Kaya's Dreadhorde

I learned to hate myself for being transgender before I knew I was transgender. I laughed at the jokes in stand up comedy routines, and prime time sitcoms, and animated comedy shows, and in the movies, and in books, and in games, laughing at trans women for existing, about “men in dresses”, about people who “got their dicks chopped off”, and I learned to think that was worthy of ridicule.

And then a day came when I felt a pang of envy at what my female classmates were wearing and I repressed it, and felt guilty, and a day where I felt incomplete because I had no breasts and I repressed it and I felt disgusting And a day when I realized the only images of romance that made me feel anything showed two women together and I repressed it and I felt like a monster And a day when I realized I felt sick when I looked at myself in the mirror after every shower before work and couldn’t bear to look at my own face, and I hated myself. And then there came a day when I hated myself so much, and I thought I could never understand why, and so I just wanted it all to end. And it was just a miracle that I swerved my car back into my lane in time.

And all of it started with a joke that I heard on TV, and then kept hearing from all the voices from the ether, over and over and over, worming an idea into my mind before I was old enough to realize I was absorbing it, the idea that a man in a dress is funny, and that changing your body parts makes you a freak, and that women who have penises instead of vaginas are liars and hurt men. And they’re still making these jokes. And somewhere out there right now, just like all those years ago, there is a little girl in a t-shirt and cargo shorts with buzzed off hair watching the TV, hearing that joke and absorbing it without knowing it, who will someday have to pry herself apart to tear it out of her head, just like I did.

Her and Grandpa were in a relationship with their best friends

The four of them have been in a relationship since they were teenagers

They flipped a bottle cap to see which girl the boys would marry

Their children could have either man as their biological father but their biological mother is the mum that raised them

Wow. Talk about attention to detail.

Her anti-trans Crisis Centre in Edinburgh has the director of For Women Scotland on the Board of Directors. x

We can presume she's given more (financial) support off the record or in other ways.

Rowling consistently makes passive income on all Harry Potter products. Multiple sources have cited that Rowling earns anywhere between $50 million to a $100 million each year from royalties. Forbes estimated she earned $95 million in 2017 alone. x x x

It is a well-known fact that she earns net profit percentages on all her IP. Every time you buy any HP merch, from anywhere, she gets a cut. Every time you watch one of her films, even streaming or just on the tv, she gets a cut. Every time you visit Universal Studios or Harry Potter World, she gets a cut.

And she uses that money to do this. To strip trans rights at every opportunity.

You have blood on your hands

Burn your fucking Harry Potter merch or be burned with it.

Every time Harry Potter discourse comes up, inevitably someone will bring up "but it was my CHILDHOOD" as a reason they keep engaging with it.

And every time i just wanna scream because you think it wasn't mine? I was harry potter for halloween like 4 years in a row, i had oodles of merch and i wore out the audiobook tapes on at least one of the books. I was steeped in that shit.

So how do you think my trans ass feels? This thing that was a foundational part of my life metastasizing into a shibboleth for my oppressors? The reason i became a writer?

In retrospect, many of my memories can be analysed as a sign of being trans. But the key point here is "in retrospect". I didn't see any of that before realising I'm a girl. I didn't even feel dysphoria before realising I didn't want to be masculine.

6 months ago, I just thought I was a good ally with every sign of being cis. If you feel like this and you love trans people and think they're so cool and think being trans is really beautiful, maybe just try new pronouns and a name online. No one who matters will be mad at you for doing it.

Had I seen a post like this, I would've figured myself out 3 years earlier

and the original graphic novel is phenomenal:

I highly recommend them both

1) lewis prothero as a rush limbaugh/glenn beck/bill o’reilly type is both more applicable and way funnier than a 1940s radio propagandist 

2) it has stephen fry as gordon detriech, and makes him explicitly gay and pretending to be attracted to evey as part of being closeted than actually attracted to evey and having sex with her while she hides in his home.

