Even if the person you are addressing ends up identifying differently later, that is their journey and they need to take it on their own timeline. A stranger telling them that they way they feel about themselves is wrong is not going to help. If anything, getting told by a bunch of strangers to identify a certain way will make them want to explore other identities even less. If a person truly is x identity, but aren’t ready to come to terms with that, people pushing them is only going to make it worse.

Me: Never develops strong feelings for anyone

Me: 

Comic on having long-COVID as a young person. Sending love to others who may be similarly suffering.

Ko-Fi

(ID under the cut)

☆(TERFS DO NOT TOUCH THIS POST)☆

To be a lesbian, in my opinion, is to fall for her smile. The way her cheeks lift, her eyes crinkle, and if she smiles hard enough; you'll see her face turn a shade or two darker than before.

To be a lesbian, in my opinion, is to fall for her warmth. How lovely it feels when she touches you, when she wraps her arms around your shoulders, or when she grips your hand. The way her skin catches the light. How ethereal she is when she laughs, or makes you laugh, and she grins in satisfaction.

To be a lesbian, in my opinion, is to fall for her words. How she tells you the details of her day. How she writes her thoughts on paper. When she tells you she loves your chair, or your cane, or your image. The way her letters get a little messy when she's got something else on her mind, or she's pressed for time.

To be a lesbian, in my opinion, is to fall for her creation. Her artwork, her writing, her invention. How her brain works in tandem with the rest of her. When she shows you how she put together the new bookshelf. The face she makes when she's thinking of new combinations of color, of words, of materials.

To be a lesbian, in my opinion, is to fall for her, fully, and without restraint. To listen to her heart pound as you hug, and to know that it is because of you. To make her food, and share the experience of eating a meal at the same table. To breathe each other's air, to share each other's time. To let her take the lead on the way to that new restaurant. To show her where you spend your quiet hours.

To be a lesbian, in my opinion, is the greatest thing of all.

See, we have this concept called “bodily autonomy.” It’s this….cultural notion that a person’s control over their own body is above all important and must not be infringed upon. 

Like, we can’t even take LIFE SAVING organs from CORPSES unless the person whose corpse it is gave consent before their death. Even corpses get bodily autonomy. 

To tell people that they MUST sacrifice their bodily autonomy for 9 months against their will in an incredibly expensive, invasive, difficult process to save what YOU view as another human life (a debatable claim in the early stages of pregnancy when the VAST majority of abortions are performed) is desperately unethical. You can’t even ask people to sacrifice bodily autonomy to give up organs they aren’t using anymore after they have died. 

And here’s another point: When you say that “rape is the exception” you betray something FUNDAMENTALLY BROKEN about your own argument.

Because a fetus produced from sexual assault is biologically NO DIFFERENT than a fetus produced from consensual sex. No difference at all.

If one is alive, so is the other. If one is a person, so is the other. If one has a soul, then so does the other. If one is a little blessing that happened for a reason and must be protected, then so is the other. 

When you say that “Rape is the exception” what you betray is this: It isn’t about a life. This isn’t about the little soul sitting inside some person’s womb, because if it was you wouldn’t care about HOW it got there, only that it is a little life that needs protecting.

When you say “rape is the exception” what you say is this: You are treating pregnancy as a punishment. You are PUNISHING people who have had CONSENSUAL SEX but don’t want to go through a pregnancy. People who DARED to have consensual sex without the goal of procreation in mind, and this is their “consequence." 

As a trans person that has experienced incredibly painful dysphoria since puberty, I found it hard to accept the idea that you do not need dysphoria to be trans. It felt like a slap to the face after my years of suffering, of hating my body, of being scared to so much as take a shower or look in the mirror. I had defined my experience by my pain, and decided that only people that were suffering could share my experience. 

