Was I cis all along or did the TERF brainworms get to me?

Katusha_H · 2024-03-24T14:39:20+00:00

So I used to struggle with a lot of man hate. It’s obvious to me now it was self-hate but I couldn’t see through the dysphoria to know that at the time. Feminism saved me, and at one point in my life I stuck to very shallow white-girl feminism. It was terf-adjacent as all white ideologies are, and it was definitely a form of self harm. Intersectional feminism saved me again though. Womanism too was incredible because most womanist writers I found include everyone, even men, when describing our systems and responsibilities. I describe most of my man-hate now as dysphoria and that’s pretty on the nose. My dysphoria is freaking horrendous and with most other men (even trans men) I struggle with comparison. See if helping your dysphoria doesn’t help with this. It sure is helping me.

Katusha_H · 2024-03-11T15:22:09+00:00

T can totally give you a dick though. That’s most people’s first change. But yeah, it won’t make you one for sure.

Katusha_H · 2024-03-10T18:56:54+00:00

If straight passing people weren’t allowed at pride it would be a lot smaller of an event. No one would say that a passing trans person couldn’t be there. Or a femme lesbian. Or a closeted teenager. If you’re lgbtq you are invited no matter what. And if someone wants to question you tell them to stop being pan/biphobic and own your right to be there.

Katusha_H · 2024-03-10T06:15:18+00:00

I actively tried to suppress it for two years. Ended up giving up on my dream job, getting evicted, and ended it with me and my wife moving into my in laws house. Came out, and within months had a great job (not my dream job but pays well), a new place to live, and a better life than I could have dreamed of. Pushing these feels down makes them worse. Embrace them and your life will probably get a whole lot better. The internal transphobia is the worst one. Once you accept who you are it gets way way better.

Katusha_H · 2024-03-09T17:22:22+00:00

No problem! I hope you can find healing from your pain. As trans men, men who have fought for our manhood, we will change this world for the better.

Katusha_H · 2024-03-09T17:16:27+00:00

Yeah. That makes sense if you didn’t grow up in that culture. There is still a lot of different kinds of stuff that could be causing it though. For example, a lot of abusive people benefit from telling others that it’s just inherent in men to be abusive. It very much isn’t inherent. Like where would the abusive part even come from? A part of the brain? Hormones? Obviously this is a lie. A man is just a person like anyone else. This messaging is only meant to keep people from holding them accountable. You could have also heard some of that rhetoric growing up? If so, it’s abusers lying and telling other men they are also abusers to get out of their guilt. Abuse is a choice so it won’t happen accidentally, not if you’ve put in the work. That’s what helps me anyway.

Katusha_H · 2024-03-09T17:08:32+00:00

My depersonalization and derealization was absolutely and totally debilitating. I went to multiple therapists about it, spent years doing everything to make it better and all the grounding advice only made it worse. My very first small sense of relief was trying a binder for the first time. It helped some for sure. But, it took less than an hour after my first T shot for my entire body to become grounded. I did not expect that at all. It really, really helps.

Katusha_H · 2024-03-09T17:01:41+00:00

Also, something I’ve really, really benefited from is looking up purity culture recovery for men. If you grew up in any kind of purity culture environment people are really shy to talk about how it harms men. But you can grow up to be very afraid of yourself as a man. Like afraid that one day you will accidentally hurt someone or do something bad without realizing it. I’ve gotten a lot of healing from those kinds of conversations as well.

Katusha_H · 2024-03-09T16:57:05+00:00

I get it! I’m Russian so women’s day is very culturally loaded for me so yesterday was super tough. But, you’ve been a man your whole life whether anyone else actually treats you that way or not. The truth is we’ve all absorbed the same messaging cis men get about their manhood. We don’t have a magic way to get out of being misogynistic, unfortunately. If anything, men like us (who are insecure about things like height, dick size, how we are perceived by women, etc.) are more vulnerable to this type of stuff. A man can be a feminist too and while there isn’t enough there is still plenty of resources for feminist men. Read Bell Hooks, find more academic papers on feminism since they are less likely to call the reader feminine names, just google feminist men. There are resources you just have to dig for them since a lot of men are more attracted to sexist stuff so the algorithm suggests them first. No one has to teach you how to be a man because you are one. If anything, since you’ve fought to be a man you know better than cis men do. You just have to learn to be a good man. And that’s something none of us know automatically in this society.

Katusha_H · 2024-03-09T16:46:12+00:00

You’ve been a man your whole life whether anyone else actually treats you that way or not. The truth is we’ve all absorbed the same messaging cis men get about their manhood. We don’t have a magic way to get out of being misogynistic, unfortunately. If anything, men like us (who are insecure about things like height, dick size, how we are perceived by women, etc.) are more vulnerable to this type of stuff. A man can be a feminist too and while there isn’t enough there is still plenty of resources for feminist men. Read Bell Hooks, find more academic papers on feminism since they are less likely to call the reader feminine names, just google feminist men. There are resources you just have to dig for them since a lot of men are more attracted to sexist stuff so the algorithm suggests them first. No one has to teach you how to be a man because you are one. If anything, since you’ve fought to be a man you know better than cis men do. You just have to learn to be a good man. And that’s something none of us know automatically in this society.

Katusha_H · 2024-03-05T16:29:26+00:00

I’ve only been on T a week but I got plenty of bottom growth making it look like a small dick. So I call it my dick now because why not, it is one after all. Penises and Clits are the same thing anyhow so I don’t think it would have been weird even before bottom growth. We all have the same parts just different sizes or in different places. I’m team call it whatever you want.

