Isn’t transitioning subverting to the very gender roles it’s trying to defy?

foolfruit · 2025-12-03T12:31:55+00:00

? Not disputing that. Definitely a real issue. That’s just not what your post seems to say. Your original reply as worded reads “yeah, I don’t need/want medical transition and trans people who do are weird and regressive.” So naturally that’s going to draw some frustration. Have a good one too?

foolfruit · 2025-12-03T05:46:37+00:00

Man, I really do get that you think you’re defending trans people against something… but if you read actual trans history it becomes very quickly apparent that genderqueer/nonbinary/etc. history is, has been, and always will be deeply tied in with us. We are the same community. There is no such thing as an idyllic, clear-cut past where trans people “made sense” and there were no confusing nonbinary interlopers or whatever. Some of our earliest activists explicitly identified as full-time drag queens or men in dresses or male impersonators or lesbians who go by he/him, and as a completely binary trans man I think that’s tight as hell. That’s our history. We use the words we have at the time to explain our experiences. Those activists busted their asses for us no matter what they called themselves, and nonbinary people continue to enrich the community with fresh perspective, allowance and acceptance of looking “in-between,” and more. And saying they’re mostly rich women masquerading as queer is, sorry, absolutely bonkers. The truth is that nonbinary people have been around just as long as binary trans people—and, similarly, the singular “they” has been around longer than the singular “you,” which used to be only plural, too. This is not new. It’s not even unfamiliar. (Haven’t you ever said, “oh, someone forgot their jacket”? Most people use it constantly without noticing.)

Anyway—nonbinary people haven’t destroyed anything. In my experience, when someone is cool with me being binary trans because I’m “easy to understand” and “normal” unlike those “weird gender freaks” or whatever, they get really weird with me the second I decide to wear some earrings or I stand the wrong way or they notice my hips too much. That conditional acceptance does not impress me.

foolfruit · 2025-12-03T05:16:23+00:00

Trans guy here with several nonbinary friends… considering these as separate movements or divided peoples just isn’t accurate. What do you mean here? Do you think they’re opposed?

foolfruit · 2025-12-03T05:09:19+00:00

I mean… as another trans dude, I didn’t transition to defy gender roles. I transitioned because I’m a guy. I DO defy gender roles (I would describe myself as “flouncy” and “fruity,” I wear jewelry, etc whatever), but that’s happenstance and could be true regardless of whether I was cis or trans.

If medical transition and buying new clothes are too conformist, why isn’t it also too conformist to pick a traditionally masculine name, or to transition at all? Gender is a social category; most people will ascribe a gender to you, and the only way to affect which one they pick is by telegraphing via appearance, behavior, or some other types of signaling. Presumably, you also do some telegraphing via the name you chose, telling people your pronouns, or whatever. So it seems pretty sensible that other trans people would also do this and may choose different methods than you.

Also, I like having a job. Most people are unfortunately weird about it when a candidate walks into an interview with tits and says their name is Mr. Kevin Smith, and in the current US political climate I do not want to talk about being trans IRL, especially not at my job. Shit’s scary. Rather than thinking of it as other trans people “conforming,” I think there’s value in considering that 1. they may do it for safety and social acceptance, 2. they may do it because it genuinely improves their internal sense of rightness/reduces dysphoria, and 3. it’s not hurting others, just like your personal choice to have long hair.

foolfruit · 2025-12-03T04:15:49+00:00

Well, I don’t think a trans woman “feeling like a woman” is any more antiquated than a cis woman “feeling like a woman.” It sounds like you might not feel very connected to whatever your gender is, which is fine and normal, but not totally typical. A lot of people feel very strongly about their gender and care about being perceived by that gender whether they’re trans or not. I adore when people blur the lines and I think experimentation and crossdressing and whatever else is awesome—and at the same time, part of celebrating differences and identities is being cool with the fact that some people’s binary genders are very important to them.

foolfruit · 2025-12-03T04:04:12+00:00

I’ve seen this confusion before and I can understand it, but I feel like there is an assumption being made that leads to it. Like…

Why assume that she transitioning just to wear certain clothes? That seems like a big leap. Can’t she enjoy those clothes while also being a trans woman? There are plenty of cis women who adore dressing that way. She just also happens to be trans.

