you’re so pretty

❤️🥹❤️

Hello from a fellow transfem. I’ve been stuck in the closet for years and at this point who knows if I’ll ever make it out, so let me preface this by saying that I can’t offer any help, or answers, or anything honestly. Feel free to ignore the rest of this if you don’t have the bandwidth for my bullshit. But I guess even screaming into the void is preferable to whatever the hell I’m doing with my life right now, so here goes.

I guess I shouldn’t complain. My life right now isn’t even 1% as hard as yours. Nobody is coming after me, and the abusive family I’ve been stuck with my entire life can’t really hurt me the way they used to anymore. I have food and shelter and time on my hands.

I’m just… stuck. Unable to transition, unable to work on myself. There’s plenty of things I could do right now to alleviate my dysphoria or increase my chances of survival as an out trans woman, but I can’t get myself to do any of them. All I want to do is waste my life away, numbing myself with content, refusing to engage with the world or my feelings. The same way I’ve been for years, long before I knew I was trans.

It’s ridiculous, really. I’ve known for years that I’ll either come out while I’m alive or in a suicide note, and I decided years ago that suicide wasn’t an option. But here I am, doing nothing. I’m stuck.

I think I keep coming back to this site because I’m desperate for queer community, even though I know I don’t have the courage to reach out or open up. But apart from my own bullshit, what can I even say to you? You’ve faced everything I’m afraid of, every fear that keeps me locked in place, and it hasn’t stopped you. You’ve honored the parts of yourself that I can’t even face. What do I actually have in common with the trans community I love and yearn for so deeply?

I guess all I can come up with is… thank you. For your post that got me to express myself for the first time in weeks. And, though my opinion feels so worthless that I feel disgusting typing it out - it really matters to me that you’re staying alive despite everything that wants to kill you, and I really hope you’re able to heal and thrive some day. I haven’t been able to feel that way about myself for a while, so my vague, senseless, one-sided love for queer strangers I’ve never met is really the only thing keeping me going right now. And today, you were the one who let me have that. So, thank you.

God damn he’s cute. I don’t even like men. Just… I love this so much

If this ends in Tucker Carlson running for president we’re SO cooked.

He has the messaging skills and charisma that Trump never had (he was the most popular TV show host for a while), and he’s been an ardent white supremacist for decades (vs Trump’s half-assed self-interested bigotry). He could probably make white supremacy look like a sensible option to even the Trump-averse right-wing establishment types, and to the corporations and billionaires that hate Trump for what he’s doing to the economy.

Recently I’ve seen him co-opting traditionally leftist concerns about housing and affordability, and unless the Dems do the unthinkable and actually field popular candidates, that’s going to win over even MORE people than Trump ever could with his blatantly fake populism.

Add in the usual caveats about how things don’t need to turn out this way, etc. I’m just scared.

Huh?

I don’t really feel like talking about it, but I’m just going to note that I strongly disagree with your opinion in this post. I think it’s natural to experience existential dread over how little our actions matter in the grand scheme of things, and wonder whether our fellow human beings - or ourselves - are worth the effort. I do not think it’s arrogance, privilege or narcissism to feel that way. If someone had suggested that to me back when I was in OP’s position, I would have slipped even deeper into despair. I’m not attacking you, I just want to point out that there is space for different perspectives here.

I want you to know that I feel incredibly seen and validated by this post.

I’ve never had the chance to meet people like you in real life, so I’ve had to hold on to the few instances in which I’ve seen my feelings reflected in media. The one instance I keep coming back to is How To Be Hopeless by Carlos Maza. It’s an absolute masterpiece of a video essay, written from the depths of the personal and existential despair of a man who dedicated his adult life to fighting far-right extremism, and was rewarded with the end of his professional career and the victory of his serial harasser. Its message has become a core part of who I am now, and when I experience the kind of despair you’re describing, I return to it. It’s saved my life before. I cannot recommend it to you strongly enough.

Ah, the constant, unpredictable flipping between affection and cruelty. Sure made for a lovely childhood! Definitely didn’t contribute to a lifelong fear of social interaction, and the resulting isolation.

Thank you!

The owner should release the source code / configuration, in whatever state it’s in, before things escalate further. It’d suck for all their work to go down the drain. I’m sure there’d be people willing to adopt the project and host instances.

