#lesbaliens

New mom Mal, her wife Osla, and teeny tiny freshly-out Phoenix

I sighed, looking up at the night sky, and lay back on the dewey grass. "I don't know," I laughed, "I think humans have always been kinda stupid. We looked up at all of this, these billions of stars, and we said, 'oh! There's our gods! Look at the funny shapes!'"

She rolled her eyes and chuckled. Her blue skin shimmered in the starlight, gentle ripples of purple and green glowing from just beneath the blue. The tips of her pointed ears caught the brightest of the aquatic movements, focusing the light like a prism. It was no wonder humanity had thought them mystical creatures. She was beautiful.

"That is SO cynical!" she laughed, falling back next to me. "I think your species was enlightened! They looked up, and they saw stories, thousands of them. If only they knew just how many stories each star held."

I’m melting away!?! You’re far too kind, but I’m so happy for your compliment! It means the world to me! Actually, A Gift is also one of my favorite stories of myself. So thank you so, so, so, so, so much!

Btw, that story is a result of an amazing prompt by @neptoons1998. It was my first AU (and I usually am not one for AUs) and my first Sonny POV. I’m forever grateful for this prompt.

Which means, guys, feel free to prompt me!

This is the link to A Gift.

hey! 

i think my philosophy on this is the only one who can really answer this in a truly meaningful way is yourself. not that this will be easy, or clear, or concise, this is something that can take a lot of time and a lot of experimentation and a lot of very scary self-examining your reasons for everything and coming to terms with the bad and good of yourself. all of it.

for a long time, i didn’t really know. for a long time, it just felt like something that put me at ease to think about, but something i could never really have. the very knowledge that i could be trans, when it was new for me, felt like a light at the end of the tunnel but also this terrifying just-out-of-my-grasp thing.

it took a lot to get here. there are parts of my life, looking back, i kind of joke that it makes sense that i’m trans, the things i said or did, how i acted etc… but being happily trans for me meant realizing that every part of my past doesn’t have to reflect anything but who i am as a person. the things i liked, my hobbies, what i wear, what i don’t or do like, it defines me as a person and not a gender. it’s just about what makes me feel comfortable. i don’t have to like xyz to be x. i don’t have to react in x way to be y. i don’t have to do anything to be anything, as far as gender goes. 

a lot of it is just learning not to give a shit about what anyone outside of yourself thinks. it’s tough. it feels impossible a lot of the time, and it’s still hard sometimes. 

and for me, i never felt comfortable as a girl. but i had to think, ‘why don’t i feel comfortable as a girl? is it because of what i’ve been through? the things i’ve had happen to me? because i reject something that i should embrace? because i don’t feel like i belong because of standards of beauty?’

being trans, for me, means that yes, i have had many bad things happen to me. many traumatic things that have, in some way, distanced me from what i might otherwise not be distanced from, or impacted my thoughts about a subject… but that doesn’t define my gender, or myself. i’m not trans to run from something. i’m not trans because what’s behind me is too terrible to think of ever again. i’m not trans, i’m not transitioning, because it’s a bandaid for some terrible alternative.

i’m trans because when i see myself the way i am now, how happy i feel about every part of my body, how confident i am in myself, how free i am, it makes me feel like a real person more than i ever have before. more than i ever felt under any other kind of identity. it feels right, not because it eliminates bad things, It doesn’t, but because i can still be happy DESPITE the bad things. i can still feel like myself, feel like i don’t have to prove anything, and just exist. for the first time in my life, i feel free of everything i thought i couldn’t opt out of by virtue of not giving a shit about anything but how *I* see myself.

that’s how it feels to me to be trans, to transition as far as i personally feel is necessary for me to achieve that personal happiness. it’s something i can control, but not in a way that is unhealthy. it’s not something i feel desperate to control because i’m out of control in other ways, it’s not something i “need” to control, but it’s a part that i can control and i have agency with, i know that if i ever decide presenting a certain way is hurting me, then i don’t have to present that way.

transitioning is not something i pursued to solve my problems. it’s something i pursued out of love for myself, out of respect for myself, and out of my own rationalizations for the world around me. and this rationalization meant examining the outside world, understanding how it’s personally impacted me throughout my life, embracing that nothing i do is completely permanent or unchangeable, and that i am always going to be my own support system when i need it most.

i didn’t wake up one morning and go, “this is it. i’m trans!” no. i went through a lot of things before i got here. throughout my life i have thought i was a myriad of identities, i have thought i was half this and half that, part something but mostly something else, i thought i was something… but when it feels right, it feels right. none of my things felt wholly right… except being transgender.

but wholly right doesn’t come without doubts. there were absolutely periods of my transition where i felt that i could never be what i wanted to be. that i felt ugly, vulnerable, miserable, terrified. and there’s a point where you have to talk to yourself, keep a log, do something to see whether these feelings are because it’s not right, or if it’s because you’re scared of society or someone or something, where these doubts come from. because it could be anything. it’s possible you aren’t. it’s possible you are. but you’ll only know if you think about it, if you think long and hard, and you’re honest with yourself. that’s the only way you’ll ever know. 

i sometimes think, “what if the me in 20 years decides they don’t want to be this?” then i will do what i want to do in 20 years, and i know myself well enough that the person i am in 20 years will understand and see not a regret or a mistake, but something i NEEDED, now, to achieve the fullest of my potential in happiness and in opportunity. i know that in 20 years i will think this way because i have learned to love my past self, all of their faults and all of their mistakes, and saw what i did in many ways as dealing with what i had in the best way i knew how to… which could be no knowledge at all. but i still love that part of me. i don’t feel that any of my life was wasted, and if i could go back, i would love my past self the way every child deserves to be loved. 

you can’t depend on someone else to make the decision for you, and relying on outside messages will get very confusing very fast.

it helped that i had supportive friends every stretch of the way. when i tried out new things, i had people there to see if it felt right. sometimes, it really didn’t. sometimes, in the short term, it felt okay. but nothing, absolutely nothing, has felt so right as being transgender in my personal case. 

i think when it comes down to it, it’s this: i may not be the prettiest i’ve ever been. i may not be the most attractive to everyone around me. if i “go back”, yes, someone will find me attractive, someone will love what they see, how i interact with them, but when i look in the mirror… do *I* love me? if the answer is no, if i see that the answer is no… why would i do that? if i’m not “me”, i’m not me.

don’t do anything for anyone else. when i look in the mirror now, i don’t see myself as someone who’s palatable to the world. i don’t see the epitome of beauty, i don’t see myself as someone for anyone else. i have faults, i have issues, i have imperfections. what do i see? i see someone who is unique, loves themself, loves everything about themself, explores their own body with love and care and joy, and SMILES. 

so i think when you get to that point, no matter what you decide, where you look in the mirror and love what you see not because someone else loves what they see but because you love yourself more than anyone else could ever understand because you know yourself more than anybody else could understand, then i think you’ll know what you are.