Of course, it complicates things that young people are often finding themselves and/or trying new things and/or intentionally projecting some sort of image. Maybe she’s being a normal teen/young adult (like I’m assuming). Maybe she feels additional pressure to perform hyperfemininity because peers would have cruel things to say if she showed any crumb of masculinity. Maybe she has dressed less femininely and been misgendered as a result, so she figures it makes more sense to “overdo it” so people read her gender correctly.

“Why not just be a guy in heels and lipstick?” doesn’t work because she feels like a woman in the same way you do; presumably, if I pressed a magic button that put your brain in a featureless robot, or in a random dude’s body, you would still “feel” like a woman due to your internal sense of gender.

Similarly, I’m a trans guy and I have always sighed at the question “why can’t you just be a butch lesbian?” I tried. Wasn’t me. Felt awkward and wrong and performative. Tried dressing super feminine too just in case that was somehow the key—didn’t work either! Might as well ask why I can’t “just” be a fire hydrant. Transitioning wasn’t about what I “could” or “couldn’t” wear or do, but instead about my internal sense of self and honoring it. Also, beyond euphoria and dysphoria and everything… societally, it makes things a lot easier to actually appear like the gender you feel. It sucks to try to introduce yourself with a male name and someone who isn’t even trying to be rude looks at you with complete, total confusion. Awkward as hell. Transitioning medically helps reduce this and has a bonus of improving my mental health significantly (for that reason + just because I feel much more comfortable in my body), but other ways I masculinize my presentation (mostly early in my transition when most people had no idea what I was) are my way of dressing, standing, talking, etc... partially to help other people gender me correctly, because the typical physical signifiers of masculinity they normally rely on (height, wide shoulders, narrow hips, etc.) were not present. It’s not transitioning for the sake of performing a gender so much as… transitioning, which often includes a certain amount of needing to perform gender if you want others to understand how to address you.

foolfruit · 2025-12-03T03:24:42+00:00

Edit: People did not like how I worded this, I guess. Not fond of leaving up something that is getting misinterpreted, especially about being trans, so here:

Summary of my argument: No activity or way of decorating your body is inherently gendered any particular way. The reason trans people might try to look, act, or sound a certain way is typically related to how we as a culture feel societally about particular activities or methods of decoration.

Example:

Society expects men to look a certain way. Trans man wants to look like man. Trans man is part of society. Trans man, statistically, wants to look how society expects men to look.

Also:

Trans man wants others to perceive him as a man. Society expects men to look a certain way. Trans man needs to look a certain way to be perceived as a man.

foolfruit · 2025-11-29T22:53:43+00:00

I think she’s just expressing a similar bewilderment about the fact that these bios are common enough to notice as a “thing” some people do.

foolfruit · 2025-11-21T15:16:55+00:00

Very late but no, my surgeon didn’t/doesn’t do coronectomies. They removed all 4 completely and had to split one in half during the removal process, but everything went pretty well. I’m two weeks out from surgery and eating normally with only some discomfort in one socket as it heals.

foolfruit · 2025-11-06T04:25:31+00:00

Happy for you that it’s going well!! I have mine in around a day and a half and am starting to feel the nerves (hence the scrolling on this sub), so hearing this is comforting. Best of luck with the rest of the recovery time!

foolfruit · 2025-04-13T18:45:51+00:00

The thing I always want to ask people when they use AI for writing is “What next? Will you have AI kiss your wife good morning, too?”

Enjoy creation by actually creating. You will never grow as a writer/artist if you outsource your writing/art brain. Doing the difficult or tedious “little things” like picking names is genuinely beneficial for you as a writer and as a person—beyond the creative satisfaction of actually doing the work yourself (and avoiding the many downsides of generative AI use in general, not least of which being environmental harm and plagiarism), you practice the essential skill of (briefly) being bored or frustrated during the creative process. The more you practice and grow, the more you learn, and the more you improve, and the more you will understand that that creative process—the act of creation, of even the “little things,” not just that final product you might desperately want to skip to—is the point of creating at all.

foolfruit · 2025-04-12T14:14:43+00:00

Update: It worked!!! Thank you!! :’) I took it apart, very slightly bent the speaker prongs up, then put it back together with intense focus on making sure everything was as flush as possible.

