as some of you might have noticed… my gender identity has shifted.

Although to be more exact, it has become refined.  It hasn’t actually changed that much, but I’ve found better words for describing it.

I’m less confused now about the parts of me that are gendered and my preferred pronouns have settled down quite a bit.

I now use male and genderqueer pronouns with family and friends.  I identify closest with FTM Femmes, although the genderqueer title will remain a strong descriptor for me.

The pronouns are still new enough that I have to do a lot of correcting, which is difficult… but really, REALLY good.

I’ve also learned more about my dysphoria which has meant that in some ways I feel it a lot more than I used to, but I also have better tools for managing it.

I’ve also found a renewed love of all things femme.  I had to really accept the male part of myself first, because although I like femme things I am very upset by the idea of people thinking of me as female.

I’ve also started regular camming again through KinkLive where although I use female pronouns, I still get to keep the name Oliver (YES!!!).  this causes a lot of confusion sometimes, but its SO worth it for me.  I only use the female pronouns when camming in so much as I don’t correct people when they use them on me.  I still don’t use them to describe myself to other people.  For example, if someone asks me, “Were you a good girl growing up, or more of a naughty girl?” I will answer with, “Oh, I was mostly good… I think I thought I was good.  I seem to be learning that I’m a lot naughtier than I thought…”.  Or something like that.  When I repeat questions, I remove references to my own gender.

Its something I’ve gotten pretty good through being a semi-closeted homoqueer in retail and sales jobs.

I also shift my presentation up a little for camming.  I wear bows (made by sissa <3), I put on hella make up, and I femme up my mannerisms.

Oddly enough, I’ve found I’m WAY more comfortable being a girl-for-pay in camming and porn than I am being a girl for normal jobs.

In the normal jobs I’ve had, I found that coworkers would ignore me if I showed up in dapper tomboy clothes, but be friendly if I showed up looking like a girl.  I got to use my gender neutral nickname most of the time, but it always felt REALLY icky and gross when people used female pronouns to describe me.  I felt like I was having to lie about who I was all the time and it was difficult enough that I usually came home feeling completely depressed.

But somehow, camming and adult work in general hasn’t felt like this.

I’m beginning to piece together why that might be.

For one, the camming is much more explicitly about performance.  In retail jobs, people assume you are being at least mostly your authentic self… or this is at least the illusion.  The camming I do, especially at KinkLive is mostly fantasy based.  Most of us are mostly being ourselves, but a fantasy version of ourselves.    I feel like most consumers get that its performance.  I at least feel like my coworkers get it, and that helps a LOT.

There are also a lot of trans people working at Kink, and this has done a great deal to help me feel more comfortable.  There are only two gender-segregated bathrooms in the whole building, and they’re hard to get to from where I cam.  This means that I don’t have to worry about feeling safe whenever I need to use the loo… even if I’m in high butch mode.

I remember when I was Nurse Rebecca for medicaltoys.com (<3 <3 <3 <3 <3) that somehow that didn’t trigger my dysphoria even though it was much more female than the professional culture girl version of me for my normal retail job that triggered me LOADS.

I think this might be because for both being Nurse Rebecca and being a girl in the dungeons of Kink.com, its exaggerated femininity.  Its performed fantasy.  I’m explicitly performing explicitness more than I am performing gender.  It also has a time limit.  Retail jobs are typically much longer hours for less pay than being explicit.  The higher compensation for performing girl-me definitely helps.

very, VERY NSFW... unless you have a really cool job

Being an explicit girl is also different than being a normal professional culture girl because I’m pretending to be normal for professional culture.  That very well may be the sticky wicket.  Pretending to be a wild girl is MUCH easier than pretending to be a normal girl.  Normal girls are natural girls.  They don’t get to be boys.  This is at least what my dysphoric brain weasels tell me.

And then there’s also little things.  At the moment, my boobs only trigger me when I’m being myself.  When I’m being myself, I can’t stand to have them touched or even to feel them jiggle when I move.  Today I forgot that I wasn’t wearing a binder and went running down the halls and just felt completely gross afterwards.

But the good news is, I like not being myself sometimes… and camming is a GREAT outlet for that.  The KinkLive dungeons are a fantastic escape from reality.  So long as it comes with an end date, I seem to be ok, and I definitely love the attention they can get.  My boobs may not be what I want but, hey!  I can do tricks with them!

(insert nipple-clamped booby jiggle)

So yeah.  I enjoy being a girl sometimes as an escape from the reality of my trans body.  It helps that I’m a swishy pretty boy.  I’m not fording a massive river of gender, I’m just a crossing the streams a little.  The fact that I’m a pretty boy also might explain why its taken a while for me to sort everything out.  I didn’t see myself as trans for a long time because I’m not and don’t want to be a macho man.

There’s also little things, strange things, that trigger me.

