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actually adding my tags. ik op also talked about Stormé in the notes but like. i really do find it so frustrating how he has been completely neglected as a historical figure. to the point where there's a lot of people who will, when talking about the erasure of Black trans people from Stonewall history, will immediately jump to talking about Marsha P. Johnson (who, while a vital figure in US queer history who deserves the attention she has started to receive from the community, did not start the uprising and arrived to them later) and continue to credit her with "throwing the first shotglass." but they don't even know who Stormé is, despite again, it being at the very least equally if not more likely she was actually involved with sparking the uprising.

and its even more frustrating because part of the reason its likely isn't just Stormé's own recollection, but because there are other reports that the uprising was kicked off when the cops arrested, specifically, a person seen as female who was wearing male clothing and was being violently arrested for FTM crossdressing. FTM activists were trying to raise awareness about this in 1989. like people specifically saw (even if it wasn't Stormé) a butch dyke getting arrested explicitly for wearing too many men's clothes and not enough women's clothes.

and yet, no one ever. fucking talks about this. no one who specifically is trying to talk about the erasure of trans people from queer activism mentions this. and we should all be asking, ourselves and each other, why? a lot of people don't want to have this conversation because it asks a lot of us, but that's exactly why its so vital to have responsibly.

Stonewall is as much myth as it is historical event, especially at this point in time. and how we choose to narrate it matters, even though we (should) all know that we will never know the full exact story, nor do we need to because, again, much of its importance is serving as a grounded myth of the birth of organized queer resistance in the US. And the fact is, there is every reason for us to tell a version of this myth which highlights that the inciting moment for queer people being fucking done with the constant acts of violence, was a mixed Black transmasc woman, a drag king who identified as a transgender warrior in Leslie Feinberg's book of that name, being violently arrested for his transmasculine presentation.

and not only is that not the version we tell, there's often no trace of transmasculinity at all in how we remember Stonewall or any queer historical events. & op is so. so incredibly right in prompting people to critically examine that absence. because i do believe if Stormé was a femme lesbian, people would be a lot more invested in making sure people know about the lesbian woman who started Stonewall. almost like, on an unconscious collective level, we see transmasculine figures as undesirable when it comes to being community icons, martyrs, heroes, theorists, creatives, etc.

anyways, for those curious, here's Stormé's recollection of Stonewall, from this interview:

The conversation turned to the night in June of 1969 at the Stonewall Inn where she made history. Quite a few friends, writers and historians over the years have identified her as the tough cross-dressing butch lesbian who was clubbed by the NYPD, which evoked enough indignation and anger to spur the crowd to action. She was identified as the Stonewall Lesbian in Charles Kaiser’s book The Gay Metropolis, and her scuffle with the police has been mentioned a few times in passing by The New York Times in the past couple of decades. Then in the January 2008 issue of Curve Magazine she identified herself as the Stonewall Lesbian in a detailed interview with writer Patrick Hinds, an excerpt of which is below: I asked her if she still remembered that night. She answered in the affirmative. After the cop hit her on the head, she socked him with her fist. “I hit him,” she said. “He was bleeding.” A natural protector, she has worked as a security guard at a few of the lesbian bars in the city. I spoke to her friend, Lisa Cannistraci, who has known her for around 25 years. Now one of the owners of lesbian bar Henrietta Hudson, Cannistraci said that DeLarverie worked as a security guard at the original Cubby Hole, located at 438 Hudson Street, starting in 1985. Cubby Hole eventually moved to the corner of West 4th and West 12th. Then Henrietta Hudson opened at the 438 Hudson Street location, and DeLarverie continued working there until 2005. “Until she was 85 years old?” I asked her. Cannistraci said yes.

also, just to drive home the point, the community ignoring Stormé was not a harmless act. he developed dementia later in life and did not receive the support that she fucking deserved by the community:

