Mallory Sinn

#TransMusicMonday Artist: Forestine (they/them, @forestine@sunny.garden ) Why? Forestine has been a pillar of the electronic music community on Mastodon / Fediverse for years, and their music not only really brings on an ambience, but has great texture to it too. Where to start? Their album "Mending" is great to just put on and let it envelop you as you do crafts, vibe with friends, or sit around a bonfire. https://forestine.bandcamp.com/album/mending I also really encourage people to check out some of their sets from Drone Days past and present, as part of the Earth Modular Society. This has been one of the cooler music projects happening in the cool parts of the internet that still exist. https://youtu.be/T5-UtoJ_KfM #TransMusic #QueerMusic #Trans #Transgender #Queer #ElectronicMusic #DroneDay

#TransMusicMonday Artist: Jepyang (they/she) Why? Because our fediverse friend @jepyang@wandering.shop gave us permission to use their amazing music for our podcast, Another Girl's Treasure! Also, her stuff is definitely underappreciated and I would love to see more people give them a listen! Where to start? So we use the song "Edible Cartoons" from the album "Jagnype," and I would suggest giving the whole thing a listen because it's become part of my regular rotation for instrumental electronic music with the right kind weird in it. https://jepyang.bandcamp.com/track/edible-cartoons Also, I have a strange love for getting weird with Christmas media and "Carol of the Merry Ding Dong" gets funky with the beep boops on some very familiar melodies. https://jepyang.bandcamp.com/track/carol-of-the-merry-ding-dong #Trans #Transgender #TransMusic #Queer #QueerMusic #Jepyang #Music #AnotherGirlsTreasure

#TransMusicMonday Artist: Mykki Blanco (they/them) Song: I'm in a Mood https://youtu.be/4ZgN5DXuWIk?si=naEatxNOfVl5PcZp Why? "I'm in a Mood" is the song I turn to when I too am in a damn mood and need to deal with my feels. Mykki brings that moody, brooding hip hop that really defines their self-titled 2016 album, "Mykki." Despite expressing being in a funk and ready to be mouthy and confront people on their shit, it helps me access a zen and calm through these feelings, and I find myself somewhere better by the end of the song. It also reassures us and supports us in being with our anger and facing a world that wants to use us as queer people while judging us all the same. In addition to what this song does, Mykki Blanco is a rap and hip-hop artist that deserves way more attention than they get. They are Black, trans, fluid in gender expression, and out about being HIV-positive. And while their style develops and experiments album to album, they always seem to connect with something deeply human and spiritual, while being unapologetically powerful. #Trans #Transgender #TransArt #Nonbinary #Enby #Queer #Music #TransMusic #QueerMusic #MykkiBlanco https://forbidden-queeries.ghost.io/trans-music-mondays-2026-july-27-mykki-blanco/

Cis women will often internalize their roles as human givers and enforce that upon themselves, other women, and girls in their lives. Think of every mother who dotes on her sons and trains her daughters to act as mothers before they are grown. Think of the girls who bully dykes and lesbians for being queer. Think of the cis women who didn't like Hilary Clinton, not for her politics, but because she was seen as a bitch. Think of the woman who is a feminist and yet struggles to allow herself to give herself permission to have needs, take up space as a person, and to not always take on caring as work. So when trans women come out and assert that they can be women and human beings (as well be givers too in addition to beings), they are seen as a problem. I personally have been punished by cis women who were my bosses at work for demanding my needs, along with my coworkers, be equally considered. When I would be flashy, fun, and unashamed in my gender presentation, I have many times gotten side-eyes or judgmental looks and comments from cis women - and the feeling of resentment was often palpable. If I act in a confrontational way while advocating even for others, I am responded to as something less or worse than a bitch - an abomination, a monster, something that needs to be punished and removed. This extends to how TERFs talk about us, seeing us as a threat because we assert our existence and humanity. Why would this be a problem for supposed "feminists" unless we are flagrantly violating the rules and traumas they still carry in themselves? They say we talk too much, we're too loud, and we take up too much space - how dare a (trans) woman speak up, be loud, or take up space?!

