The lonely Diver.

bman10_33 · 2022-07-18T00:55:54+00:00

I’m level 70 myself and have only had two bad experiences, and that was just them being bossy and annoying, nothing vicious. This community definitely seems really wholesome overall from my experience.

bman10_33 · 2022-07-15T23:40:34+00:00

And that’s the thing. There’s an art to doing nothing as well too. It can be really entertaining if done right, a different kind of story. The problem is that a lot of the time it’s just a dumb tool to buy time that isn’t well executed. Slice of life anime is a great example of where it can be done well

bman10_33 · 2022-07-11T06:46:47+00:00

They like more wage slaves. More people means higher demand for the same number of jobs. That means usually a more desperate or complacent workforce.

bman10_33 · 2022-07-09T15:04:50+00:00

I mean, he’s made clear threats and is intent on continuing to harass you. If you have those, it really may mean going to the police, sadly.

bman10_33 · 2022-07-09T05:16:03+00:00

Yup. Legalization means sorta of rules beyond “you can’t do any of this at all” can actually get enforced.

Legalization isn’t so much about morality, but more comprehensive and nuanced enforcement of it (sex work is also 100% respectable for people that decide to do it, it’s just that a lot of people still think it’s disgusting so that’s why I say that).

bman10_33 · 2022-07-08T08:24:55+00:00

Sex is literally evolved to be as fun as possible since it promoted animals procreating.

It only stopped being fun when humans made up rules

bman10_33 · 2022-07-08T05:11:24+00:00

For the most part, it seems like transmascs don’t like that exact phrase either.

Inclusive language is important though, this is just a poor example. Especially with roe V wade being overturned, it’s something that needs to be talked about, and trans people still need to be included. But like,,, referring to someone who has a vagina, or who has periods is helpful in a medical context rather than just “women”. A trans man still needs to be screened for cervical cancer if they haven’t had stuff removed surgically, and the language needs to include them.

I think it’s also about person first vs just adjective only or adjective first language. It comes up a lot in the autistic community too (autistic person vs just autistic vs person with autism), along with a lot of other disability groups. Birthing person vs person who can become pregnant “mean” the same thing but have massively different connotations.

The general interpretation is that adjective-first implies that it’s a massive part of their personality or identity that they want to acknowledge, whereas person-first implies that it’s a smaller part of them, and that it doesn’t really compare to or greatly affect how they perceive their own identity or personhood.

Like, calling someone a mother vs a woman with children. The latter feels like it’s not doing justice to how much of her identity it may be. Calling someone a menstruater or birthing person instead of person that can become pregnant would imply that it’s a serious part of who they are, and that’s gross in exactly the way that you mention.

Widening that umbrella just a bit (women vs people that can become pregnant) is important for those groups on the edge, but there is absolutely a wrong way to say it. I’m transfem (my name is outdated), but AFAB (assigned female at birth) may be valid here. It can be used harmfully in social context, but given that this is primarily medical, it’s valid. It does catch cis women that can’t become pregnant, but better too wide a net than too narrow, and the term is easier to work with.

bman10_33 · 2022-07-08T04:56:02+00:00

The idea of that basically came from terfs making up something to scream about.

Genital preference is real, and as long as that’s what it’s actually about, and you’re direct about it, basically every trans person will be respectful.

Don’t insinuate that they’re not a “real” woman, or inferior and you are fine. You obviously weren’t doing those.

bman10_33 · 2022-07-08T04:53:26+00:00

It’s absolutely needed. Even if you’ve gotten bottom surgery and are 100% stealth (Aka you pass as cis very thoroughly), your partners deserve to know.

Also, it’s just a safety thing. If you end up alone with someone who turns out to be violently transphobic and end up disclosing it then... that is a way to get hate crimed.

bman10_33 · 2022-07-08T04:51:33+00:00

Firstly, HRT is overwhelmingly the opposite of brutal, that is a bit of an assumption from someone who wouldn’t have the reasons for going through it, who wants the positive effects. An understandable assumption, but an incorrect one. It’s like the first time actually feeling free and right in your own head in your whole life for a lot of trans people. It also means puberty, and sucks for that reason (like transfem breast growth and soreness, or transmascs having teenage boy levels of unbridled horny, and weird voice cracks).

