Emily's Feminist Tumblr Blog~

It was a normal Friday, I was run down from university work and having to go into work later that day. However, I called off work because I was feeling ill and I knew there would be repercussions based on my actions. With me, being diagnosed with anxiety I tend to feel ill or off very frequently which can be a problem with me and trying to work.

I laid in bed the whole day and slept as I tend to do but today I felt even more off than usual. That night after I finished studying for an exam and finishing last minute work, my partner brought friends over that night he asked me if it was alright and I said of course it’d be fine. So I finished my stuff early and decided to listen to some music.

However, I felt weird again.

Everyone came in and I isolated myself from them, in my head it felt like they didn’t care much for me, I sat in the living room and they were in the kitchen chatting with my partner. I decided I didn’t have enough energy to converse with them, so I waited until they went outside for smokes that I managed to go into my room and try to read the last of my exam notes,

I couldn’t focus,

At this point, it felt like I was just throwing myself a pity party, my mind was flaring in all different directions and one of them was how I’ve been feeling ill for a month and despite going to a doctor, I was told to just let it ride out instead of being put on medicine. I could hear them out there laughing and having a good time and I so wanted to join them, but I felt a weird singe of fear..like I didn’t belong.

It’s no exact surprise that I’ve been lonely down here. I moved down here about 2 years ago and took a job as a medical lab assistant, a career I thought would change my life instead it made me feel inadequate like I didn’t belong. It felt that no matter what I did or how I did it, I wasn’t good enough at my job. Despite me knowing that I was doing fine! I let myself get bullied around and laid off from my job because I was worried if I stood up for myself, I would pay the consequences.

I still to this day, get anxious whenever I see the hospital.

I took a job as a casual housekeeper in the hospital and at first I enjoyed it, I liked being able to help clean and be on my own and do things but..after a while it felt like nobody liked me there. No one wanted to talk to me except for a few people and it just felt like people mocked me. I tried to fit in and do what I could but...I still felt like a hindrance.

Uni is an amazing experience, I highly enjoy it but I still feel left out, I can’t drink or go out partying because of my autoimmune disorders, and I haven’t really met anyone I could call a friend. And yes, I know you have to be social to meet people but I’ve always been a socially awkward person to my heart and meeting people is hard for me.

Back to me laying in the bed, feeling sorry for myself missing work and knowing I could get fired (I did get suspended from one of my jobs) and feeling so terribly lonely by myself, despite people being in my house. I locked the door to my bedroom and contemplated taking my life.

I grew up in a home where I was mocked everyday for my ideas and expressions, why would anyone care if I left? I have no friends here, no one ever visits me I’m basically just a sitting duck,

I wanted to down those pills like they were candy and leave me convulsing on the floor , no one would know and no one would ever care.

But..I didn’t.

My friend talked me out of it, pleaded with me that it’s ok you’re upset but this isn’t the way to go, things will get better I promise. And I sat there crying my eyes out feeling so sorry and broken.

That night, I confessed to my partner my plan and he broke down crying, it scared him that he was right there and I could have taken my life and he wouldn’t have known about it until it was too late. He held me close and asked, no made me promise I would be more open about my anxiety and depression to him.

Sometimes, I still feel like a burden, and I am bad for keeping my true feelings locked up because of the abuse I was dealt as a child.

In the end though, I know life is rough and it’s not meant to be easy, but we should take more time to build people up and tell them things that are good about them. I always hear negative things about myself and honestly, I feel as if bits and pieces of me are torn out and I don’t know if I will ever be fully whole again, perhaps in time I will but as all things go, there is always a time for healing to begin.

Make sure to check on your loved ones, just because someone looks ok doesn’t mean they are. I get that a lot, I looked okay I’m smiling so things are going well.

And please, please remember, it’s okay to get help, it’s okay to ask for validation and love because you are deserving of it so so much. I believe in you and it’s okay..just take care of yourself, take naps, eat your food, and just do your best it’s all you can do.

Thank you for reading this,

While reading through this article it becomes a lot more appalling to realize how many people actually went to these freak shows. The idea that there were real people in these shows who were pretty much treated in my opinion as wild spectacles just for looking different.

Though, I suppose in today’s society there is still a lot of that stigma based on whether if someone has a deformity or not, and that people if they decide to broadcast about them, people tend to have a tendency to gawk at them essentially. 

Emily: Hello! I figured a good way to get some information and understanding of perhaps certain situations Trans people face, I decided to ask my friend Kage to talk a little bit about his experiences.

Kage: I'm Kage, 26 year old trans-male from Canada. Been Out as far as being trans goes for about..7-8 years?? Keeping track of that isn't all to easy, lol.

Emily: Thank you for taking the time out of your day to help people understand certain issues we may not be aware of, going back to my article I mentioned yesterday, Ivan Coyote mentions how they have had many issues facing things like using public washrooms, even going as far as being threatened, harassed and even physical violence. Has this ever happened to you in a public setting? Or rather, are there certain things you avoid out of fear?

