Frisktastic

Trans women are women. Trans women belong in women's spaces. Trans women make me feel not less but more safe in women's spaces, for reasons that will become clear. When transphobes are screaming that the sky will and does fall in whenever a trans woman walks into a women's bathroom, of course I argue from that starting point.

But also I think it's worth examining the entire premise that spaces FOR [this type of person] are inherently spaces from which [that type of person] is banned.

So like, where are these women's spaces that don't come with the common-sense understanding that while usually, mostly you won't see men in there, if you do he's probably got reasons and its fine?

Is no one else seeing those signs that say "these premises are cleaned by male and female staff"? What about dads with small daughters? Is it really that bad if a man just plain gets lost or has one shot to avoid an emergency from time to time?

There was this meetup for bi people I used to go to. But of course there were never only bi people there. People brought along friends and partners who might be straight or gay. And oh-shit-it-turns-out-I'm-bi people who were still identifying as gay in the rest of their lives came on the quiet. And there was this one lesbian who -- ironically given a certain slur the GC crowd like to throw at bi women -- came quite unapologetically as a tourist, to observe our strange ways and, as she put it, to "encourage us."

These people were explicitly welcome. It was not a space from which not-bi people were barred. It was still a bi meetup. It was still a "bi space." I was at a sapphics' club night last Friday. And there were some men there. I mean, apparently cis, entirely male-presenting, gender-conforming men in the Women's Space™ . Some of them were bar staff, for starters. Is that OK with the GCs? Does all the terror and horror and loss at the thought of a man in your precious Women's Space go away if the man's being paid? If so, it seems oddly ... conditional. But also some of them some seemed not to be working but just sort of ... there. Maybe they were somebody's friends? They certainly didn't bother anyone. I didn't see where they ended up. You see, I was mainly focused on the hot chicks.

There's another wlw event I go to, to which a guy regularly shows up and we've chatted a few times. He usually wears what you'd conventionally call "women's clothes" but does not present as a woman. I know he uses he/him pronouns at present, (I asked) though he implied there was some possibility that might change. I don't know if he's a regular because he's a friend of the host or if he's a friend of the host because he's a regular. I don't know if something about the wlw label speaks to him on some personal level or if it's about queer solidarity, or if he's like the encouraging lesbian at the bi meetups. Whatever the reason, he's just there.

And aside from the fact that we have similar taste in hats, his presence in ye olde sapphic space also makes me feel more safe, for much the same reason the presence of a woman I know is trans does. I'm afraid it's selfish. Because if everyone's being cool about him, or about her, I can be pretty confident no one who finds out that I, too, disrupt binaries just by existing, is going to decide to ruin the evening over it. Because, you know, that has happened to me.

Except it goes inactive for long stretches of time (due to contract reasons, though the other users don't know that) and they keep a running tally of "cycles since last sighting of beloved mod34729e0427P1: 182"

So if you ever see this, or ever saw any of my posts back in the day (old url or was urieking). Just know it was all fake.

I’m mentally stable now 🖤

Time, whose laws are unmoving and inviolate. By whose decree are mountains leveled and valleys filled. On whose principles every curse and convenience of our lives are founded.

But are these not the works of human hands? Surely the sidereal stars would dance their celestial steps without our observation. The Earth turns, indifferent to our attention. Nonetheless, it is our demarcation that gives time power. Power to erect fortresses and cross continents.