So long and thanks for all the fish

This is probably going to be the last post on here for a very long time.

As you are aware, I haven’t posted since April and it has been for very good reason. I had complications after my surgery and it became very exhausting to exist both physically and emotionally. I made a fuck ton of mistakes, I fucked up a chunk of my life and ended up with a huge infection that hasn’t even been spotted by doctors for a good 6 weeks or so.

Then a lot of trans peoples sites started to get doxxed – mainly by TERFs and I found out that my twitter was listed on a thing that TERFs use – so I did what was best and shut down for a very long time. Kids, don’t get involved in protests and politics unless you prepare yourself for the worst case.

I started panicking and loosing my love of doing this. I hated looking at what I had created and I hated myself. This became a reminder of the one thing I thought I was over but it wasn’t. It was a stark reminder of my rage, my frustration, and I no longer felt good about it.

I will be keeping this up – because one day I would like to come back to this. I also know that lots of people use this as a source of information and I appreciate that.

In other news, Kai, myself and a good friend of ours (who has guest posted several times here) are starting a new website. We have a name and once the final bits are sorted I will be posting a link to it, and I hope as many of you as possible come and join us for this new adventure. It is something we are looking forward to starting and we finally have zero constraints on what we can and cannot write anymore which is a bonus.

From the bottom of my heart I want to thank every one for their love and support over the what, four years this ran?! And who knows. I might come back to this.

Much love and support to all of you

Tyler Charles Austen

PS – For all those haters who are so happy that this is over – the new project is 200% more content with some of our best posts thrown in, with a support network that’s amazing, backing from a group with 7500 members and a fuck ton of friends willing to help – so no, this isn’t the end of me.. Yet.

A-Z challenge update

So, I’ve had complications from surgery and will catch up as soon as I can get back online properly and not be on a ridiculous amount of pain killers.

My hysto went really well, it’s just minor things that are keeping me in hospital at the moment and I shall return in the next couple of days to finish this whole thing off

Intersectional Feminism

Shortest post I’m probably going to write but I don’t think that it requires a lot of words.

If your feminism doesn’t count trans women, sex workers, people of colour, disabled people and the working class, not only is it not intersectional, it is in fact shit. Feminism is about equality for all, not just those who already have a sense of equality.

Hypervisibilty

Being hyper visible in society can be really difficult. There is a huge assumption because it is “obvious” that you are disabled or “visibly queer” you get life a lot easier because you are seen in society. Trust me, whist we are talked about, no it doesn’t get any easier. It is often used more as an excuse to patronise you or treat you like a lesser human being. I do also want to add before I continue that I suffered years having my illnesses being “hidden” and yes it was shit, and people didn’t often believe how much in pain I was or how tired I was, but it was nothing in comparison to what I experience now when I am out in my chair.

Being visible doesn’t mean you are free from discrimination. Trans people who are “visibly trans” are still getting murdered, gay men and lesbians are still being forced into heterosexuality and wheelchair users are seen as second class citizens and have to deal with unemployment based on employers unwilling to make “reasonable adjustments” to the work place.

Gay people do not suffer less oppression because they are more visible by being in same/similar gender relationships. Gay people do not get it easier because they are known more for being gay. There is a huge wave of how gays and lesbians are taking up “too much” space in the LGBT community and that we should bring forward B and T … For starters trans people can be gay or lesbian and secondly talking about same and similar gender attraction does not invalidate bisexuality because that is a part of it and “straight passing” relationships are never the ones that are under attack and subject to violence and oppression. I also hate the phrase straight passing in this situation but trying to word it as cishet by society standards seems wordy as shit.

The same can be said for disabled people who’s disabilities are visible. This doesn’t mean that people with invisible illnesses and disabilities are being talked over, but that there is different needs for different communities and that creating accessible spaces, work laws and equality polices for the ones that are most visible will in turn also make all this safe for those who are not visible in society because everything will already be in place. For example, we need lifts – wheel chair user shouts at person for lift access.. Lift access is now for all people with access needs.

Reasonably short post but in summery hypervisibility does not equate to safety.