Kage: It hasn't happened to me, YET. At least. I still get that anxiety, though, whenever I do enter a bathroom. For the record, I still use the females washroom, mainly due to the fact that I'm still pre-transition. Thinking ahead, however, I do get a little worried about using the men's washroom in the future. I'm not sure what to expect there, too many possibilities that could be good or bad, really.

Emily: Is there anything perhaps in your opinion that you believe could be a possible help for those who are trans or non binary?

Kage: That's a doozy, really. Different things work for different people. And it's HARD when there's boxes and all that we have to fit in for the most part. Nonbinary folks especially. Trying to present as something that's neither one way or another, or even being masc/fem, and still IDing as NB.

All I can say is pass as best you can, It's hard to really handle the judgement from others, because the severity varies.. Easier said than done, though. Some obstacles require a lot more to overcome, some of which are on Society's End, type of deal.

Emily: Thank you for your input. Another topic that was brought up in class was the idea of how there are a lot of red tape barriers for those who do want to transition, the idea that there are only two clinics right now in Canada and even the concept of how you need a lot of paperwork in order to even be admitted to see someone. One thing we learned was how transphobic some of the health care professional people can be, in this case how does it make you feel knowing that the people you believe are to help you transition are possibly making it harder for someone like yourself as well as others?

Kage: Yeah, two clinics that I've heard of are like..In Toronto, or Montreal. Toronto isn't too far from where I'm at, but my brain always plays the "What if they have to send you to Montreal?" bit. It's frustrating that there's so few outlets like that, really.

On the topic of Medical Professionals who work directly with transgender folks that are on their Big Steps to transition, there has to be a level of..tact. And proper, whole-hearted knowledge, at least that's how I feel. Trans people have to leap through hoops in the social world enough as it is, and the medical setting is worse. We pay MONEY for these procedures, these surgeries, to feel better and properly aligned with our true selves. Disrespecting people who're working on themselves is tragic. And these procedures aren't cheap, either. I just can't fathom how there's professionals out there, working with trans people, who for some reason or another, just don't care. They're just in it, no feeling at all? Perhaps that's rarely the case, and I hope it is.

I ran some numbers the other day, just for top surgery, and the figure was so high, I worried myself sick for weeks over it. With where I'm at now, I feel it'll take me ages for it.

Emily: As far as you are aware are there any possible programs to help pay for some of the surgeries? Or is it mostly out of pocket?

Kage: That, I'm not tooooo sure about. I think there's coverage for it from the healthcare here, but for how much is actually covered, I don't know. I might also be based on certain factors too, who knows? There's a lot I need to sort out with this transition, it's not easy knowing where to start.

Emily: Have you been able to find any reliable sources in order to help you? Such as information sites or people who have had the surgeries before? Also, do you find there's a lot of accessible info for people out there?

Kage: There's unfortunately not much for in-depth resources in the town I'm residing in. Reading a site is nice and all, but I want to meet with experts in person, and there's just none of that here. However, I do have a trans friend who I recently got back in touch with, and I'm going to try and set some time aside and talk to her, she's in the process of transitioning and has some advice that might help me. I know she's going through the opposite of me, but perhaps I can get a foot in the right direction, finally.

Emily: To wrap this up in conclusion, a last bit question I'd like to ask is what is one thing you wish people of cis gender understand or rather that you wish people understood about those who identify as Trans or NB?

Kage: We aren't out to get you. Really. Though I could probably say that till I'm blue in the face. We're people, just like James you have a smoke break with on your 15 minute break, or whatever. Sure, what're going through seems weird, or scary. It's hell for us, the people going through this turmoil.

We're just trying to survive, just like the rest of us, and our path to that is just a little different, that's all.

For those who aren’t aware, a purity ball is basically an event in where adolescence girls take a vow of sexual abstinence   until marriage, while their fathers take on the responsibility of being “the caretakers of their virginity”

I was reading one of the articles about the concepts and how some people very arguably disagree with the idea, while some are on the fence. In the article Anastasia Kousakis speaks with Jessica Valenti and asks what purity balls are and what is considered unpure. She writes the following on what a purity ball is

“There’s one video where the fathers give the daughters a necklace it’s a lock and key. She keeps the lock and he keeps the key until the day she gets married and he gives the key/penis to her future husband. Very, very disturbing”

As she even states the idea and concept of purity balls are entwined with the old customs of how the father was the one who owned his daughter and how in aspects that her virginity is nothing to do with her father at all and even one source argued that it speaks the idea of incest in psychological aspects. [1]

Another thing that got brought up was how from a feminist perspective that some people started to ask where were the mother son purity balls? This brought on the idea of Integrity balls, these are the basically the same thing as Purity balls except the language of it is more of that the boy vows to be abstinent because I don’t want to do that to someone’s future wife or someone’s current daughter. This is still problematic because it’s seen in the essence of woman still being held as property.

