Fantasy Women Fight Back

Warning: Discusses rape and sexual assault. Also spoilers.

I meant to write about this last year after reading a post about the attempted rape scene in the Divergent movie, but never got around to it. But now I've restarted work on my massive femslash Little Mermaid retelling Surface of the Deep, and so it's time to write this post.

Because much as I hate how much rape there is in fantasy fiction as well as in slash (whether fan fiction or original), I wrote a rape scene in Surface of the Deep.

*SPOILERS*
Toward the end of the novel, one of the characters is married against her wishes, and her new husband has sex with her, which she also does not want. She goes along with it because she's trying to lie low so that she can escape from the household later. There's no physical coercion involved, and it's in keeping with and sanctioned by the Ancient Greek-like society of the novel - but she doesn't consent, so by our modern standards it's rape. And I knew that going in, and hated the fact that it had to happen to her, but I wrote it anyway. It had to happen for plot reasons, because that sex act caused something else to happen that was a crucial part of the plot.
*END SPOILERS*

I hated it not just because of the pain and unfairness inflicted on the character, but also because it made me a part of a trend of rape scenes in fantasy and slash fiction, toward which I feel squeamish and uncomfortable.

Reading Beth Lalonde's post on Medium started to clarify for me why I felt that way. I haven't seen the Divergent movie myself, but I don't think that's really required to understand the point of the article. (I haven't read the book, either, and I know there's a debate about the differences between them, but it's a little beside the point here.) *SPOILERS* Ms. Lalonde describes how the main character, Tris, fights off a would-be rapist in a sort of training simulator, and then is applauded by her trainers for successfully defending herself. "Have you ever seen anything like this?" Ms. Lalonde writes in amazement. "Have you ever seen a teenage girl fight off a rapist on camera, let alone be congratulated for it?"

Crucially, the rapist in the training simulator is a simulation of Tris's boyfriend. *END SPOILERS* So we're not just talking about an attempted rape, but an attempted date rape, which is an area where some people seem to find it difficult to understand what consent is. Ms. Lalonde compares the scene in the movie to her own experience: "I had been there, in that bedroom, with someone I liked, and I had been too afraid to hit back. Too afraid to say no." And, well, this is hard for me to say publicly, but I've been there, too.

When I look back on it, why the hell didn't I fight back? And I know that were I in that situation again, now, I would fight like hell. But it took me years of processing not just to understand but to really believe that I was not at fault for "putting myself in that situation," for letting things progress and saying no pretty late in the game - to know that no fucking means no, no matter with whom, or in what state of undress, or whether I said yes to something else five minutes ago. That every inch of my body is mine to control, and that I can tell someone stop if and whenever I feel uncomfortable.

And I can enforce it.

This was what I took away from Ms. Lalonde's post about Divergent. That far too often in the media - fantasy fiction being my preferred segment of it - women are depicted as the passive victims of rape culture, whether it's our culture or a made-up culture loosely modeled on some past period. Ms. Lalonde points out:

Divergent marks the first time I have ever seen a teenage girl articulate, in no uncertain terms, that her body belongs to her. That she gets to decide who touches it, and how, and when. That her yes and her no are final, and unambiguous, and worthy of respect.

Fantasy fiction, my own writing included, seems to have accepted that it's the sad lot of women to be victims of sexual assault, that no doesn't mean no, that consent will not be asked and that women's refusals will be trampled on, or even considered irrelevant, as in the socially sanctioned marriage rape in my novel. There may be some token struggle, but by and large, fantasy women don't really fight back when they are sexually assaulted, never mind kicking ass and leaving their attackers as the broken ones. (There are surely some exceptions, though, and if you know one I'd love to hear about it!)

Take my character from Surface of the Deep, for instance. Given her personality, would she really take a sexual assault lying down? (OK..sorry..terrible pun.) Hell no! She's tough, determined, and oh, she trained as a soldier for a while and was ready to go to war to find her fiance, and she just happens to be armed with a knife during the rape scene. How could I be so stupid? She would fight like hell, she would win, and then she would find some other way to escape.

By the same token, as well as characters (often women, but not always) who enforce their consent or refusal, we also need other characters (often men, but not always - in Surface, this actually happens with a female character) who ask for consent and respect refusals and boundaries. We need visions of societies that are past the problem of rape culture, where respect for everyone's bodies is the norm. That's not to say that rape can never happen in fantasy fiction - after all, we shouldn't ignore the problem either - but it shouldn't be a constant, unavoidable fixture, which fantasy women are helpless to resist.