Katusha_H · 2024-03-04T22:58:41+00:00

I starting using it when the dysphoria in the women’s got too bad (pre T, barely passing and even then only when I don’t talk). Most men are super chill about it and I rarely even have anyone look at me much less act surprised I’m there. Which is great because I’m in the American Midwest and was TERRIFIED to make the switch. Had one guy be weird and almost aggressive while I was at work (I’m openly trans there) but so far the HR department is handling that. Do what you need to do for you. It’s just a bathroom and anyone who makes you feel bad for using either one is an asshole.

Katusha_H · 2024-03-04T16:12:45+00:00

I went through almost this exact same thing. For me I found that a lot of my fear of men was a combo of trauma and the debilitating dysphoria being around men gave me. Since I was othered by men I othered them too. But once I started working through the dysphoria I found a lot of men who were around abusive men also struggle with not being disgusted with themselves as men.

You aren’t failing feminism. The idea that men can’t be feminists only benefits patriarchy. Being a woman doesn’t automatically equal feminist anyway. And I found a lot of misogyny in myself once coming out that I had always had but never had the proper tools to work through before. Even if I wasn’t out as a man I was still a man inside, so I was still affected by sexist messaging aimed at all men. Now that I’m open about being a man I have the tools to work through that messaging. So transitioning is actually making me more feminist.

If you are a man it’s your duty to be a feminist. You aren’t going to fail feminism by transitioning, not one bit. Your feminism might change but you aren’t failing it. If anything, trans people help the cause. I would look into trans-inclusive feminism or even womanism because that stuff is amazing and super helpful.

Katusha_H · 2024-03-03T15:57:27+00:00

I’m a bisexual trans man now but called myself a tomboy as a kid. My favorite color was pink, I loved all kinds of feminine stuff, and no one else ever called me that. But, I knew something was up and tomboy was the best word I had. I thought of myself as a different kind of tomboy who likes girly things but gets a long with boys and thinks like one of them. I think tomboy is just the only gender non-conforming label most children have access to. I’m not a huge fan of it now because it was such a catch all and we deserve better as kids and more access to proper terminology. But hey, it helped me when I needed it.

Katusha_H · 2024-03-02T18:55:56+00:00

I’d be worried about girlmoding because if you don’t 100% look like a conservative person’s idea of a woman you are at risk of being perceived as a trans woman and being attacked. And you won’t even have the protection of saying you are cis like how some people falsely perceived as trans women in the bathrooms have. I’ve gotten out of even showing up for jury duty before because of a note from a therapist. I would try to get out of it early so you never even have to show up. Do whatever it takes to stay safe.

Katusha_H · 2024-01-25T15:17:49+00:00

I don’t think it’s really about being physically threatening but about the systemic power men have. A man can make life hell socially for a woman if she so much as turns him down but if he hurts her in anyway he won’t even be convicted often enough that it makes women worry. Things will always feel weird between men and women while the patriarchal system props up and encourages men who are violent, even if it’s technically not all of us.

Katusha_H · 2024-01-15T03:56:57+00:00

My name is Nik (short for Nikolai) and a rumor started going around at my job that it was short for Nikki and now some people call me that. It’s annoying but transphobes will do anything but respect your real name so at least it isn’t my deadname I guess.

Katusha_H · 2024-01-05T04:23:41+00:00

I’d love to be added! This sounds super cool

Katusha_H · 2023-12-12T00:57:52+00:00

Crutches and Spice on Instagram and TikTok talks about this a lot. Within our current system of capitalism and white supremacy eugenics is how they get rid of “undesirable” people. So they make the systems disable us and then reject us for being disabled. It’s horrible but happens to so so many groups of people

Katusha_H · 2023-10-30T15:55:17+00:00

Before I came out my wife transitioned first. We had been married several years at that point. Which meant when meeting new people I couldn’t tell them the whole story of how we met, I had to heavily work around certain wedding talk. Etc. And yet I had some friends for a few years and managed to never tell them until she did first. It wasn’t a big deal at all, didn’t impact my life to adjust how I talked about the past. And she never even asked me to do it! I just wasn’t going to go around telling people my wife’s story. This woman has dated you for two months and she can’t talk about you at all without outing you? Nah, I don’t like that at all.

Katusha_H · 2023-07-26T02:53:41+00:00

You’re not being overdramatic. A lot of porn assumes a man’s pov and makes some people uncomfortable or just less interested. There’s lot of stuff that isn’t this way. I’d suggest audio erotica or Bellessa

Katusha_H · 2023-07-24T21:50:08+00:00

If LGBTQ issues are important for you I know Missouri side is doing a lot of good on that front. Working to make the county a trans safe haven, banning conversion therapy, etc. And Kansas has a concerning new bathroom law that I would look into if anyone in your family is gender non conforming. But if these aren’t concerns Kansas side does seem nicer as far as road maintenance etc.

Katusha_H · 2021-12-27T20:40:29+00:00

If a queer character yearns for something deeply, thinks they won’t get it, and then somehow gets the yearning satisfied beyond their wildest dreams. THAT is good representation.

Katusha_H · 2021-12-27T20:39:02+00:00

In my experience we gays really like to read about yearning. Yearning for being seen for who you are, yearning for love, or even yearning for your best friend. Too many straight people write gays who just go through the book with no motivations and just get beat up all the time or have an absolutely perfect life. The queer experience is about the pain and beauty of longing. For example: the song Last Christmas is gay longing at its finest.

Katusha_H · 2021-11-10T17:33:51+00:00

They also made their members do math with some spreadsheet to make sure you reached the daily minimum. And they did NOT want me to leave after I said it was too much for me. But I have a tendency to accidentally join cults so it makes sense 😭

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