One of my favorite tricks for designing alien species/cultures is to take a real animal with an interesting lifecycle and think about what that biology would translate to if they had human intelligence
Example: silk moths as a base species
Because the moths themselves don’t eat and only live long enough to mate and then starve to death, the entire culture is made up of children and adolescents. The older children raise the younger ones, with families being made up of hatchmates from different years.
Because molts and eventual transformation into a short lived adult happen on a set schedule, families have a cycle— when your oldest set of siblings cocoon to become adults, you wait at the mating grounds and try to adopt their newborns after they pass. If that fails, you take any ‘orphans’ you can find.
Because death and birth are nearly simultaneous, they have a religion based around reincarnation, and infants with markings similar to a parent are often given their name. Claiming the offspring of a beloved family member is vitally important, because you want to be able to protect their soul and keep them close.
Because it’s hard to track the offspring of your male family members, there are sometimes major fights when a family sees an infant with familiar markings in another family’s clutch.
Between mating seasons, their culture is extremely food-oriented, because everyone is growing and silkworms eat nigh constantly. They spend most of their lives outdoors but sleep and shelter from bad weather in large family dwellings made from wood and the remains of the silk cocoons of prior generations.
everyone is really vibing with the silkworm aliens I see
i think posts like this show just how utterly disconnected other trans people are from the actual experiences of trans men, and just from trans men in general. bc a lot of y’all literally cannot comprehend that trans men experience anything besides getting misgendered occasionally and having to wear a binder. y’all think that’s the extend of trans masculine existence. because most of y’all do not fucking care to learn a damn thing about us.
we are literally talking about all of the things the second poster mentioned. we are talking about our rates of sexual assault and murder, we’re talking about medical transphobia, we’re talking about employment discrimination, public harassment, how the repeal of roe v wade affects american trans men, etc.
but you know what happens when we do that?
we get told to shut the fuck up.
so like. you gotta pick one. you can’t claim trans men aren’t talking about Serious Stuff that affects us and then actively silence us when we are literally talking about Serious Stuff that affects us.
I’m like. CONSTANTLY advising people to take self defense classes and learn how to use a weapon of their choice. I myself carry at least one knife no matter where I go???
When discussing packers there’s concerns about the glance test, the squeeze test, how real it looks and feels, whether it would get you clocked in a bathroom or in an assault situation. Like every site that rates packers that I’ve ever been to discusses these things for safety.
It’s not my fault if the very real physical and sexual violence we face is erased from knowledge, and it certainly doesn’t make it any less real.
Glad you mentioned the squeeze test, this is something I’ve had to teach other trans men, to make sure we don’t get clocked in a club, bathhouse, or any other place where a cis woman or cis man thinks it’s OK to grope our crotch because consent doesn’t count when you pass as a man. I’ve been gropped, touched without my permission, and hit far more as a man than I ever was as a woman.
For trans men who don’t know about the squeeze test. When you get a soft packer, you should put it on adjust it, so it sits right in your boxers and then squeeze your packer, grab it like someone is gropping you, you want to make sure it doesn’t feel rigid, squeeze the fat on your stomach (or if you have breasts, that fat) it should feel similar to that. If you have a partner with a natal phallo, and they don’t have bottom dysphoria, ask if you can cope a feel to compare.
If someone grabs your crotch at a party, and it’s obvious that your packer is not a natal phallo you can get clocked, especially in a bathhouse (an issue I have had before, and I was removed from the bathhouse by security, because the man who gropped me left to make a complaint about a “female” being in the gay bathhouse). I was lucky that it was anonymous, cause if that guy wanted to he could have charged me with Sexual Assault for not disclosing that I was transgender despite the fact that he gropped me without permission while i was giving oral to another guy.
Hard packers and semi-soft packers are harder (no pun intended) to past the squeeze test, so I don’t recommend wearing a hard packer out to the club and only wearing a semi-soft to a straight nightclub or a strip club, where you’ll be less likely to be touched.
And in regard to violence, there are trans men murdered every year with their corpses genitals mutilated, frequently they are transmasc children.
Other fun issues include: forced detransition, having our bodies weaponized as the reason why trans children shouldn’t get to transition, the highest rate of sexual assault among all trans people and all other demographics, the highest rate of suicide among all trans people and all other demographics, the highest rate of medical abuse among all trans people (the only demographic higher is that of black women), the highest amount of abuse during pregnancy of all demographics, no legal protections to abortion even in states that have abortion protection, no legal protections to birth control pills in any state, forced detransition to get access to an abortion, forced detransition to get access to homeless shelters, forced detransition to get any “female” medical care in many states, being denied surgery if you are autistic in several states, being denined surgery if you are mentally ill, depressed, or suicidal (even if not having surgery is what causes those issues), out HRT is only possible through either medical professionls or the black-market (no grey-market or DIY of our hormones are allowed, and can result in being sent to federal prison), speaking of prison - we often fear changing our gender marker because a “M” can get us sent to men’s prison – and not one wants to be the man with a vagina in prison, and MUCH MUCH more!