This extends into how we can problematize the idea of "male socialization" of trans women. There is actually a lot more complexity and nuance to this construct that deserves discussion, but I will discuss another day. What I see among trans women is that we are often, before transition, already taking on the role of "human giver." We minimize ourselves, subordinate our own needs to those around us, we give our emotional, physical, and intellectual labor to others and rarely ourselves. This isn't necessarily universal, but it is common. We have often internalized some idea of ourselves as being givers, likely influenced by the types of characters and narratives around women and girls we see in media. This often shows up in our relationships, often failing to be able to take up much emotional space, struggling to voice or express our needs, and giving of ourselves to our partners. I think of my asexual transfem friends who subjected themselves to something similar to SA because they believed they owed their bodies to their partners. I think of my transfem friends whose partners, often cis straight women, became toxic or abusive when they came out, because for the first time in their lives they had needs, emotions, and took up space in the relationship. This was perceived as a threat to the cis women that were their partners - because only one person can be a human being and the other has to be a human giver...or at least that's the heteronormative narrative.

Okay, so hear me out: 1) Horror is, for many viewers, a way to experience fear and scares in a situation where they know they are safe. It’s a thrill ride or a roller coaster. 2) Bottoming and subbing for BDSM and kink often involves having someone do something to you that is thrilling, risky, or would be scary in a different circumstance in a way where you know you are safe. It’s a thrill ride of a sorts. 3) Both require submitting yourself to someone who is going to drive and direct the experience you have. They will do things to you that make you scream, giggle, react. And you have to consent/suspend disbelief for the experience to work. #Horror #Queer #Kink

So what happens when we place trans women and transfeminine people into this framework? We are perceived to be in the role of a "human being" before transition, since we are seen as men. When we transition, we are taking on a role as women that is expected to be that of a "giver." But here's the thing: by asserting our needs, our right to expressing ourselves, and our humanity in transitioning, we are engaging in an action that is fundamentally a contradiction within this system. Expressing oneself, having needs worth receiving care, and taking up space are the prerogative of "human beings" and the act of transition and asserting our femininity or womanhood is just that - we are women asserting ourselves as beings. But we are supposed to be subjugating ourselves into the roles of "human givers," not taking up space or asserting needs. We see this in how originally trans women were only given access to gender-affirming care if they behaved in ways that were submissive, were seen as attractive to straight men, and our orientation solely pointed at straight men. It was unrelated to our own needs or desires, only our ability to be human givers. This continues in how often the few roles we are consistently still allowed to exist is as sex workers and as an object for pornography.

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In “Men, Women, and Chainsaws,” Clover argues that many horror movies, especially slashers, rely on a woman (“final girl”) as a protagonist who will be the vehicle for being terrified by a man or masculine threat with a phallic weapon (knife, gun, chainsaw, etc) that he uses to penetrate people. She also argues part of this is about the window of acceptable gender expression - an actress can show fear through screaming, tears, trembling, and more that the audience will accept and empathize with in a way that a man as a character would be seen as weak, inferior, deserving of punishment. So…the audience is using the stereotypical bottom/submissive gender role to experience thrills being done to them by a masculine figure with a phallic object. HORROR IS FOR BOTTOMS #Horror #Queer #Kink

So there is a basic social contradiction in being a trans woman - asserting yourself as a human being and taking on a role expected to be a human giver. Like cis women, we are punished for daring to be women who assert we have a right to be in our full humanity and to express ourselves. The problem is that this is an essential and unremovable aspect from what it means to be a trans woman or transfeminine person in most of our cultures today. We can't be folded back solely into the role of housewife and reproductive mother for a cis, straight man to impregnate, no matter how much violence they visit upon us. Nothing we do will ever satisfy the demand for us to be solely givers and thus bigots want us to be exterminated and erased from society. But this also highlights something for me I rarely see a developed theory around: why and how transmisogyny from cis women functions.

@Willow hmm...I was thinking about sharing the story of my name soon. Seems like a good reason to! But yeah, it's a hell of a thing to get married to a trans woman who is a globally recognized trans activist with several trans friends and activists at your wedding...and still be convinced you are a cishet man unaware of the bomb waiting to go off six months later. Not to mention, I tried to escape dysphoria through 5 continents, 3 or 4 different careers, and some reckless behaviors that only happen when you do not feel any value to your own life. ...there's a reason I describe myself as having been a hard-boiled egg.

I did come across this piece by Amy Marvin called "Laughing at Trans Women: A Theory of Transmisogyny" (https://philarchive.org/archive/MARLAT-15v1) which digs into this framework as it can be extended to trans women. Instead of the focus I gave above, Martin maps out how we often can't be legitimized as "human givers," leading us to being marginalized, and pushed outside of the human community. This analysis also explains how that can show up as disgust for our bodies and disregard for our wellbeing - and how we are socially constructed as dehumanized "laughable" entities.

