black lives matter

Like, how do you look outside, see the absolute fucking danger that queer folk are in and think it's important to gatekeep or police terms and identities? If someone wants to throw their lot in with us, I'm fucking for it.

"But what if the amatanormative patriarchy doesn't take us seriously??" They literally do fucking not already. And when they do, it's because they take us as a threat and are working towards our extermination. Maybe don't help them with that?

"What if a cis perisex man starts calling himself a lesbian?" Yeah that's what terfs think all of us tranny lesbos are anyway. Maybe we meet this guy with curiosity and acceptance? Either we get another taste of the wide wondrous diversity of the queer experience, or he does. If he's trolling, he'll get bored way faster than we will.

"But what if they aren't really queer and are just jumping on a band wagon because it's trendy?" If you're new to this, look up the whole "transtrender" thing. If you're already using it, fuck off. Again, if someone throws their lot in with us I welcome them wholeheartedly. There is nothing to be gained by being queer except for the love and acceptance of the queer community, and the hatred and vitriol of the state and its loyal enforcers.

example: it’s been well-documented for a long time that urban spaces are more dangerous for kids than they are for adults. but common wisdom has generally held that that’s just the way things are because kids are inherently vulnerable. and because policymakers keep operating under the assumption that there’s nothing that can be done about kids being less safe in cities because that’s just how kids are, the danger they face in public spaces like streets and parks has been used as an excuse for marginalizing and regulating them out of those spaces.

(by the same people who then complain about kids being inside playing video games, I’d imagine.)

thing is, there’s no real evidence to suggest that kids are inescapably less safe in urban spaces. the causality goes the other way: urban spaces are safer for adults because they are designed for adults, by adults, with an adult perspective and experience in mind.

the city of Oslo, Norway recently started a campaign to take a new perspective on urban planning. quite literally a new perspective: they started looking at the city from 95 centimeters off the ground - the height of the average three-year-old. one of the first things they found was that, from that height, there were a lot of hedges blocking the view of roads from sidewalks. in other words, adults could see traffic, but kids couldn’t.

pop quiz: what does not being able to see a car coming do to the safety of pedestrians? the city of Oslo was literally designed to make it more dangerous for kids to cross the street. and no one realized it until they took the laughably small but simultaneously really significant step of…lowering their eye level by a couple of feet.

so Oslo started trimming all its decorative roadside vegetation down. and what was the first result they saw? kids in Oslo are walking to school more, because it’s safer to do it now. and that, as it turns out, reduces traffic around schools, making it even safer to walk to school.

No one cares about your favorite shows more than the writers do.

No one understands the power and importance of tv and film more than the writers who created them.

No one loves tv, movies, games, and stories more than the people who fought tooth and nail in an incredibly competitive and underpaid profession for the chance to be part of it.

They know it’s important. They know it changes lives. They know it can be more than just a story, more than just a bit of entertainment. They’ve loved and respected this medium, continue to love and respect this medium, more than you ever will.

The person who wants a show to get canceled the least is the writer who poured their everything into making it good.

TV and movies are great, actually, and you are not wrong to be invested and care about them. That’s what the writers gave you. That’s what the writers wanted when they wrote it. That’s why they wrote it.

Which is why we respect them when they make the call that this strike and its demands are worth risking it.

The people on that picket line do not want their shows canceled. They want to keep writing them. They can’t, not under the current conditions.

So we accept the risk with them and support them.

But I don’t want to berate the power and importance of their work, the value they put into it and the love they have for it, in the same breath that I am defending their strike. Worthy shows will likely get canceled or derailed and that will be a tragedy worth mourning. The writers know that better than anyone.

Your voice isn't ruined, it's changing.

If you want to make that transition easier, you gotta keep using it. Sing! Even if your voice cracks in goofy ways. Even if you have trouble placing your voice comfortably. It gets easier, I promise. Get a voice teacher (if you can) who has experience with vocal changes for pubescent cis boys if it's really making you anxious or if you're having a hard time controlling it.

To be clear, I'm not trying to be dismissive of people's emotions, nor am I trying to tell you about your own experience. If you feel something intensely, that's fair and valid. Respectfully, you should unpack that with a therapist or supportive peers.

However, when one of the main TERF tactics against transmascs is convincing trans guys that T makes you Worse in a Variety of Ways, and that you'll be ruining your body if you take it, I am EXTREMELY dubious of how many people online report any part of their body being ruined by T. Sounds suspiciously like TERF shit. And, yes, even Actual Trans People can play into TERF talking points. I'm begging y'all to stop the rampant fearmongering surrounding T.

and when i try to point out that i know several trans men who are still professional singers after transitioning people are always like “what makes you think you’ll be one of the lucky ones?” what makes you think i won’t????? i have over a decade of training and performance experience under my belt as well as teaching experience, which requires knowledge of the anatomy of changing voices. and tbh i’m furious that i was put off t for so many years because i was told i would have to give up singing when apparently what’s more likely is that i’ll just have to take some time off while my voice changes to retrain.

