LGBTAitP - Part 20: Critical Hit!

[golentan]

Come one, come all, this is the glorious 20th installment of our friendly Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Asexual, Demisexual, Heterosexual, and probably-50-other-categories-I'm-forgetting discussion thread. As a brief reminder, despite the title everyone is welcome here, so no biting unless the other guy asks nicely. Also, bear in mind that simply because this thread is XX does not automatically make it a woman, so please practice gender sensitivity.

A brief refresher of the rules for those who have yet to read them or partied a little too hard recently:

• Everyone is welcome. Let's try to keep from seeming otherwise.
• Keep this topic free of politics and religion. (so, don't violate the board rules, plz)
• It's beyond the scope of this thread to discuss whether LGBT is "Right." (And really, most discussions probably should avoid moralizing too much anyway)
• Please refrain from posting sexually explicit content. (Keep it friendly as well as board safe )

If you would rather be anonymous when asking for advice or sharing your story or views, you can use the address below to send a message to be posted in this thread via proxy.

http://anonmail.smeenet.org/

Also, I'll throw my hat in the ring for people who would like help: you can contact me with a promise of privacy at [email protected]

Keep in mind that content which contain strong language may be filtered (Plus, y'know, the forum-filters), and content that violates the forum rules won't be posted at all.

Here are the links for the previous threads, where much of use or interest may be found:

1. LGBT people in the playground
   
2. LGBT people in the playground - part II
   
3. LGBTitp - part III
   
4. LGBTitp 4: We are a family?
   
5. LGBTitp - Part Five
   
6. LGBTitp - Part Six
   
7. LGBTitp - Part Seven
   
8. LGBTitp - Part Eight
   
9. LGBTitp - Part Nine
   
10. LGBTAitp - Part Ten
    
11. LGBTAitp - Part Eleven
    
12. LGBTAitp - Part Twelve
    
13. LGBTAitp - Part Thirteen
    
14. LGBTAitp - Part Fourteen
    
15. LGBTAitp - Part Fifteen
    
16. LGBTAitp - Part Sixteen
    
17. LGBTAitp - Part Seventeen
    
18. LGBTAitp - Part Eighteen!
    
19. LGBTAitp - Part Nineteen

And, for reference, here is the Thousand&Wordster Dictionary of Commonly Used LGBTAitp Words and Phrases

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Lagerbeta: A fine brewski to be drunk by queers and allies.
LGBT: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans*
Trans*: Transsexual and Transgender
LGBTA: LGBT+Asexual/Allies
QUILTBAG:

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Q - Queer and Questioning
U - Unidentified
I - Intersex
L - Lesbian
T - Transgender, Transexual
B - Bisexual
A - Asexual
G - Gay, Genderqueer

Allies: Straight people that support equality for sexuality and gender minorities.
MtF: Male-to-Female: A woman born with male nibblies, who may or may not be seeking HRT and/or SRS. (AKA: trans woman)
FtM: Female-to-Male: A man born with female nibblies, who may or may not be seeking HRT and/or SRS. (AKA: trans man)
GQ: Genderqueer.
CS: Cis-sexual: sex and gender match (a male with male nibblies, a female with female nibblies.
TS: Transsexual: Sex and gender disparity.
HRT: Hormone replacement therapy. MtF's take more progestrogens and oestrogens and FtM's take more testosterone (I think?)
SRS: Sex Reassignment Surgery: Surgery to replace/transform a vagina into a penis, or vice versa depending on direction. Mastectomies or plastic surgery may be used on breasts.
FFS: Facial Feminization Surgery: Plastic surgery to reduce chin/nose/cheekbones. Not very common.

Man: A cisman or transman. Male.
Woman: A ciswoman or transwoman. Female.
Androgyne: Gender Identity with male and female aspects.
Genderfluid: Someone who fluctuates between male and female.
Agendered: Someone who feels neither male nor female.
Third-gendered: Someone who fits in a local society's third gender, usually male performing female tasks, occasionally vice versa.
Masculine: Something generally associated with men.
Feminine: Something generally associated with women.

Lesbian: A woman who is attracted to women.
Gay: A man who is attracted to men.
Homosexual: A person who is attracted to members of their gender.
Heterosexual: A person who is attracted to members of the opposite gender.
Bisexual: A person who is attracted to both male and female people.
Pansexual: A person who is attracted to people regardless of gender.
Asexual: A person who does not feel any/some sexual attraction.
Demisexual: A person who is only sexually attracted to someone(s) they have formed an intense emotional relationship with.
Androsexual: A person (of any gender identity) who is sexually attracted to the male-bodied form.
Gynosexual: A person (of any gender identity) who is sexually attracted to the female-bodied form
Polyamorous: A person who is interested in a relationship with more than one person.
Radosexual: A person who is only attracted to rad people.
Pomosexual: A person who avoids SO labels.

