Taste Life Twice

At the 1985 Labour party meet, the motion to support LGBT rights as a party was passed due to a block vote from mining unions.

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.

'It describes her in terms you understand,' Mann says: '"I'm still Jimmy Hepburn in my heart and my soul.' Kate once told Barbara Walters, "Fifty years ago I put on pants and walked the middle road." She's said many times, "I've lived my life as a man."' Similarly, she told columnist Liz Smith that she had never related to the world as female. 'She was telling us, in her own words, "I am not what you think I am,"' Mann says.

Hepburn herself said as much during her lifetime. 'She told [talk-show host] Dick Cavett, "I am a missing link" between the genders,' Mann says. 'She knew somehow that she wasn't a woman the way a woman ought to be. She had a woman's body but felt in her heart and soul that she was a man. Everyone says, "Oh, we already know that -- she was a liberated woman who rebelled against traditional roles for women!" But I think it went deeper.'"

Watching any green or blue-green mineral being ground to make pigment in these, praying it's just rough glass or some shit and not any of the almost always notably poisonous green minerals:

Erika, referencing ebenezer scrooge: You, boy! What day is it?!