yet another transfem programmer from berlin
I use PGP, here’s my signature
Why scare quotes? I lived in Düsseldorf back in '90 (go alts - that was the name of my school team, and yes it was sponsored by Alt bier 🍺… different times), it’s always been one of Germany’s more clean cut, upmarket cities, but this picture makes me want to go back and check it out again.
Then again, I’m a queer transfem and I’m in BERLIN, THE QUEER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD. Düsseldorf is in the last instance just meh.
The same people who’ve been complaining for four decades about things like erosion of due process and weak and unpredictable property rights go ahead and change birth certificates retroactively, creating chaos, confusion, and bureaucracy.
How these lunatics think they’re serving the interests and needs of the kids is beyond me. It’s so mean-spirited and eigenharming.
For me at least, transitioning – particularly in the first few months – was intensely social. I’m really fortunate to live in a very trans- and queer-friendly city, and there’s something going on every day of the week – at least for queer people, usually something specific for trans people, too.
For me this helped a lot in dealing with frustration and dysphoria, because you meet lots of other trans people who are in the same boat. These people are going to listen to you, validate you, and afterward, and generally make you feel better and happier. So I would basically kinda push myself (without taking it too far, sometimes chillaxing in front of the tv is great) to go out especially when I felt down; I treated it almost as a kind of therapy. For me at least this really helped :)
Wow didn’t even know there’s such a thing as HRT implants. I’m on EEv injections since 17 months… HRT is the best
I had a few months of existential crisis when I was 21, but it was more related to a manipulative partner who was fetishising my queer identity as I was just figuring out who I was.
I had the same but in my 30s, it was a kind of “embrace and extinguish” thing with my nex. She initially was super supportive, taught me to how to use makeup yadda yadda. but it pretty quickly turned into something much more constrictive: she effectively branded my transness as a sort of dirty kink, and in doing so, was able to cast me as a kind of pathetic, horny, pervert over several years. Every time I hooked up with a guy (at the time I was male-presenting), there was always some reason she would get really angry at me (you didn’t call, you were drunk/high, etc.) – any expressions of LGBTQIA* sexuality were invariably punished, but in a covert way, making them impossible for me to counter (also because I was still riveted with shame).
I’m really happy to hear you’re out of that relationship, some people are really toxic, and prey on queer people (often takes the form of basking in the reflected edginess of being queer, while simultaneously behaving in a TERFy, kareny way).
I had my first homoerotic experiences at 18, realized I was bi and trans at 24, came out as bi at 32, as gay at 40, and trans at 42. In retrospect, I would have been much better off coming out (fully) earlier. Unfortunately, I was born into a conservative, patriarchical family and it took a long time to shed all of that awful self-loathing baggage.
Hi Xenia! I’m Michelle
Tell them you look forward to seeing them on grindr
Hi Fabienne! I’m in Berlin, where are you?
Sweetie did you read the part about being transfem? I
dodrink coke, not beer ;)