Like bras.  Can’t stand them.  Even though I can play with my chest with no problems in the porn world, bras feel really weird.  I think it might be because they make me feel my boobs more like boobs?  They make me more aware of them as boobs as opposed to just my chest that happens to get attention and do tricks.  There’s one exception though.  I have this one bra that fits loosly and is very soft.  It looks incredibly minimizing on me (takes my DDDs down to what look like B cups).  It also doesn’t support them, meaning it doesn’t make my chest look like boobs.  In fact, it makes my chest look LESS like it has boobs.  I found a pretty matching strap on harness at good vibes and, damn.  100% WIN!

Long fingernails are out.  They’re just a bit too far for me.  This isn’t a problem since they only get in the way of paid self-pleasure anyway.

Long hair is also out.  We found a short but girlier than me wig that is kinda fun, but even that one is really pushing my boundaries.  Luckily, I don’t have to wear it…. so I just don’t.  Sometimes I wear it on my own when I’m feeling particularly brave and cross-dressy.

And normal girl clothing is out.  It makes me feel WEIRD and uncomfortable as hell.  I recently got a gift card for forever 21 and it just felt awful.  All of it was just odd on me.  Even when I like performing girl, its just unnatural feeling, and I feel like others are going to see me in it and think I’m trying to be a normal girl.

I think its because I’m finally accepting that I don’t want to be a girl, but thankfully I don’t feel like I have to throw out all of femininity in order to achieve that.

So, I end up taking a few pages out of the books of fierce femmes I know.  The kind of girls who perform femininity while somehow still breaking all its rules.  When I want to perform girl, I try to perform it in this way.  Following the letter, but breaking the law.

Its something I don’t think I’d get away with in a normal job.  But it seems to be in high demand in adult work.

I think the most surprising thing is that I’m not just surviving sex work despite my transness, I’m pretty much thriving in it.  I mean, a lot of my weird boob power struggles had been ok in my earlier sex work forrays because as much as I don’t like having boobs… I really like boobs!

Sometimes in my head I’m like Fry in Futurama when they put his head on Amy’s body.  Did anyone else catch how he missed playing with boobs when they put him back on his own body?

But now that I understand my gender a little better, I’m understanding that its more about how people see my gender than about how people see my body.  My body and my boobs don’t make me a girl.  My gender does.  And my gender isn’t girl.  What becomes triggering is when I feel trapped, when I feel like people will only ever see me as a girl.

Now that I’m slowly getting resources and allies, now that I’m feeling brave enough to ask for my preferred pronouns… I feel less trapped by my female body but also somewhat more dysphoric because now I know what I want.  The part I don’t like is being seen as a “real” girl… but I’m being compensated for that.

In the short term, it means I feel more comfortable in my body… sometimes.  It means I *can* have fun in it when I need to.  But it also means I’m getting much more serious about transition.

I’m too privileged in this way to honestly start this discussion.

But I see it.  I see it a lot.  I see it in my family and I see it in my lovers.

So instead of trying to talk about fat positivity from my own skinny lived perspective, I was lucky enough to get permission from a very dear friend who does understand such things.

and who is large and gorgeous and overall brilliant <3

Enjoy!

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I did a couple of things today that I’m really proud of.  (Actually, talking about them even after the fact is something I’m proud of, now that I think on it).

B and I took a trip to Good Vibrations in Berkeley.  He wanted some stuff, I wanted some stuff, we had a little bit of extra cash for said stuff, and we had a car for the weekend.  Seemed like a good plan.  Besides, what more wonderful way to ring in the new year than with presents for yourself, lovingly chosen by yourself?

So, first, I’m proud of the fact that he and I–for whom the phrase “it’s complicated” was invented–went to a toy store together, even if it was for separate things.  And we kibbitzed, which I also didn’t expect.  I helped him shop for his new thing, and he helped me shop for my new thing, and we shared a laugh at the fact that I owned ten out of twenty-five of the erotica books on the shelf (and knew six of the authors).  Considering what a sticky wicket sex can be for B and I to talk about, this was actually quite extraordinary.

While staring at the erotica, after he’d wandered off to go do his shopping, I stumbled across a book, which instantly replaced the book I was going to purchase.  I discarded a smut book on the intensity and blazing heat of hotel sex, and picked up this: Big Big Love, by Hanne Blank.  It’s a book by, for, and about sex with fat people and the beauty that can be found there.  Usually, I find reading a book on sexual technique to be quite boring, as learning by doing is so much more entertaining, but I went for this one.

