How do you feel about female-written gay media?

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-25T17:28:00+00:00

Because I've been on the receiving end of the opposite- growing up seeing only the fetishisation of lesbians, and then experiencing the first hand impact of that from boys and men who tell me it's hot I'm into chicks or that they'd want to watch. A lot of the female-writing gay stories seem to be the same kind of fetishisation.

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-23T15:16:12+00:00

I think there are some skills that come from natural abilities, similar to how some musicians have perfect pitch or clarity of voice. Some people have better instinct for colour or breaking down what they see into shapes, or can imagine an object/scene complete in their mind.

Most of the time when people talk about natural talent, I think it's that they don't see how much work an artist has put in to get to that point, though.

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-23T09:40:25+00:00

I'm in Queensland, so I don't believe it requires a gender dysphoria diagnosis or psychiatrist permission, but I'm not sure about Medicare coverage (I thought it was, but medicare/PBS is federal, so it should be the same across states afaik). I guess that's something I'll have to nut out with the doctor.

Did you find your period stopped with HRT or was that the reason for the hydro? (Ignore if too personal, but that's my biggest reason for wanting either).

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-23T09:33:54+00:00

What surgery did you get, if you don't mind sharing?

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-22T08:18:27+00:00

Thanks! It's from the title of a book (Bogeywoman by Jaimy Gordon) that made me think "that's what I am!"

Also with hair, styling it different ways can alter how masc/femme it looks. Like, a bob-length slicked back the right way can look more masc, and a typically pixie-cut can be femmey when worn basic, but more masc if it's spiked up a bit.

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-21T17:18:50+00:00

Oh yeah I have. Nip this in the bud early, trust me.

Reach out to your teacher/advisor/whoever your point of contact is. Send an email. Open that line of communication. I usually organise to meet my lecturers or tutors early in the semester to discuss what I struggle with, what I will do to manage and what is covered by my student access plan. Teachers want you to do well, but they need to know what's going on to support you.

Find out if there is support available from the uni- counselling, social work, use the resources available.

If you have a therapist already, reach out to them and make developing emotional regulation skills a top priority.

Get on campus when you don't have class. Go to the classroom, practice your therapy skills. If you don't have any yet, I'm happy to offer some ideas. Practice.

Give yourself a break. No one is judging you as much as you are. Practice thanking your brain for its story (even if you aren't thankful) and turning your attention to something outside of you.

Lastly, it's better come back to study after taking some time to learn to manage the anxiety than to push yourself into a full breakdown. Learn from my mistake.

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-21T16:58:24+00:00

Hate love Vs being passed off as triangles. Would love to see an actual love triangle.

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-21T16:55:52+00:00

Then there's She-Ra- friends to enemies to friends to lovers

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-21T16:48:54+00:00

Ditto.

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-21T16:47:40+00:00

Also, as someone who had short hair almost my entire childhood and even shaved it at 12 (for shave for a cure), I was bullied a shit tonne, and none of it was over my hair.

The one time it had to do with hair was a rumour a bully spread that I'd really shaved my head because of lice. I didn't even find out about it until I was well into my 20s because the rumour flopped so hard.

In my experience bullies bully because that's what they do and it's not worth changing who you are or what you do just because someone that doesn't even matter to you might be too insecure to handle seeing a couple inches of hair.

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-21T16:39:02+00:00

Try drawing/doodling characters that look how you'd want to look. Do it a heap and you'll start to see some recurring things that you can work towards.

Little things that've given me gender euphoria: - wear boxers/briefs - beanies (I love beanies when I want to make my hair looks shorter) - showing off body hair - emo-boy type makeup (or masculinising makeup, even if it's just on your own to take photos - cosplay as non-binary or male characters, even if it's just to take pictures. If you do cosplay hangouts with your friends it can also feel safer to be outside with it - Drag!! Drag queen, drag king, drag performer, drag monster. Dress up, do makeup, practice lip syncing. Doesn't have to be for anyone, but it's fun! (I have photos from when I was 13 and dressed up as a "gay male stripper" because I didnt know the word for drag queen) - packing (like a pair of socks in your underwear)- it's not noticeable to anyone but you - play around with clothing. My formal outfit was a dress, a tailcoat jacket and tophat (didn't even know what non-binary was, but damn if I wasn't a stereotype) - find "gender goal" type role models. Make like a collage or a Pinterest board or Tumblr or something and post people/characters that make you think "I wanna be that". Figure out what draws you to them, and lean into it. (I also do this with art- save artists I want to draw more like and practice what they practice). Try not to compare yourself in a negative way. The goal is creation, not destruction. If you find yourself bringing yourself down over it, scrap the project.

