#trans garbage

hello work it is v transphobic to have a pride event on campus and make me work anyway how rude

there’s some problems with TVOD in that not everyone is helped by hypervisibility. in fact, many are outright harmed by what often ends up being and involuntary outing-- great for your comforting social circles, bad for... literally everything/everywhere else.

but since this is my little corner of the internet, i’ll allow myself some visibility after being an invisible person for like u H ? ever, until i went off to college and made an effort to rebuild myself (and, according to some, the illo department) from the ground up.

i think i Officially came out to my friends in 2008 and came out to my family in 2009...? i started going by my name back then but ofc it all went over poorly and was considered a phase-- as much as my disorders were ignored or only brought up when they inconvenienced others, they didn’t even consider this a mental disorder, it just wasn’t a thing, it was laughable, and it was something that they humoured when i was in their good graces. 

my body’s already been picked apart for years, eating disorders encouraged daily but when i mentioned that’s what they were encouraging, the concept of me, a Fat Person, having an ED was also denied. so when i mentioned being trans, i was of course dismissed based on stereotypes while they concern-trolled me and threw outdated and irrelevant information at me, saying all trans people end up miserable and resentful of themselves. 

it’s still an issue, even though i’m an independent and estranged from my family, but they continually look for any excuse or sign that i’m one of the Cis Hets. if i dated women, i was a self-hating lesbian, if i dated men, i was straight. god even before coming out as trans i told them i was ace and that was uhhh, torn away from me also.

i was put into gender therapy for 2ish years, it was weird and mostly just behavioural therapy (and eventually lead to my psyche team declaring i was #raisedbynarcissists which wasn’t even the goal but boy that was illuminating) anyway,i later found out that gender therapy is no longer considered mandatory by a wealth of qualified and kind professionals. i mean jesus, the minute i talked to anyone at all, anyone outside my family whose job was supposed to help me, they confirmed what i knew all along. but of course as a kid who grew up yo-yoyed with just enough affection that in the absence of it i’d try to appease my parents to get it back. lather rinse repeat.

my education was held over my head and taken away for a period of time because i told the school how i identify and my parents found this out and refused to let me go if i was going to be rooming with guys, trans or not. so in the time i was out of school, i got a job, and money sucks but i saved up and it allowed me some freedom-- all my legal documents were changed in 2012.

i don’t always bind. the way i’m built, my waist is smaller than my chest so the shape the binder gives me isn’t ideal. if i bind i usually wear a sports bra over it, which of course by the end of the day is a little incapacitating. someday i’d like top surgery. it was always what i wanted most, out of any part of the standard process. but it’s hard to even think about-- it’s so unreal a possibility right now. maybe forever. that’s something i try, almost daily, to accept, even after years and years of being consciously In This Shit. 

i’ve been on HRT off and on (due to losing/regaining health insurance) since 2013. not much has changed but my voice is mine and i’ve always had broad shoulders, they feel Right now.  there’s a lot i wish was different, some of it i can change, some of it i can’t. sometimes it’s hard to tell if i’m doing these things out of spite to rail against the gatekeeping i’ve experienced? 

as angry as i get about the way i was raised and treated, by my family, by professors, i don’t want my life to be an act of aggression. i don’t want to prove something to other people. of course that inclination is there, but i want to be as earnest as possible, and develop the agency and autonomy i didn’t really have growing up, i want to do things for Me and find people who value and support those traits. 

i’m finding some who do. i’m finding people who allow me to casually exist, and to be VEHEMENTLY TRANS, and to yeah... just be a person and let go of the heavy baggage when i need to. sometimes i want to talk about it. sometimes i don’t. communication is key but communication isn’t always verbal and sometimes communication is just “hey idk but i need you to call me this” and there’s no major discussion about it, it just happens. and sometimes i need a major discussion, to say words and receive no answer, and sometimes i need answers, validation. i live inside my head and eat up everything around me, i’m introspective and analytical, but sometimes it helps for someone to prod me with questions because even if i can’t answer them, i can answer me.

honest kindness shouldn’t be rare but it is. i’m sick of being surprised when people treat me like a person.

and i’m trying to notice and invest in the other aspects of me that have been put aside in trying to do the barest to survive.

so, blah blah, i’m ciaran (pronounced keerin), and lots of people around here call me ozy(mandias).  i’m firmly they/he (in order of preference), i’m irish and french, and i wear a lot of black. i have a bfa in illustration and i want to teach young people, and help them to love themselves and what they do. i have ADHD and that encompasses some things like anxiety and dissociation. i’m with (in the same room, and, romantically) @standpreg and that’s cool. i like jotaro a lot, my other faves are bruno, okuyasu, jolyne, and JJL kira (hard to list these tbh... i love... so many.)  i like to draw, write, i love music, i used to play piano. i paint my nails black so i don’t bite them.