Big Big Love by Hanne Blank

If you’re not fat, or you don’t have sex with fat people, you might not be aware of the significant differences in sex with us.  Our bodies move differently, our joints bend differently, we have different fears and shames, we require different sexual positions and sometimes completely different techniques to get off.  It’s hard for me to remember this sometimes, but all those differences are really fun to play with! I’ve got so much internalized brainweasel crap in my head telling me I’m unattractive and should be asexual that it’s often difficult for me to engage in sex in the ways that I want to.  That’s why I do nude photo shoots, have sex in front of mirrors, make a point of looking my partner in the eyes–particularly when those things are most treacherous.

The fact is, I love sex.  I’ve got a higher sex drive than most people I know, or at least I have a higher arousal drive.  I have no idea if I want to have sex as often as I think I want to.  I’ve never gotten the opportunity to try.  Wrong partners, negative thoughts telling me I’m awful, bad timing, and yes, a curious dearth of people willing to look past some extra padding.  I’ve done so much work on seeing myself as magnificent–not just pretty, or cute, or adorable, though some days that’s all I can manage.  That work has all been tremendously worthwhile.  But the core of the work I still need to do, at least for right now, is centered on seeing myself as alluring and sexually extraordinary.  So seeing Big Big Love on the shelf seemed like a godsend.

I had a moment, standing there in front of those pine bookcases, of deep and shameful panic.  I never want to hide my sexuality, and I wanted to buy that book quietly, secretly, tuck it away where no one could see, wrapped in a plain brown paper bag.  It felt like admitting that I was buying that book was admitting that I’m fat, and oh, did that pull on me.  From one point of view, it’s not like I can hide my physique, but from another, “fat people are beautiful” is such a terrible taboo that it’s hard for me to break away.

And I’m a fat activist.  Conflict much?

But hey, you know, I bought the book.  And it’s the first book I’ve been really excited about in a really long time.  I’m only a few pages in, strictly because of time, but I look forward to it.  When I’m done, B wants to read it.  I have this feeling that it might well become like another SM 101 or The Ethical Slut–those books we loan out, and just buy new copies of because they simply never come home again.  The thought of a book about the glorious intricacies of fat sex being as evangelical delights me.

So, the other thing I’m proud of is equally fraught with difficulty and meaning for me.  I bought an anal toy.  I’ve been nervously curious about anal sex for quite a while, but I always balk.  I’m scared of anal sex.  My first exposure to it was…unpleasant, to say the least.  I didn’t know how to communicate yet, he didn’t know how to be gentle, all of it went south in a hurry, and I at least ended the evening dissatisfied and angry and feeling quietly violated.  I tend to, for better or worse, pretend that that particular episode “didn’t count”.  Not for the purposes of learning about anal sex, anyway.  If I let it count before I can replace it with a good memory or three, I’ll never try again, and I want to conquer these fears of mine.

I picked up one of the beginner vibrating anal toys from Tantus.  I did a bunch of research, naturally, and when the opportunity presented itself, I picked a wall, scanned, and grabbed the box straightaway.  Picking it up was hard for me.  Unexpectedly hard.  Not as hard as picking up Big Big Love, but still intense.  Forcing myself to walk over to B and ask him if I could get it was worse.  (B, as it turns out, is far less fashed about such things, and simply gave me a hug and said “Of course”.  And then helped me shop for lube, because I don’t know how to do that, either.  I think we were both dissociating for all that, but we survived.  See again, the poster children for “It’s complicated”.)

I bought two things directly related to big ass taboos (!) in my head.  I’m feeling both smug and terrified.  And excited.  And conflicted and shy and precious and lovely and brave.  All at once.  It’s a very mixed up place in there right now.  But the timing is perfect.  I don’t do resolutions for New Years.  I pick things to explore, instead: a thing that freaks me out, and a thing I’m intrigued by.

Happy New Year, to me.

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[emphasis added]

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Her writing makes me happy because it reminds me that I’m not the only one dealing with internalized phobias tied to my sexuality.  I believe doing work like this is a very real form of activism, but its quieter because its almost all internal.

And its something that I hope I’ll be able to help forward

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RESOURCES:

Fat Hatred Kills on This Ain’t Livin by s. e. smith

Health at Every Size

Fuck Yeah Chubby Fashion (with LOADS of clothes shopping resources)

The Rebellyon (explanation) photos here

The Full Belly

Communications of a Fat Waitress

ChubbyParade a VERY NSFW forum.  Some fetishizing here, but its generally a very positive resource (and whenever someone starts insults or calls someone a freak they get hella flamed for it!)

Fuck Yeah Fat Arms

Fat Acceptance French Bulldog

The Thin Privilege Checklist <– this one really helped me get it, gets +100 kudos!

(and please add more in the comments!)

via TransParrotfish

So, as a canvasser I meet a lot of people who are completely isolated from the GLBT community.  Its not odd at all to do some 101 education every day… but last week I met TWO people in one day who had never heard of being transgender.  Not that they had never heard the word, they had never heard of it existing.