But by that logic, I was also saying that when I experience gender euphoria, I am no longer trans. I was saying that when someone transitions and is relieved of their dysphoria, they are also stripped of their transness. I know that that cannot be true. I do not magically lose my identity as a trans person when I feel euphoric seeing myself in “men’s” clothing. If anything, I feel more trans than ever; the happiness I feel when presenting as the gender I identify as is proof that my identity is valid. So why do I feel so pained by people that can define their transness by euphoria instead of dysphoria? Why do I feel the need to exclude them because of their lack of dysphoria-related pain, even though they experience that same euphoria-related happiness? 

- Make sure the place where you’re going is accessible!  Your date might opt to use a wheelchair that day, and if they’re using a cane, best to make sure there aren’t a silly number of stairs involved in whatever date you’re considering.

- Call ahead to the place to see if wheelchairs are available to borrow if you’re going somewhere that involves a lot of walking and standing around, like a museum.

- If your date is using a cane, they likely only have one arm to hold things.  Consider bringing their food/drinks to the table along with yours– let them claim a booth while you get the food!

- Be prepared and willing to be someone’s physical support sometimes, especially if your date is having a rough leg day.

ask yourself, really ask yourself if you’re fine with plans being cancelled at the last second, cancelled mid-event, and for plans to often be “come over to my house and lump on the couch with me” - if you aren’t? don’t date somebody with chronic pain/fatigue. especially if you will take that sort of thing personally and/or hold it against the person. if you date me, you date my disabilities. i have to deal with them, so do you.

if you are grocery shopping with someone who uses a mobility aid like a cane or rollator, and that person is pushing the cart? DO. NOT. MOVE. THE CART. while they are using the cart, it is taking the place of their normal mobility aid and moving it is like moving their leg. DON’T DO IT. i have fallen in grocery stores more times than i want to think about due to an ex who couldn’t get it through his head that THIS IS MY CANE RIGHT NOW and would just grab the basket and drag it somewhere.

if your date says “no, it’s fine, i’ve got it” when you try to do something? let them. just let them. my disabilities takes so much away from me, the things i can actually do are things i am proud of. it makes me feel better to be able to do things for myself. i detest nothing more than an able-bodied person INSISTING on doing something that i can do myself, even though i’ve said multiple times that i’d prefer to do it myself. it says volumes on what that person really thinks of my abilities as a functional human, none of them positive. i get that you’re trying to help, but i promise, taking away what autonomy we do have? not helpful.

learn to tell your date beforehand what the date will entail. learn to look for the things your date would need to know. i had an ex that never factored in things like “walking half a mile” or “it’s a three story walkup with no elevator” because those things were no problem for him. i, on the other hand, would arrive at the destination crying from pain and unable to enjoy a damn thing - and exhausted in advance by knowing i’d have to repeat the journey just to get back home. don’t be afraid to ask your date what things they need to have taken into consideration. ask what accessibility options are necessary for them when it comes to cane/wheelchair access, how much access there is to regular seating, how much walking will happen, how many stairs there are. if you go to a movie and the only parking is way in the back, ask if they’d rather you drop them up front while you get a spot - because sometimes traversing a large parking lot is the difference between watching a movie and sleeping through it, or being too distracted by pain to follow it. by and large, we know our limitations and it means the world to have someone say “hey i want to take you to this exhibit, i think you’d really enjoy it! there’s several stairs to the entrance and the wheelchair ramp is kind of obnoxiously far away, so it’s either a bunch of walking or deal with stairs to get in there, but once you’re inside there’s a lot of comfortable benches and not a whole lot of walking.” because they thought about how you navigate the environment. 

if your date is using a rollator or wheelchair, make sure your car (or whatever form of transportation you are going to be using) has space to put it. don’t ask me out to the renaissance faire and then show up in a CRX and look confused when i say my rollator can’t go in that so i’ve gotta stay home.

Also, some preferred terms for things will change and evolve, and terms we prefer now might eventually be considered gauche or even offensive, and that doesn’t mean you were a bigot at the time for using them. It means we evolved as a society and chose new terminology to reflect that change.