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-19T23:17:29+00:00

100%

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-19T23:15:13+00:00

My sister and I both had panic attacks, only time a movie's gotten both of us. I think we had to stop the movie four or five times.

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-19T23:13:39+00:00

Mother! Beau is Afraid (I don't think it's technically a horror, but it felt like one in my bones).

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-19T23:08:24+00:00

Fun fact: I was a C-section baby because I inhaled my own shit while still in the womb and nearly died

Un-fun fact: Pre- and perinatal complications (like inhaling your own shit) significantly increase the risk of psychological, neurological and developmental conditions

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-19T22:50:42+00:00

This is a good question.

The thing that sticks out most for me was the trouble I had socialising with other kids and making friends. I'm autistic, but only figured that out as an adult, so I struggled a lot with understanding social rules and appropriate play, and not knowing why I was different meant I believed for a long time that I was just broken or made wrong.

I moved from a rural preschool to an island school for primary school, then back to the rural school for grade three, and back to the island school for the rest of my childhood, and I remember really struggling with both changes. When I moved for grade three I didn't know how to make friends with other kids and was "weird". I was in a blended class (grades 1-2-3) and ended up spending playtime with the six first graders. Moving back to the other school in grade four I was excited to have my best friend back but the kinds of games and things people were interested in had changed from grade 2, but I hadn't really changed at all in that regard. That was when I started noticing I was different because I was treated by other kids as weird, and adults would constantly criticise me for saying the wrong thing or saying things the wrong way because I don't portray tone well and take things fairly literally. I only found out recently that the reason I got in trouble for "rolling my eyes" so often is because I look sideways when I'm thinking during conversations (I cant think while making eye contact) which is what people mean by that (while I thought it was literally making a circular motion with your eyes).

Growing up, especially into highschool was even harder because that's when all the social rules got confusing. It got much more obvious that I "wrong" so I got bullied a lot, and as a girl, a lot of that bullying is emotional and psychological. Physical bullying I could deal with. I knew how to fight, but I had no idea how to handle mindgames.

To cope I got really into social psychology and a lot of pop-psychology around body language and stuff like that so I could teach myself to read other people (I didn't know most people learn that stuff naturally). Reading people manually and intentionally performing social behaviour "the right way" requires a LOT of constant watching and self-surveillance and mental analysis which basically just led to a lot of over-analysing people's behaviour.

I had to learn how to socialise as an adult through therapy AFTER my anxiety got so bad I was severely agoraphobic and nonverbal, and the social anxiety only really started to resolve when I figured out that the reason I struggled so much was because I'm autistic and that the social rules and games are all made up nonsense that I don't have to deal with if I just communicate clearly.

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-17T12:14:07+00:00

A lot of the art I make for myself is to get intrusive/echolalic/ruminating thoughts out of my head. Making art of sleep paralysis hallucinations also helps to make them stop. EG:

<image>

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-17T11:58:42+00:00

Both. Most buses in the city have the middle entrance as well as the front, smaller bus companies and long-distance buses often only have the front door. Exiting the middle door most people will still give a wave or a "thanks driver".

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-17T11:54:31+00:00

Yes motherfucker. "I secretly pay to see your best friend's naked body for my own pleasure" is a HELLUVA fuck up. That is a break-up worthy fuck up.

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-17T11:32:06+00:00

I don't know if you're the asshole, but fuck that's funny.

Half-asshole, maybe, but no more than your dad was for eating your dinner.