That's not all, though. There's a much worse issue with rape that especially comes to the fore in slash fiction, though it's pretty common in regular fantasy fiction, too, and that's the eroticization of rape. There seems to be a whole subgenre of slash fiction devoted to "questionable" consent and even unquestionable rape, and the way it's written is intended to arouse, rather than to horrify. This was the second reason why I was uncomfortable writing a rape scene in my femslash novel - I definitely did not want to be seen as someone who was writing about rape in an erotic way.

I was so uncomfortable writing about rape that I had it happen off-stage, and to make it clear that it was in no way erotic, I depicted it primarily by describing the character's distress at what happened. In this way, she is the subject rather than just a sex object - the reader sees the rape through her eyes, feels the trauma of it. In eroticized rape scenes, the character who is raped becomes an object, and even if they cry out or struggle, this is portrayed in a way that contributes to the sexual fantasy, rather than a way that brings us into the character's mind and engenders sympathy for them and horror at what's happening. And a lot of this is coming from women writers, like Mercedes Lackey, Anne McCaffrey, and Tanith Lee. How does that make sense? I would think that women would have a pretty clear idea that rape is not sexy. But I guess rape culture is so entrenched that even when women write about rape, they may find themselves making it erotic, perhaps unintentionally. After all, I couldn't sort out my own mix of arousal and squeamishness toward these sort of scenes until recently. Rape culture is a well kept secret.

Some people think that rape has no place at all in fantasy fiction. In a way that's true, in the sense that rape should have no place in our world. But it is a problem that exists in our world, and as such, it shouldn't be ignored, either. Writing about it can be used as a way of calling attention to it, standing up to it, and encouraging changes in thinking and action that can bring an end to it. These things won't be accomplished, of course, if fictional characters are mainly portrayed as the passive victims of victims of inevitable attacks, or if sexual assault is eroticized. To overcome rape culture both on and off the page, we need to do the same for our characters as we'd do for real people: listen to their consent or the refusal, know that they mean it when they say no, and enlist them to fight back.

This may not work for every character or story. Sometimes sucky things have to happen in a sucky way. But the deluge of uncontested, eroticized rapes in fantasy and slash fiction ought to be turned around so that these situations are the minority of cases; they shouldn't be the status quo. And it's up to us on the front lines, us writers and our characters, to do it.

No one told me about this part...

No one told me about this part of transition. The part between the celebratory highs (my first shot! My first time injecting myself! My T party!), between the moments of joyous realization that my body is changing (muscles! peach fuzz!). I don't mean the part where I don't pass yet, or the part where this change or that change hasn't happened yet, cause I knew that would take a while. I mean the part where I feel lost, everything feels wrong, and I still can't bear to look at or think about myself, just as in the worst moments of dysphoria pre-T.

It's not that no one told me there are tough parts to transitioning. Among others, my girlfirend (who is a trans woman) has always been careful to give me an honest, balanced, and realistic picture of what transition is like - that there are lows as well as highs, that it takes time and I must be patient, that there will be setbacks even if the overall trend is upward. Still, I wouldn't have thought that after T, I might feel so groundless - disconnected from being female by the extra 25mg of testosterone percolating through my body every week, by the fact that I have fuzz on my face and my muscles are growing while my butt is shrinking (not to mention by the fact that I never felt female to begin with), while also feeling like it's impossible for me to be male, because I do still have curves, and even worse remnants of femaleness.

I'm nothing at the moment, which is ground I thought I wanted to inhabit last summer, but not now. This no man's land of not this and not that, or too much of this and not enough of that, is harder to bear than I would have thought. I expected the confusion of strangers, the continuation of misgendering, for at least a few months more. But I thought I would feel hopeful, happy, excited - at least, no worse than before. Instead I feel farther than ever from masculinity, despairing of ever achieving it, loathing toward my body and disappointed and uncomfortable with how I look and am perceived by others. Things were supposed to get better. I was supposed to look and feel more male. But at the moment, I feel like hardly more than a girl in drag. (Which is silly, because I don't feel like I'm a girl, and feminine articles are what feel like drag to me. But this is what I think my outward appearance seems like at the moment, and that's why it hurts so much, because it's the opposite of how I feel on the inside - I'm not a girl; these male clothes belong on me and are not drag.)