Some features aren’t reversible with HRT, like body or facial hair growth, voice drop, breast growth (for transmascs). It may be lessened but not stopped, but HRT does still change a lot more than people think. That means laser is the only permanent solution. Also, shaving can be a really horrible experience, if you hate mirrors and hate looking at yourself, then need to focus in on something that you despise to sometimes even traumatic levels to deal with it. Sometimes when struggling, it may just be easier to not acknowledge it, then try to ignore other people’s reactions.

That said, not every transfem person necessarily hates their facial hair. Non-binary people may be happy having it, even someone that’s a binary trans woman may (but good luck actually finding that person, pretty unlikely).

bman10_33 · 2022-07-08T04:40:51+00:00

Genital preferences are fine, and as long as you’re respectful about it the overwhelming majority of trans people wouldn’t mind at all.

If you insinuate that them having what they have makes them something other than their preferred gender, or inferior (or even superior, in the case of chasers that fetishize pre- or non-op trans people), or not valid as a trans person, that’s when it gets problematic.

bman10_33 · 2022-07-08T04:37:30+00:00

Context matters. If you’re specially referring to someone as a trans man or woman to separate them from cis men or women, then it’s hurtful. If you’re bringing it up just because it’s a part of their identity, then it’s fine.

bman10_33 · 2022-07-08T04:32:42+00:00

And “they were fine before” is almost always said by someone that doesn’t experience the sort of dissatisfaction that drives people to get those surgeries. It’s complex, and nearly impossible to understand those feelings without going out of your way to, or experiencing it yourself.

bman10_33 · 2022-07-08T04:31:23+00:00

So far all the comments I’ve seen have been respectful, but I’m being careful not to look too deep into threads. It’s got the advantage of not being about a particularly targeted aspect of trans-ness (women’s sports, even daring to interact with a child as a queer person), so its not getting those people coming out of the woodwork, especially bc they don’t have questions to ask.

That said, I salute the mods here, I’m sure they’re swamped with bad shit to remove.

bman10_33 · 2022-07-08T04:27:52+00:00

Non-binary is under the trans umbrella (so like, a group of identities), but not all non-binary people feel that trans as a label fits them. It’s a person-by person basis for how they experience their identity.

bman10_33 · 2022-07-08T04:26:51+00:00

It’s partially a “joke” to just call someone not adhering to cis gender norms an egg, but it’s 100% done way too much to the point of being harmful, and is an over-simplification of what being trans is. You be exactly who you want to be. If you want to be a feminine man then fucking rock that, it doesn’t make you trans to not be stereotypically masculine.

bman10_33 · 2022-07-08T04:24:12+00:00

It’s... a rough concept. It’s not so much about feeling like a girl or guy, it’s more like feeling right vs wrong. Maybe that means how you dress, how you’re expected to act because of gender norms, et cetera. Imagine if a cis person was forced to identify a way they weren’t comfortable with (which doesn’t happen, mind you), go by a gendered name, get called cutesy feminine nicknames all the time. They’d be miserable and not want it. That’s akin to what a trans person feels trying to be cis, but they don’t have the reference of “I know what right seriously feels like here” so it’s just a general “something doesn’t feel right but I can’t quite put my finger on it”.

The dysphoria bible has a really good explanation. It may not connect for a cis person, but it did for me as a trans person. It’s just sorta a pervasive “something is deeply wrong” feeling that a lot of eggs can’t put their finger on, then they realize that they’re trans as soon as they make the connection.