3) the movie came out in 2005; that is, only four years after 9/11, while the Iraq war was still in full swing, and while xenophobia and Islamophobia were not just acceptable, but tacitly encouraged by the administration at the time. which makes the following exchange even more poignant and sweet:

Evey: [seeing a book in a glass display case] What is that? Gordon: It’s a copy of the Qur’an, 14th century. Evey: [shocked] Are you a Muslim? Gordon: No, I’m in television. Evey: But why would you keep it? Gordon: I don’t have to be a Muslim to find the images beautiful or its poetry moving.

It seems strange that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for three years, I had roses, and apologize to no one.

I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch, but one. An Inch, it is small and it is fragile, but it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.

I hope that whoever you are, you escape this place. I hope that the world turns and that things get better. But what I hope most of all is that you understand what I mean when I tell you that even though I do not know you, and even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you. I love you. With all my heart, I love you. -Valerie”

you can say sex and kill its fine

If you don't have a profile picture people will assume you're a bot

theres barely an algorithm, if you want to see cool shit reblog things instead of just liking them

follower count doesnt matter

tumblr fame gets you one thing and it is Yelled At

no one knows what the fuck the nsfw policy is

block anyone that annoys you even a little bit

And most importantly:

"This is an LGBT safe space. Of COURSE I fully support individuals who identify as transgender and their right to self-determination! I just think that transitioning is a very serious choice and should be heavily regulated. And there could be a lot of harm in exposing cis children to such topics, so we should be really careful about when it is appropriate to mention trans issues or have too much trans visibility."

apparently he (who through my drunken memory I remember only as Earl) liked some woman, and she told him that he wasn't cultured enough and needed to attend his first drag show (she also flaked on him)

Now I'm reasonably androgynous and was wearing makeup, a short leather skirt, and black heeled boots, but still when this guy came up to me when I was standing off alone and asked "So. Do you come here often?" with a very earnest expression, I thought. Surely not. This guy doesn't think I'm a straight woman does he????

Anyway I start talking with this guy and he has no idea what the fuck is going on but he is just a very kind and earnest dude and asked a lot of questions (while asking if it was alright if he asked those questions). I track down my husband and friends and I'm like y'all. We need to make sure that Earl has a Good Fucking Time tonight.

Man was completely out of his depth. At one point they put on a puppy auction to raise money for Pride, that started with a 6 ft drag queen in all her glory leading a leather pup out on a leash to the tune of that damned RSPCA "in the arms of the angels" song

We look at Earl. Nervous. He squints, laughs, and then goes "I was wondering why people were dressed like that!" He turned to me and asked "So they're like dogs?" And I said yeah pretty much. And he just chuckled and went "Yeah I thought so with the tails! Never seen this before!"

When the first drag king came out, Earl looked at me wide eyed and went "There's a dude version too?!" And I said yeah they're called drag kings. And he said, low, "Drag kings."

During one of the queens performances, he frowned, shook his head and told me, "Your legs are better than hers." in a tone that implied he thought there was some travesty taking place and I should also be getting paid

When he found out I was there with my husband (and that I am not a woman) he profusely apologized and said "I'm so sorry, it's dark in here and I thought you were a hot chick! I wouldn't have said nothing if I knew you had a husband, I'm so sorry about that."

When beemovie invited me to the dance floor with him later and I still had a drink in my hand, Earl said "Oh don't worry about that I can hold your drink, you get on out there and shake your ass with your husband!" Then before we left, Earl bought me drinks for "Putting up with me all night and answering everything. Y'all helped me have a great time tonight."

like. You gotta recognize there's going to people who have never had interacted outside of their of their own community. This includes you. And just because your community is familiar with all the right vocabulary and how to correctly say something, it doesn't mean they're actually going to support you. If someone like Earl shows up, confused and out of their depth but kind and curious and earnest, you gotta have patience and truck through the small things, so when he goes back to his friends and his coworkers and they snicker asking how the drag show was, he can genuinely talk about how included we tried to make him feel and that he had a great time

I understand that this was meant as a compliment, and I appreciate that you were trying to be kind. However, I do not accept this.

My goal has never been to hide the fact that I am transgender. I am extremely proud of being trans and I want people to know that.

There is no shame in my transness, and I will not hide that fact about myself. I will be as loudly and proudly transgender as possible, so that other trans people can see that joy, pride, and authenticity are possible.