I know in a few days I'll probably feel better, because I'll notice some new change or further development, and I'll remember that things really are getting better, bit by bit. Having written this down, I feel a little better already, because the big picture is back in sight. There are things going on which I've barely hinted at, because you just don't want to know; it's gory and graphic; but that too will pass - it may take months, but as long as I keep sticking that needle in my stomach every week, things will keep changing, and even the worst parts of female anatomy will fade. I may feel lost in fog, but at least I have a compass - I know which direction to go. I just need to keep picking my feet up and putting them down, one after the other, until I get there.

Masculinity - For everyone, defined by no one

A few days ago I read an article about why someone would date a masculine woman instead of a (cis) guy (and why you probably shouldn't even ask that question to begin with). The article doesn't directly relate to my romantic relationship, since I'm not a masculine woman or a cisgender guy. But it makes a valid point and, more importantly, to me, the way it discusses masculinity made me think about how I define my own masculinity, and masculinity in general.

The article says that "masculinity doesn't belong to any gender" and that "a man’s masculinity [is not] more authentic, more natural, [or] superior to a woman’s masculinity." Men don't have any exclusive claim on masculinity. Which makes sense to me, since I lived as a woman with masculine traits for many years, and fully support women who want to express masculinity to do so. (And now I'm the converse, a man who expresses femininity from time to time. Or maybe a lot of the time :P)

It's not just that women can be masculine, though - it's that women's (or genderqueer or trans* folks') masculinity isn't any less authentic than (cis) men's. Masculine women or queers aren't imitating cis men; they're expressing themselves in the way that feels most natural.

At least, that's what I'd like to think. But where does masculinity come from if not from how cis men act? We could call it a loose collection of behaviors and attitudes that used to be most associated with straight, cisgender men, but can now be adopted by anybody. But even defining it that way has a really gross heteronormative ring to it. Yet what is masculinity if not "how mainstream heteronormative society expects men to act"?

Masculinity is important to me, but I have a hard time pinning down exactly what it is. It's in the way I dress, the way I walk and move, the way I act toward my girlfriend, and to a lesser extent the way I interact with pretty much everyone (especially at metal concerts and martial arts dojos). But a lot of that is defined by the general consensus of "how men act" (or dress). I won't wear a lot of things that are considered "women's clothing." I try to walk and move "like a man" and I try to "be the guy" in my romantic relationship. Part of that is intense discomfort with being perceived as female, or with feeling something I'm doing or wearing is heightening the impression of me being female. I long to be seen as male so I try to do and wear the things that cis guys do.

To a point, anyway. Many a time I've said to myself, "What's the point of all this if I can't be myself?" And so I haven't cut my hair, and I sometimes wear shirts that don't quite hide my curves just because I like them so damn much, and I still love pink and purple and anything with hibiscus flower print on it. I still cry sometimes - or a lot, this past week. I would definitely argue that being willing to let out my feelings, even in tears, doesn't make me, or anyone, less of man. Some people would disagree and say that crying isn't "manly." But I also have friends who would say that expressing one's feelings is a sign of strength, and therefore, not "unmanly."

And I feel like this isn't just a thing among my friends, but that society as a whole is slowly shifting in this direction - allowing men to express their feeling more, even through tears. The idea of what's masculine is changing. And so perhaps we can't pin down what exactly masculinity is or who defines it, because it's a diverse and fluctuating concept. The idea of what constitutes "masculine" behavior varies not just from culture to culture, but from person to person. And it's constantly changing over time. Fathers are much more involved with their children now (at least, in the US) than they were in the 1950's. "Sensitive" guys are starting to be valued, and people keep telling me, "it's ok for guys to cry." My generation takes equality and egalitarianism between men and women for granted (at least in name if not always in deed) when that wasn't the case 60 years ago. And individuals and organizations are focusing on teaching healthy masculinity that doesn't contribute to sexism or relationship abuse and can lay the basis for true equality between men and women (and everyone else).

With so much change and variation, is there even any point to the concept of masculinity? At some point, will this individualistic and varied (and hopefully, progressive) spectrum of what constitutes masculinity become so broad that it's meaningless, because the definition of "masculinity" is different for every person, and ultimately it just boils down to people expressing themselves how they want, regardless of sex, gender or norms?

I think eventually we'll arrive at a freer, more progressive, more egalitarian concept of masculinity, but I don't think the concept will go away. Due to the demands of biology, I'm fairly sure the distinction (not dichotomy, or binary, but just the difference) between female and male, and with them their associated behaviors and attitudes - femininity and masculinity - will go on existing for quite some time. But the definitions will only become looser, more open to interpretation, more available to be practiced in diverse ways by various people.