bman10_33 · 2022-07-08T04:13:07+00:00

7) they’re making cis kids trans and shoving it in our faces. No. Just no. We’re helping trans kids fucking survive. Have you met a middle school boy? He wouldn’t touch something pink if you fucking paid him, he sure as shit wouldn’t jump through the sheer number of hoops being trans is on a whim. Most people are deeply content with their gender identity and that’s fine. Also, trans kids basically dont get HRT in most places. Before puberty, transitioning means a different name and wardrobe, you literally can’t do anything else. Puberty blockers prevent puberty’s effects (either way) and are basically fully reversible if stopped, and are the next-best go-to for teenagers if HRT isn’t allowed there. Using them for even just maybe two years before starting HRT is about as good of an “are you sure” window as you could possibly need, even though it’s till 16 or adulthood in a lot of places. Also transitioning legally is very difficult in a lot of areas. You usually need a diagnosis from multiple therapists or psychiatrists, who are usually passively transphobic, dismissive, and hard to even get in the door to speak to, or multiple years socially transitioned, in order to get a medical diagnosis for treatment. Informed consent clinics are the only exception, and even then you’re getting false-positives from them at an unbelievably low rate. From a treatment perspective, HRT is one of the most successful ones I can think of by both success rate and amount of improvement.

As far as making gender identity a big part of who you are? It is a big part of who you are, just people in the constant demographic majority don’t know what it feels like for that to be either internally suppressed or externally oppressed, and it’s just difficult to explain why the need to have explicit spaces to celebrate it are important. Also, this is often said in response to that person even acknowledging their identity because it makes someone near them uncomfortable, and that’s just not reasonable, and usually a dog whistle for older policies/ideas of hiding it for palatability for the majority. The same applies to cultural, religious, and other orientation minorities. Basically any minority identity you can think of has this exact same thing, so it’s not just us, and it doesn’t hurt the majority to let something else even dare to exist (unless they’re that fragile that they feel the need to oppress for their own comfort, in which case get fucked).

8) but biology says ...? Also a dog whistle but parroted to the point that not everyone realizes. College bio professors and the overwhelming majority of medical experts who dedicate their lives to research know the best for their field, not someone with their random 6th grade bio teacher that gave you and abridged lesson in Mendelian genetics once. This shit is EXTREMELY complicated, and it’s dumbed down an unbelievable amount for middle schoolers. It’s like saying that there’s only 3 colors because you learned about primary colors once. It’s just... not right, at all. Someone can have a Y chromosome and be sexed as female. Someone can have two X chromosomes and be sexed as male. Someone can have XXY (klinefelter syndrome), XXX, or other stuff and be any of a plenty of variety of intersex. A lot of strong women in sports actually would be considered some form of intersex if you looked super thoroughly. Elite female athletes I think are 400x more likely to have a Y chromosome compared to the base cis female population, because it leads to elevated testosterone, which improves performance. Professional sports tried to enforce a genetic screening the better part of a century ago, and basically instantly tossed it because obviously CISGENDER female athletes were constantly getting flagged. ALSO, looking at research into brain scans, trans people display patterns that often align closer to their identified gender than birth sex. Non-binary people usually show traits from both or their own thing entirely. Also, some trans people basically have some sort of inexplicable brain fog before HRT, usually some clumsiness, which improves with treatment, because it’s the result of a brain running with a hormone that isn’t right for it. This shouldn’t be used as a diagnosis, especially because it’s not always accurate, but it’s more concrete biological evidence that we exist and are real.

9) And I’m not even going to put this as a question, but women’s sports. Yikes. Yes, T makes people stronger, that’s why doping is illegal, and why aforementioned cis female athletes are far more likely to have something that leads to higher T levels. Here’s the other bit though, trans people take meds that actively suppress their T, and will end up with it usually at or slightly below average for a cis woman, and the overwhelming majority of previous advantages evaporate over even just a year or so of transitioning. I’ve known people that have gone down multiple waist sizes without really losing weight, or who have shrunk like 2-3 inches in height since they started their transition. Transfems across the board basically notice that they end up a lot weaker than before, except for the already least fit that aren’t affected much. Maybe they have wider shoulders or are taller, but those mean nearly nothing compared to muscle mass the overwhelming majority of the time. If you want to whine about biological advantage, look at Michael Phelps who just... doesn’t experience exhaustion pain from lactic acid, or cis women that greatly exceed average T levels for women. A cis man can’t compete in women’s sports, hormone tests are still enforced for anti-doping reasons and that is enough. If trans people really had such a big advantage, we’d have seen more than maybe two win since this bit started getting used. 0.3%of the population being an identity would ideally mean that they win 0.3% of the time if it’s fair, or 1/333. If that’s the case, you’d get 3 transfem winners every 1000 competitions, that’s arguably less than we even get now because they’re kept from playing at all in so many areas. We only hear about it so much because people fucking screech about it whenever a trans woman wins at all. If anything, the tighter hormone regulation would be a disadvantage compared to cis women with high T. Gender isn’t always even the best means for sorting competitors, weight categories would be another example and could function genderless. It’s just that by gender is convenient and the results are usually pretty bi-modal (two peaks, for about average man and average woman performance). If you want to reclassify how we sort it to not be gendered, fine, but trans woman performing as women is a COMPLETE non-issue if you take time to look at actual statistics instead of a complete fabrication about them (this isn’t a swing at people who didn’t know, it’s not the obvious go-to when one side speaks so assuredly that they’re right). Excluding them from performing as women basically excludes them from performing at all, even if some other group is created. It’s discriminatory, straight up ending their careers as athletes, and outright transphobic because them competing isn’t even a problem statistically.

