Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
Before I get into this, I’m just going to say that this is mostly tongue-in-cheek and not meant to be taken terribly seriously. Altho, if you want to send me anon hate over a post about sexuality and gender in alien fucking, go ahead.
I really feel like sexuality labels start meaning less when we get into being attracted to aliens. Even if someone is only attracted to aliens of the opposite gender, are they straight? Really? Can we even confidently apply human gender to alien species?
Obviously we accept when an alien tells us their gender. But we have to assume they are influenced by their own culture and by their understanding of our culture, both of which are highly subjective. Humans can’t even decide on a set definition of gender within our own species. To assume we can properly understand the gender of another species is arrogance.
The other point here is that, in my opinion, attraction to aliens is inherently queer. It is outside the norm of cishet human sexuality, so, again in my opinion, if someone is attracted to an alien, they are not straight.
Anyway this is all to say that Julian Bashir was never straight to begin with, friends. No matter what Berman&Co thought they were portraying.
I love you trans men who previously thought you were butch women and then realised that wasn’t for you
I love you butch women who previously thought you were trans men and then realised that wasn’t for you
Gender identity and gender presentation are so deeply linked, sometimes it can be hard to work out what feels right, and you’re not at fault for realising later on that your identity isn’t what you thought it was ❤️
I don’t have the book anymore because I slipped it into the locker of my depressed mormon lesbian coworker on the last day of my retail job but it was that kate bornstein book about 101 reasons not to kill yourself and she had a whole section on how every gay and lesbian in history was betraying their assigned gender so utterly that they automatically became trans people and it’s one of those brilliant batshit things trans women say so often that drives the right people bugfuck nuts and I wish I had the full quote
“The next chapter of gender activism was written by the early gay rights activists. They tackled the law of gender that says loud and clear, ‘Real men love women, real women love men.’ 'No we don’t!’ cried the homosexuals.
And these pioneers transgressed a deeply rooted rule of gender. Lesbians and gays transgressed gender. Lesbians and gays are transgender. And they needed to band themselves together under some flag.
But it’s a terrifying thing to say, 'Hey, I’m a man who loves men, so maybe I’m not a real man!’
And it’s a terrifying thing to say, "I’m a woman who loves women, and so what if I’m not a real woman?”
People were even meaner about that kind of talk back in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries than they are today. It was difficult enough to say the lesbian and gay stuff, and in most areas of the world, it still is. No one was ready to hear not-man, not-woman, So they called themselves lesbian women and gay men, and they said things like, 'We’re just like you.“
They named themselves after the system that had oppressed them for such a long time. By the simple act of naming themselves women and men, it seems, in Minnie Bruce Pratt’s words, that their imaginations were in thrall to the institutions that oppressed them.”
through all this trans stuff every healthcare person i’ve had to talk to has sooner or later put on their sad bastard voice and tentatively asked what’s going to happen with my ltr, and when i go “oh he’s cool with it, no worries” they do that particular little “uh-huh” that’s the polite version of oh this poor delusional dumbass etc
and like i know that transitioning torpedoes a lot of relationships but today rabbit woke up and the very first thing he said, head still on the pillow, was “if you’re going to be a guy, you’re going to get shit from other guys if you can’t do push-ups. don’t worry, i’ll show you how to do them!!” and then a moment later, eyes wide, went “oh my god. i’m going to teach you to drive stick.”
okay the prize for the funniest reaction for this particular line of questioning goes to a specialist i see for something unrelated, because when he asked “and what does your husband think of that?”, i wasn’t feeling up for getting into it and just went “well he’s bi so he doesn’t care”
and this absolutely hit him for six, and he went “and what do YOU think about THAT?!”, which caught me off guard in turn, so i said “well i am too, so… positively?”
and he just stared out the window in deep thought stroking his beard for a good ten-fifteen seconds in silence before going, contemplatively:
“i didn’t know that could happen.”
patient changing gender: well that shouldn’t interact with your medication, you’ll just need to change some paperwork, let the girls at the front desk know
the conceptual existence of bi4bi relationships: ??????????????