So who defines masculinity? Whoever practices it does. This used to be restricted to cis men, but more and more, anyone can do it. Anyone can claim a piece of masculinity for themselves, and no one can tell them they can't or that they're doing it wrong.

But you're a girl - how can you be a male lesbian?

Well, first off, I'm not a girl - that was covered in this post.

Secondly, technically speaking, I'm not exactly a male lesbian; I'm not even a trans male lesbian, because I don't consider myself 100% male, trans or not. So I'm really a transmasculine lesbian, if you wanna be technical. Which I will be in this post, but honestly saying "male lesbian" or "guydyke" is so much easier, and easier to understand, than "transmasculine lesbian"...

So let's start with the lesbian part. I spent several months, from when I first started to think I was genderqueer up till I figured out this identity, thinking that I couldn't be a lesbian - or couldn't consider myself in a lesbian relationship with my girlfriend, since I actually identified as pansexual. And that made me rather sad, because there are lots of nice things about lesbian relationships. Like lesbian sex, which is amazing XD Of course, the sex stayed the same and lesbian was just a word I couldn't use to describe myself anymore. But as I started to feel more and more transmasculine, I started to wonder whether it would change, and whether how I related to my girlfriend would change. Would I have to start being "the man" in the relationship? Would it become like a queer straight relationship? I didn't want that; I wanted to keep the equal, free, fluid roles we had as two women together. And also the lesbian sex XD

But I couldn't reconcile that with the way I kept feeling more and more masculine. Wanting to wear more and more masculine clothing, rather than androgynous or ambiguous outfits. Wanting to be seen as a guy. Being bothered by female pronouns, my female name, being called "miss" and "ma'am." And the crazy feeling that I was crossdressing if I put on very feminine garments. I definitely thought I was creeping along the trans spectrum, but dreaded where it might lead.

And then, I was reading something totally unrelated to me - a discussion of whether "girlfag" is an appropriate name for an identity - and male lesbians were mentioned, and the next day, something clicked. Holy shit, I thought. If a cis guy can identify as a lesbian, surely a trans guy can too? I can  have the best of both worlds, I can have my cake and eat it too (tehehehe). I'm a male lesbian. Except that I'm a trans one. And I'm transmasculine, not trans male.

Now, I can't claim to understand how cis-male male lesbians feel. For some people it seems to be being comfortable in a male body, yet wanting to relate to women as a woman. For others, it's more genderqueer or trans in nature, where they crossdress or are even medically transitioning to female. I'm more interested in the idea of identifying as male (cis or trans) and lesbian at the same time, though. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. It's a fairly queer experience of gender, yes. But why shouldn't someone who inhabits a male body be able to be ok with his body, and yet not want to interact with women the way society says men ought to interact with women, but rather as a woman would?

Of course, my experience is different, because I have a female body, but a masculine identity, except that I want to interact with women as woman would. I don't know what it's like to be cis male, or even totally male at all. I have the privilege of having a female body and female socialization which gives me more access to "lesbian" relationships than cis male lesbians might have. (Though my reading seems to indicate male lesbians are more likely to be happily paired with girlfags than with lesbian-identified women, anyway.) I don't have much chance of being accepted in the tiny, scattered male lesbian community, unless I went super stealth and tried to pass as a man, but since I don't even feel I am a man, that's unlikely. I don't even know if there'd be any point, since the issues I have going on as a transmasculine person would be so different from the issues facing cis male lesbians. So I'm just kind of on my own.

I suppose this could be seen as a kind of bigendered or genderfluid identity, but it's very specific. It's not like I switch back and forth on a whim, or am both male and female all the time. In general, I'm masculine. It's just that my sexual orientation and my way of doing romantic relationships is lesbian. Which actually has a lot of flexibility within it, as well, cause I can be butch and manly and protective and chivalrous - or I can be soft and sensitive and femme - or anything in between. But I don't have to "be the man" in the relationship just because I want to be seen as a man in the rest of my life.

Ok, and now for the really annoying questions.

Doesn't this just make you a really butch lesbian?

No, not according to my understanding of the term "butch." While I feel like there may be butches out there who don't really identify with being female, to me, butchness is a form of being masculine while still being female. I don't identify with being female. Most things about being female feel wrong to me. So I cannot be butch. I'm transmasculine.

Why come up with this weird identity -  why can't you just be "queer" or "genderqueer"?