Gynecology And Gender

This is the best time for me to post this, as on the 12th I will be undergoing a full hysterectomy and have had to deal with the gynecology department and over coming the weird looks you get as someone who is male presenting turning up in a primarily women’s environment.

I have never liked how gynecology has been. It’s pink, its covered in flowers and it is assumptive of all the sex you have (if you have it, is entirely straight). Even if I wasn’t someone who presented as male, I would be really fucking patronised about the pink obsession that goes into that clinical space. OK I’m talking about Brighton’s Gyno centre, but I’ve heard the same story in so many others by vagina owners across the board that it screams sexism and floral undertones. As someone who has visited recently I can honestly say there is a huge reason why so many people feel uncomfortable getting their cervical screenings done and check ups and it’s the building itself. That and so many gynos never chose the correct speculum sizes and just assume the regular will fit everyone. No. There is a range of sizes for a reason and smears should not be painful to experience. Slight discomfort sure, but if its painful then it’s being done wrong.

Trans men and non binary people need smear tests done if they still have a cervix. This isn’t up for debate, specific cancer screening for vagina owners needs to be open and accessible to ALL vagina owners and making buildings and staff unaware of trans people endangers lives. A trans man doesn’t not want to be misgendered whilst having an examination that could bring him dysphoria, just the same as women want to be treated fairly and pain free. I’m honestly shitting myself over my hysto cause they originally fucked up on what ward I would be staying at, and I don’t think neither myself or the women they wanted to put me in would feel comfortable. I believe I’m going in a private room, but fuck knows at this point.

I am really nervous about how I am going to be treated in hospital and I know that there are some really good nurses but there are also some really shit ones too. I’m nervous because I’m having to expose a part of me that I am not comfortable with being defined with. I am scared that I am going to have so much bleeding it will bring me bad dysphoria and I’m scared that I’m going to be misgendered even though I’ve had top surgery and facial hair now. Trans people shouldn’t be worried about how they are treated in hospitals but this is stuff that constantly goes through our minds because it happens all the time. But we need to change this.

We need to start making cancer screening and specific genital services actually accessible for trans people and not allow poor behavior stop them from accessing things that could save their lives. There should be a care for all patience and not just some of them. It shouldn’t be assumed that everyone is straight and they shouldn’t assume the genital lay out of the partners you sleep with either.

I hope that Thursday goes well for myself and I am not in hospital for long, because the longer I stay, the more likely I am to be treated like shit because I am trans.

Faith

Not many things terrify me when it comes to my writing but wanting to bring up faith and my own personal faith, and suddenly I shit myself in fear. I suppose there are many factors into why I would find this so terrifying, a lot of it though is my own personal battles with faith and thoughts about it.

I am a person of faith. I also have Jewish heritage. These are intersectional and I consider myself to be a Jewish Satanist. No, Satanism isn’t about worshiping the devil, but about having a critical thought process on religion and faith (and not allowing people to fuck with you). I am highly critical about religious scripture and textbooks and I would rather discuss what religion means on a personal level than as a collective. There is a high amount of sexism, homophobia and bigotry in religious text, but you have to remember that each section was written by one person (or a small collective) who had their own motive to write it, and that was often to keep the oppressed and illiterate masses under the thumb of oppression.

However being a queer person and having faith spark debate constantly, and whether being queer and of faith can actually be healthy thing. And the truth is, yes. There is nothing to stop a person from being able to be LGBT and of faith, just as it is that straight people can be atheist. You can have a relationship with God and be queer. God had created us in their own image, there for even a small part of God themselves would be Queer. I also feel that when judgement day happens and if God is in existence, I feel that my homosexuality would be in all honesty the least of his concerns.

Faith is often used as a point of comfort, and it was something that had sparked mine. My nan was Jewish, and when she passed I wanted to keep one part of her still going. As a family, we had been brought up that respect different faiths and beliefs and that it was OK to also not be a believer. We were allowed to research and educate ourselves on faith and Judaism was something that was never forced on any of us. My brother and sister are atheist and my mother has faith but still sees it as a collective attitude rather than a singular religion. I am highly privileged to have been able to experience this growing up and it had brought me to a better understanding of faith.