(also, bbys, you have a right to bodily autonomy, make yrself at home in your body however that looks for you, gender is a choose your own adventure and I’m rooting for you, ily)
So, rewind a little more than a year. I’d just started my new job, which is unimportant to the story apart from the basic nature: I get on the phone with people to help them open financial accounts, and I spend maybe 15-30 minutes helping them do so. It’s complex, the computer systems I have to use are finicky, and it’s laden down with a lot of bureaucratic red tape.
My very first day live on the job, I was a nervous wreck. There were so many things I needed to keep track of, and I was having to talk to people over the phone for the first time in years, which meant my voice dysphoria was at an all-time high.
Then I got this client. I don’t actually recall his name and I couldn’t tell it to you even if I did, so let’s call him Bob.
Bob was elderly and had lived a hard life. He was transferring the contents of his pitifully small 401k from Walmart into a more accessible account, and I was helping him set that up. He came on the line cranky and more than a little paranoid. He asked me repeatedly if we were going to tell the government about his money, grumbled at me about the information I had to collect to get the account opened, made a few political statements with which I heartily disagreed. It was not a bad call, but I was definitely on edge.
Then it came time to set up a beneficiary on his account – someone who would inherit the account if he passed away.
And he paused, and then he said, “My daughter.”
I asked for her name and date of birth for the listing, and Bob told me. But then he went on.
“I want to tell you about her,” he said. “She’s very special to me.
"You see, I didn’t always have her. Years ago I had a son. And my wife and I, we loved our son so much. He was our perfect boy. We watched him grow up, he made it into college, he got a job. I never went to college, you know? But he did. I was so proud of that.
"Then, one day, he disappeared. Stopped calling, stopped visiting, stopped everything. Six years, we didn’t know what had happened to him, if he was alive, if he was dead, nothing. It was…”
He paused there, his voice creaking like it was about to break. I could see where this was going, and I was rapt.
“Then we got a letter,” he went on. “From her. She told us everything, explained it all. That she was–” He paused, then said “transgender” as if it were a foreign word that he wasn’t entirely sure how to pronounce. “That he’d – she’d – disappeared like that because she was afraid of what we’d say. What I’d say. Maybe what I’d do. But she missed us and she wanted us to get to know her as she really is.”
He paused there, pretty clearly waiting for my reaction. I said something – I barely remember what – about how scary it must have been for her, and how hard for Bob and his wife not to hear from their child for so long.
“It was,” he agreed. “But you gotta know this. I love my daughter.” He said it with his whole being, with every bit of power and meaning that his thin, aged voice could hold. “I love my daughter, and I’m so proud of her. She’s getting married next month, and I thank God for letting me live long enough to walk her down the aisle, just like every girl deserves. She is the light of my life.”
At the end of a long, intimidating, tiring day, his fierce love for his trans daughter took my breath away. I’m always going to remember Bob – remember how he wasn’t perfect, wasn’t progressive, didn’t really know the etiquette or the language, but how deep and intense his love for his daughter was. How he told this to me, a stranger, as though daring me to say even the slightest rude word about her.
There is love in this world. Sometimes, it comes from the people you would least expect. It might not look quite like you think it will. But it is out there.
“I love my daughter,” Bob said, intense and emphatic, and I will never forget the sound of his voice.
stop judging transfems worth and validity by how “passing” their voices are.
ok but seriously this is such a big problem. my voice does not pass and i honestly love that! my voice is great! i dont want to change it. people shouldnt have to change parts of themselves just because others dont find it to their liking.
stop treating voice training like its some necessary crucible all transfems must endure to be a “real woman”. voice has no bearing on gender. voice training is hard! not everyone has the time, energy, motivation, or will to do it. thats not a bad thing!
i could elaborate more on this but i dont feel a particular need to grovel on the ground and explain exactly why its okay for a woman to have a deep voice. its really goddamn simple honestly. if you cant understand that, youre transphobic, plain and simple.
I want trans doctors performing my surgery trans journalists reporting the news, trans historians writing textbooks. I don’t want trans capitalists walking on wall street or trans cops patrolling my neighborhood. I want trans musicians playing on my stereo trans designers crafting my clothes trans chefs filling my stomach trans farmers planting my food & trans gardeners picking flowers for my funeral.
H. Melt is a poet, artist and educator whose work celebrates trans people, history and culture.
