happy meowthing tuesday

*Pinning you down under one of my paws that's roughly the size of your torso*

mouse boy summer time!

And not one person thought to bring it up.

When I was talking about how horrifying puberty felt. When I was cutting myself. When I was in inpatient care. When I attempted suicide. When I talked for YEARS in therapy about how dissociated and trapped I felt in my body. When I felt like I never truly fixed something that was deeply wrong about me that started at puberty.

Not one person said it was a possibility. No one thought "hey, maybe this kid should go to someone trained to identify dysphoria". No one mentioned that trans people weren't some weird other group of people. It didn't have to be pressure. It didn't have to be "forcing" me. Just mentioning that trans people exist and it could be me. That it was possible and it was easy. No pushing, just laying the option out there.

HRT is treated like this last ditch option. This horrific, mutilating thing that I GUESS we can give to you if you have NO OTHER options. Because did you know it's permanent? Did you know you'll be on it for the rest of your life? Did you know the health risks? Did you know it'll make you infertile? Did you know that it's deviant? Did you know that it's an alternative lifestyle for other people?

No one said it was okay to WANT it to be permanent. Or noted that most people are reliant on the medical system in one way or the other anyways (and it's not even necessary for HRT). Or that the health risks are the normal parts of having that hormone, even in cis people of your gender. Or said it was okay to not want kids, or mention that you can just freeze gametes. Or acknowledged that the "deviant" people are just people, living their lives, that have been violently pushed out of "normal" society.

I grew up in an area that Republicans mock for being a kind of "woke central". And even then it's just. Not treated as an easy option. It was never on the table if you don't specifically already know you're going through gender stuff, and no one will help you get to that point. At which point, it's still treated like the last ditch option. Did you know you can be a feminine man? Did you know you can slap a "she/her" in your twitter bio and be done with it? Did you know that you're oh-so-valid without it? Did you know that you shouldn't take HRT? Maybe don't take HRT? Don't take HRT? Don't take HRT? Don't ta-

When you've been in it a while, HRT is the easiest, most casual thing in the world. Just pop a shot on a Saturday as part of your "everything shower" routine and you're done.

TERFism is an obviously politically influential ideology in multiple continents-- from the recent UK ruling that the legal definition of a woman does not include trans women, to Gavin Newsom referring to the participation of trans women in female sports as "unfair."

Notably, despite the huge body of TERFs and the clear ability to politically mobilize, I cannot point to a single act of legislation, or even serious proposed legislation, that restricts or attacks the rights of men on the basis that they are fundamentally dangerous to women.

The insistence that TERFism as an ideology has any substantial correlation to a sincere belief that men are "mindless rapists" is obviously false, given that the most prominent TERFs in politics and art are clearly able to imagine male subjects of having internality.

Mr. Clean is trade, but not the scary kind. Not the kind you blow in the backseat of a Ford parked behind the Saint Paul Episcopal at four in the morning. It's been a long time since you were seventeen trawling Craigslist in your shoplifted Target dress. You're a grown woman now. You’re not that girl, and he's not that guy.

He doesn't try to get you to put out on the first date, or the second. Not even the third or fourth. But the fifth? Well, now you’ve gotta have him. You slip up and call him ‘daddy’ but he just rolls with it, real smooth. “Dirty girl,” he growls, and now you’re digging your acrylics in his shoulder. He can take it. “That’s my dirty fuckin’ girl.”

He’s ex-Navy, blue collar, not rich but he’s got his shit together. Stays at the trailer park down Dryer Street. It’s nice inside, cozy and neat. Man’s got better taste than all the other bachelors in their mid-forties you’ve tangled with. Bi, which is fine. Not exactly out and proud, but he never treats you like a secret. You wake up in his sheets and here he comes in that tight white T-shirt with a plate of bacon and eggs and a glass of OJ just for you. Tells you he’s got his VFW buddies coming over later to shoot the shit over some beers but it’s just a matter of fact, doesn’t have the ‘so you better get going’ sting to it. But you go home anyway, ‘cause it sure as shit doesn’t sound like fun. He gives you a ride and mom doesn’t think to ask where the hell you’ve been the past two days.

So you’ve been seeing him the past couple months now. The man’s so easygoing when you’re with him you feel like you can let your guard down for the first time in Christ only knows how long. Soon enough you’re tangled in his big arms every Friday and Saturday and you’ve got him watching Survivor and I Love New York with a big bowl of popcorn, a glass of wine for you and a can of Miller for him. You don’t need to watch how you laugh with him, or the way you cough or clear your throat. He doesn’t give a shit how you sound. Maybe he’s too good to be true, but you don’t care. He just makes you feel so safe.

‘Til one night you drive to the Love’s down the road, the one where you pick up Marlboro Lights for yourself and Pall Malls for mom. This time there’s a new guy at the register. “You a dude, or what?”, he says, right when he rings you up. Fuckin’ hick asshole. It’s been a minute since you got any of that bullshit and it puts you in a funk for the rest of the week. A real bad funk.

And now you’re damn near black-out drunk in his bathroom, puking your guts out, crying ‘til your eyes sting. You feel disgusting. Ugly. Damaged goods. Just a fuckin’ tranny. That’s all you’ll ever be.

But all you can choke out between the heaves is, “I’m a mess, I’m such a fuckin’ mess.”