Sexual Orientation: How one identifies who they are attracted to. (SO)
Gender Identity: How one feels inside society's idea of "man, woman, or other". (GI)
Gender Expression: How one expresses their GI to society. (GE)
Significant Other(s): Person you are in a relationship with. (SO)

[Qaera]

*shakes queer bootay* new thread~

I ALMOST ASKED A GIRL FOR HER NUMBER TODAY but then she just said to talk over Facebook and I didn't want to seem uhm, attaché and stuff.

~ ♅

[bluewind95]

Someday, I want to make the new thread!

[Lanaya]

So I now have a female symbol on my posts. This is all very experimental and uncertain, but I hope to keep it there. Of course, logically it's utterly meaningless, changing a single field on a website on which I lurk and where no one I know would recognise me, but my heart's all aflutter anyway.

[Rawhide]

Just a reminder that any posts on this forum proclaiming "first!" or whatever will be deleted.

[Triscuitable]

I've taken the time to prepare a lengthy greeting for the new thread.

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLL LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

And now I resume creepily stalking the thread in the peace of my office chair. Back into the depths of the internet I go.

[turkishproverb]

Yay, new thread.
HUGS FOR EVERYONE!

*hugs golentan*

*Hugs Rawhide*
*Hugs Quaera*
*hugs Lanaya*
*Hugs bluewind95*
*Hugs Triscuitable*

[Triscuitable]

Yay, new thread.
HUGS FOR EVERYONE!

*hugs golentan*

*Hugs Rawhide*
*Hugs Quaera*
*hugs Lanaya*
*Hugs bluewind95*
*Hugs Triscuitable*

This is a digital hug, right? I'm not crazy about physical contact.

'Naw, I'm just kidding. But I really do have issues with physical contact. Beware if we ever meet.

[turkishproverb]

This is a digital hug, right? I'm not crazy about physical contact.

'Naw, I'm just kidding. But I really do have issues with physical contact. Beware if we ever meet.

I have a fair share of problems with real world physical contact myself, so don't worry about it.


Digital contact is still fun though.

[Arachu]

So I now have a female symbol on my posts. This is all very experimental and uncertain, but I hope to keep it there. Of course, logically it's utterly meaningless, changing a single field on a website on which I lurk and where no one I know would recognise me, but my heart's all aflutter anyway.

*Hugs*

Yay, new thread.
HUGS FOR EVERYONE!

*hugs golentan*

*Hugs Rawhide*
*Hugs Quaera*
*hugs Lanaya*
*Hugs bluewind95*
*Hugs Triscuitable*

Oi, I posted too. (I just happened to forget how dangerous that joke is... )

*Hugs everything*

[golentan]

Real world physical contact with living things is the only thing which keeps me sane. Which, in retrospect, is unfortunate when paired with my crippling inability to express my emotional needs to most people. As a result, I spend most of my waking hours wishing that someone would hug me, afraid they'll hit me instead, anxious about actually asking for a hug, and slowly going mad from the combination of sadness, fear, and anxiety that being around other people brings.

I feel I was more honest there than I should have been. So... hugs.

[bluewind95]

I... I was hugged? *weeps for joy*


@Golentan:

I'd hug you.

[golentan]

Aww, thanks. I'd hug you too.

Edit: joke.

[Astrella]

Hai new thread~

*hugs thread*

My hair now reaches up to the tip of my nose. :3
And now I can't keep my hands out of it...

[Arachu]

Real world physical contact with living things is the only thing which keeps me sane. Which, in retrospect, is unfortunate when paired with my crippling inability to express my emotional needs to most people. As a result, I spend most of my waking hours wishing that someone would hug me, afraid they'll hit me instead, anxious about actually asking for a hug, and slowly going mad from the combination of sadness, fear, and anxiety that being around other people brings.

I feel I was more honest there than I should have been. So... hugs.

*Hugs*

I have that problem, minus having any contact to help...:/

Hai new thread~

*hugs thread*

My hair now reaches up to the tip of my nose. :3
And now I can't keep my hands out of it...

*Girly squee!*

Mine goes to my chin/shoulders (haven't had a trim a while...), and I play with it constantly. It tends to hang in my eyes, but that's pretty cool when I comb it over to the left.

It's getting awfully close to my food/drinks, though...

[Triscuitable]

Aww, thanks. I'd hug you too.

Edit: joke.

I absolutely love that series. Been watching it since it started when I was 10. TEN.

[Coidzor]

12 gods I always feel like an idiot whenever I look over the thread title list.