I feel pretty darn proud of myself in that I didn’t just stand open-mouthed… or try to start at something impossibly difficult to grasp just because its my favorite part (as is often a habit of mine).  I got the basics out, briefly enough, without too much over-simplification.  Both folks stayed for a while to talk, leaving looking like they had a pleasant amount left for their brains to chew on.

It stuck with me because the week earlier, someone told me “… you know, there’s no such thing as transmen”.

… and all I could do for a long while was stand open-mouthed like a great surprised parrot fish

This logic was provided:  Since bottom surgery isn’t as advanced or popular for FTMs as it is for MTFs… FTM people don’t exist.  I tried to explain a bit about identity vs sex but it became clear pretty quickly that it was already a lost battle.  I’d lol if could do so without hating myself afterwards.

because its funny, but its a pretty common line of thinking.

I recently had a very interesting talk with my mother where I came out as genderqueer and considering some form of medical transition.  The only trans people she knows are two FTMs who have had a very hard life, at least one of whom had bottom surgery that went “wrong” (its hard to say, I’m getting this information through an interesting filter).  Both have had a difficult time getting support and have had a lot of struggles getting basic care for mental health issues.

These are the only example my mom has to look towards.

It was a very difficult conversation.  I said “transmasculine spectrum” and I’m pretty sure all she heard was “penis surgery”.  I’d say “openly genderqueer” and she’d think “angry tattoos”.  (Yeah, I don’t understand the tattoos thing either.)

It boils down to the problem of invisibility.  My mom thinks that if I take T (which I might or might not do) I will become crazy because the only people she knows who took T were bipolar and schizophrenic.  My mom thinks that if I identify as trans I have to become a “full transexual” because the only people she knows who are trans did.

I told her that at the moment the only thing I’m seriously considering is top surgery (a huge plus for my health, especially since the family has a strong history of breast cancer) but I sincerely don’t think she heard me.  As I think she is thinking now, I can either live as a depressed tomboy who wears ties a lot, or as an angry transsexual man in poor mental and physical health.

I tried to explain that, as my identity and comfort lie now, I could live quite happily in either situation… but I think my words fell on dry land.

There is a very large education gap that, frankly, I’m not quite sure how to bridge.  I’m used to talking about the most basic 101, and the much more advanced stuff… but all these middle bits are overwhelming.  I don’t know where or how to start.

Also my mom is struggling with a great deal of guilt.  She blames herself, quite literally, for my identity because she wanted me to be a girl.  From what I can tell, it seems she thinks she made me trans with magic.  This is in a way good.  She believes that I was always meant to be a boy, which is a huge boon… WAY more easy than I had anticipated.  But she also thinks its all her fault and that it necessarily means I’ll get hurt.

I’m trying to get across to her that, yes, although its true that trans people have a lot to deal with… its not all tragic.  I have a very good support network and I’m pretty darn happily adjusted, dysphoria incongruence included.

I’m quite privileged (largely because of my upbringing) and I’m in many ways grateful for my identity.

This trans thing?  Its a good thing.  A different thing… a complicated and sometimes hard thing, but a good thing.

Its a process.

… and you know what, I just might be ok with being trans magical.

happy coming out day, fishes!

This has afforded me (yay privilege) some interesting opportunities for growth, which is awesome.  Its also allowed me the opportunity to more actively experiment with presentation and public identity.  Most of my day involves trying to actively engage strangers in two minute conversations about gay rights.  In the past few weeks, I’ve gotten a much better idea of how I’m clocked by the average joe… and I’m much more clockable than I thought.  I’ve been spontaneously male-pronouned by three people in as many weeks.  I’ve also met eight people who couldn’t figure me out at all… which is really, REALLY cool.  I’m probably getting clocked as completely andro by a lot more people, I just don’t know it unless they say something about it … and most of the time the ones who do seem to assume they’ve made a TERRIBLE blunder.

It usually plays out with them choosing a pronoun for the first time in conversation, then second guessing themselves verbally, then freaking out. Kind of like,  ”…oh look, what a friendly young man… I mean girl… I mean OH GOD RUNNING NOW!”

I only wish they’d hang around long enough to see the ridiculous grin on my face when they do, instead of just taking off for fear of my wrath at their “mistake”.

Its also a lot easier to get folks to use both pronouns than I thought it would be… and that feels pretty good.

… good in a REALLYFUCKINGSCARY kind of way

So, YAY growth!

But growth really sucks sometimes.

Sometimes it hurts… and sometimes it means bumping into things a lot until you get used to the new space you take up in the world.

This weekend I got bumped.

We were shopping at the mall for some dapper twink wear for me and I unfortunately noticed two women laughing and pointing… at me.

“I told you it weren’t no gentlemen”, one of them said, laughing.

Now, we were heading to another part of the store anyway, so I just kept walking… but we kept bumping into them again and again.  Each time they’d look me over and laugh to each other, as if I was their private joke.