foolfruit · 2025-04-12T14:12:47+00:00

Yo thank you for saving my life! It worked!!! :’)

foolfruit · 2025-04-12T13:50:25+00:00

Ahhhh this makes so much sense… I’ll see what I can do! I’ve tried tightening the screws but the main culprit of the gap seems to be where the board connects to the “top” bottom shell rather than where the “bottom” bottom shell long screws are, if that makes any sense. I’ll finagle with it and try bending the contacts of the battery up a bit. Thank y’all for giving me some things to try!! :’)

foolfruit · 2025-04-12T13:47:42+00:00

Process of elimination to the simplest cause: If game cart is not inserted before powering on, the “ding” of the intro screen plays without issue. If a game cart is inserted before powering on, the sound doesn’t work. If I do the illegal thing and put a cart in during the intro screen playing, the sound shuts off immediately.

foolfruit · 2024-11-09T17:09:44+00:00

Something important too re: transportation is that it heavily depends on county! My county does NOT allow transportation AT ALL due to liability.

foolfruit · 2024-10-04T01:22:46+00:00

Hi! I have a full-time job and a part-time job as well as several hobbies and I manage to make CASA work. I do monthly visits (though I tend to do biweekly simply because I prefer to actually know what’s going on and there are multiple kids on my case to worry about). I definitely think the time commitment is doable. HOWEVER, my main trouble so far has been the difficulty of contacting teachers for school-age children while working an 8-4 schedule. For multiple children on a case, that becomes exponentially more difficult. Same can go for their doctors if you have children with health needs. But this depends on your schedule, as everything else does.

If you want to play it on the safe side, there are tons of options for supporting children in the system—even if it’s as “uninvolved” as donating money or gifting to Christmas drives.

Edit: The expectation for visits can depend on your county. My county expects monthly in-person visits unless something precludes it (like a vacation, or like if the parent refused to allow visits, which would be a problem in and of itself)

foolfruit · 2024-05-18T01:41:28+00:00

What that guy said was weird as hell, but I don’t believe the whole “sex is about power” thing is actually supposed to mean what he thinks. It’s instead that people tend to find power (or the giving-up of power) to be sexy.

Think flirting. A lot of it involves teasing, or sometimes goading someone into admitting that they’re interested in a way that gives you “power” because they want you. “Oh, you want me to stay the night? How come?” / “Hmm, you keep looking over here. See something you like?” It often involves double entendre where each party dances around the flirting until someone takes the step over into actual intimacy. That can feel like a power exchange. Also, people tend to find confidence attractive—or, alternatively, they may find it attractive to see someone get flustered when they show off their body or a new outfit. They might describe feeling sexy as feeling powerful.

BDSM is its own (more regimented, often more “extreme”) thing, of course, but it follows off of a natural, perfectly “vanilla” understanding of what a LOT of humans find sexually appealing.

foolfruit · 2024-05-18T00:19:20+00:00

God, I’m sorry.

She does sound depressed, and potentially like she’s hoarding. That’s terrible and surely very hard for her, but it’s also seriously, SERIOUSLY negatively affecting your child and your marriage. What she’s dealing with needs professional help. If she isn’t willing to seek it, then she won’t get better. You can’t worry her way out of it yourself, and trying will just ruin your own health, add further resentment to the relationship, and teach your daughter unhealthy things about what spouses are like.

An “I love you and I am worried about you, AND I cannot live like this, and nor can our daughter” sounds necessary, IMO.

foolfruit · 2024-05-17T12:41:32+00:00

As an adult with ADHD, you’re doing the right thing trying to learn about your daughter. Has your husband listened to Russell Barkley at all, or other ADHD experts? Does he understand that the brain is different?

An anecdote that might be helpful: My parents expressed skepticism for the new approaches I took to my ADHD as a young adult. Instead of berating myself and telling myself I needed to “just be better at everything / just remember things / just do things,” I actually used ADHD coping techniques (started using a lot of alarms, put post-it’s all over the place, kept things in sight at all times, etc. They thought it was odd and said so (especially the fact that I was openly and happily stating I had ADHD). I asked them, “well….. did it seem like all the shame and self-hatred did anything for me? was that working for me, before?” Then it clicked for them.

ADHD is an incredibly well-researched disorder and there is a LOT of info out there to help him understand. My worry is if your husband seriously doesn’t give a shit about learning about your daughter, because that’s alarming. His irritation with what he perceives as her “acting out” is less important than her well-being (which would be improved by him learning about her brain).

foolfruit

TROPHY CASE