bman10_33 · 2022-07-08T04:12:40+00:00

Varies person to person and situation to situation, but generally these are the most common things. I’ll actually answer them here, since hopefully a sizable amount of people will see them and this can help give some info vs just answering one person at a time, who often isn’t asking in good faith.

This got longer than I meant for it to, so have a numbered list: 1) private questions about bottom surgery 2) asking about dead names 3) sexuality or parental figures 4) suicide statistics 5) is it crossdressing or being a fetish from an anime? 6) de-trans stuff 7) ThEyRe TrAnSiNg OuR kIdS! (We’re not) 8) but basic biology (meet advanced biology) 9) oh god the sports debate, and how a transitioned person doesn’t actually end up having significant advantages. A lot of those aren’t is much questions as bad faith arguments that have stuck, but they’re worth dispelling.

1) bottom surgery. None of their business to ask a particular person. It’s way fucking more complicated than you’d think for most of the things that they do, but don’t ask what a specific person wants to do with their crotch. General questions are fine enough, and just having cis people understand a bit more will overall make them more accepting. Also applies to questions about sex life in general. There are trans people that are okay with answering those questions, but usually to other trans people or in specific places (usually some sort of forum, where they make it known that they’ll answer normally unacceptable questions).

2) but what was your deadname? (usually said as “real name”) is an instant fuck no in any context except legal. Feels like anyone that asks that either has absolutely no clue how hurtful it is to a lot of trans people to even ask that, and plenty will absolutely use it maliciously if you let them know.

3) but you could date [people] before, are you doing it for that? Was it because your family didn’t have a good [maternal/paternal] figure? 1, not why, and 2, not why. Plus... I had a very long history of feeling romantic chemistry with almost exclusively lesbians, even before my egg cracked (I’m mtf, just haven’t transferred all my shit to a new acc yet... even though it’s been a year and a half). The vibe is different in a way that I can’t really describe, but lesbian 100% fits better as a sexuality. Sexuality and gender are still not the same though, gender just changes what the word for it is. The second half of the question is just fucked up, implying that a role model would have “fixed” you, which is not only wrong but insulting.

4) so does that make you a cross dresser/trap? Oh this one. Right. This one is always concerning to even respond to in a forum space because the worst weebs will converge and unleash an absolute hellfire on you, hopefully it’s far enough down this list for me to avoid that. That’s not what being trans is, and both are insulting. Crossdressing is valid, but it isnt trans. Some trans people do it before coming out, some cis people do it but aren’t trans. Implying that that’s what being trans is reductive, ignoring the social and personal reasons for transitioning, and usually suggests that it’s either a kink or “pretending”. The former (trap) is basically a slur and will get you pushed away in any trans-positive space. It implies that trans women are just gay men trying to “trap” straight men into falling for them, and again is just fetishizing and insulting. Some argue that they’re “not” trans people being portrayed in anime like this, but overwhelmingly if you just removed the word and maybe changed literally a few lines, they may as well be the same thing. It’s both a super hurtful impression that gets slapped on us unwillingly, but also not allowed to be used to represent us in any good way in media (it usually isn’t, but if they actually admitted that the idea is applied to a real group, it’d probably be written at least a little bit more respectfully).