At least if it was a private joke, they could have given to be more discreet about it.  Curiosity is fine, and you know what?  Gender is pretty funny sometimes.  But to laugh and point so openly like they did is so far from decent.  Either royalty in meanieville, or my identity is so marginalized to them that it really doesn’t matter if they openly offend me.  

Luckily (yay privilege!) this kind of encounter is pretty rare for me.  Or, at least I think its rare.  Usually I can police my attention in public spaces like malls, mentally blurring out the faces of people I think are likely to give me the stink eye.  But selective attention takes effort, and I was kind of down that day.  Hello one-two punch of feeling down resulting in feeling more down!

Needless to say, it got to me.

(It got to me enough that I couldn’t actually tell anyone that it happened until I was home safe AND even tucked under the covers.)

I may have been able to avoid encounters like this, but I’ve always had the suspicion that it’s what people are really thinking when they look at me.  This is how oppression works.  You rarely actually know if someone is being stiff with you because of your marginalized identity, or if they’re just meanie heads.  I’ve always been an odd duck, and I’ve spent much of my life clockable as at least a tomboy.

I also spent much of my life in and out of typically “girl only” spaces.  I’ve had many nonverbal encounters that made me believe that the kind of bump I had is actually what all normal girls and women think of me.  It’s all about that sudden silence and cold shoulder when I enter a make up aisle, lingerie store, dressing room, or bathroom… it adds up, but in a way that I can’t get any more than a gut feeling for what it’s all about.

But I can tell you exactly how it feels…

It feels like being unwelcome.

It feels like perceived as a threat.

and it feels like being seen as less than a whole person.

But all of these feelings are just that, feelings.  Nonverbal communication isn’t much to go by… so when it gets confirmed by something like what happened to me this weekend the end result isn’t just the hurt of that one thing happening… it’s a confirmation of all the little quiet moments of possible hate.  I won’t ever really know what was going on in these moments, but when something like this happens it’s as if all my worst fears about them are confirmed.

Rationally, I know that’s not how it works.

But it is how it feels.

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Oh, and for the record, I really did look like a gentleman yesterday.

I had a little fedora and everything. <3

“You know, there’s a lot of trans people at my new job and we’ve become fast friends.  One of them uses flexible gender pronouns and sports a skirt and facial hair.”

Mum, who had been trying to sound really interested in everything I have to tell her up to this point (I admit, haven’t been calling that much, so this makes sense) responded with a pretty dead, “oh”.  The car was uncomfortably quiet for the rest of the drive, which kept getting longer as we repeatedly got lost.  I tried to bring it back up again, but stopped just shy of mentioning that they’re are FTM folks at my job when I got zero warm or slightly positive responses from her.

Its been one step forward, two steps back for most of my coming out process with her and I’m not sure how to get it on track.

In general, my mum goes out of her way to be supportive… but then she says things that make it seem like she’s not with me at all.  I’m not sure how much of that is an education gap or a sign that she isn’t really as ok with my identity as I thought she was… and thats with her only knowing a small, very managed, portion of it.

Recently, we were given cause to believe that she thinks I dress butch because my wife is coercing me to in order to avoid competing with how pretty I am.  Now, this info comes to us third-hand so I try not to take it too seriously… but from what information I can glean from her directly it sounds feasible.

This troubles me for many reasons.  For one, I think I’m pretty!  I mean, in a butch kind of way… but I’m pretty.  It makes me sad to think she doesn’t think I’m pretty this way because (pausing to be a huge narcissist for a moment) I’ve never felt so pretty in my life as I do right now.

Secondly, it makes me sad because she must think quite a lot less of my wife’s intentions and our relationship.  Its probably got a lot to do with body size and normative culture (I’m a skinny thing and she is a curvy love) but, damn it, she’s SO pretty… and an entirely different kind of pretty than me.  Apples and oranges.  One *could* compare, but its just silly.

Now, I’m used to working with haters.  My new job puts me on the front line of homophobia.  I stand on busy sidewalks and talk to any strangers I can stop about gay rights.  Most people are really nice… but yesterday someone deliberately farted at my station to show just how they disapprove.

This kind of stuff I can more than handle, I can thrive in it.

… but the support/notsupport I’m trying to figure out with my mum is beyond me.

When its dislike out in the open, I know what to do with it.  I can even handle it deftly… but this quiet confusion and fluid levels of disapproval leave me stumped.  I can’t gauge what language to use because I can’t tell where she is with me.  Mind you, she doesn’t know where to be with me either because I’m not that out with her yet.

From where I am, it seems I have two options.  I could bite the bullet and out myself as genderqueer/transmasculine and hope for the best.  This option would be simplest, but the burning bridges potential is pretty high.  I could also continue as I have with delicate identity management… comfort permitting.  This one is tricky since managing too much makes me feel like a rotten liar, and disclosing too much keeps upsetting our already rocky apple cart of a relationship.

