Canuckistan

so i’m gonna put it out there ahead of time.

This is actually pretty easy to do. Case in point: I grew up watching Bill Cosby on Fat Albert, as Cliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show, and listening to his various comedy albums. He was one of the most popular comedians of the time and he was everywhere. My family listened to a The Best of Bill Cosby cassette tape on roadtrips and I have both his Noah and Frankstein's Monster routines memorized to this day. But, when how horrible a person he really was became public knowledge, I put all that down and that was that. His comedy made me laugh, a lot, and some of my favorite family memories involve his work, and it makes sad that he tarnished that by being a bad person. But he was/is a bad person and I no longer want anything to do with him. So my kids do not know his comedy routines, and have not watched his tv shows, and know of him only as a rapist who once worked in entertainment, and that's as it should be.

Oh, but had the artisan who made me created me instead – a worthy woman... ...I would say "how lucky am I"

Father in heaven who did miracles for our ancestors with fire and water... ...Who would then transform me from a man to woman? Were I only to have merited this being so graced by goodness...

What shall I say? why cry or be bitter? If my father in heaven has decreed upon me and has maimed me with an immutable deformity then I do not wish to remove it. the sorrow of the impossible is a human pain that nothing will cure and for which no comfort can be found. So, I will bear and suffer until I die and wither in the ground. Since I have learned from our tradition that we bless both, the good and the bitter I will bless in a voice hushed and weak: blessed are you [HaShem] who has not made me a woman.

Not rude at all!

“trans men assigned male” can cover a few difference experiences:

Many intersex people have a complicated relationship both assigned sex and gender; there are men who were technically assigned male at some point, but then have that maleness denied throughout their life; for example, someone might be assigned male at birth, only to then be re-assigned female when it is decided that would be the “easier” assignment, forced to undergo IGM (intersex genital mutilation)* such as a clitorectomy/penectomy, and then raised as a girl. Alternatively, a man might be assigned male and raised as a boy, but goes through estrogenic puberty, grows breasts and develops hips, and thus experiences life as a man who is forcibly feminized and denied his gender identity as a man, and so feels his gender is more trans than cis.

Otherwise, many people who identify that way are nonbinary, genderqueer, and gender-non-conforming men who feel their manhood is trans, while also having been assigned male. This can be for a lot of reasons. I can say that I myself was raised as a “girl” (technically) but am multigender, have always felt any womanhood I possessed was inherently trans, and after having gone on testosterone HRT “trans woman” increasingly just made sense on every level. I am sexed by random strangers as male or female depending on the day and my presentation, and I am frequently read as a trans woman assigned male in public. My womanhood exists within the context of me also being a man, and agender and neutrois and maverique, and my body which has been reshaped by testosterone, and so there really is no context where my womanhood is cis (I am also intersex but it doesn’t play as big a role in my womanhood as it may for others). Trans men assigned male can have similar experiences, although they can have many others! Some are be plural, some are be former trans women who now feel “man, but trans” better captures their identity, some are nonbinary people who are more “man-adjacent” or have some connection to manhood (such as being gay men) while still being very much a nonbinary/genderqueer individual, etc etc.

Notably, if someone says “I am a trans man who was assigned male because xyz,” that doesn’t mean they think that being a trans man assigned female requires xyz. When I point to my multigenderedness or my androgynous body as part of my identity as a trans woman, I am not saying “being a trans woman is defined by being partially male or physically androgynous.” Rather, I am a woman who has a trans body and a trans identity, and I am also transfeminized regularly in public, so on both a personal and social level it is something that makes sense to apply to myself, although I don’t talk about it often because people have not historically been the chillest about it. But its gotten a lot more discussed as of late, and people have even started pushing away from using AGAB entirely, so I’ve decided to be a bit more open about it.

Anyways! That’s why I wanted to shout out trans men assigned male <3 I love my brothers in not being defined by what people thought of our genitals at birth, I love my brothers in transsexuality and genuinely for real changing your sex, I love my brothers in nonbinarity and genderqueerness and the experience of being binary in a nonbinary way, I love my brothers in being denied validity in the very category you were forced into because you were a weird little queer from childhood.

can cover a few difference

experiences:

Comfortable.......

If you think "children should not be allowed in this space," you HAVE TO reckon with the fact that you are now excluding parents (and very often women specifically) who don't have access to childcare. You are isolating people who are poor, or rural, or single parents, or any number of other factors that might prevent someone from having on-demand childcare. You are cutting them off from being able to exist in public. You are denying parents and children the ability to fully participate in society.

My mom spent several years only leaving the house to buy groceries or take me to school, and even then, people would still come up to her to complain TO HER FACE about how she shouldn't bring a crying toddler to Walmart. Entitled strangers would literally try and demand that my mom leave and come back without the kids.

"Why can't your husband watch them?" Because he was at work, usually working extreme amounts of overtime so we didn't get evicted, because landlords don't like it when you stop paying rent.

"Why can't you send them to daycare?" Because that costs money.

"Why can't your teenager stay home with them and babysit?" Because I also deserved to be able to leave the house for something other than school, and taking me to the grocery store was how my mom taught me to manage a household budget, shop sales, and meal plan.

"Don't bring your kid in public if you can't CONTROL them and make them stop crying!" Kids cry when they're upset, and being dragged around a store is upsetting! Don't be an asshole! Children are human beings who are still learning how the world works, and they don't have a lot of agency. You'd cry, too.

"Spank them until they learn to stop crying!" That's just straight-up child abuse, Jesus Christ.

I have blocked multiple people who went on tirades about how I'm a "horrible breeder" who is "contributing to overpopulation" and how I and my "spawn" deserve to be trapped at home. (I am infertile and my foster kid is an adult now, so I don't know what breeding and spawn they think they're talking about.)

One person asked if I was posting ragebait for fun because "this isn't a real issue." Several have asked if this "really happens" and told me that my "experience isn't universal." (There are multiple parents in the comments who have agreed with me and talked about how hard it is to navigate the world with their kids.)

Children are an oppressed class who are treated like absolute vermin. Parents are given absolutely no support in caring for them. Good parents are set at a disadvantage even when they have all the best intentions, struggling parents aren't given resources to improve their situation or get community assistance, and blatantly abusive parents don't get caught because hitting and screaming and controlling are considered perfectly normal ways to treat a child. Communities would rather shut kids away where they can be ignored and forgotten and mistreated, all for the sin of "being annoying in public."

Youth liberation is vital, regardless of whether you, personally, like kids. You cannot ban children from public. You cannot shut children away in isolation and expect them to grow into happy, healthy, well-adjusted adults who can function in our society. You do not get to demand children be removed from every corner of public life all for your personal comfort.

good practical reflection for artists who feel like whatever theyre making just isnt working is the sit down and VERY HONESTLY ask yourself: what is the gift here? it can be a lot of things. what am i giving to myself? to the world? what feeling? what expression? art that resonates is art that GIVES

i think this is part of why theres such a disconnect for people who try to make 'art with ai.' if you REALLY ask yourself 'what is my gift here with this ai art?' the answer is nothing. no story to give, or real feeling, or new idea. then these folks they are confused when it doesnt resonate

mysterious stick appears out of thin air............