#twospirit

some people want that advice! that's fine! but 9 out of 10 times those who want it will ask for it.

i for one do NOT want it unless i explicitly ask. for example, i'm so fucking tired of being told that if i shave it it'll grow in better.

A) i did that for the first two years i was on t and it literally did nothing but irritate my skin and worsen my acne (an issue i don't have in other places i shave so i know it wasn't my razors or cream); it only started really growing in a few months after i STOPPED shaving my face. it would do well for y'all to really internalize the fact that what works for one person (or even a majority of people) does not work for everyone, almost nothing regarding physical health/hygiene can be applied universally.

B) during those two years i was in an abusive relationship where my ex would NOT let me start growing out my beard without immediately criticizing how it looked and felt, intentionally making me feel insecure and shitty (i repeatedly set the exact same boundaries and they repeatedly broke them. hindsight is 20/20). so yeah it's a bit of a sore spot for me personally, and i want to be clear that that's not anyone else's responsibility! my point here is that y'all's unsolicited comments and "advice" about other people's bodies (let alone transitions) most often do more harm than good.

C) i genuinely like that my facial hair is patchy! ever since i started testosterone my hormones are finally like, kinda fucking normal (we love chronic illnesses /s), and i've been watching my body change in so many ways! watching my beard grow in over the last 3 years has given me more euphoria than little egg-teenage-me could've ever imagined was possible. now, i'm not a binary trans man any more than i am a cis woman, so there's a lot of personal context that is irrelevant to this post; but as someone who is twospirit (alongside a plethora of other gender identities lmao), watching my beard grow in connects me to that feeling of boyhood i didn't get to experience as a kid/teen. let me have this, for the love of [insert deity of your choice].

Throughout all of history, gender has existed far beyond the binary. Third gender, two-spirit, and other gender non-conforming people have encapsulated the spirit of ‘nonbinary’ for millennia before the term existed!

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