as the clock counts down to me sitting in a hairstylist's chair to get my hair chopped off—a clock that started its countdown years ago in my head, but has only recently been given a definitive calendar date of May 18th, 2019—i've on-and-off made an effort to help my mom 'get over it.'
this may be a gross over-generalization on my part, but generally speaking, there is a lot of silence when it comes to talking about questioning one's identity, changing it or anything else that...
anonymous said: hey I just wanted to say that I can kind of relate to what your earlier post is about, not in that i’m black but in that i’m amab and the representations of androgyny and nonbinary people I see tend to be of a white, slim, crew cut hair cut with afab secondary sex characteristics, like a white pre-t trans man. my face is distincitvely male so it’s really not possible for me to pull off that look you were talking about because I can’t fit into that narrow somewhat accepted box. I might be getting a bit philosphical but I think that society see things in categories, like the light spectrum, even though there are infinite shades we demarcate them into 8 colours, in the past lgbt was pretty much all the colours there were, now there’s lgbtqia+. So if it’s any consolation as someone who is…
ever tried to come out to someone only to be met with “i already knew that”? before last week, i couldn’t say that i have, but when a coworker thinks their “gaydar” is on-point, but that gaydar ever-so-predictably fails to extend beyond just “GAY”, mental eye rolling, story time and a mini word vomit ensue. what does it mean to be “visibly queer” and why is it that more often than not ‘queer’ is often taken to be synonymous with “gay”? and is there any such thing as “visibly trans” or “visibly non-binary”? don’t expect to find any answers here, as it took me considerable effort just to limit my apathetic word vomit to 5 minutes zzz… two days post-recording and much sleep deprivation later…
queerascat: …you know you have a problem when 3 out of the 4 hats that you own are exactly the same hat in exactly the same colors (black / gray / white) just in different patterns / materials. to be fair, though, the latest (solid black) one was half the price of the others despite being the same brand and everything, so of course i’m going to buy it. i mean, solid black is my thing– if anything, you’d have thought it’d have been the first hat i’d have bought, right? hmph. ;( more random thoughts about hats because i’m exceptionally longwinded tonight, apparently. …is it odd that i only got into hats once my hair started falling into “wow, your hair’s long feminine!” category in people’s eyes? like, before that i never even really gave hats any thought. now it’s almost like i feel a need to wear a hat…
anonymous said: I am a Muslim who wears hijab and I wanted to know if I have the right to use the label genderfluid to describe myself? Even though I identify as either male, female, androgynous or something else, I am AFAB and have always presented myself as female, so does this sort of question the validity of my claim as genderfluid? Because I wear hijab all the time, I feel like I can’t claim to be anything but female as many people see hijab as a gender indicator rather than as a religious concept? anon, you have every right to identify as whatever feels comfortable or right to you. how you present yourself neither validates nor invalidates your identity, regardless of what anyone else thinks or says. gender identity is one thing, gender (or self) expression is another. for some people, these two things happen to coincide with one…
anonymous said: In your experience, does the culture in Japan label asexuals as “otaku”, “shut-ins”, or with mental illness? Or is there not as much discrimination as there is in the asian-american community? i can’t compare Japanese culture to those of Asian American communities because i’m not Asian American myself, so i can’t comment on what happens within Asian American communities. having said that, in my experience, asexuality is even less heard of in Japan than it is in America. since society for the most part doesn’t even know asexuality is a thing, i myself am not really out outside of LGBTQIA spaces and the majority of the Japanese aces that i know aren’t out outside of LGBTQIA spaces either, i have no experience with and haven’t heard of asexuals in Japan being labeled as such. yes, there certainly is stigma towards “otaku”/オタク (which doesn’t mean the exact same thing…
the following post was originally a vlog that was submitted for the March 2016 Carnival of Aces based on the theme “Gender Norms and Asexuality.” check out The Asexual Agenda’s Carnival of Aces Masterpost for more information. a lot of people feel like there is a connection between one’s gender and sexuality, be it in the form of gender roles, “gender presentation”, sexual attraction (or lack thereof) et cetera ad infinitum. having said that, i’m not going to lie… i really don’t get it.
for many the intersection of gender identity, gender norms and sexuality is complicated, to say the least. so what happens when the world doesn’t even know that your gender identity exists? when there are literally few, if any, gender norm associated with your gender? when your sexuality itself is as invisible as your gender identity and non-existent gender norms? welcome to Vesperland, where even the most complicated of things somehow manages to become even more complicated. this video is a submission for the March 2016 Carnival of Aces based on the theme “Gender Norms and Asexuality.” to find out more, check out The Asexual Agenda’s Carnival of Aces Masterpost. …has anyone ever submitted a video for the Carnival of Aces? hmm… this video will be accompanied by a text version that i’ll post tomorrow, but please don’t let that stop you from watching the video. i’ll add captions to the…
anonymous said: On the “you can’t know someone’s genitals just by looking at them” line of thought, isn’t it equally true that you can’t know someone’s gender just by looking at them? I’ve definitely been attracted to people who I later found out were a different gender than I thought they were. indeed, you can’t tell someone’s gender just by looking at them and it can suck for everyone involved when someone is assumed to be a gender that they are not. the same could be said of sexuality; about “gaydar” and other assumptions that people make about someone’s sexuality based on looks (or mannerisms, etc). sadly, society and human interaction in general operates on assumptions, even when it comes to the most everyday of things. to some extent, assumptions are unavoidable. no one is psychic, so one has to venture a guess at things and act based on that guess…
