Edinburgh-based root system of starchy tubers posing as a trans woman. Trans liberation, autistic pride. :autism: :heart_transgender: 🥔 :heart_lesbian: 🏴
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npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Profile Code
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2026-01-20T12:02:46Z Event JSON
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Last Notes npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Slightly more controversial addition from me: this is one of the areas where I see women being as much of a driver of toxic masculinity as men themselves are. If you're the kind of person to make fun of guys for having silly little hobbies, for being a bit goofy, could you please stop that? npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Spotted this fantastic video on Instagram about how hegemonic masculinity expects even male *happiness* to be aggressive npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie I do think it's absurd, tho, how I got words like "wuss" thrown at me growing up, because I refused to participate in the boys' displays of masculinity. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie I mean it does seem churlish, this call out. Because it wasn't only this guy who said nothing at the time. There were another two men sitting there, wordlessly. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie And there are closeted trans people out there in conservative-fascist circles, who are pretty much indistinguishable in everyday life from the worst sort of misogynist cis white dudes— just like I once made myself indistinguishable from a shy geeky bearded dude. (And acted as one.) npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Similarly, trans Reddit thinks that trans people are some way, and trans Bluesky thinks that trans people are some way, and trans Fedi thinks that trans people are some way, but these are illusions. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie I think of the horrible transphobic trope that trans people inevitably go thru a "Nazi phase" before coming out. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Maybe it's past time to admit that "the trans community" is a fiction. Oh, there are trans communities, some of them wonderful. But none of them definitive. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie That's disquieting. Maybe that's another part of the reason why some of us want to pull closed that old "Good Trans" gate again. We want the trans community to be progressive and empathic and kind and unproblematic. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie The truth is that N, and of course Caitlyn Jenner, are the tip of the iceberg of objectionable trans people. Because, as I said, social change is not evenly distributed, there are a fuckload of closeted conservative trans people out there. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie The emotionally mature position is to acknowledge N as both harmful and deeply harmed. They clearly have grown up with a lot of misogyny, and the amount of shame they're dealing with must dwarf my own. I mean, fuck, I'm picking it up second-hand from them. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie I recognised the parody of womanhood that is donned; a parody that feels *safer* than realism. I recognised the shaming of femaleness; an outward projection of one's own inner shame. I even recognised the risky behaviour, because terrifying as it is, some part of you longs for the world to call you out, unmask you, see who you truly are. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie There were so many like me. Isolated by their shame, by society's judgment. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie I grew up into a world which enforced that line, hard, and I grew up knowing I was the wrong side of it. I didn't "Always Know I Was A Woman", I didn't play with girls' toys, I didn't want to marry a man. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie I am not One of the Good Trans. I have always said this. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie oh yeah, I remember Mastodon. Wonder what happened to it? npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Cis people sometimes demand #trans people rigourously define what "gender" means and explain what drives us to embody a gender other than the one assigned to us at birth. If we can't do that, they say, how can they believe us? npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Just one trans woman's opinion, but I hold that the ideal way to recover from accidentally misgendering a person and being called out is to *simply repeat the sentence, corrected*. No apologies (or just a quick "sorry" or "pardon" if it flows), no justifications. It happens. We get it. Nobody's looking to shame anyone, only correct a mistake before it perpetuates. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Folks in #Edinburgh and #Scotland more generally, who are passionate about #MentalHealth and the arts: npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie "I love gender euphoria so much," I remember an early transitioner writing, "but I fear it will go away. Does it go away?" npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie *No, wait* npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Getting dressed, I lift my skirt to pull on my Doc Marten boots, and then pause for a second— just a second— to appreciate the scene. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie New music service, tell me what you think: a *guaranteed advert free* playlist of around an hour of a particular artist's works, carefully curated and mixed *by the artist themself*. It gets better: *pay one flat fee* up-front for unlimited replays, even when offline! npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie as usual, it's UK vs US English npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie I think if I were to point to a moment where things truly shifted, it would be over two decades ago— the Stop The War protests, and Blair's ignoring of them. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie the politics I'm being promised by the Green Party have *never belonged* to Labour as long as I've been alive. Sure, I read in history books how they used to be, but that's *history*, not reality. I have always associated genuinely progressive and socialist politics with the Green party. (With watered-down versions being promised by the Lib Dems and SNP). npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie I am now above the median age in this country. And voters tend to skew older, but not *that* old. I'm probably just about a median age voter. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie I strongly disagree with the last paragraph. The implication seems to be that voters are voting Green with the hope that Labour will return to being the left-leaning party they remember it being in the seventies. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Zeph being utterly adorable npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Going thru my late wife's things, I found the documents from that time she wasn't allowed to take a promotion because she was "business critical" in the position she was in and understandably became severely depressed but the doctor found her "fit to work" and then her work threatened to fire her and I am *filled with rage* for the *contempt* with which the fucking establishment treats a fat woman from a working-class background. