Delphiniums Blue and Geraniums Red

zine i made about being a boring queer!

nothing more natural than changing and evolving and learning and discovering things about yourself.

before you reblog that seemingly innocuous transgender positivity or discourse post, here's some important things to look out for:

1. does this post uplift one marginalized group at the expense of another? specific positivity posts are great, like "protect black trans women" or "lets support intersex folks", but be sure that the post in question doesnt put down another group. examples: "trans women get all the love, so lets have some support for trans men for once" or "trans women are so strong for what they go through, trans men could never understand the struggle and dont experience even half of what trans women are put through" 🚨🚨DONT REBLOG IT!🚨🚨 find another post that doesnt have to put down another marginalized group or pit us against each other. remember, as a cis ally, its not your place to decide who does or doesnt deserve support, or to pick sides when misguided trans folks decide to play oppression olympics.

2. listen for dogwhistles! what seems like a harmless feminist post venting about cishet men can have hateful intentions towards marginalized people. terfs will often misgender trans women when they complain about them so it looks like theyre talking about predatory men, but theyre really meaning trans women. radfems/baeddels frequently omit the "trans" aspect of trans men to hide their anti-transmasculinity. if you have doubts, go to the OPs blog and search terms like "TIM" "TIF" "TRA" "TMRA" "radfem" "terf" "radical feminism" "theyfab" etc. you can also just search trans men/transmasc/trans woman/transfem and if you see anything negative, block and move along!

3. does the post operate under the binary for no good reason? does OP seem to forget that nonbinary and/or intersex people exist? does it use agab language when it seems to only be talking about trans men/women or cis men/women? does it use gendered euphemisms instead of specific and plain language, example: talking about periods and saying "women" "afab people" "females" instead of "people who menstruate". while it seems harmless, these small language quirks really build up in the psyche of trans folks and reminds us that people often are not willing to accommodate us. if your goal as an ally is to make us feel welcome and safe, being as direct and plain with your language is a good start

4. lastly, read the notes! watch out for "us vs them" language or advocating violence. even a common, unserious sentiment like "kill all men" that carries little weight in the cis world is a lot heavier in the trans community; cis men are rarely killed but trans men are murdered at high rates. watch out for malgendering, which is someone holding a trans persons gender identity against them, like "trans men really ARE men 🙄" or calling trans women hysterical bitches. remember that no demographic of trans person is "coddled" or supported by the status quo, we all live in a world that is increasingly hostile to us. if people agreeing with the post in question have this level of vitriol against other trans people, chances are its not actually a very friendly and positive post. again, as a cis ally, its not your place to involve yourself in community infighting.

for a while, my husband worked as a call handler for the ambulance service. during his training, they had a talk from someone wanting to introduce new policy and he wanted to use my husband's group as a tester group. fun, right?

well, the talk was about how saying suicide was triggering. if a caller says theyre suicidal, the handlers should say "unalive" instead, because saying the word might actually trigger the suicidal person.

if the caller says they were raped and need help, the handler should say "S A" instead, because rape is triggering.

I don't know about you, but if I phoned up the ambulance service to ask for help because I want to die, I wouldn't want them using tiktok speak and trivialising the issue. I think that would make me less likely to ever ask for help. SAY THE WORDS. how are we supposed to address the problem if we can't even name the fucking problem.

luckily, my husbands main instructor literally said "well, that's fucking stupid" to the man wanting to introduce this policy and it hasn't been implemented. but it might. we are watching language be erased. NAME. THE. PROBLEM.

“Do you want to kill yourself?”

A, it has the benefit of making sure everyone is on the same page. Self-harm and attempting suicide are two different things. You can want to harm yourself without wanting to kill yourself. It can also let you know if the person is passively suicidal or if they’re in the process of killing themselves.

B, stigmatizing suicide leads to more suicides.

When I was working on breaking my self-harm habit, one of the most COMFORTING things was discussing it frankly and openly with a professional. Saying out loud, “I’m doing X to myself” and seeing her just nod like it was no big deal and proceed business as usual with her questions was AMAZING for making myself less shameful im talking about it. The idea that I wasn’t revolting, that my problem was not uncommon, that it was actually a pretty normal response to stress and trauma, made it easier to talk about it and eventually stop doing it.

On the other hand, the WORST therapy session I ever had was with a young man who I presume to have been relatively new and inexperienced in the field because, after confessing I was experiencing symptoms of PTSD related to childhood abuse, instead of asking outright, “were you physically abused?” or “what were typical punishments in your house?”, THIS GUY sort of fumbled over his words to ask, “Were you ever…”, before flicking his hand in a “striking someone with a belt” gesture in my general direction.

And because HE wasn’t comfortable using frank and open language, *I* got to deal with being triggered by that! Because GUESS WHAT: SOMEONE PRETENDING THEY’RE HITTING YOU CAN BE UPSETTING TO PHYSICAL ABUSE SURVIVORS

So yeah. Obviously everyone has different triggers and different things that help or make things worse.

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