Eldritch Mlems

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/42232236

Or maybe top three if you can't choose (none of us can choose)

Yesterday I was in a car accident. I'm really OK (some mild brain injury and bruising), the car is not.

I had gone running, so I was wearing a t-shirt and leggings with an athletic skirt to cover my bits, I had no makeup on and was perhaps the least feminine I could be.

What surprised me was that the EMTs, firemen, and police all saw and interacted with me me as a woman, and not in that "being polite" way that some trans affirming liberals can be, I just think they had no idea I was trans. My gender survived even having to talk to the emergency responders, answering questions, etc.

In some sense none of this is new, people on the phone have correctly gendered me as a woman for maybe six months, but it doesn't stop my brain worms from making me hear a boy. Likewise with countless interactions in public now where people seem to see a woman. Still, all I see in a mirror is a boy most days.

In the ER, the nurses and office workers all assumed I was a woman. I was asked twice by the doctors if there was any possibility I could be currently pregnant.

All I'm saying is that yesterday was one of the most gender affirming days in my life. I don't think if they suspected I was trans they would treat me the way I was treated, I just managed to seamlessly navigate the world in ways that I never thought was going to be possible. It's not real to me, but I'm definitely just going to keep replaying those interactions over and over again. Maybe it will sink in.

Less than a year ago, the equivalent experience would have been very difficult, I was very much not passing and I looked like a man dressed as a woman to most people. I assumed it was just going to be like that the rest of my life, and that's still what it's like in my head.

I felt pretty emotional about it yesterday, about the culmination of so many hours put into voice training, struggling without a sense of hope about the future and arriving here anyway. I feel like I owe the trans community my whole life.

Well, as the title says, I Am curious what Dysphoria feels like for you? When/how did you realise, that certain feelings are in reality Dysphoria?

Edit: Damn, some of you really have lived through a lot. I Am very happy that I can't really relate to quite some of the comments here, because that sounds horrible.

Red pandas, native to the Eastern Himalayas, have developed several fascinating defense mechanisms to protect themselves from natural predators like snow leopards and martens.

These small, tree-dwelling mammals are primarily arboreal, which means they spend most of their time in trees, which provides them with a natural escape route from harmful incidents.

They use their strong, sharp claws and flexible ankles to climb swiftly and skillfully, allowing them to disappear into the treetops when threatened.

However, when caught on the ground with no escape, red pandas display a unique and bold behavior that is they rise up on their hind legs to appear larger and more intimidating.

This stance, combined with their extended claws and aggressive vocalizations like huffs and quacking sounds, is often enough to scare off smaller predators.

These defense tactics, though not powerful in a physical fight, serve to confuse or startle predators long enough for the red panda to retreat to safety.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/42078497

Original comic by Haus of Decline

When Renee Lau, a special projects coordinator at the trans-led housing and wellness center Baltimore Safe Haven, transitioned at the age of 63, she lost everything. “My marriage fell apart,” she says. “The Sears Holding Company, who I worked [with] for 30 some years, declared bankruptcy, and the business that I worked for got shut down immediately.”

That’s when Lau met Iya Dammons, the executive director at Baltimore Safe Haven, who hired her as the house manager for the organization’s senior home in 2019. Currently, Lau says Baltimore Safe Haven is the only transgender-specific housing provider in Maryland, with five different houses throughout Baltimore and a sixth property underway.

“[Baltimore Safe Haven] is the [only] housing provider for transgender people in the state that [is actually] dedicated to people within the community,” she explains, an issue that persists across the country as housing-insecure trans people of all ages seek safe, dignified shelter and learn that it often doesn’t exist.

For Beth Gombos and Ashton Otte, organizers at Trans Housing Initiative St. Louis (THISL), better access and competent service for the trans community begin with education. THISL works directly with shelters, housing providers, and other entities that might harm trans people or or turn them away.

“We’re training them to learn how to interact with and accept and serve trans and gender-nonconforming people with respect,” says Gombos, who is the organization’s cofounder and executive director.

Typically, this work begins by teaching trans identity 101: gender identity, sex, pronouns, and myth busting. “We start off by trying to build a level of understanding and basic empathy for this community,” says Otte. From there, THISL educates housing providers on anti-discrimination protocol and their responsibility to ensure care and access for the trans community.

Though equitable housing policies are needed at the federal level, trans-led organizations are not waiting for the federal government to take action. They are already taking care of their own.

Sean Ebony Coleman, founder and CEO of the Bronx-based LGBTQ grassroots organization Destination Tomorrow, says housing support goes beyond providing a safe place for unhoused people to be.

 “One of the biggest issues is that everyone’s at a different level when it comes to being ready to access housing, particularly independent living,” says Coleman. “The conventional shelter model has just this one-stop-shop approach, right? It’s just ‘You’re going in, we’re going to house you, you’ll stay for a little while, [and] we’ll try to get you into transitional housing or some type of supportive housing.’ [But they’re] not really going to train you as far as getting better employment or securing a better job or even sending you back to school.”

For Coleman, getting into a shelter is just the first step. Destination Tomorrow’s housing support also includes building wraparound services that consider the care of the entire person, including offering independent living support, career and academic opportunities, culinary training, mental health care, and financial literacy programs.