Mirror System

Ask more questions. Every system is different, and there's no universal answer for most things. If you want to support the systems in your life, then ask them how they want to be supported.

I might point you at the plural etiquette questionaire if you want some ideas on what to ask, but don't be afraid to branch out.

Don't assume that one system's preferences are going to generalize to another system. Every plural group is going to work a bit differently. If you've met one system, then you've met one system.

Follow through on what you've learned. If a system says that they want you to know them individually, and you agree to do that, then put in the effort. Ask who's around, learn to spot them, and build relationships with each of them. Don't make a promise that you can't keep. It hurts when someone says that they support you and then does absolutely nothing to act on that support.

It's fine if you need some support yourself as you learn how to navigate interacting with your plural friends, but don't give up on trying if you struggle. Have a conversation about it instead. Folks can probably help you figure out whatever you're stuck on.

So recently I got an ask from a Mexican teen who shared some life experiences that put right back into perspective how brutal this kind of reaction is, even if it comes from people who feel they mean well. I'd kind of tuned that out of my brain due to force of habit over the years, but... Yeah, it does feel like that, doesn't it.

yknow what aggravates me is how both hepburn & pauli murray (and potentially LM alcott although I know less about them) are people we, i think, can generally consider part of transmasculine history based on how they described themselves. we can't know what modern words they would have used, but they share many experiences with people who today identify as transmasc, so they should be recognized as part of our history. and both are credited for their anti-patriarchal actions and defying of gender roles. & with both I see this assumption that if they were cis women, every act of gender non conformity and defiance of stereotypes around women was them fighting for women's rights– but if they were transmasc, then their motivations must have been entirely selfish and essentially feminist on accident. they just appeared feminist because they were cis men in the bodies of women, basically. the experience of cis womanhood is seen as a valid motivator for resisting patriarchy, but not transmasculinity. why? why is it assumed that transmascs are selfish and keen to go along with the patriarchy, or only resist based on the notion that they think they personally shouldn't experience misogyny because they aren't women?

if someone puts on pants and defies misogynistic demands put on women and they are a cis women, they are a feminist icon, but if they do the same thing and are transmasc, its... a disapointment? patriarchal? i wish so badly that we can get to a point where people can appreciate transmasculinity as something radical and which can be a powerful motivator for feminist action in and of itself. i wish we can get to a point where transmasculinity and feminism are not treated like oil and water, where transmasculinity isn't seen as a corrupted failed version of proper womanhood (whether that's being a housewife or a "womyn-identified womyn").

and it especially hurts when it comes to those two figures because neither of them were able to be openly transmasc. pauli murray was labeled schizophrenic and nearly institutionalized for trying to seek HRT and by the time transmasc healthcare started being more widely performed, they were under heavy scrutiny already as a civil rights activist working in the government. hepburn's entire career was, ultimated, based on them being a beautiful actress. i will never stop thinking of how many transmasculine ancestors just... held those feelings close to their chest and played the role of woman for the sake of their spouse or their children or their job or their politics. and how we're expected to celebrate this as the ultimate feminist gesture which any possible transmasculinity threatens the legitimacy of.

on this note. there are already so many rules for when you are "allowed" to describe a historical figure could be transmasc (even though that term is extremely broad and includes many kinds of identities). there is such a SPECIFIC kind of narrative we are taught to expect from transmasc history. masculine cis-passing heterosexual man (9/10 white) completely disconnected from his childhood or past living as a woman, who lives a life near indistinguishable from a cis man until he's outed.

one can't help but wonder just how much transmasc history gets buried and erased and "we just can't possibly say!"-ed because trans men&mascs are not allowed to exist outside of a narrative that makes misogyny a footnote at best.

like, i saw another post on Jimmy in which someone in the notes basically summed up their perspective of their gender as "maybe she was a trans man maybe she just didn't like the expectations of women." i mentioned the pauli murray thing above. its always always always "trans OR feminist" "trans OR navigating misogyny" and with Jimmy, Lou, and Pauli, all three of them could very easily have been transmasculine people who simply did not / could not run away and start an entirely new life completed dissociated from anyone who ever knew them and spend their entire life hiding.

Yes, it is wrong to conflate aspec identities with trauma, and it is wrong to say to an aspec person something along the lines of "what happened to make you this way." But it's not wrong because the idea of orientation and trauma being related is absurd and harmful. It's wrong because (1) that's just a deeply inconsiderate thing to say to a person, whether it's true or not, and (2) it implies that aromanticism and asexuality are an affliction that you acquire and something to be fixed, not a neutral or natural state of being and a part of one's identity.

I think in addition to those points, though, and perhaps most crucially: (3) it suggests that "healing" from one's trauma is about reverting back to baseline, back to "normal", back to who you were before, and that just isn't how it works. We already know that trauma and other experiences can rewire how your brain and body work, sometimes permanently; why should one's orientation be exempt from that?

If someone has had experiences, negative or otherwise, that lead them to feel most comfortable using an aspec label, or being in aspec spaces, and they don't feel any need to change that or go back to how they "used" to be, who am I to begrudge them the language and community that helps them make sense of their reality? Who am I to judge someone's reasons for putting a label on something as nebulous and individual and socially constructed as their sexuality, just because I feel I was "born" this way? If someone's reasons for identifying this way make you uncomfortable, why? And why should your comfort dictate what language others can use for themselves?

I am very tired of the narrative that there is a sexuality/romantic orientation/gender/whatever else that you are inherently born as and if something "happens" to make you something else then it should be fixed. I already hear enough that my aromanticism and asexuality are things to be fixed, and this is how I've always been. Why would I ever want to project such an idea onto other aspec people, just because their reasons for identifying as aspec are different or perhaps even transient? It is of no material threat to me whatsoever. In fact, I think people having the language and the support to make sense of their lives and to build a life without romance and/or sex, if that's what they want, can only ever be a good thing, regardless of why they want it. They're all welcome on my shores.

And then when their actual child as they exist in real life does not match the model they made up in their heads they think this is the result of some kind of corruption or indoctrination.

They cry "trans cult" and "rapid onset gender dysphoria" and try to force their child to reshape themselves into the imaginary one that only existed in the parent's mind, which they consider the child's "true" identity.

Over 90% of parents of visibly intersex children opt for cosmetic surgery on their infants.

The ones that don't experience medical violence then, likely experience it as a teenager.

I didn't.

I am very rare in that I did not experience medical violence.

Why? Because I learned what intersexuality was as a young age, and I actively fought against what doctors wanted to do to me. All the way down to legal research on what medical care minors can be forced into. I remember walking into that doctor's appointment with the state law written down that proved that if I did not consent they could not do surgery.

my secondborn (my parents)

7/10

sounds vaguely historical but in the way that I'm going to be sent off to war to prevent a succession crisis

potentially confusing to the listener bc the average conversation has little relation to birth order

my sister's, [name] (my aunt)

9/10

direct and to the point!

still very clear about what our family relationship is. I think we can do away with many nouns if this is any indication

my young adult child (my mom)

4/10

it's giving "20 year old minor"

I promise you can just say my kid. it's ok I don't mind strangers thinking I'm like 5 bc that would make me a prodigy for doing stuff like my laundry and dishes in one day and honestly I could use that kind of support

my liberated one (my grandma)

10/10 THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT

completely unclear what my relationship actually is to her. her personal oracle perhaps?