newly out trans women are getting a crash course education on safety in a misogynistic world. anyone that grew up seen as a woman has lived this reality their entire life, so things that seem like pressing & new information to transfems & trans women who’ve only been out a few years at most are common knowledge among trans men. the importance of learning basic self defense skills is already a given. people posting information targeted at trans men are not going to focus on something trans men will very likely already know. (edit bc some people have misunderstood my meaning and i want to be clear: misogyny & transmisogyny start well before many people even realize they’re trans, but the difference is what information people think you need to know when you start puberty. if you’re not seen as a woman at the time, safety information targeted towards women likely won’t be shared with you. it’s a difference in information access & education - see also gender-divided family life & sex education programs.)
fun fact (/s), it’s more dangerous to carry a knife than to go without if you are untrained due to the risk of a more skilled attacker commandeering the knife from you! now your attacker is stronger than you and has a knife. don’t carry a knife unless you know how to use it, and don’t take self defense weapon recommendations from people who aren’t trained well enough to teach someone how to use those weapons.
also, carrying a weapon makes you a threat in the eyes of the legal system & the public, especially if you’re Black or brown. you open yourself up to additional risk of arrest & assault the minute someone identifies a weapon on your person, and concealed carrying of weapons can bring increased charges in the event you’re arrested. changing gender markers automatically outs you as trans when you seek healthcare, especially reproductive healthcare. it also outs you to the state. murders of transmascs & trans men aren’t even reported as hate crimes due to deliberate erasure of our transness & gender identities.
and finally, i typed up a whole thing to talk about this but i think it’ll be more concisely explained by just saying this: trans people who get periods can’t always avoid public restrooms. look up toxic shock syndrome.
to the people saying shit like this, please stop acting like trans men have zero real issues when you don’t listen to them to begin with. oppression of transmasculinity is largely based in erasure, fearmongering, and misinformation; i beg other trans people not to reinforce or ridicule this reality by framing it as though trans men don’t talk about any real issues. you don’t know what they’re talking about precisely because of that erasure.
additional edit: i do not intend for any of this to come across as combative or argumentative, i am simply trying to provide some explanation and additional context regarding the specific issues the two original posters mentioned in the screenshot, & some of the ways transmascs & trans men face those issues that might differ from their own knowlege and experiences. i want the original posters to understand why different communities of trans people might have different priorities than they do.
Holy fuck, read that post, pls.
?
I meant that i ask my followers to read that post as it is so hardbreaking what kind of reality a lot of trans men and trans mascs face and i wanted to shed light on the issue by reblogging, sorry that i confused you
saw someone refer to not knowing how to keep track of your money as “girl math” ……why are we in this weird era of treating women like idiots but repackaging it to sound cute and quirky. We All Need To Stop
im a short (around the 5ft mark) teenage, pre t trans boy. im mixed, half east asian half white. i look pretty white, and have the features of my chad faced (lol) white father. my sisterhas the face of my asian mother. guess who, despite her being 2+ years older than me, looks more babyish and youthful (and feminine)? my sister lol
i'm not implying all asian people look hyper feminine. but a lot do. my white side has given me fairly broad shoulders, a sharp facial profile and other features associated with masculinity. i pass pretty well due to this luck. i know some asian trans guys my age, and i notice the difference in the way we're treated.
all of my non white trans friends pass better the more '''white''' they look (me included). 'passing' is just a whole load of racism me thinks
i’m not black so obviously take this next thing with a grain of salt, but what i’ve heard from a lot of black trans men is that they felt like they “passed” sooner, but only because they were already masculinized when they were being perceived as black women. so yeah passing is definitely heavily affected by race, in so many ways.
AND many black trans mascs “pass sooner” only around nonblack people. When I started passing around other black people, that’s when I knew I was *actually* passing. White people been thinking I was a boy since I was 5, do you know how many times I’ve been beaten up and called a man by my classmates while wearing a frilly dress and pigtail braids? Black girls and black women are so often forcibly degendered and masculinized ESPECIALLY if they have literally any hint of anything except ultra-femininity (and sometimes, even if they do!) that it boggles my mind when people say that’s Actually A Good Thing when it happens to a trans masc that hasn’t figured himself out yet.
anyway jeff bezos could eradicate homelessness. he could literally give each homeless person 100k and it would only take less than .5% of his entire wealth. what the actual god giving fuck
Why do you think they deserve it
Well shelter is a basic need, and would at the very least allow them a place where they can get back on their feet. Food water and shelter are necessary for a healthy body and psychology. There’s also the fact that they’re people too, and a little help goes a long way in making a decent community. There’s plenty of reasons
Yeah they need stuff, but why does every homeless person deserve 0.5% of someone’s income
You have five hundred apples, and just one day to eat them all.