But the good news is there’s a meeting for parents and partners of trans people just a few blocks from my new house.

<3

I’m hoping to glean a little knowledge from peeps who have already been through it.  I know this process is not an isolated one, I just don’t have any social role models to base my challenges off of.

(hey!  I just found the privilege!)

That’s the thing with coming out processes… it sure as hell is a process.

I know I’ll get there, its just going to take a while.

I just got a new piercing and HOLY COW DO I FEEL AWESOME!  Body mods always put me in a good mood, but piercing has a special place in my heart.  I can see how it’d be totally easy for me to get addicted to them.  I have a lot of weird mixed up ideas about my own body, and being able make intentional small changes helps me feel like I have more power over the skin suit I’m in.

My new industrial symbolizes the close of my time in Humboldt County and the start of new projects in the Bay Area.  Its also, in a way, a little strength charm.  I got it to help remind me of how strong I am.

Something about it went really right.  My first night of sleeping on it was filled with strength dreams.  The most vivid dream had this girl in it, who I’ve never seen but felt like she was supposed to be a friend.  She came in and started immidiately bad-mouthing everything about me, how I do business, how I present myself, and my house.  I asked her politely to show more respect while in my house.  She laughed at me and launched whole-heartedly into a new assault.

So I calmly led her to the door and said, “Out.  Not in my house.” and then (with a smile) “have a nice day, and drive safe.”

I was very kind about it, but there were absolutely no butts about what I did.  No ground would be given, and no words of distention would be tolerated either.

I’ve been known to hold that kind of strength for other people, but I haven’t actually done it that much for myself.  Over the years (especially those years in Humboldt) I’ve slowly gotten stronger and more sure of my boundaries.  I’ve become much more sure of myself and of my own self-worth.  This isn’t to say that I was insecure before… but my self worth used to be measured much more strongly on other people’s definitions.

Through my time at Humboldt, I’ve found these definitions haven’t matched up with my own very much at all.

Now, I feel much more secure of myself on my own terms.

I feel more than braced to jump into a bigger pond.

I feel ready.

I’ve also committed to doing push ups immediately after each salt rinse of the piercing, and at two times a day for the next several weeks I should be getting a little boost of physical strength as well!

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PS- OK, I’m spiritually and mentally ready for sure…. but I still have a LOT of packing to do.  Eeep!

There has just been a massive outing of porn performers… in a very, very ugly way.

In an attempt to steal the thunder (and legitimacy) of wiki leaks, some troll… probably a small group of trolls… made a site that they’re calling “porn wikileaks” where personal information from over 15,000 people who went to the Adult Industry Medical Foundation (even those who are not porn performers) is being posted with some extremely hateful language.

Performers real names and ages have been posted on the site.  Some performers have also had their home addresses, photos of their home, and pictures of their family posted, although this information was not part of the main AIM leak.

The stated motivation for the site is

“To get the gays out of straight porn and illegal gay pimps that have ruined porn and shut it down making condoms mandatory by the government now. The fag loving has got to stop. California is full of gay Mexicans and now they can even marry which is so wrong.”

Their about page has even more (and even more confusing) hate and vitriol cut into what is essentially a direct copy paste from the real wikileaks.  I need not repeat it here.

There have been hints that the site will begin releasing HIV status information on these performers as well as information from 2257 records.  Its possible this is a bluff, but its possible its not.  This kind of information isn’t as private or secure as I wish it was, although a glance at the sophistication of the site makes me think its a bluff.  I really, really hope I’m right.

The information is posted with extremely violent language with clear intent to do harm.  They’re not trying to expose truth, they’re trying to hurt people.

This isn’t about internet freedom.

This isn’t about transparency.

This is about violence and hate.

The about page on the site quotes Jefferson saying,

“The great American president Thomas Jefferson once observed that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. We believe the journalistic media plays a key role in this vigilance.”

Its a good piece of advice, and some folks are already being vigilant.  Their twitter accounts (there have been multiple) are being banned pretty much as fast as they crop up.  Violet Blue and Furry Girl picked up the story very quickly, and wrote VERY good stories on the issue (which is more than I can say for most media outlets… I’m looking at you CNET).

Its true, haters gonna hate.

Hater (n.):

A person that simply cannot be happy for another person’s success. Instead of giving acknowledgment in courtesy, a hater often pursues his/her point by exposing a flaw in the target subject. Hating, the result of being a hater, is not exactly jealousy. The hater doesn’t really want to be the person he or she hates, rather the hater wants to knock someone [sic] down a notch.