If you agree and you have Tumblr, would you consider asking them anonymously?

https://blog.archive.today/ask

Share your keywords? I’m considering doing this, Lemmy’s ‘Active’ feed is nearly as bad as doomscrolling Twitter was

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source

I remember reading physical comics that looked like this in my childhood, so this feels like the trans-positive messaging I never had as a child. Felt oddly healing.

Also, I don’t think I’ve ever seen my feelings as a closeted trans woman captured so perfectly. The way the seductive promise of gender euphoria constantly weighs against concrete real-world terror… the mermaid analogy is going to stay with me for a long time.

This actually made me sick to my stomach. I’m used to prison rape (and men being raped in general) being treated as a joke, but to see it in an ostensibly “progressive” movement was just too much for me. Especially since these are the same people who rushed to condemn violence after Kirk got shot. Where is your morality now?

Realise that the revenge you’re praying for can only happen if the institution of prison rape, which predominantly victimizes queer people in men’s prisons, continues to exist. If you find that tolerable even for a second… I just don’t know how to reach you.

sjfhsjsjddj you are so beautiful my heart hurts

Your mom is being shitty. I also have a parent who would randomly threaten to cut me off, and it was the last thing I needed to hear when struggling with life-threatening depression for the first time. A decent parent would show love and compassion, or at least not make it worse for you. Understand and remember that she is in the wrong here, not you. Mental health issues are not personal failures, any more than other health issues are.

You’ve posted before about your mom making horrible threats against you. It would be worth asking - how many of her threats has she actually acted on in the past? I don’t know her and I don’t mean to downplay the seriousness of your plight, but my own abusive parent was (is!) all bark and very little bite. The abuse was still harmful, but mostly in an emotional sense. I was never actually cut off or deprived in any significant sense, as my abuser still clung to the idea of loving me and being a faithful parent. Maybe yours is similar, and you don’t actually need to take the fear of being cut off so seriously. Maybe if you could do that, you’d feel better?

Your fear of ICE is legitimate and not pathetic. There really is no limit to their indiscriminate cruelty. But it would be good to assess the risk carefully. For example, statistically, the likelihood of a kid dying in a school shooting is pretty low; you’re far more likely to die of something common like a car accident. So while parents are terrified of a shooting, they still send their kids to school, because the benefits of their child being educated outweigh the risk.

When I was severely depressed, one of the few things that helped a lot was just stepping out of my usual surroundings and watching the world for a bit. It helped me remember that the world is so much bigger than me and the worries that consume me; that there’s enough beauty out there to drown my depression. That there’s always hope, out there in the unknown, though I often can’t see it. It’s a difficult feeling to convey in words, but you’ll know it when you experience it. Stepping out of the house, even for a few minutes, could possibly have game-changing benefits. It definitely saved my life more than once, as silly as that might sound.

Now, the risk. In the case of ICE, the exact risk is unclear as their actions are somewhat random and unpredictable; but there are things you can do to estimate it. You might be able to find out whether ICE agents were spotted in your area (social media, and I think there was even an app for that? Try asking around here). Moreover, there are plenty of people trying to keep vulnerable populations safe from ICE. They know better than anyone else, from firsthand experience, what factors affect the risk; and they’re doing their best to share that information. Try your best to find it. (I wish I was saving that kind of information so I could share it here, but I’ve really not been on top of my game lately.) Then make an informed decision, and hold yourself to it.

Whatever you decide, you’ll feel better about your decision knowing that it was one that you made yourself, not one that was forced on you by fear.

Finally, I just wanted you to know that as someone who experienced something similar, I feel very strongly for you. I got very emotional several times while typing this, and I really wish I could give you a hug and tell you how much I appreciate you for making it this far; I know it can’t have been easy. While my own problems (which are not limited to my parents!) are far from over, I was lucky enough to live away from them for a while, and I think the distance has allowed a lot of wounds to heal. Sometimes things work out in ways you’d never expect. So don’t lose heart! I’m rooting for you.

Didn’t click on this initially because I was sure it’d be someone getting fired for an anti-ICE comment. Nice to be pleasantly surprised.

Depends on how much music you want. I have about 3500 songs at the highest quality free YouTube will let me download songs at, and that comes to around 15GB.

but I wasn’t sure if Spotify, YouTube, or anyone else will reach out with cease and desists like has happened to me with torrents in the past

Right now Google is more focused on breaking the library that powers downloading from YouTube (yt-dlp). They haven’t succeeded yet, but that’s definitely an easier path for them than prosecuting piracy.

I doubt Spotify will try to punish you for this since the content isn’t actually being stolen from them directly.