I do consider myself queer and genderqueer. But using that to describe myself is like answering the question "What country are you from?" with "I'm from Europe." Um, ok, but there are a lot of countries in Europe, and Finland and Italy sure are a heck of a lot different. There are tons of identities under the umbrellas of queer and genderqueer; identifying that way doesn't really tell anyone anything besides I'm not straight or cis. I'm from Europe, I'm from Finland, I'm from the city of Turku and I'm half Finnish-speaking Finnish and half Finland-Swede Finnish. I'm queer, I'm genderqueer, I'm transmasculine and also consider myself a lesbian.

Don't you have to be cis male to be a male lesbian?

It is kind of part of the definition. But if you agree that a trans man should be regarded as pretty much the same as a cis man, then you have to admit that if a cis man can be a male lesbian, then a trans man should be able to, too. And just cause I don't feel 100% (trans) male is no reason why I shouldn't have access to that identity, too. Yes, I experience it differently from a cis man. Just the way that a trans man experiences being a man differently than does a cis man. I can only imagine the struggles of cis male lesbians to forge lives and relationships where they can express their womanly attitudes toward love, while I struggle to convince the world that I am a masculine person. But the end point is the same - living as a man, loving women as a woman.

So does this mean you're not bisexual/pansexual anymore?

I honestly don't know. At the moment I can't imagine a relationship with a straight, cis guy. I can't imagine what my role would be - a guy to his guy? a girl to his guy? I can't quite see myself being either of those. But every person is an individual. Just like there's no way I'd be able to relate perfectly with every single woman (or feminine person, anywhere on the gender spectrum), there's no way I can rule out that I might find a male-identified person who fits with my gender identity and how I want to do relationships. So I could say I'm still theoretically pansexual - I'm open to getting to know people of any sex and gender identity. It's just that I know lesbian is something that works for me and that I want in my life. But there's no reason something "lesbian" couldn't come packaged in the form of...say a cis male person? XD


To close, this realization has some interesting implications for my life as a trans person. For one thing, if I want to be a lesbian, medical transition is pretty much out of the question - which is kind of a relief actually, because I was dreading thinking about it. Even taking testosterone would probably be a bad idea, cause I've heard it causes people to lose emotionality, which is something I'd need as a lesbian. Besides, I don't want facial hair O.o Also, passing as male ceases to be as important, perhaps even unwanted, because I don't think I'd want to be read as male - even trans male - by other lesbians. I think I could stomach getting read as butch as long as I can depend on those closest to me to reinforce my masculine identity by using my preferred name and pronouns. Heck, I may even be able to present as female again occasionally at some point. Even though this identity feels like home, it's still not a destination - more like a comfy nest to venture out of for more adventures of self-discovery in this big queer world.

Actually, I'm Just Not a Girl

Last week I wrote a post titled I'm Not Just a Straight Girl who Also Likes Girls, which started out as an explanation of why I can't be myself with straight guys and ended up with me wondering what my problem with femininity was. "I should try to reclaim being female," I wrote, and immediately loathed the very idea.

I spent the rest of the day in a tense, irritable state. Partway through the evening I realized I hadn't told the truth when I said I was ok with my female body - it was more like I was resigned to it. Because years ago I used to wish I was much more androgynous, that my breasts were smaller and my butt was thinner. I thought that was the only way I could be ambiguous, which was what I wanted - I wished my look was such that people couldn't tell if I was a guy or a girl. 

But I hadn't thought about that much for years. I'd been dating guys (who were unquestionably straight) since high school, and they didn't want to see me in baggy pants - never mind trying to look like a guy! So I learned to live with flare leg jeans and girlie shirts and short shorts, to the point I started to like those things, in a way (Stockholm syndrome?!). But after my blog post churned up my thoughts about bodies and gender and where I actually fall, those thoughts came to light again. No, I'm actually not totally ok with this body.

And then a discussion about breasts and bras set off an anxiety attack about my breasts. I had disliked them at times, but I had never hated them so much before. Suddenly I just wished they would go away.

And then the person I was talking to asked if I thought I was still actually a girl, or if I might be genderqueer or trans, and I fell apart. I don't know! I cried.

I still don't know. I'm not coming out as anything, except probably not a girl. I do know that wearing sports bras wiped the anxiety away, and seeing myself looking flatter makes me feel amazing. So do men's button down shirts :3 Guys pants and shorts don't seem to have as much of an effect, probably because I've worn such things since high school. But I am slowly gathering things to actually dress up as a guy - which is something I want to try, but not how I want to be all the time.