(from know your meme)

Its speculated that the person behind this *might* be Johnny Long, a (as the beast puts it) washed-up porn producer and director.  I’m not sure the measure they’re using to evaluate what “washed up” means (because plenty of folks spend a few months in porn and quickly retire when they find out its not easy money) but it does seem to me that if it was Johnny Long who made this site, the haters meme kind of fits.

This isn’t about exposing truth, its about knocking someone down instead of dealing with your own hurt.

So, what do we do?

1) Hold media sources accountable

Pay close attention to how this story is being told.

For example, CNET reported the story with some interesting victim-blaming saying, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” This completely ignores the clear intent to harm the leak had… and its also full of some pretty heavy anti-sex worker sentiment.  The leak would be more innocent if violence against sex workers wasn’t so incredibly common.  Within that context, as well as within the context of the violent language used on the site makes this a MUCH different matter.  It changes it from a story about exposure to a story about harassment, bullying, and hate.

When you find stories like this, comment on it!  Encourage your friends to do the same.  If you can, write letters to the editor.  You have the power to change the way the story is told, but you have to be vigilant.  Set up a google alert, pay attention to how this story is being told.

2) Don’t feed the trolls

The creator of the leak site is a troll.  A powerful dangerous troll, but still just a troll.  Their vindictive actions only work if we pay attention to them.  Avoid re-posting the link to the site as much as possible, do not call it PornWikiLeaks… because it isn’t.  Its a sad, and hateful imitation.  All of these things will drive up the site’s traffic, effectively giving the megaphone back to the madman.

It is VERY important that we talk about what happened… but there’s a big difference between talking about it and senselessly spreading it around.  Its MUCH easier to re-post a story with a few one-liners than it is to actually report.  Pay attention to what stories you chose to re-post, and call media sources that fail to report accurately and fairly to task.

The media, and how we circulate the media, has MUCH more power here than this one crude site does.

Do talk about it.  But don’t feed the trolls.

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This kind of thing is easily swept under the rug because the freaks don’t count in normal society.

Be vigilant, show the world that us freaks do count.

You can read the full story here

… or, if you prefer, check out this video of a badass lady (Diamond Stylz) explaining what happened

This once incident sucks, but what really irks me is the business culture that allows this kind of bigotry to flourish.

Because this shit is not rare.

Last December a trans woman filed a complaint with the California DMV because an employee sent her letters to her house that she was an abomination and that she was going to hell.

A trans woman in NJ is suing the police department for harassment in March of last year. She was discouraged by a lieutenant from filing a complaint because he thought the officers didn’t mean any harm.

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I could easily list more, but honestly… I don’t have it in me because this kind of stuff (and much worse) happens way too often.

There is an attitude surrounding trans people that seems to me to boil down to this:

the freaks don’t count.

Many organizations (including ones run by the state) have strong anti-discrimination policies, but if someone’s identity is seen as sexually perverse it isn’t treated as discrimination.  Now, most of the organizations don’t actually think they’re supporting abuse.  More often, I think all they are actively doing is not stopping it… and I don’t think its because they are out to get trans people.  I think its because when the abuse happens, they genuinely don’t see it as abuse.

There’s a mentality that anything done against sexually threatening people is ok because you have to do whatever it takes to stop them.  Part of the “MY GOD!  THINK OF THE CHILDREN!” clause.  This mentality makes it ok to do whatever you like to people who could be a sexual threat.  What non-trans aware people might see is someone overreacting slightly to a possible sexual threat.  In this way, the abuse doesn’t get stopped and the abusers behavior gets reinforced.  The culture takes hold when bystanders aren’t empowered to spot and stop the abuse.  If the behavior has been going on for a while without anyone stepping up, there is a lot of pressure (especially in these rough economic times) to remain quiet about it.

A little myth + a lot of silence = gross culture of abuse

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So, as far as I can tell… the trans people as sexual freaks myth goes a bit like this:

Trans people get lumped in as sexual freaks because of cultural myths surrounding trans sexuality (I’ve personally heard strong current of upsetting “shemale” myths, even with my hobby-like involvement in porn).  Trans people also get labeled as sexual freaks because of all the phobias surrounding homosexuality.  If it wasn’t, I challenge someone to explain to me why the word “fag” is used so often in trans bashing cases.

and this kind of attitude bleeds into other kinds of abuse.  Anyone who doesn’t fit into the normal box and who might possibly be perceived as a threat is acceptable to knock down.

I see a lot of overlap in cases of trans abuse, gay bashing, and violence against sex workers.  There seems to me to be a very common chord running through all of these cases.

It seems to me to be part of a very old call against “moral depravity”, meaning anything overtly sexual… or sexually deviant.

Now, *I* see this happening more frequently around sexual identities… but I might just be seeing it that way because this is the framework I most intimately understand.  I have to own up to the fact that I might just see it this way because its me seeing it.