This is actually kind of surprising to me! So I definitely had the impression that the biggest transition cohort on the fediverse is the Covid cohort (30%), and that the majority of trans folks here are post-2020 (55%), but there are so many more of us that are pre-2020 (45%) than I realized! Makes me happy knowing we’re all here. 🥰 I know it’s a very limited sample, but this is reminiscent of what I see anecdotally in in-person community too these days.

Does the gender change involve magical shenanigans being used to trick demons and/or angels? Will Constantine discover something about his own gender identity? How many people will this working class magical con artist smooch before everything is said and done???

@koalou@lgbtqia.space definitely no signs, total normal cis thing to go to bed each night dreaming of waking up as a different gender 😅😅😅 I say this as someone who did a lot of that in my tween years. And I think actually knowing about trans people, and then actually knowing what transness really is are the big thing here. So many of us had the vague notion of wanting to change gender/sex, and may have even had some idea that there were people called “transsexuals” but had only misinformation or skewed representations to go on. And heck, I learned what transgender really meant in the mid-10s, but didn’t understand non-binary until 2018/2019, and that’s what cracked my egg finally.

@shadowfals@toot.cat the key to the egg metaphor…for some of us, we’ve buried our gender feels and problems so deep, or we’ve internalized ignorance and denial from society, so we just assume that there’s no other option but to live as our assigned gender as best we can. Then, something happens or several somethings happen, and we are suddenly unable to deny the truth that we are trans or nonbinary. And like an egg cracking, at that point, the egg can’t be put back together again and there’s really only the choice of whether to live as yourself or live in dysphoria. That’s how I would explain it more or less. For plenty of people, like yourself, it’s not a useful metaphor and your journey looks different. That’s why I included it among the possible beginnings of a person’s journey, but for some it’s not a meaningful marker

@gcvsa@mstdn.plus from the polls many others have done, 30s - 50s are the majority of us I’m pretty sure, with some folks in their 20s and of course great friends who are also in 60s and above. But this is kind of regardless, since I’m trying to get a sense of, for example, how many people are part of the COVID cohort and that stretches across all ages.

@burnoutqueen@todon.nl go with once you began transitioning then. The idea is to capture what transition cohort people are a part of

For clarity, the idea is to capture when you began your current gender journey/endeavors, and what trans cohort you feel the most belonging to. I know a lot of folks don’t fit easily into one or the other, and that’s great too! Just limited options for this poll.

@NicolaElle@chaosfem.tw hehe…it was destiny 🤭 I mean, did I read lots of rule 63 / gender bending amateur fiction in the past? Yes. Did I imagine stories or write little things for myself that were never developed? Yes. But this is definitely the first time actually committing to it and I’m having fun! It’s a good exercise in practicing voice and thinking about how characters work

@Millie@hachyderm.io glad you’re fully coming into yourself now 💜 But also hugs offered because I imagine five years of living with the knowledge and being unable to fully embrace yourself yet must have been hard 🫂

@forestine@sunny.garden slow drip of molasses is a great metaphor! That was me 2012 - 2019, until a full on egg cracking and no going back. Like, reading about Laura Jane Grace coming out…it caused something to click in my brain that slowly dripped and pooled. Then my roommate came out, and bit more dripping. And just small things building ever so slowly to finally get through to me

@malcircuit@thingy.social @faithisleaping@anarres.family I could also see part of it as being the going out into unpopulated or low population areas by yourself (am I wrong that that’s common with astrophotography? Just an impression I have), is something where often only white men are given a privilege of safety and others are often made much more vulnerable by our cultures and political systems. Same with a lot of outdoorsy activities that have often been dominated by men. They made us unsafe, and then made it their space…blargh

Please boost above! And please check above poll if you’re following #transgender #trans #transfem #transmasc #nonbinary #enby #TGD #queer

@alice@mk.nyaa.place yeah, just aiming for beginning of the journey here, whichever comes first

@disorderlyf@todon.eu I imagine those must have been some really fucking rough years to know it and not be able to transition 😢 And I feel you on that. If I had figured it out as a teenager, I don’t think it would have even been an option to transition in the early and mid 00s where I was.

@disorderlyf@todon.eu that’s why I’m trying to focus on those more specific moments, because we almost always go through a process of reconstructing our personal narratives reintegrating or reframing things with our new insight. Because we mostly don’t really “become trans” when we transition, per se, but have been going through dysphoria or disconnects most of our lives. Cause it really is a thing. Also, yay tor another 2016 - 2019 person! I’m realizing there are a lot more of us around here than I thought and I need to become closer friends with all you wonderful people 💜