For now, I think I'm swinging toward the masculine because I've spent so long forcing myself to be feminine. Right now, even just the tad bit of femininity that women's shorts, dress shirts and regular bras bring to my look is unbearable. It's a disguise I carried on too long; it became repressive. Looking masculine, meanwhile, is new and exciting - and a little scary. I'm afraid of tipping the balance too far.

Because I don't feel like I want to be a guy, and I don't want to give people the impression that I do. Most days, I believe, will be a balancing act. Men's shirt and women's shorts, something of each. Or neither. I realized this is probably the reason I prefer t-shirts and cargo pants to anything else - they're not gendered. Anyone can wear t-shirts and cargo pants. They don't make me a guy or a girl, just me.

I do still intend to dress up as a girl sometimes, too, cause it's fun to put on a short skirt and fishnets and scandalize people :3 Honestly, I've called that sort of thing "dressing up as a girl" for years now, because it always felt like crossdressing, just as much as dressing up as a guy would.

Initially I thought nothing else would change, but now a lot of little things are starting to scratch at the back door of my brain saying, no, that's not right, because you're not a girl >.< But I'm not sure yet how big of a deal this actually is, so I'm gonna wait till those little things get louder to do anything about them.

I can't even say for sure what I am, except I don't feel like a girl, and don't want to be a guy either. The words I'd choose to describe myself are androgynous, ambiguous, confusing - that's how I want to look and be perceived, anyway. At times I've thought of myself as genderless, but I can't say for sure if that's the case, or if I actually have a bit of both. It does kind of seem that neither glove fits; they both feel backwards no matter which way I put them on. But the way I feel most comfortable describing myself, really, is "just me." :D

Yay for guy shirt and flatness! :D

I'm Not Just a Straight Girl who Also Likes Girls

In most of my past relationships, which have generally been with men who see themselves as 100% straight, I've come to the disheartening realization that there was a part of me they didn't get, or even couldn't accept. This shouldn't have been surprising, really. It can't be easy for a guy who's used to straight girls to wrap his head around the fact that wearing a skirt feels like crossdressing to me, or that I'd like to sometimes be perceived as tough and macho rather than as the soft and sensitive person I am most of the time.

I don't really know how much of this I share with other bisexual women - whether they also feel like being "the guy" sometimes, and don't feel very feminine most of the time. I do know that I vastly prefer a relationship without prescribed gender roles, where we can make it up as we go along, and I can be the way I feel like being, not what society says a human in a female body should be like.

It's not that I want to be a guy or that I don't want to be female. I'm fine with inhabiting a female body and even with dressing in a way that shows it off to a certain degree - although I kind of hope that with my sailor arms, even girlie shirts and tank tops look a bit macho on me ;) Mainly, I just feel that I don't fit in with other women, or more like with the conventional idea of how women behave. Part of this stems from a frightening level of internalized misogyny - women are shallow creatures who only care about shopping and getting their nails done, women are catty and gossipy - yikes! Where did that come from?!

I would venture probably from my rather judgmental mother, who dislikes shopping, fancy nails, makeup and all those other things that I grew up regarding as "feminine." I suppose I didn't really have a very positive idea of what being feminine meant while I was growing up, so I tried to avoid it. But not being able to (and not wanting to) be totally masculine either, I ended up in a sort of genderless void.

I suppose as a feminist I should try to reclaim being female, redefine the gender so that I can be feminine and still open doors for people, pay for dinner on dates, push people around in mosh pits and not give a shit about nails or makeup.

The prospect of that makes me feel very tired just thinking about it, but it would probably do the world more good than me sitting around complaining about how straight guys don't accept me ;)

---

Update, 7/29/15: This post keeps popping up as the most popular post on my blog, and so I thought I ought to point out that it doesn't reflect how I see myself at all anymore. It was followed by this realization, and as of summer 2015, this post most accurately reflects how I see myself at this time. You can read a lot more about my identity in all these posts about gender identity and this one about my sexual orientation.

At the same time, I must acknowledge that this post about not feeling very feminine seems to resonate with a lot of female-assigned people - some of whom ended up being trans or non-binary, but also with cis women who just don't feel feminine. Based on the feedback I got right after writing this post, it seemed I had said something that a lot of female-assigned people that I knew were thinking and feeling. That's the primary reason I've left it up after all this time, when it doesn't really represent who I am anymore. It probably still speaks to someone, and if so, more power to you.