In March, Farrell, who lived next door to DeLarverie at the Hotel Chelsea, found DeLarverie disoriented and, uncharacteristically, asking for help. DeLarverie was shaking and dehydrated, and she was taken to and treated at the nearby St. Vincent’s Hospital. No next of kin has been located, and she no domestic partner. Friends say that she had a long term relationship with an aerialist and burlesque performer, but that was “a long time ago.” With no one in her life legally able to make health care decisions, she was given a court appointed a guardian: the Jewish Association for Services for the Aged (“JASA”). She remained at the hospital as doctors ascertained her ability to care for herself. When St. Vincent’s went bankrupt and closed abruptly, she was transferred to the nursing home. SAGE, an advocacy group for elderly members of the LGBT community, has also been offering assistance. Her friends say that communication with the aforementioned groups has been inadequate and a source of frustration, and they feel powerless to improve her situation. [...] DeLarverie continued emceeing and singing after Stonewall — at gay events and at benefits. Her friend Williamson Henderson, President of the S.V.A., told me that she hosted an annual gay nightlife event, The Gay Bar People’s Ball, where all of the movers and shakers of NYC gay nightlife would congregate and receive awards. “It was an event that was well known and a big deal,” he said. In Sam Bassett’s film, DeLarverie said that she continued to sing at benefits for battered women and children, remarking “Somebody has to care. People say, ‘Why do you still do that?’ I said, ‘It’s very simple. If people didn’t care about me when I was growing up, with my mother being black, raised in the south.’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t be here.'” What does the future hold for DeLarverie? Cannistraci told me that she is currently in the process of petitioning for legal guardianship of DeLarverie and hopes to move her into a brighter, more modern nursing home with a larger staff and activities for the residents — and one where a friend of DeLarverie’s already resides. “She was a protector of the community, and [her situation] is heartbreaking,” she said. [...] DeLarverie’s situation is, unfortunately, not unique, and it highlights some of the issues faced by gay and lesbian seniors. It is unclear whether DeLarverie has no surviving family members or whether she has surviving family members but simply lost touch with them over the years. Many elders become isolated from their families, either because of family disapproval or because they moved away from their families to a big city with a large gay and lesbian population, thereby becoming out of sight and out of mind. If they do end up in a retirement home or nursing home, there is also the issue of whether other residents will have a problem with their sexual orientation. Furthermore, in many states, same-sex partners cannot be legally bound, and if there is no next of kin, one can end up being a ward of the state. If the Rosa Parks of the gay community can end up in a nursing home among strangers like other forgotten elderly men and women, it is certainly a wake up call.

the vast, VAST majority of people who talk about transandrophobia are in agreement that playing oppression olympics is fucking stupid and unhelpful, but nobody listens because they keep getting talked over and silenced and gaslit about their experiences.

hi, you. yeah im talking to you. You like my stuff from time to time and reblog once and a while, and I always recognize you in my notes. we’ve never talked, maybe you dont like to say much or you’re nervous or something. it’s okay, whatever it is. 

I see you. you mean a lot to me. sometimes when I’m having a hard day, I’ll notice your name once again in my notifs and it makes me smile. im not kidding.

I don’t care if you’re a “ghost” follower or you send me asks all the time. i see you and I love you so much, genuinely and truly. you are really important to me. 

I've seen the ads for that actually, on YouTube. I feel like this could really go any way, I'd need more context and probably have to see the artist's thoughts as well, but yeah absolutely fine to rant about it. I can see why it'd feel off after looking up his father lol

Though I can't find a full picture of his mother and maybe he takes after her? Idk, i really don't know enough about it lol

Osora DOES have muscles, they just aren't immediately obvious cause he's almost always next to Arias who is a half human beast of a man. Osora is also really strong and not everyone visibly shows their strength in their build. They are also implied at this point to have an eating disorder so yeah. That would make most people skinny.

The creator is nonbinary and has based Osora around their own identity and transition

The creator has stated multiple times that Osora is not meant to be a binary trans man. The purpose of the story is exploring opressive gender roles and the affects they have on people's lives. Osora's story will lead them so evebtually figure out they are non binary/transmasculine

IDK what Osora's mom looks like, the comic hasn't had a good look at her yet, but people generally resemble and have the same build has the parent of the same SAAB

You say "no offense to any pre T people who look like that" but I don't think thats acutally the case. You clearly are uncomfortable with depictions of transmascs that aren't aligned with the genr binary. Also, as someone who has been on T for years and hasn't gained muscle and is naturally small in build uhhhh.... you assuming that people who are on T/born with higher T levels will be taller, more muscular and "masculine" is. Quite the bioessentialiwt take

I, a transmasculine person, love Osora and feel very represented by him/the story. Just because you don't feel represented by it doesn't mean it's bad representation, not everything is meant for you. Osora also has good representation and depictions of issues for many things outside of transmasculinity (including but not limited to racsim, SA, classism, misogyny, multiple sexualities, homo/transphobia)

i left a longer comment but the gist of it was what i put at the end which was: “please keep talking about this, but while you do please do not make the grass on the other side seem greener, because it’s not, it’s just as dead and unwatered.”