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie "Man" who insists back in 2009 on a wedding announcement that eschews all gendered language such as "son", "daughter", "husband" or "wife" in favour of just using names— justifying said choice with a fair amount of hand-waving about feminism. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie and because they've been convincing themselves that this is all being done "for" white women who "need protecting". npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Note: unlike some previous threads recently this one is not solely targeted on the experience of whiteness, but about how white people treat people of colour. I invite anyone to engage with it but I ask white folks to be self-aware and able to take critique. That includes me, lol! 😅 npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie I only noticed quite recently that there's a magic word that you can put at the beginning of Fedi comments that will significantly reduce the number of silly disagreements you have here. Noticing this, and using the word intentionally, has made my experiences so much calmer. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie I would so not trust myself to run a public blocklist, lol, I'm petty, I'm touchy, and I know it. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie blocklist drama seems to happen from a place of "it's not enough that *I* blocked the Bad Person, everyone else must, too". npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie erm I was with you til this point. 😅 Being blocklisted seems to be only the start of the harassment in many cases, it has seemed to me. 🫤 npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Kid: "damn, the world is magic" npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie AI hype isn't so much about technology; it's a way of communicating within the oligopoly that they intend to drop product quality in concert. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Not only is your personality not defined by the stars in the sky when you were born, your personality is not even *fixed*. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie my favourite of that genre is "être humain" in French. The verb to be + human = human being. 🎉 npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie The single biggest thing we can all do to fight injustice is to heal our hearts of the suspicion of the Other. To stop being scared of those who suffer from oppressions that we don't, or resentful of those who escape oppressions we suffer from. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie I feel this. I post here "as a non-passing trans woman..." and people jump to my selfies and say "no you totally pass" but like there's a reason people react to me the way they do irl. I'm just *big* in all dimensions, and my voice is resonant. At least these days I tend to be interpreted as female, but that's very different from passing. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie oh yeah, "thank, don't apologise" has been a life-changing tip for me, and something I still have to remind myself. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Me: ok, so, you're selling me glasses that have a narrow band of good distance at the top, a narrow band of good reading at the bottom, and kinda just shit everywhere else npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Varifocal sellers: so right at the top of the lens we'll put your distance prescription, and at the bottom your reading prescription. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie questions such as: "are Brits in fact a massive bunch of racists?". And answers such as: "yes". npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie I *assume* mine is clear enough but idk npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie can we make an LSD milkshake? npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie on the other hand, the fact that people look at work like Klein's and feel repulsion is significant. I've always felt that deep repulsion for this sort of art, and while I've grown out of naive rationalisations for that feeling such as sneering that "a four year old could've done that", the feeling remains. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie no nachos for Nazis npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie The male loneliness epidemic: firstly it's real, and secondly we know the fix. The fix is men reaching out and talking to other men. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie I've noticed a weird attitude to Finnster like he's public property somehow. It goes beyond parasocial into deeply disturbing territory. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie I grew up an intelligent yet persecuted outsider. I *already am very susceptible* to believing I'm unique, special, a class apart from other human beings. That's the "cope" that gets you thru that sort of childhood. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Human beings generally are just really fucking stupid. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie What changed my mind? Broader study? The humility that comes with age and life experience? npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Do you know stage magicians say that more educated people are *easier* to fool, not less? npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie I studied Artificial Intelligence for four years, and I am not touching LLM AIs with a ten-foot pole. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie I think I've all but stopped questioning my beauty with "but do I see a *woman*?" npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Looking into the mirror and exclaiming "god *damn* you're so beautiful" is the transition goal I never dared to claim. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie When a human being, of any gender, is allowed to operate without accountability, they go *nucking futs*. (Technical term.) Look at Musk. Look at Trump. Look at the manosphere. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie I remember when this was first pointed out to me years ago, and then suddenly I started seeing it *everywhere*. Even progressive female friends were perpetuating it. I was flabbergasted. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie What you've got to understand about this is that it's a *self-fulfilling prophecy*. We tell boys "oh you can't help being violent, it's just in your nature", and then they go out and do violence, and we say "well this just proves it". npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie "But if testosterone doesn't cause violence then why are cis guys so violent?" npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie fantastic insight! The question in my mind is: "what are they comparing humanity *to*?" npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Good hunters know when to incorporate elements of camouflage into their technique npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie I'd like to bring to everyone's attention Freud's original notes for his structure of mind (id, ego, superego, etc) 🤔 npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Womanhood is freedom. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie But we are *not* going down without a fight. A growing consciousness is hard to suppress. They've got a lot of dangerous tools at their disposal-- book bans, internet censorship, mass media ownership, AI bullshit. But people still have an instinct to resist. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie We had to be returned to the place *we* represented in the eighties and nineties-- a figure of mockery, a message that *it's bad and ridiculous to be feminine*. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie And as we became more visible, patriarchy as a whole sat up and realised the danger we represented. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Trans women are "supremely unashamed* of being female. Far from disguising it, we proudly embrace it. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Trans women tend to be complete anathema to people like this because we represent *liberation in femininity*, which their internalised patriarchy long ruled out as a possibility. The way to power is being *less* feminine, they say. What are you doing? This must be a trick! npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie She (the boss) liked me, tho. She did recognise that I was intelligent and hard-working and a really fucking valuable employee, to be fair. I brought out this weird mothering instinct in her. She encouraged me to be more assertive, more forceful. More masculine. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie My first boss was a holdover from this, she had this booming voice and was into classic cars and would have all the other women in the office make coffee for her and the guys. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie And what that really brings up for me as someone who grew up in the eighties is the supposed "feminism" of the career woman, wearing wide-shouldered jackets to look more masculine, and lowering her voice to sound more masculine, and eschewing emotionality in favour of being "hard-nosed", and tearing down other women in order to be accepted as one of the guys. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Reading Paulo Freire's *Pedagogy of the Oppressed*; near the beginning he talks about some oppressed people identifying with their oppressor, wanting to merely take over from them rather than deconstruct the framework of oppression. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie and one thing I've noticed is that the people pushing this food purity thing rarely seem to be making political efforts to reform farming practice, etc. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Subtle French humour /s 😅 npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Marseille image dump! npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie that is a threat of violence, and should be treated as one npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie even so, she's not a fucking sexual predator! She's a woman who simply didn't dare to tell her partner a truth about herself-- a truth which could have exposed her to violence in the moment. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie hold up: npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Huh, these *are* my onions, actually. #gardening npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie how about we separate some artists from their keyboard? npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Many poppy #bloomscrolling npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie I wouldn't ever have chosen to be trans. I know this from all the times I wished to not be. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie *suddenly wonders whether screen readers will even pronounce the star in "trans*", or if my thread made zero sense to them* npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie I never believed my journey would take me where it has today. I could now claim the old label that once excluded me. I'm on hormones, I'm getting "The Surgery™" next year. I own pearls, and my hair is fantastic, darling. Nobody would complain if I rocked up at the transsexual country club. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie It's not enough that we adopted an umbrella term. We've got to keep it umbrella. We've got to resist slamming the gates shut, pushing others away. Our power doesn't derive from cis acceptability, but unity. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie I occasionally see people trying to "reclaim" transsexual as a term, and my mind plays a message: "This term is not a term of honour. Nothing valued is here". If you want to reclaim something, go for the T-slur; at least *that's* an umbrella term. 🙃 npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie There are still some who cling onto older terms (including the horrible self-identified "true transsexuals"), but most people shifted to the new terminology. The last time STAR mobilised, they were the Street *Transgender* Action Revolutionaries. This coming together was the most empowering thing the trans community has done. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie So, there was a confusion of terms. I'd see the community as a whole referred to under the awkward initialism "TS/TV/TG". And then someone coined "trans*". npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie But this distinction was always artificial. There was a joke acknowledging this: "Q: What's the difference between a transvestite and a transsexual? A: About two years." npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Rather predictably, this divided in practice along lines of race, class and sexuality. There's a famous picture of a group of transsexual women in the middle of the twentieth century, and they are all notably white, high femme, and well-dressed, their hair and pearls immaculate. 💅 npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie But it was, and remained, a gatekept term. To be a transsexual you needed to live "full time as the opposite sex", and in those homophobic times that also meant pursuing male/female romantic and sexual relationships. You had to obtain hormones and surgeries, or at least be *obviously striving* to obtain them, especially bottom surgery, which was considered to be the act that finally "changed your sex". npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie When I first encountered trans topics in the late nineties/early noughties, the distinction was still being made between *transvestites* and *transsexuals*. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Why do you see older trans resources use the term trans*, and why does it matter even today? A thread. npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie Spud's guide to friendship, for the disordered attachment lot of yas:<li>People are friends if they like each other and spend time with each other.</li><li>People don't choose who they like. They just like them, in the same way you like a piece of music.</li><li>Friendship is not transactional. It cannot be earned with favours or gifts.</li><li>You cannot "deserve" friendship, nor can you "not deserve it". Having friendships or not is not a reflection of your moral worth.</li><li>Beware the urge to change who you are to please someone. I mean, yes, friendships can prompt us to explore new sides of who we are, that's one of the deep joys of them, but if you feel <em>obliged</em> to be a certain way in order to meet another person's approval, you're building friendship on unstable ground.</li><li>Try, oh try, not to be suspicious of people saying they like you? I mean I know we all struggle with self-criticism, and are keenly aware of our own flaws, but try to believe that others can see you as you are, flaws and all, and like you regardless.</li> npub1qyr35n05fgvc30kk4xjg5lf7hnyflkskfy9tpgwzfhn9j34hh46qdhrefj Tattie "All the information is on the internet"