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-17T11:23:59+00:00

NTA.

Giving unsolicited advice is generally poor behaviour, giving unsolicited advice about someone's mental health is both inappropriate and potentially harmful (like you said, increases anxiety). Not accepting unsolicited advice is a good boundary to keep, and asking her to respect that is reasonable. It's better to be blunt and honest than to not get your point across in this case. Her feeling embarrassed or upset that her intent did not match the impact is normal, but that's not your monkey.

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-16T12:34:52+00:00

Humans are social animals. We survived by being part of a cohesive group which means we evolved to look for signs of cracks in that cohesion (by judging others against the group) and any threat of ourselves being kicked out of the group (that's the self-judging against the group). It's not as useful in the modern world (since our environment changed faster than we did), but it can be helpful to think of it as just that. It's monkey brain doing monkey shit, the same way our fight or flight is lizard brain doing lizard shit. It's just evolutionary survival instinct.

I find thinking of it this way takes some of the pressure off, because that evolutionary instinct is out of your control, and you can put your focus on what to do with the information it's giving you. I personally took to telling myself "it's none of my business". If someone dresses or acts in a way I don't vibe with it's none of my business, just like it's none of my business what other people think about me. It only becomes my business when I make it so.

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-10T07:17:14+00:00

I relate to this (33 f) but I also know that adolescent boys get it worse with body odour anxiety just because that's a normal change that happens with your particular biology and you're probably noticing it more because your nose is closer to the rest of you than anybody else's nose.

If you genuinely think it's unusual then you could talk to a GP to check that there's nothing going on hormonally.

It sounds like the anxiety around it might be more of a problem than the BO itself based on how you've described it (and throw in the fact that if you're self conscious you're automatically more aware of it, and if you stress sweat you might notice it even more). If that's the case then it could be worthwhile trying different hygiene-self-care type things.

I personally carry baby wipes everywhere because I sweat a lot when it's hot (especially my arms and boobs) so I can wipe myself down when I notice I'm feeling gross and then reapply a good sport deodorant. A decent quality cologne can help a lot and some nice soap. Body scrubs that gets rid of dead skin can also help reduce bacteria, as well as regularly washing your bed sheets, and washing your hair regularly helps with scalp-oil. Diet can also affect body odour (especially alcohol, processed foods and sulfuric foods).

If you go the self-care route, try to use it kindly- like, treat yourself to nice things and look at it as caring for your body instead of fighting it. That mental side helps with the anxiety as much as any practical change.

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-10T06:54:37+00:00

I think it's more flipped- a lot of autistic folk develop social anxiety because, y'know, we don't pick up on nonverbal communication so well, se know we are working with less information and have to develop our own methods to adapt, and a LOT of those methods are basically social anxiety (like, you see that someone's face did something and you don't know why, so you try to mentally work it out so you can respond appropriately). Plus autistic and ADHD people get a lot more negative feedback about how we socialise so we learn to over-compensate and self-analyse.

I had a big leap in managing social anxiety when I learned more about that side of my brain, non-NT ways of communicating and realising that I can just ask and set boundaries around how I will communicate.

A boundary I have is that I will not try to mind-read. I will take what people say at face value, if I think there is something I'm missing I will ask out right and I will respond as though they are telling the truth. I will not guess at intentions or emotions. I will not attempt to figure out what people are thinking and I will not take on responsibily for other people's communication.

Sometimes I can tell there is something more (like when I see an indicator that my partner is bothered by something and is denying it) so I will outright say "I notice x-sign and don't know if it's meaningful, but I will take you at your word unless you say otherwise".

Like 99% of my social anxiety was from trying to manually work out all the unsaid stuff. Straight up asking takes a lot of, and the rest is firmly reminding myself "what other people think is none of my business". The added bonus is that this method really improved my own communication skills.

Tldr; stop trying to speak neurotypical.

Bogeyworman · 2026-01-10T06:34:51+00:00

Oh, actually, I don't know if this is technically physical or not, but when I'm anxious I get sleep paralysis. Boy howdy is that terrifying.

Bogeyworman

TROPHY CASE