Crystalizing Uranium since 1986

before you reblog that seemingly innocuous transgender positivity or discourse post, here's some important things to look out for:

1. does this post uplift one marginalized group at the expense of another? specific positivity posts are great, like "protect black trans women" or "lets support intersex folks", but be sure that the post in question doesnt put down another group. examples: "trans women get all the love, so lets have some support for trans men for once" or "trans women are so strong for what they go through, trans men could never understand the struggle and dont experience even half of what trans women are put through" 🚨🚨DONT REBLOG IT!🚨🚨 find another post that doesnt have to put down another marginalized group or pit us against each other. remember, as a cis ally, its not your place to decide who does or doesnt deserve support, or to pick sides when misguided trans folks decide to play oppression olympics.

2. listen for dogwhistles! what seems like a harmless feminist post venting about cishet men can have hateful intentions towards marginalized people. terfs will often misgender trans women when they complain about them so it looks like theyre talking about predatory men, but theyre really meaning trans women. radfems/baeddels frequently omit the "trans" aspect of trans men to hide their anti-transmasculinity. if you have doubts, go to the OPs blog and search terms like "TIM" "TIF" "TRA" "TMRA" "radfem" "terf" "radical feminism" "theyfab" etc. you can also just search trans men/transmasc/trans woman/transfem and if you see anything negative, block and move along!

3. does the post operate under the binary for no good reason? does OP seem to forget that nonbinary and/or intersex people exist? does it use agab language when it seems to only be talking about trans men/women or cis men/women? does it use gendered euphemisms instead of specific and plain language, example: talking about periods and saying "women" "afab people" "females" instead of "people who menstruate". while it seems harmless, these small language quirks really build up in the psyche of trans folks and reminds us that people often are not willing to accommodate us. if your goal as an ally is to make us feel welcome and safe, being as direct and plain with your language is a good start

4. lastly, read the notes! watch out for "us vs them" language or advocating violence. even a common, unserious sentiment like "kill all men" that carries little weight in the cis world is a lot heavier in the trans community; cis men are rarely killed but trans men are murdered at high rates. watch out for malgendering, which is someone holding a trans persons gender identity against them, like "trans men really ARE men 🙄" or calling trans women hysterical bitches. remember that no demographic of trans person is "coddled" or supported by the status quo, we all live in a world that is increasingly hostile to us. if people agreeing with the post in question have this level of vitriol against other trans people, chances are its not actually a very friendly and positive post. again, as a cis ally, its not your place to involve yourself in community infighting.

forgot about mr. beard but yeah that made so upset on his behalf!!!!!

no this too. i do feel there's this. expectation. that all nonbinary people will be rather apathetic about their genders, that the "good" nonbinary people (who isn't "crazy" and "dramatic" and "trying so hard to be woke") don't really care about what pronouns or nouns you use, will be binarize themselves in whatever way is easiest for the binary people & system around them, will be largely unobtrusive about their gender unless it can be a funny joke for binary people (even "inclusive" ones).

these lyrics from the above song ("Ghost Boy"):

Take me away to a place where I'm not strange, and I'm not alone. The world's not safe and I am afraid at the end of today I know I'm on my own and I'm never going home.

always fucking hit. tell me this doesn't strike at the heart of so much transmasc pain. (more lyrics under the cut)

If your response to a trans woman saying she’s straight is to make a joke about spaghetti or to ask if she’s sure, I want you to know that you’re gross. You aren’t helping, you’re telling us that our sexualities are not serious to you.

1. Do not do age verification.

1. Forcefem started with cis men who enjoy being feminized as a form of humiliation, and they make up the majority of practitioners today. Yes, it's also really important to the transfem kink community and it brings many people gender euphoria, so that's great! But... you really can't steal a kink. There's no kink plagiarism. You're not getting kicked out of Kink University for enjoying similar themes.

2. It's not your business what other trans adults do in the bedroom/kink spaces. What causes dysphoria for you might make someone else euphoric. Don't yuck my yum or whatever. Just block the tag if you don't like it, we're all grownups here. I have both tags blocked bc they make me dysphoric, but you don't see me throwing a tantrum about it.

3. Imagine doing this with any other kink.

"Spanking is better than waxplay because it's subversive! You candle-lovers are doing painplay all wrong!"

"Bondage with handcuffs is way better than bondage with ropes, because when you use handcuffs you're RECLAIMING that from cops! Rope bunnies are just coping because their kink doesn't mean anything!"

4. The people who spend all their time arguing online about kink discourse probably aren't getting laid anyway.

Movies are more repetitive, TV shows are shorter because many people complain about filler episodes (which was what gave many shows from the 2000s their essence), and yes, then we have books. I don't know if it's just me, but books aren't as complex as they used to be (there are exceptions, of course), and I'm talking about the last few years (5–10 years).

BookTok and social media in general treat reading as a status symbol, and the number of books you read matters more than the content, because people don’t even sit down to analyze them—and the worst part is that not everyone is aware of that (and yes, it’s great that more people want to read now, but I feel like many do it because of social pressure or to say they’ve read something, not because they actually enjoy it—they do it to check a box that says “I read X number of books, look”), and… I don’t know, I feel like that has also affected the writers themselves and how they present their work, and even how they write.

Let me clarify: variety is important—light reads, easy-to-read romances (I enjoy them, as do many others)—but I’m seeing fewer and fewer books with complex plots, books full of existential questions, or detailed descriptions of the setting; Could this be related to the fact that people are buying fewer difficult-to-read books because, guess what, we have to be productive 24/7 and there’s no time for that kind of book?

And I feel that, while we read for pleasure and therefore each person decides what to read, it’s also good to switch up the type of reading from time to time—and that’s happening less and less.

On the other hand, I’ve been writing fanfiction for a loooong time, and I’ve always tried to write things that I personally would enjoy reading—writing for myself rather than for others— and that’s what has helped me keep going over the years, but I also understand that many feel pressured to go viral and, maybe, get their book published (a dream for many, including me), but that doesn’t mean we should lose the essence of who we are and our writing styles just to fit a formula that others demand—or I don’t know, that’s just my personal opinion!

And… I don’t know, I’m rambling now lol, but we shouldn’t let long descriptions of objects in a room die out, or those dense movies you have to watch several times to understand, because even though society is changing the way it consumes content, we shouldn’t lose our ability to analyze long-form content just because some stupid app is getting us into the habit of not being able to watch more than a 2-minute video or read more than two paragraphs without getting distracted. Anyway, I guess it’s up to each person how they consume content

There's nothing innate about femininity or masculinity. They are social constructs, and because of that, they should be shaped to serve us. Do you think they serve us now? I don't think so. I don't think I need to explain to an audience of trans and non-binary people that there are many, many people in the world who face the consequences of "failing" to fulfill their socially prescribed gender. And there are many people who slice off bits of their soul to fit themselves into the box of their gender, whether socially prescribed or independently declared. I don't believe that's right. The bar to clear to become a gender should be declaring oneself a member of that gender, and nothing else; otherwise, there will be people who have to choose between their gender and their self. This does not mean that, given the choice, a person should not be allowed to choose to perform most of the standards (save the ones that are actively detrimental, such as inflicting violence on others) attributed to masculinity or femininity. But it does mean that if a person does choose to do those things ("be hyper-feminine/-masculine"), it is done freely, and it is done for the sole and only purpose of expressing oneself, not to conform to a standard. And if a man chooses not to be masculine in any way whatsoever, it has zero bearing on their manhood, and the same is true for women.