u/AppealSignificant358

Trigger warning: politics, oh god politics…

Basically the title. I don’t know that I want to say more than that for privacy’s sake, but damn if this isn’t a punch in the gut. Not quite sure why being happy in my own skin for the first time is so bad but yeah. So anyway just feeling especially hopeless right now since it felt like a light at the end of the tunnel, and now they just dumped a mountain of water on whatever tiny flickering candle was on the other side. If yall have encouragement that would be appreciated. I may not respond right away though since I was gonna take a nap to reset my emotions. Life (and HRT) finds a way but idk what divine authority cursed me to be born and live in such a red state where the Republicans can rule with impunity

Edited: okay, fine so I don’t scare anyone that is afraid it impacts them, it’s I think Oklahoma senate bill 904

So, gendered languages, I can imagine would be kind of a rough time for trans people and harder to navigate, but also more affirming, depending on the situation.

Like if I’m a closeted transfemme speaking Spanish for example, and people refer to me as enojado or cansado, that would probably be rough, because even those words are “angry” and “tired,” but with the gendered endings must be more like “angry, but only in the ‘man’ way.” I can imagine that would be dysphoria inducing, since even just my time learning Spanish, similar situations have been a bit dysphoric for me.

But when you’re out, even the adjectives that describe you now match with your identity, so I’d imagine that maybe this amplifies the gender dysphoria and euphoria feelings for the worse and better, since the words are more constant.

I also know that there’s a bit of a thing with -e in Spanish for gender neutral words. I don’t know enough about other languages to know if they have their own emerging convention like that in a similar way.

And also, another thought is potentially using synonyms for words that don’t gender the user, like switching from decaído to triste. Kind of a similar thing like switching from “son/daughter” to “child” in English to make the potentially dysphoria-inducing words show up less. I also wonder if you do that, have people noticed that you’re maybe using rarer words in the language to escape the grammatical gender affecting you?

So I just wonder what experiences y’all have had like that, and other stuff around being a trans speaker of a gendered language. Thanks for answering if you do!

So, I’m getting the opportunity to move out for college at OU from elsewhere in Oklahoma, (suburban), and I just want to get a sense of how LGBTQ+ friendly the campus and the wider city is. Norman is known for being liberal and chill, but I want to know exactly how specifically, especially when there’s still gonna be bigoted people in every place, even if they’re less concentrated or more limited in how they can act.

Specifically, I’m a trans woman who’s into women, and I’m pretty much closeted in daily life right now, so idk how that would go, but I had the dream of presenting feminine as soon as I moved on campus, and being out from basically day one. Of course, the issue with that is I’m still more vulnerable that way, and I’ve never handled the kind of “out vulnerability,” only the “closet vulnerability,” and both are entirely different beasts, and it’s especially rough when I’m already adjusting to a new environment and living independently for the first time, (even though I’d still be dormmates with people and campus would be more insular).

I know Norman has really protective laws, like being the only city in the entire state to ban conversion “therapy.” But it still doesn’t have a perfect track record in the “being a safe bubble” department, because of things like state laws still targeting HRT stuff, or that letter thing that happened in November and December while I was hoping to apply here, that really freaked me out. Of course, OU brings people from across the state, conservative and liberal, and just puts guardrails around their interactions. But I’m scared of how strong those guardrails are or aren’t.

Overall, I’m excited to move, and I think it would be really beneficial to my mental health to see literally a single person labeled Democrat on the find my representative thing, and I know Norman and OU especially would be more protective for me by default, but I’m going to be out and openly trans for there, rather than closeted here, so that’s a different factor for my safety. I just want to know what it’s like and get a better understanding of it.

It was such a cozy dream at first! Like it was originally a fake wedding thing where I just was putting a little skit with my partner (I’m single in real life 😔) to feel so lovely. And then the dream shifted and I was making a jack-o’-lantern and he was really freaky and I was super proud and having fun. And then it shifted again where I kept tripping on power cords hooked up to a chunk of Christmas decorations. (I don’t know why my brain is on Halloween and Christmas while it’s literally May 1st) And I couldn’t fix it because the cords kept slipping out, my dad got mad for ruining the decorations, and then, out of spite, he puked up into his hands, reached down and curled the snow on the ground into a snowball along with the vomit, and shouted “well, here’s your Taco Bell!” and hit me with it on my left shoulder. And then he made another one and then instead of throwing it at me, decided to hit the window with it instead. And then I woke up 😭

Idk really what to tag this since I don’t have pets, I’m just curious, but do dogs and cats still recognize you and not get confused? Does any social transition not confuse them because they can still recognize you, and any medical transition, like HRT changing your BO, happen slow enough that they adjust? Do they love you in different ways? Like idk maybe it’s more affirming to pet them one way than you did before, and so they act a bit differently with you? Do they treat different genders differently and so you transitioning has made them treat you as how they treat that gender?* Just various ways your transition affects your relationship with your pets

I added in the asterisked sentence later since I forgot that was a thing lol