I know at least that its not just a matter of rural areas being backwards, because most of the reported trans violence happens in cities.

And its not just a midwest vs coastal areas thing because the abusive letters sent from a DMV employee happened in California.

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So, now that I’ve reminded everyone of how unpleasant all this unpleasantness is… what are we going to do about it?  Its easy enough to act up against one incident (as many awesome folks are doing for the trans woman in Utah).  Its doable to organize marches and congressional campaigns…. but how do we change the culture that says its ok to bash the freaks?

What I think we, as activists, need to remember is that we’re not just fighting against any one organization (like the DMV in Utah).  Yes, its VERY important to contact the DMV and let them know what they did is intolerable… but then what do we do after that?

How do we change a culture thats been around much longer than any of us?

I don’t know the answer to that… but I think Diamond Stylz is on the right track.  She’s SO incredibly charming and funny, and she somehow manages to be funny without minimizing the absolute fuckupedness of the situation.

Maybe this is just one of those things that takes time, and the combined effort of people who will fight the injustices at every turn we encounter them and people like Diamond who can charm people who otherwise wouldn’t have much contact with the trans world.

check her out here talking about being trans and homeless

and here she is talking about body image and not being forced into a beauty box

I wish it was easier.

I wish I had a simple plan that we all could enact that would fix it.

but I don’t.

I think its just going to take a long steady boil.

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But in somewhat lighter news, I am now being called “Queer Queen” by at least one person on the interwebs.  Much to my surprise and amusement, occasionally I get webcam clients who are looking for a high femme domme.  One of them started calling me Queen and, in response, I used the word to describe myself in chat back to him… only since I almost never write the word “queen” but very often write the word “queer” I accidentally typed Queer, as a dominant title for myself.

I noticed my typo, and corrected it to Queen in the next line… but this was somehow read as “You should know call me your Queer Queen”.

… I started to correct him

…

… but you know, I kinda like the sound of it.

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- Mistress Matisse

on her blog, Mistress Matisse’s Journal

in a post about the Niki Blue controversy on Jan 27, 2011

lovingly handmade by a real butch dandy

I’ve been obsessing a bit over dandy fashion for a while, but I went into womb-fury mode after GeekPornGirl posted this article all about butch fashion.  In the links at the bottom, I made my way over to DapperQ where my eyes EXPLODED with double fancy butch eye candy.

And also this really cute story about bow ties and family by Titus Androgynous

“Okay, so I knew I could pull it off. What I didn’t know was how put it on. How to tie it, that is. (Because there’s no way a clip-on was going to grace this neck.) Tying a bow tie seems to be a preciously held men’s secret akin to membership in the Masons. I have seen written instructions, graphic instructions and numerous instructional videos, and they all make sense up to a certain point and then it’s like, “Turn around three times, spit, cross your fingers and there! It’s done!” Hunh?

Lucky for me, my (mostly femme) girlfriend used to work in a vintage clothing store and was endowed with the privilege of passing the secret knowledge on to worthy young men. I guess this boi measured up. She wrapped her arms around me and showed me the mysterious bit that happens behind the scenes when creating the perfect bow. (There’s this little hole at the back that you have to find and poke your finger into and then pull part of the tie through. Stop smirking.) When I turned around to face her after getting the tie just right, she gasped a little and had to catch herself as her knees went weak. (Now I like to surprise her by showing up at her door wearing one just to see her reaction.)”

This sounded remarkably similar to when I first wore a tie.  Despite all my best efforts with rope, I’m still pretty hopeless with knots.  My ever-crafty wife, however, is amazing at them.  Something having to do with years of crochet and other girly things that lie somewhere beyond my grasp.  I’ve tried to follow patterns on the interwebs for tying a tie, and I can sort of manage my way through it if I picture the scene in Dexter where his father teaches him how to do it… but it always comes out kind of fumbly.

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sissa’s deft hands do a much better job

….and it always makes me kind of hard and wet to have her pretty little fingers working their way so precisely around my neck

…

There’s something dead sexy about having a femme tie your tie.

It makes me think of all these husband-wife scenes in black and white movies.  The wife comes over to help her husband tie his tie because he’s frustrated and overwhelmed about something or other.  Its the wife’s way of showing support and deference.  Its a quiet, friendly kind of power play that’s intrinsically gendered.

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(photo from http://thenonblonde.blogspot.com/)

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Even if learning how to tie a tie is something passed from father to son, it always seems to work out in real life as something the wife does for the husband.

It amuses me no end that as much as crisp ties are a symbol of masculinity, they are often made so crisp and neat by the woman… not the man.

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yeah… I know that this is a sister-brother moment

read into that however you like

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Anyway, I’ve never worn bow-ties, partially because my nerd quotient is so high already… I’m kind of afraid of what might happen if it went up any higher.

But I think its time.

Let the bow-tie coveting begin!