You pass by a small crowd of hungry children, and decide you’d rather 455 apples go rotten than give them to some snotty brat who isn’t your problem.
It doesn’t matter how hard you’ve worked for your 500 apples, or that you aren’t the parent of any of those kids. in the moment you decide to walk away, it doesn’t matter why they’re hungry, or who owes who what.
You had the opportunity to help people, you had the ability to help people, you had the resources to help people. You had everything you needed to make a small, tiny little difference in someone’s life, and you decided not to.
What are you going to buy in your lifetime that’s worth more to you than your own humanity?
What are you going to buy in your lifetime that’s worth more to you than your own humanity
Thematically speaking, the most important thing Terry Pratchett taught me was the concept of militant decency. The idea that you can look at the world and its flaws and its injustices and its cruelties and get deeply, intensely angry, and that you can turn that into energy for doing the right thing and making the world a better place. He taught me that the anger itself is not the part I should be fighting. Nobody in my life ever said that before.
More lessons from Pratchett:
Good isn’t always nice (i.e. sometimes appearing nice is a luxury you can’t afford if you want to do the right thing) (this refers to setting bones and fighting evil, not to being pointlessly horrible)
Evil can appear very nice indeed (watch out for people who smile while they deny your basic humanity)
People can suck, be rude and actively work against their own best interests, but personkind is still something we must protect so they can keep being wonderful in between all the stupid
“Person” is always a broader category than you think
It’s not about who’s best for the job - it’s about who shows up and does it
Be very aware of how you treat those in your power; you will be judged on it
Respect women, which explicitly includes trans women (with or without beards and steel-toed boots)
Kings: no. Hard-boiled eggs: yes
No one - not military leaders, not kings, not patricians, not gods - no one is beyond consequences or above justice
Addendum: those who think they are are often the worst of the worst
Kids understand more than we think and sometimes the best way to protect innocence is to arm them with knowledge, confidence, and skill
How you’re born is intrinsically less important and less relevant than who you make yourself into
I can’t put it into a pithy sentence but that bit where Magrat is like “let’s toss [Lily] off the tower” and Nanny answers with “go ahead then” and Magrat hesitates bc it’s easier to do something like that together than to make the decision alone… impactful.
i’m regularly astounded by the cognitive dissonance some of yall have to accept that gender is a social construct with infinite possibilities with the capacity to be deeply personal and individual but still think there’s a list of like 4 acceptable sexual orientations and if you go outside of that list or mix entries on that list or relate to them in a non-traditional way not only are you Breaking The Rules you’re personally directly harming people who follow them
I think in star trek there should be more characters whose names are from different alien cultures. I want there to be the most average looking human enseign who shows up like hi my names vaurik. And everyones like ????? And theyre just like yeah my godfathers vulcan im named after him. I also want there to be a klingon or something called joe.
There also need to be more alien names that sound like normal words to humans. “Blender” the Bolian. “Gato” the Tarkalean.
message to cis allies: buying your trans friend lunch will do much more good for the trans community than debating transphobes who will not change their minds publicaly on social media and making all your trans followers see how much people hate them over and over again
if you base your trans allyship more on fighting with idiots than supporting and loving the trans community you may want to rethink things a little. bc i tend to get sick of when my cis friends want to talk more about how many people hate me than anything else about my transness.
oh you’re in a horror film/book and your phone died/has no bars? how boring. I think phones in horror SHOULD work. they should ding only to have the protagonist check and find nothing. they should get calls from somebody you don’t know but is still somehow in your contacts. google maps should lead you to one place, no matter what address you type in.
phones are such a big part of our daily lives, removing them from horror removes the horror from our experience. what if the horror felt like it could happen to you, right here, right now? what if it felt like it was already happening?
call 911 and something that is definitely not a person picks up.
call 911 and get an operator only for the call to become increasingly weirder and more sinister until you realize that whatever picked up is not there to help.
text messages from someone who’s dead. voicemails that sound like dead air until you turn the volume all the way up.
emergency alerts for weather that doesn’t happen on earth.
Your phone rings - but it’s your phone number on the screen. You answer it, but all you hear is heavy, laboured breathing. You go to say something, only to hear your voice on the other end tell you “It’s too late,” and hang up.
You get a message from a number you don’t recognise. It’s a picture of you from behind. You turn and see there’s nobody there. When you look back at your phone, you see the sender has sent another text - “Sorry, wrong number.”
Your phone rings - it’s a private number. You answer it, only to feel the sensation of something licking your ear.
You wake up to find a voicemail. You play it back, only to hear an autotuned version of your own voice reciting a Bible passage - 1 Peter 2: 18-20.
You get an emergency alert. It says “I’m sorry.”
every time you try to call anyone, the version of you that didn’t get trapped in the hell maze picks up instead, and she’s getting increasingly scared and angry to hear from you
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