xanderswillow

They think I spent my life as a boy who spontaneously turned into a girl, rather than a girl, focused entirely on "not being found out" who gave up and dropped the boy mask.

So people get pissed when I talk about being a young girl, as if "the guy that I was" was a real person as opposed to a facsimile of a person created to hide me. As if my experiences of femininity aren't valid or applicable, as if as a woman, I know nothing of womanhood due simply to the descriptor of trans.

People ask me, let me rephrase, cis women ask me,"what men think of this and why men do that." And maybe they're ignorant, but there's still some trans mascs and several enbies around here, and yet, they ask me.

Even if they are ignorant, it's a little jab, a little poke, of "we don't think you're one of us." And they interact with enough trans people that ignorance is not a permissable excuse.

And the most bizarre thing, trans mascs will ask me. I don't know if it's you want me to validate your experience or if you've just swallowed the transphobe rhetoric of "fe/male socialisation" but you, as a man or someone who has a close relationship to masculinity, know more than me about how men think or feel.

So let me say it here.

I am not a lived experience authority on masculinity or being a man.

Let’s play the biggest game of kick the can on the internet.

I really just have to summarize Thomas's entire life:

He was in a committed relationship with a male swan named Henry for 18-24 years before a female swan named Henrietta showed up and mated with Henry.

Thomas was initially jealous of the pair and attacked them, breaking 2 of the 5 eggs Henrietta had laid. However, once the remaining eggs hatched, Thomas warmed up to them and helped raise them.

Henry couldn't fly because of an injured wing, so Thomas taught the cygnets how to fly.

When they needed to reduce the goose population in the pond where Thomas and the swans lived, they dyed Thomas's feathers red so he wouldn't be separated from Henry.

Henry, Henrietta, and Thomas remained in their happy throuple for years and raised 68 cygnets before Henry died in 2009. After Henry's death, Henrietta found another swan and flew away, leaving Thomas alone.

Thomas finally met and mated with a female goose in 2011 and had his own babies. However, another goose named George stole them and raised them himself.

As Thomas grew elderly and blind, he was relocated to a wildlife center where he raised orphaned cygnets.

His caretaker at the center described him as "pretty high maintenance."

Thomas died in 2018 at the age of around 40. He had a funeral that included a small coffin and a procession that was led by a bagpiper. He was buried under the stone where Henry was buried, the two finally reunited in death.

Future you will thank you for not pinning your ability to enjoy and get any sense of achievement on having the base energy levels of a teenager.

Each of the lyrics comes from an old-time hickory song for fiddles, and is a lyric from that corresponding song.

"Fire on the Mountain" --> "Fire on the Mountain, run boys run"

Fire On The Mountain - Fiddle Player POV

"The House of the Rising Sun" --> "The Devil's in the house of the rising sun"

House of the Rising Sun

"Ida Red" --> "Chicken in the bread pan peckin' out dough"

Ida Red - Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys

"Granny Will Your Dog Bite" --> "Granny does your dog bite? 'No child, no'."

FTC #149 Granny Will Your Dog Bite

And for your furthered education, The Mountain Whipporwill.

in a time before things like radios and record players, every time you heard music was because there was somebody in the room with you playing an instrument. and many, many, many social events involved dancing, which requires music. so, if you're planning any kind of gathering in the american south or appalachia, you need to find a fiddler. and the fiddler's job is to play music that everybody knows and likes and can dance to.

the mistake The Devil makes in his bet with Johnny is that he misinterprets the contest as being about technical ability, so he has this big flashy song. he plays fast and impressively with a band of demons playing unfamiliar instruments in unfamiliar rhythms. he's definitely more skilled at playing than Johnny, and thinks he has it in the bag.

solo, so you could actually

HEAR Johnny’s fiddling.

some of the rooms have fully stocked pantries with cooking equipment, some have movies like the one described above, some have books you're allowed to just take but people always put back- every day people bring things from the outside. artists often set up galleries there. there are rooms with mattresses and hammocks set up for people to sleep. one of the room is just a place where people leave shoes for the fun of it.