from there i looked around the comment section to get an idea of the general consensus from people who viewed the video, and come across someone who tentatively identified as a cis man empathizing with this trans woman, which is a lovely thing to do except for the fact that what they were empathizing with was, incorrect. something they said stuck out to me particularly, they said “i would rather live in obscurity than actively being the target of every other form of violence. being in a history book does not sound like a good trade off to being...well, history.” now i believe this person was incredibly well intentioned, but sorely misinformed, and i’d like to share what i replied to them here, if only to help other trans men and mascs find the words when they come across this rhetoric.

i said: “you misunderstand what trans men face, perhaps because the better word for this is erasure, not invisibility. trans men's erasure looks like trans men being detransitioned through forced pregnancy and it never being spoken about in conversations about reproductive justice, it looks like one in two trans men experiencing sexual assault and yet again completely absent and when we do speak up about it i've watched people over and over again rush to silence us, it looks like being denied gynecological care and left to die, it looks like us having abnormally high rates of medical discrimination, it looks like us having very high rates of suicide attempts and low life satisfaction, it looks like us falling through the cracks and no one noticing. did you know there have been multiple trans men and mascs that have gone missing or been murdered in the last month? It looks like stonewall being kicked off by a police officer assaulting stormé delarverie a black transmasculine person and his name being noticeably absent from discussions of that historical event. it looks like trans men and mascs being quietly tortured in an ice facility and the news barely making waves in community discussions. it looks like an elder trans woman when asked why we don't see older trans men saying with grief that they didn't make it, most of them died. it looks like trans men who have existed in history getting misgendered in death and remembered as women. it looks like us not being able to speak, travel or even leave our homes in more restrictive countries. it looks like us dying in mental institutions throughout history of forcefully married off to cis men to a lifetime of sexual assault. it looks like us being absent from discussions of abortion rights fgm child marriage and so many other things that often hit us particularly hard. that is what trans men's erasure looks like. i don't say this to berate you, just to educate and inform. please be more mindful of speaking confidently on things you have information gaps on. wishing you well!” 

now they liked my comment and i reiterate i believe they were well intentioned so let’s not go too hard on them in response to all of this. but i do think it’s important to push back on this rhetoric, kindly and in a measured sort of way, but push back nonetheless. 

This is a change to the interpretation and implementation of the equalities act which legally prevents any trans person from using the correct changing rooms, toilets, or even attending gym classes.

It’s more than a bathroom ban. It’s something that will prevent us living our lives.

And, as it stands, the guidance is markedly worse for trans men than it is for trans women.

Taken from page 268 of the pdf linked above:

This guidance sets out, in a legally binding code, that trans men can be barred from both men’s and women’s facilities.

While it does go on to say that preventing us from accessing any services might be grounds for a discrimination claim, that’s in direct contradiction to the paragraphs shown above, and right now is purely hypothetical until tested in a court of law.

As the news of the government’s decision to enforce this guidance spreads, a lot is going to be said about the impact on trans women. That’s good, a lot needs to be said.

I doubt, though, that as much will be said about the impact on trans men. I doubt it because when this guidance was first released as a draft I saw dozens of not hundreds of comments talking about how the only impact was to trans women, joking that trans men should use the women’s toilets to make transphobes uncomfortable.

Please don’t fall into that pattern this time, not now this is really happening.

Protect trans women, please, but I am begging you, protect trans men, too.

This guidance systematically erases us from public life. It is deliberate. We are not collateral damage, we are the target.

i am deeply saddened by the loss of him to our community. i wish i had been able to know him better personally. i admired him a great deal. i am thankful he was here. i am glad we were both around on this earth for enough time to know each other. he made the world a richer and better place by having been here at all. i can't thank him enough.

suicide is an immensely personal and final choice. he was unhoused, disabled, and without options for a life that felt meaningfully survivable. it was his right to choose to end his life, he expressed this himself. as painful a choice as that choice is, i am glad he felt able to make it with an appreciation for life and a genuine belief in our ability to fight for a world where disabled trans people never have to make this decision out of desperation again. i am glad he went with a sense of peace and love for himself and the world.

His final words on his last post are: "Keep fighting comrades, and never lose your compassion for yourself and others."

I’ve yet to see a single person arguing that transandrophobia is real say that transmisogyny isn’t. Or tell trans women not to talk about transmisogyny. Or even so much as say it’s “not that bad.”