To move onto the larger picture of obsession with virginity, even I can fall into this category sadly. I was the first daughter born to my parents and the only girl born to my father, as I grew up I was mostly talked too about being pure and not “sleeping around” due to my being as a woman, however when compared to my younger siblings who are male, they get teased and called heart breakers and mind my languages here that “they can get as many pussies as they want” 

In my words, not only is that incredibly sexist but it also relates to the concept of treating women as property, that even as a young age though I can only speak for myself, I was raised to be someone who was pure and not be a “slut” and honestly we just need to stop labeling woman for their concepts if they are a virgin or not, because news flash.

Virginity is just a social construct.

Articles Referenced:  Kousakis, Anastasia & Valenti, Jessica.  (2009, May 8). “Why is America so Obsessed with virginity?” Huffpost blog. Retrieved from: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/anastasia-kousakis/why-is-america-so-obsesse_b_183798.html.

“In contemporary Western Culture, people learn to value a certain size as part of their body beautiful.”  Rice, Carla, (2016) Excerpted from “Through the mirror of beauty culture”

When I grew up I used to be someone who was of smaller stature , mostly I was around 85 pounds and had my bones showing and was fairly of poor health. It wasn’t until my pre- adolescence years that I started gaining a bit of weight, mostly due to me experiencing a bad feat of agoraphobia and anxiety and slowly but surely weight started adding onto me.

It was at that time I started hearing family members address me and tell me that I was gaining weight and it wasn’t healthy, thinking back perhaps it wasn’t but at the same time I felt a lot more healthier with a bit more meat to my bones.

I started gaining weight badly throughout my years and it started to have a bad effect on me after a while. I felt that my used to be flat stomach was more beautiful than my slightly shaped muffin top, and that I was the social outcast among the girls who had been blessed with a godsend puberty. I remember a lot of my high school years had been spent with me wearing track suits and nothing too fancy due out of fear of being ridiculed for my weight.

I remember trying a lot to lose weight, I exercised, I dieted and it felt that whenever I had one treat it would go straight to my belly, I felt really depressed and started to lose interest in even trying. 

But then I found my godsend after high school.

After the whole drama of that of high school and relationships going down fast, I remember trying on more flattering clothing which at first got me some stares from my family saying that “an overweight girl, shouldn’t show off that much skin’ I began to realize that underneath what other people may label as fat or ugliness, there is actually a rather beautiful woman underneath.

I started dressing up in pin up fashion because I felt it was a truly beautiful line of fashion that seemed to accommodate to those of “Plus size” (Which also, I truly hate that word) and with that I felt that my fashion sense took off and I became more confident in my body image. In fact not a day goes by where someone tells me how good I look in my dresses which for a woman of my size is very empowering!.

I’m not always confident in my image and I know nowadays there’s a lot of movements about how fat shaming and body acceptance is promoting unhealthy life styles, in my own opinion however, I believe that just because I may be a bit bigger than what I’m supposed to be does not mean I am truly unjust and unhealthy. In fact, I lead a pretty relativity normal lifestyle, I just am a bit bigger.

Because I for one am all about the acceptance of others!

(Me during a period of acceptance and loving myself!)

After reading the article written by Vanessa Oliver er al, it brings up certain points on how we as a society are taught sexual education. Using my own experiences, I will elaborate.

Setting is Grade 8 health class, you got the teacher up sweating bullets knowing for darn sure that half of the class may be listening to you, while the other makes snide remarks at the words “penis” or ‘vagina.” One thing that later irked me as I got older was how we were taught,

Sure you could label the whole sexual organs of both, but yet there seemed to be a lack of education concerning those who had vaginas. One of the things that seemed to be pounded into our heads was how safe sex was key and that STIS Were bad which obviously yes. 

I learned that the penis head has about roughly 6,000 nerve endings I believe? As well as how masturbation and erections seemed to work and the yadda yadda rest of it. But one thing there seemed to be lacking in was the prospect of the clitoris and the nerve endings in those with vaginas. In fact the main concept of teaching for those was “don’t get pregnant” and “STIs are bad and will infect you forever” so don’t do it.

Fast forward to my year in Grade 11 taking a child studies class and we did a whole point on abstinence and how it was key, main factors included how we shouldn’t have sex with others out of fear that it may not work out, and that we will essentially ruin our self worth if we so humbly decided to spread our legs and ingest any penises that may come our way.

I never thought much of it at the time but certainly growing with my first relationship, I believed in things such as that sex was supposed to hurt, I was told about how good it felt for those with penises but not so much for my own. So I was essentially laying there while it hurt telling myself, “I’m sure this will get better soon”

To emphasize what was spoken on about in the article, Oliver brings up how Public Health seems to be more promoting the marriage and then sex prospect and how it leaves little to be seen for the idea of sexual pleasure and how to build on the idea of creating healthy diverse sexual relationships.

I surely hope in the future that we as people and teachers will be able to incorporate concepts such as orgasm, safe sex, STIs and sexual relationships rather than trying to fear people away from it.

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