It is just something I feel so uncomfortable of even discussing and practicing because of my queer identity. Not because I would be shunned from my faith, because there are queer synagogues.. But queer people who do not have faith or religion ate pretty quick to shit on us. Trust me, the amount of LGBT people that make comments about Jews, or Muslims or Catholics like they are single handily oppressive sexist forces is really gross. It’s often queer folk telling us that we will not be welcome and that our choices of faith are bizarre since we know science. Lmao, you can believe in science AND be of faith too. There are often gross religious stereotypes thrown at us, and the worst part that our faith is often erased to help “towards inclusion”

Eventually I will write more about my feelings of faith and my queer identity as a non binary gay man, but until then, I am going to sit in my little bubble.

Equality

Brief one, because well, it doesn’t need too much covering and I’m a day behind.

Equality means shit all unless you are actually fighting towards equal rights and not just things that make your own personal life a lot easier.

Equality means that you consider intersectionality and how that there is not just one path way to be gay, or trans, or disabled, or whatever minority.

Equality means you stand up for all your sisters, regardless whether they works, want kids, are trans or are women of colour.

Equality means that everyone should have a safe home to sleep in and food.

Equality means everyone has the right to a life and also a right to quality health care.

If everyone wants equality, there should be no exceptions.

The Demonization Of Detransition

Before I start this post. This is not an information piece to be used as leverage against trans people. This is not a blog that agrees with the views of TERFs and it certainly isn’t to push any right wing agenda. This post is to actually bring forth a serious conversation that is scary to talk about but as a trans person it has been something that has come up in my personal life. It’s surprising that I have to actually say that at the beginning of a post, but the moment you mention the word detransition there is a huge panic by the trans community and glee from our oppressors.

Statistically there are so few real cases of people who detransition that there isn’t any direct path way for those who do decide to. You may see a small handful of posts online and a friend might consider it but there actually isn’t this huge collection of trans people out there that do regret transitioning.

But why do people decide to detransition?

There are many factors as to why this is possible. Gender being fluid, feeling worse than what they felt like originally, no money, no support, feeling like they have no ability to “pass” as the gender they are, medical complications… In all honesty there are many MANY reasons why a person would feel like they need to detransition. Very rarely it has anything to do with regret and even rarer has it been because someone has not known what they are doing and have been rushed into it by doctors. This is often though what the media and what the people who oppose trans rights would have you believe. That people are being forced to medically transition without the knowledge and understanding and regretting it later. Trust me, the average time it takes for someone to transition is 10 years. This is the basic pathway and not including extra steps and other pathways you can choose. This all starts off with about a year waiting for your very first gender clinic appointment, seeing counsellors, doctors and therapists before hormones and surgery are even considered. People who do transition are 99% fully aware of what is involved and there is no coercion or forced gender change, so we can put all those ideas to bed now.

Why is it not talked about though?

Because honestly we are scared of this conversation. We are scared that it makes us look bad. For fuck sake I needed to put a disclaimer at the beginning of this because when someone feels they need to detransition, the right wing shit bags and TERFs rub their hands together like they are winning a fight. No you are not winning a fight, it’s just some people do not have the strength to continue and that’s fucking OK.

I’ve been honest before and said that if I had known now what I do about my physical health, I may have partially detransitioned. I wouldn’t have put myself in a situation where a medical menopause affected me that badly. I am slowly getting through it, and what happened to me was so fucking rare it hasn’t even been a thing discussed till recently, but I may have not gone on T. I had until recently not wanted to talk about it because so many people are scared of the idea of people wanting to detransition.

I think it’s time to open a dialogue, a safe one. One that’s only done with trans people and work out how we can protect those who think this needs to be an option for them

Community And Care

Being trans (and being disabled for that matter) gives you almost a push to look for a sense of community so you can find people who you can relate to and find some form of friendship amongst some of the issues that we often face. This however is quite difficult as, and I’m speaking from personal experience here, we are often the most shy and isolated people you will ever come across. But we do manage to carve out our small little areas to get support.

However these are not always the greatest places for us to be in.