Men and women aren't two completely different species. It's not like a trans guy experiencing voice crack is something cis boys don't go through. Just because afab teenagers don't experience it, doesn't mean it's catastrophic for a trans guy.

Cis boys have the same issue and usually stop singing for a while, but continue singing after.

(I love this thread. All the educators are really careful and use affirming language for the kids they teach. A lot of them also say boys can be treated very harshly during this period, and it's probably very sudden for the kid. The belief (I fear) is that he's "becoming a man" so he shouldn't be helped or treated kindly anymore.

Never ever call it the voice "breaking". That implies that there is something wrong with the voice, when it is of course an absolutely natural transition. We call it the vocal transition or change.

Taking T in no way “ruins” your voice — that’s not what testosterone does to the body! Inside your larynx (your ‘voice box’) you have what we call the vocal folds, which are two flaps of skin that are very thin on the inside. They’re shaped kind of like a V, and when you put the folds close together and push air through, they vibrate and create sound! When you stretch them, the sound is higher, and when you loosen them, the sound is lower.

What testosterone does to the vocal folds is thicken them, which lowers the pitch of the sounds you make! When moving from thinner folds to thicker folds, there’s always going to be a period of adjustment — you have to remember, these are muscles, and new ones! They can often struggle to hold a certain pitch because your muscles are changing and functioning in a new way. This is what leads to voice cracks — your body is trying to put a pitch in head voice or chest voice when the new musculature indicates it should be elsewhere. The voice ‘cracking’ sound is literally just your voice switching rapidly between chest and head voice!

The period of time in which your vocal folds are still thickening and haven’t quite settled, you are referred to as a cambiata — essentially, an in-between voice. But that doesn’t mean you should stop singing! In fact, you should absolutely KEEP singing in order to get used to your new musculature and passagio (the places where your voice switches from chest to head and head to falsetto).

Tips for singing through your voice change as a cambiata:

1. It’ll take a while. Don’t rush it. It could be up to a couple years before your voice really settles

2. Don’t push your voice! There may be notes you could hit before that you no longer can or low notes that you’re almost able to hit but not quite — don’t force them! This is what actually does damage to the voice, because you end up grinding the vocal folds together, which can create friction and eventually callouses! If a note seems out of your reach, let it be! It’s better to not sing a note/switch octaves for that note than force it and end up damaging your voice.

3. Ranges! While you’re going through a voice change, it’s best to stick to the cambiata range of ~F3 to ~F4, and move lower/higher as it feels natural. Here’s a little video so you can actually hear what I mean!

4. Most importantly: keep singing! Your vocal muscles are like any other muscles, and they get stronger/weaker depending on how much you use them. It may feel awkward as you adjust to the changes just because you can’t actually see them, but I promise you it’s completely normal for your voice to do the things it’s doing! I mean hell — I’m a cis woman and my voice was lowered by testosterone during puberty, and I’m an opera singer now! It’s your body’s normal and natural reaction to testosterone, and it’s not going to ruin your voice.

Also just a side note while I’m here because I’m passionate about this — the human voice is not as gendered as people want it to be. I won’t rant on it here, but there as cis men who sing soprano (countertenors!) and cis women who sing tenor or lower (contralto — this is me!). Singing is absolutely not “boys are this and girls are this”, it’s a spectrum with a whole lot of overlap. If you’re a pre-T/no-T trans man? You’re a countertenor. It’s a real voice part, and is highly sought after in the world of classical singing. Just listen to this — it’s John Holiday, masculine as all hell, and he’s a countertenor.

And if you’re a trans woman? Well then you’re one of the beautiful and rare contraltos, women with deep voices who are ALSO very rare and highly sought after (not to brag or anything, but welcome to the club lol), just like the gorgeous Korneva Julia.

“what if you start balding!” there are so many hot balding/bald people. why would I care. 

“you’ll get acne” yeah and? I currently deal with acne, and I don’t think that acne makes a person gross. 

“your voice will change!” yup I’m depending on that

“what about your fertility?” my fertility is my business, not yours.

hi! ive compiled all of my plus size clothing links!

60+ stores listed

size range listed for most (eventually all)

Coming Soon: price info, store descriptions

please feel free to add your suggestions to this post if its not already on the doc!!

approx 80 stores now!

size, price, and store info now added to all!