A Lost Ghost

Plural Catch-22: the path to happiness is lined with people who will call you fake for trying to walk it.

Fuck them. Walk it anyway.

Image ID in alt text and under the cut.

What does anyone want from us? For us to shut up and disappear so you can call us fake again? For us to drag ourselves over hot coals until we're in enough pain to satisfy you? For us to wring out every drop of our trauma history for your entertainment, just so you can discard us the second you have a different opinion about anything at all?

The plural community's not exempt from this issue. You know which systems get reblogged the most? Which systems get their words taken as Expert Advice? Who gets heard, who gets thought of, who gets boosted? Have you ever noticed that some systems are palatable and others aren't, and that people regularly throw the unpalatable systems in harm's way to justify their own reality as "one of the good ones?"

If you get mentioned under ANY blog that says they're Tumblr staff. DON'T FALL FOR IT!!!!!!

twenty one pilots - lgbtq+ symbol logo (black)

icons - please like and/or reblog if you use

That's what I've been doing and he always assures me of that too, that I'm not doing anything wrong with him, and that he would tell me if I crossed any limits. Today I decided (and told him) that since he already knows how I feel and what I think about certain things, whenever he does them again, I'll just say "thanks for telling me." Do you think I did well?

However, I admit that I can't get rid of this feeling of worry within me, or sometimes even upset with him (I don't dump it on him, I keep it to myself). Since I know I won't just be able to stop feeling this way (maybe over time), do you think I could do anything to get around these feelings? Because it feels so bad...

I know that the most important thing of all is to act cautiously and not let how I feel define who I am as a friend, and I think I've been able to do that. It's difficult to express my opinion and concern (when he gives me that opening) and at the same time not weigh in on him.

To provide more context; my friend constantly meets and has sex with other men through a dating app. I feel normal about it and I don't judge him. He always sends his location and the information of the person he is with to his boyfriend (open relationship). He always protects himself - sexually speaking - too. But I feel on alert when he sets up the first meeting at the guys' house, because then it's too dangerous and he puts himself in a very vulnerable position. In a person's house, they are the ones in charge, they are the ones who know everything about the environment... it's putting trust in a person he literally doesn't know. I already suggested "you would be safer in a motel, with other people nearby in case something bad happens", but he continues to do it, simply because it is more practical...

recency bias but, probably this one

We shouldn't be trying to define being trans in a narrow manner, but the attempt by some people to make gender nothing outside of a social construct excludes everyone who does actually feel dysphoria.

If gender is nothing but a performance, why do I want to perform as a woman? Why did I want to before I knew what the word trans meant? If gender has nothing to do with anything internal to me, then why do I have dysphoria?

This doesn't mean that being trans or having a gender in intrinsic, or that it is an unchangeable property of someone, just that one's gender is in part produced by one's body.