Divergent Is A Bad Book, But Its Accidental Brilliance Is That It Completely Mauled the YA Dystopian

you all need to think about how you interact with trans men online, like really think

recently one of my posts about being a trans man and casually interacting with another trans man got about 90,000 notes and the tags and comments are full of ‘too pure for this earth’, ‘i’m a dirty sinner i don’t deserve to read this post’, ‘adorable cute sweet precious boys’ despite the fact that it’s mentioned that i am in college and not a child in the post and you all need to think about how some trans men do not want to be referred to that way and being okay with being referred to that way is pretty much exclusively a young teenager tumblr thing that makes a lot of guys uncomfortable. i’m just a man. none of this is necessary and it’s very performative, but…

along with this infantilizing, with this obsession with the proposed purity of another man and myself just for existing, there’s also dehumanization that comes with it, for example:

somewhere along the post, someone decided it would be a good idea to add, ‘all i can imagine is two eldritch horrors trying to get their voices as horrifying and fucked up as possible’ (not exact quote but that’s the gist of it)…

and someone decided that it would be a good idea to take my experience, wildly change the context and make a FANFIC, on MY OWN POST, of two eldritch MONSTERS upset because their voices didn’t sound ‘as horrific’ as the ‘monsters’ around them, and bonding over it together. nowhere in this fanfiction was being trans mentioned.

this is, quite possibly, the most horrifying thing someone has added to one of my posts and going beyond dehumanizing my experiences as a trans man enjoying my voice getting deeper, but also writing a fanfiction onto the post that changed the context of ‘two trans men finding validation between one another and our voices’ into ‘two monsters are sad they’re not scary enough and bond over trying to be scary together’. i shouldn’t have to explain how horrible that is for me to read, and how horrible it is to see that added on my own post & circulated through hundreds with no criticism.

quite frankly, it’s devastating to see how people talk about and interact with trans men. we are either children who must be protected and are weak and vulnerable and ‘too pure’, or we are fuel for your fanfics that completely strip us of our humanity. i consent to neither and if you think that any of these things are okay to do to a complete stranger, all you’re doing is patting yourself on the back for your performative ally points while making trans men uncomfortable with sharing their experiences and talking about their lives and trying to be happy with themselves. stop it. 

So this is just a PSA, y'all should never sign a contract until you read it. I’m talking in rl right now. I just got through reading my employee handbook/service contract and my bosses slipped in a lot of bullshit like telling me I can’t complain about my job on social media, demanding I work off the clock in the name of good service, expects me to show up on time during inclimate weather, and considered disability or religious accommodation a direct threat to the company.

These are all things I took issue with and brought to my employer for further discussion before signing the contract. Most of my coworkers signed without reading, treating it like an internet terms of service contract.

Tl;dr real life is serious shit, lawyers write contracts to protect your employer FROM YOU, read contracts before you sign them - fucking ARGUE about contracts before you sign them

File this under “super obvious yet I always seem to forget it.”

be there or be square

Here’s the second part of mindfulness I learned in therapy that helped me to function after a breakdown. If you, like me, were taught growing up that some emotions were unacceptable, you may need to learn to handle them now as an adult in order to be healthy. All emotions are important indicators that are there to help you. Mindfulness 101 Comic °˖✧*•  Shop, Patreon, Book, Mailing List *•. ✧˖°`

Caihong