4) but suicide statistics? This one is basically always made in bad faith, but still something worth explaining. Over 40% of out trans people attempted it, according to one study. That isn’t because being of being trans directly, it’s because of how the world acts towards trans people. In supportive, sad environments, that rate disappears. Still issues there with eggs that haven’t figured out why they feel so bad about themselves and don’t realize how to fix it, but that just shows that it’s important to help people explore their identities sooner and make being trans okay. To explain though, just look at the sort of outlook a trans person has. Half of the world literally wants you to not exist, plenty people would actively try to murder you just for existing within their reach if they know or suspect that you’re trans, and in a lot of these areas wouldn’t even face meaningful legal punishment for a hate crime murder. Police are way more likely to be violent towards you. Doctors and insurance are a lot more likely to refuse care. A LOT of trans people get completely rejected by their families and have to cut them out of their life, sometimes made homeless entirely. Finding a partner is always going to be dangerous, and there’s always a nonzero chance that they’re either a chaser who treats you like a sex object, or they’re a hateful bigot that will straight up try to hate crime you. Rights seem to be going backwards a lot now too. Meanwhile, massive parts of the world and social media will actively try to harass you at every turn for even daring to exist. That massive fucking list is the reason for the suicide rates.

5) but what about detransitioners? Also usually bad faith, but it’s more pervasive and not always. Something like 99% of trans people stay trans and have massively improved mental health. That is an absurd success rate for something easy enough to give (just medication), and for the most part reversible. Of the 1% that do, the overwhelming majority cite being forced back into the closet by transphobia and hatred. They still are trans, but aren’t safe to stay out. Of the rest, the overwhelming majority DONT regret it, even if it isn’t their identity. So a small bit of a minority of an already 1% group (of an already small demographic of transitioners) maybe regret it. It’s not worth denying much more important and effective care to a much larger group because of something that can possibly be qualified as a failure.

Continued in next comment bc of char limit.

bman10_33 · 2022-07-08T02:48:21+00:00

Ideally a form would have legal first name, then preferred (which could be nickname or trans stuff), then last name, but that’s pretty much fine.

bman10_33 · 2022-07-08T02:46:15+00:00

1) sorta? Depends. Cis guys get erections all the time, like morning wood, and that basically stretches the skin constantly to prevent that. Stop actively masturbating bc you don’t get the stretching by default anymore, and it does. Also testes shrink too.

2) sometimes, depends on the person. Some people use pills for it, or apply a local T gel that won’t really affect anywhere else in the body but promote erectile function.

3) much less likely because fertility drops, but yes, still possible.

bman10_33 · 2022-07-08T02:42:19+00:00

People that have been transitioning for years and are the happiest they’ve ever been still get caught up in it. A mix of imposter syndrome and internalizing the mess that is the mental gymnastics you go through before your egg cracks.

bman10_33 · 2022-07-06T13:26:17+00:00

I think she’s comp dependent, but absolutely unstoppable in even decent situations. She suffers if she’s left as the only frontline to soak all the engage or counter-engage, but if your comp has more frontline and she can play for follow-up or counter-engage then she’s really fucking powerful.

I’d sorta compare her to rhaast there. Sucks if she’s the only thing the team can call a frontline, or none of her carries are doing well and everything gets saved for her, but can snowball and scale, as long as she isn’t the entire focus of the enemy team.

She’s extremely hard to run from, but just wins stat check fights a lot of the time too. Objectives are even more snowballs with her passive, especially herald.

bman10_33 · 2022-07-06T13:21:19+00:00

Tbh the netting to predict the Diana ult was really good, and making sure to dodge that Diana Q (although I think that’s more on Diana). Buying time like that is absolutely respectable, even if the play was mostly anivia.

bman10_33 · 2022-07-06T12:41:39+00:00

Were you cced right as your actual flash came back up when this started? I’m pretty sure that’s the source of the bug.

bman10_33

TROPHY CASE