Really glad the subtitles thing never caught on in spite of that blunder.

[turkishproverb]

*Hugs*



Oi, I posted too. (I just happened to forget how dangerous that joke is... )

*Hugs everything*

Sorry!

*hugs arachu*

12 gods I always feel like an idiot whenever I look over the thread title list.

Really glad the subtitles thing never caught on in spite of that blunder.

*hugs coidzor*

[golentan]

I absolutely love that series. Been watching it since it started when I was 10. TEN.

Yeah, I started watching it about mid way through season 1, when I was in college. Little-kuriboh and Team Four Star are my two favorite abridged series, by which I mean they're the ones I enjoy watching and do so regularly.

I'm surprised I'm that much older than you though. It brings up a conundrum. Let me see, for the creepiness equation my dating range is... 8432... carry the two... Anyone between the ages of 4223 and 16850. Assuming we're only counting the time I've spent on earth, not my whole lifespan, which I can only begin to make educated guesses at but which is larger by a factor of 100 at a minimum...

Yeah... Clearly, ethically, there's only one thing that I can reasonably do about dating humans. *crumples paper and sets it on fire*

I'm going to go rob the cradle some more! *leaves to find girlfriend*

[Blisstake]

Hello everyone!

That's really all I have to say; everything's fine here.

[Mina Kobold]

*Glomps thread*

Newness never gets too old to enjoy! :3

But, as the representative of QueerKitty, I must hereby do something highly unorthodox.

*Playfully swats at thread*

[Kneenibble]

So I now have a female symbol on my posts. This is all very experimental and uncertain, but I hope to keep it there. Of course, logically it's utterly meaningless, changing a single field on a website on which I lurk and where no one I know would recognise me, but my heart's all aflutter anyway.

Quod's your story, luv?

[Asta Kask]

Idea Time
Before I talked to transpeople I never realised how difficult and dangerous a simple thing like going out for a night on town could be. It was really a revelation for me, and I want more people to have that revelation. So I thought I could capitalize on my knowledge as RPG DM - why not construct a simple scenario (very rules-light) to show us cissexuals the dangers that we never experience? Conscious-raising, that sort of thing.

I was thinking something like the old Fighting Fantasy books - if you want to do 'x' go to paragraph 'y', etc. And then take the result, make a pdf and have people distribute it at Pride-festivals and other similar occasions.

But obviously I need help, because I don't know crap about being a transperson. I've got some ideas for encounters - drunken miscreants, choosing restrooms, transphobic policemen, belligerent bouncers... but I don't know if they are appropriate, I don't know if there should be more and I don't know how to write them because I have no experience of transphobia. So I was thinking we could set up a dropbox or something like that and get to work.

Reactions?

I'm putting this there to remind everyone of this project, which I will probably start a new thread about. I have not forgotten it - I'm thinking about a scoring system and three endings - one bad, one meh and one good. And all endings should have a component of "I'll try again - I won't let them keep me from my true self..." But I'll let things percolate over the weekend and I still need all the help I can get (obviously).

[Rawhide]

Screw it, I can't resist anymore. I'm changing the title.

[Elfinor]

Gracious, I'd forgotten how fast these threads move.

I arrived from my holiday about a week ago. Didn't go anywhere near as badly as I thought it would. I forgot how much my close family tends to benignly ignore my bizarre habits (extended family here, not so much) so it was a bit of a relief in a way.

Screw it, I can't resist anymore. I'm changing the title.

I'm reading the title with a heavy Australian twang... I swear I have never gone a week without hearing about cricket, even though I don't understand the rules. My news feed keeps tricking me with sensational sounding titles that end up just being cricket articles

[KenderWizard]

I'm always baffled when things are retconned.

@Lix: Hug?

Pathways (trigger warning for talking about ignorant attitudes towards transwomen, to be safe):

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It strikes me that a lot of people will think it's a gimmicky thing. Because transwomen (or a mistaken conflation of transness) are so often used in a crappy way in crappy cis-privileged derivative humour. If you say "an adventure where you play the part of a trans person on a night out", some people are going to think you're going to be, y'know, a sketch lad in a dress, with adventures consisting of spying on "real" women by using the female bathroom and trying to "trick" "real" men into having sex with you so you can be all like "LOL I has penis now you're gay".

I suppose in one way, the worst that could happen is someone reads it looking for that and is surprised. But it's just something I thought I should bring up.

[Lither]

Hello all. Been wanting to say this for a while. Might as well get this over and done with as quickly as possible. So my problem is now in dot point format.

Spoilered due to trigger warnings for homophobic (and in this case, completely off the mark) slurs. Just to be safe.

