Y'know, when I signed up for this back in June I had grand plans for some grand writeup on the domestically produced unmagnified gunsights of Cuba. I had collected images and info and sources but I lost sight of it as life stuff happened and my time for the trans mega snuck up on me.
Que sera sera.
Anyways, today felt like the first whisper (you have no idea how hard I just thought about the ideal word for this metaphor) of autumn and that put me in the mood for one of my favorite autumnal albums. More Constant Than the Gods by SubRosa is a really lovely doom? sludge? metal album. I like how big it sounds. The lead vocalist is a really talented lady, and its got violins, also the lyrics talk about dying and stuff and I'm into that. Its very fall-y to me, as is Standard Time Volume 1 by Wynton Marsalis, but for extremely different reasons.
The funny thing is that, like the poster of the previous mega it is also my 5th transiversary, I started HRT half a decade ago today (ok technically it was the 17th but I'm gonna count it since thats when I started writing this). Now, I don't think that taking HRT was what made me "officially trans", rather it was the degree of self acceptance required to get to that point. It's a long story, and one I prefer to share privately, but it took a very, very long time before my fear and desperation gave me the strength to allow myself to have this. I think it all turned out pretty well, I experience existence in much higher fidelity, I'm this whole person, along with everything that entails.
I feel very blessed to be transgender.
I hope you all stay safe and have a good, or atleast tolerable week.
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Personally, Ive found the more rural and conservative the easier it is to pass. I might get clocked more in the city but people are nice about it or say "wow youre so beautiful and so brave" and no one's ever given me shit for using the bathroom but in the rural areas I'm just another woman. I can't tell you why, like I remember hearing from older trans folks that it was way easier to pass in the 90s or earlier cause people just literally didnt know you could trans your gender - so maybe thats why? Or maybe its a rural politeness thing? Regardless, thats been my experience. Its still kind of scary, I dont wanna downplay the anxiety of it all
Wait until the Mennonites or whatever start asking you if you have a husband or have kids lol
To build off of what TerminalEncounter was saying, I can personally attest that the atmosphere isn't accepting but it can often be permissive environment for trans people.
Most of these people have a wildly innacurate stereotype of transfeminine people in their head, something more "Rocky Horror meets Fox and Friends" than anything resembling reality. Many have never met a trans person before at all unless they have a transgender relative. By and large these people can't clock because they don't know what to look for.
Theres been a couple of times where someone has said incredibly transphobic things because they thought I was cis and wanted to talk mad shit about "those [Slur] in the schools these days" or something. It is profoundly satisfying to go "Sir/Ma'am, I am transgender." Bigots are by and large cowards who will only try shit if they feel they are coming from a position of total superiority, which they often are not.
Now, obviously you are in a more reactionary environment in these places, so its not 100% safe but you're going to be safer than you might expect.
Spoilered for appearance shaming
Ok so this is like, really really mean but people out here tend to be... not as hot as their urbanite counterparts. I think this helps with passing quite a bit.I used to live in a very red part of a very red state, early into my transition and I've never been misgendered less than when I lived there. Cis people tend not to be thinking about trans people 24/7, and if you present remotely feminine, people just assume you're a woman. Sometimes the reactionary brainworms work in your favor. I'd have people tell me their abhorrent opinions about trans people to my face without any hint of consideration that I might be trans. Or running an Antifa training camp in the woods outside of town. They were afraid of that, too.
When I lived in the gay part of a big city before that I got misgendered all the time. But why accuse someone you're not certain is trans of being trans when that's something that only people in the city do? I never got hassled for using the bathroom, either. No one cares, by and large. No one cares as much as we convince ourselves they do. Some people are genuinely dangerous, but there is an entire media ecosystem dedicated to scaring trans people into the closet by hyping up how bad it will be to be trans in public.
No one cares. No one is really paying that much attention.