Often the community we love is really fucking toxic and can cause so many issues for us. We are all trying to find our own paths and we all have different needs of care and support that we require and that is fine but there is often bitchiness, back stabbing and a failure to recognise that there is a vast amount of intersectionality in trans spaces. There is often racism, ablism and even trans and homophobia in trans spaces. Our community is still just as volatile and corrupt as every other space out there. The difference being is that we often do not check in on our behaviors and they are often justified by other community members because we are a marginalised community.

Racism , homophobia, transphobia and ablism is not justified fullstop.

We need to unpick all of the bullshit that we do and that does mean calling out a lot of the behaviours that are around us. There are a lot of trans people in our community that are problematic and I’ve mentioned that in posts previously on here, I would tag a few, but honestly I’ve mentioned LGBT community bullshit so much you will probably stumble on something pretty quickly.

As someone who is trans and disabled I can tell you that intersectionality is forgotten about constantly. So can my black and trans friends, my disabled and bi friends, ect, ect, people will often think that we will fit in small boxes and that box will fit all the care and support everyone who experiences that one marginal part of their existence but it won’t. As an example I will need support on access to venues and electricity ports, but because I am white and I “pass as male” I will not experience the trans misogyny that women will experience and especially trans women of colour who will need a higher level of support when it comes to violence in society. Everyone is entirely different but we are forced into a one size fits all package.

We need to destroy this concept and start working on more individual care and support basis. We also should be carving spaces so more of our marginalized members get the spaces they deserve to have and the members of the community that already have good platforms need to step aside and allow others to have a louder voice. We are often wrapped in the same few (white and able bodied) trans people taking spaces and their experience, whilst giving platform to the voice of transness, also is silencing the voices of trans people who NEED to be heard.

I hope that in the next couple of years that we can start making serious headway into making community spaces and voices much more intersectional and fair, the support needs to be given to those who need it.

Binders And Broken Bodies

When I first came out as transgender the first thing I wanted more than anything was a binder. No I don’t mean the plastic folders that have rings inside them that hold paper, I mean the item of clothing that compresses your chest to flatten it. I wanted to hide the 42 G monsters I had been cursed with. I knew that I needed to get rid of the very things that were causing me the biggest stress of them all. Getting my first binder was the most magical experience ever. Whilst my chest was still too big for me to “pass” 100%, I had more of a freedom to go out and be the authentic me, and not the person I had pretended to be for 25 years of my life. I got my very first binder in 2012 and in 2017 I had surgery that meant that I would never have to wear a binder again.

The day I had top surgery

Now, I wished this was how my story ended and I wished I could tell you how I progressed to lower surgery and I live my life as a “passing cis male” but that’s not how my story ended. In fact it is where it started. It had turned out after all that time, the only thing that had been keeping my spine in place for several years was my binder.

When you wear a binder, as well as it compressing your chest, it can often compress other parts of your body, such as your rib cage and spine. For years I had been experiencing severe shortness of breath as well as a painful spine. I had chalked this down to wearing a binder, the size of my chest causing huge pressure and a horse riding accident I had when I was in my very early 20s, so I pushed forward for my top surgery and after lots of bullshit and funding drops I finally got it done. What we didn’t know until about a month after my surgery was that my spine was actually moving and the hypermobility I had in my knees, and arms had progressed to my back. During that year I also suffered a serious seizure due to one me being epileptic and two me drinking excessively because a friend had just died. I have had seizures for years but this was the first time it had really start to affect my nervous system. We don’t know if it was because of how much I drank, whether other illnesses had a factor into it, or whether my brain just gave up fighting so hard, but I became seriously unwell.

I’m now a wheelchair user. My transition had become a bittersweet pill, because now I was finally becoming the comfortable masculine person I had always wanted to be, but after years of torturing my body of drink, drugs and self hate, I had broken myself. It was the most drawn out joke but the punchline had just been so terrible no one laughed. I however do not pity myself for this though.

Whilst things have been shit, it gave me a second chance in life where this time I actually didn’t give a fuck anymore. I was able to finally start realising that I needed to look after myself and that I needed to focus myself on life and being happy. Being forced to recognise that I am actually broken and disabled was the greatest thing that could have happened and if I never recover or if I even die tomorrow I would have no regrets in my life because I had actually lived.

Not many people can say they have lived many different lives in one body and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.