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• I'm asexual. Also really dislikes anyone coming too close, and is probably related, for reasons I keep to myself.
• The current definition of asexuality I'm identifying as is the one with a lack of sexual orientation. In my case, said dislike of physical contact has also lead me to a dislike of romantic relationships.
• Nobody I know IRL knows what asexuality is.
• People notice me avoiding romantic relationships with members of the opposite sex.
• People with all their logic come to the conclusion that it must mean I'm homosexual.
• Immature people start throwing homophobic slurs around, the only real thing bothering me about it is the venom some of them are used with.
• Others, including several family members who consider me to be in a state of denial, telling me it's perfectly fine to be homosexual *head suddenly strikes desk with a not inconsiderable amount of force*.
• Now so bored and frustrated with it I've stopped bothering to attempt to introduce proper knowledge to people I know.

Probably needed to get that out of my system before I lost it and started yelling at some people. So does anybody know how to adress this problem as time and time again people around me seem incapable of understanding that I am in another "category" that they don't yet accept it's existence.

Hope I put that in an inoffensive way. I don't enjoy offending anyone, especially over the internet.

[Asta Kask]

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It strikes me that a lot of people will think it's a gimmicky thing. Because transwomen (or a mistaken conflation of transness) are so often used in a crappy way in crappy cis-privileged derivative humour. If you say "an adventure where you play the part of a trans person on a night out", some people are going to think you're going to be, y'know, a sketch lad in a dress, with adventures consisting of spying on "real" women by using the female bathroom and trying to "trick" "real" men into having sex with you so you can be all like "LOL I has penis now you're gay".

I suppose in one way, the worst that could happen is someone reads it looking for that and is surprised. But it's just something I thought I should bring up.

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It depends on in what context this is administrated. On SJGs or WotC's homepage - yes. But if you give it in the context of a pride parade, or at a local LGBTA organization, and state clearly that the purpose is to teach people about translife then they might try to get into the spirit of things.

We'll never get the bigots, so let's not waste time trying. This adventure would be for Socrates - "The only thing I know is that I don't know anything." People like you and me, who don't understand but who know we don't understand and are willing to learn.

Am I making sense?

[KenderWizard]

Hello all. Been wanting to say this for a while. Might as well get this over and done with as quickly as possible. So my problem is now in dot point format.

Spoilered due to trigger warnings for homophobic (and in this case, completely off the mark) slurs. Just to be safe.

Spoiler

Show

• I'm asexual. Also really dislikes anyone coming too close, and is probably related, for reasons I keep to myself.
• The current definition of asexuality I'm identifying as is the one with a lack of sexual orientation. In my case, said dislike of physical contact has also lead me to a dislike of romantic relationships.
• Nobody I know IRL knows what asexuality is.
• People notice me avoiding romantic relationships with members of the opposite sex.
• People with all their logic come to the conclusion that it must mean I'm homosexual.
• Immature people start throwing homophobic slurs around, the only real thing bothering me about it is the venom some of them are used with.
• Others, including several family members who consider me to be in a state of denial, telling me it's perfectly fine to be homosexual *head suddenly strikes desk with a not inconsiderable amount of force*.
• Now so bored and frustrated with it I've stopped bothering to attempt to introduce proper knowledge to people I know.

Probably needed to get that out of my system before I lost it and started yelling at some people. So does anybody know how to adress this problem as time and time again people around me seem incapable of understanding that I am in another "category" that they don't yet accept it's existence.

Hope I put that in an inoffensive way. I don't enjoy offending anyone, especially over the internet.

Asexuality seems to be tricky. Maybe you could try to find one person who would listen when you explained it, and then you'd have someone on your side. Maybe a parent, or sibling, or close friend? If you can, I think you should try let the "it's okay to be homosexual" comments just slide off. Those people are, at least, not sexualorientationist. It's very frustrating that they don't see what your real identity is, but at least they're trying to be supportive and nice and might understand if you explain. As for people who throw bigoted slurs around, I have yet to find a good way of dealing with them.

Pathways:

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It depends on in what context this is administrated. On SJGs or WotC's homepage - yes. But if you give it in the context of a pride parade, or at a local LGBTA organization, and state clearly that the purpose is to teach people about translife then they might try to get into the spirit of things.

We'll never get the bigots, so let's not waste time trying. This adventure would be for Socrates - "The only thing I know is that I don't know anything." People like you and me, who don't understand but who know we don't understand and are willing to learn.

Am I making sense?

Yep, definitely. I think you're right, context is key, I think the people who we're aiming this at will get it. But I just wanted to bring it up, because if you accidentally attract the attention of those people, you want to be prepared for what they'll say.

[Rawhide]

So, thanks to an advert on another webcomic, I just discovered that there's a webcomic called QUILTBAG.