HAPPY WIDE WITCH WEDNESDAY

growing up I always wanted to be poorly understood by science

no neurodivergent infighting here

"please don't scroll past this" is a spell that makes me scroll right past this

I gotta say, so much queer intra-community horseshit dropped off my shoulders when I decided to adopt a firm policy that everyone is the expert in their own identity, the single most knowledgeable person about what it's like to live life in their own skin, and that if someone describes their experience in ways I find contradictory or paradoxical I should do them the courtesy of presuming that they are striving to express something very specific and nuanced, rather than leaping to the conclusion that they're just dumb and using words wrong.

Sure, there are some combinations of identity terms that I look at and go "hmm, I don't get how that works." I'm still a human being. But there's a big difference between not getting how something works versus insisting that it doesn't.

Idk man it’s so easy to get bogged down in all the bullshit online but when my then-6 year old cousin found out I was trans he said “ok” then corrected my grandma when she misgendered me. I was once the third between a gay man and a lesbian. Two lesbians once invited me back to their place when I presented as a man. I met an AMAB nb butch who looked strikingly to outsiders like a cis man and it was one of the more sapphic experiences I’ve had. I nervously wore a boydyke shirt to pride and got 3 different cis-looking femme folks tell me they loved my shirt. I once told a trans group at a protest that any pronouns were fine for me and one person said “wow, I’m impressed and intimidated by people like that. I don’t know that I could be that chill with pronouns.” I once told a GNC friend I wished I could wear a type of “opposite” gender clothing after I had already transitioned and so it would be associated with my AGAB and he said “You could just do it.” I’ve had cishet men fight cops for me before. The first time I had a doctor ask me if my name was different than what was on my forms I had to try not to cry. Last week, a phone call with a doctor’s office where I am generally cis passing asked unprompted if my name listed is what I want to be called. It touched me then too. I told a lesbian friend once I felt like my attraction to men AND women both felt gay. She said “makes sense.” And we moved on. I go by different pronouns in different circles. I’ve had gay women love my facial hair. I’ve had gay men like my tits. It’s all out there, I promise. It can be hard to find it but I promise there is community like you and community who likes you. And it’s more messy and beautiful than tumblr discourse makes it out to be.