[-] LadyAutumn 23 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I think in the sense of "global elite athletics", no it by definition isn't fair. At all levels of sports funding is a significant entry barrier to elite competition. Biological advantages are everywhere too, irrespective of gender. Height, leg height, wing span, lung capacity, heart size, spinal curvature, basically every kind of biological parameter can create an advantage over someone else.

Thats an advantage those athletes havent earned. You don't earn a biological advantage, you just have it. You don't earn being born to a wealthy family who can finance your strict comprehensive training regimen, you just are born to one. If sports is about fairness, that is to say like, a level playing field anyone can come along and work really hard and compete, then no sports is not fair. Some people will be better than others no matter how hard they work.

Fairness in the sense of this discussion, is competition within your gender. Critics of trans inclusion are not objecting on biological grounds, they are objecting to a trans woman competing with cisgender women because they do not agree that she is a woman. These arguments about fairness are almost never applied to cis women with height or wingspan advantages. Just to trans women of any kind for competing at any level of competition.

If fairness is the goal, then sports needs to be extensively categorized based on all the biological parameters that give you an advantage. Or else some kind of combined leaderboard where everyones advantage or handicap is accounted for. Athletics competitions for people with disabilities already implement a combined leaderboard system in this way.

But no one is interested in actually being fair. They're interested in who does the absolute best. Who is the absolute best woman and who is the absolute best man. The disagreement is that trans women are women. There's nothing else they're concerned with precluding certain women from participating. They just disagree that trans women are women and therefore believe that in a "whos the absolute best woman at xyz" competition trans women should be excluded. To say that its a matter of fairness is demonstrably false.

Oh, and also your comment breaks one of the rules of this community. I'm leaving it up because I think it presents an opportunity to educate on exactly why this belief is wrong. But further comments to this effect will be removed. Please follow the rules of this community.

[-] LadyAutumn 7 points 3 days ago

Defeatism is a poison to progress.

[-] LadyAutumn 18 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

So your definition of furry is exclusively someone who wears fur suits in public? Because that's not most people's definition of that term. But either way, is it just beyond you that someone could like doing something others see as weird for any reason other than sexual gratification?

Also, why do you use breasts are your "sexual but not fetishized" example here lmao are you under the impression that the western sexual fixation on breasts is not fetishistic

[-] LadyAutumn 6 points 4 days ago

I feel fundamentally that "best buds with a pedophile" and "documented in front of the whole nation as sexually abusing children with Jeffrey Epstein" are just 2 fundamentally different things. Its never been a secret. But neither was Harvey, nor Bill Cosby. When it gained worldwide public attention is when associates dropped them. As soon as it became a risk to their public careers and their money.

[-] LadyAutumn 28 points 4 days ago

Not pictured, the 15 prior tickets where it was in fact a simple fix.

[-] LadyAutumn 8 points 4 days ago

Its not really a matter of him doing it. Its a matter of how long his government can withstand constant mounting pressure to do so. And how long until someone in the administration cracks and leaks them. Bondi honestly doesnt seem like she can handle this forever.

There's a real part of me that thinks he might not plan to come back from Scotland. A delusional hope that maybe he sees the writing on the wall as his own politicians turn against him, knowing that conclusive proof that he is a child molester will likely become public soon. And his usual waffling about hoaxes and treason just isnt sticking, not even close. Every single choice he has made in the past 2 weeks has made things worse.

[-] LadyAutumn 144 points 4 days ago

The fall of the American empire happening live for all to see. A pedophile president, a government chopped into pieces and fed into a wood chipper, a bunch of self obsessed egotistic billionaires lobbying for child labor laws to be repealed, and a totally deranged political system that has gotten so high on the fumes of its own rotting corpse that it can't even tell it's dying.

The MAGA fascist movement built itself on characterization of its opponents as pedophiles. Its one thing for this to be obviously untrue, its another thing entirely for it to suddenly preoccupy itself very heavily on protecting pedophiles. The entire political elite of the movement are greedy narcisstic egomaniacal sociopaths. Their primary motives have always been personal gain. Attaching themselves to an obvious pedophile is very different than attaching themselves to one who has been documented in the public arena as one. The republican party fascist elite won't risk their own necks for that. I don't know how they will respond. He however is running out of options that aren't "create a police state, arrest all political opposition, and take state control of all media". Its do or die for his dictatorship.

[-] LadyAutumn 1 points 6 days ago

I mean. Are we sure RKFJR had no dealings with Epstein?

[-] LadyAutumn 138 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

This is what they want. See, Trump is utterly destroying America's economy and nucleus of global hegemony. The people are in for increasingly tough circumstances as China just stops trading with America, and all previous allies start to shun the country. Trump is trying to grow the US military to start his fascist wars of conquest both south and north. This will also put the people in increasingly dire circumstances, both with the massive amount of death involved in such a conflict and in the mass reallocation of resources towards war efforts. He can't talk about those things openly to the people because he'd have to admit their lives are going to get significantly worse. So, what can he do instead?

He can do the same thing he's been doing the entire time. Build a fervore for ethnic cleansing and eugencist racialist politics. The people are trained to lap it up without even thinking, and they get genuinely itchy for their next fix. Who's the minority we're hating today? Who's the person of color we're going to commit vile acts of cruelty on today? Where do I direct my homicidal rage at the threat to my inherent superiority today? This is how they are. Every single day, Fox News, Twitter, and the White House all come together to deliver. They fill the bowl, and the bigots heads are down gorging themselves on it while their own lives are horrifically torn apart around them.

It doesn't matter what else he's doing. He's fighting DEI. He's putting black people and women in their place. He's making immigrants, muslims, jews, and the queers afraid again. His support base is unyielding. We know they will never yield because fascists never do. Even decades after the end of World War 2, many former SS and former Nazi supporters STILL thought Hitler was sent from God and that everything he did was right. Even as Soviet bombs were falling on their heads. The ardent supporters of fascism will support it literally until they die. They loved that Hitler was committing genocide. They loved that he was cruel and inhuman. They admired how the image he portrayed so neatly fit with their patriarchal worldview. Its why they supported him to begin with. Economy this, nationalism that, but down to the line it was all about cruelty.

Are the people who support these kinds of tweets petty and childish? Absolutely they are. This isn't even about pettiness though. This is what they voted for. They voted for people of color to suffer. They voted for immigrants to suffer. If it came out tomorrow that he died in that hellhole they'd all cheer.

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submitted 3 months ago by LadyAutumn to c/lgbtq_plus

They can't use this to make a useful database of we just flood it with whatever lol

Link for those who feel like doing a little low effort sabotage. I was trying to find conversion therapist info to report them but couldn't find anything. Could be an idea. Report transphobic businesses or doctors.

[-] LadyAutumn 205 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

An unelected billionaire who was appointed by the president to the head of a department he made up is gaining massive control of the federal government.

This unelected billionaire is an unapologetic nazi. He did a Nazi salute twice at the inauguration. He spreads Nazi ideology on his social media platform. He supports international Nazi causes. He is an open white supremacist on his social media platform and an open anti-semite.

He's now being given essentially limitless control over all federal agencies of the United States government. The Nazi takeover of America is already complete.

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submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by LadyAutumn to c/mtf

If you're out of the loop or intentionally avoiding social media and the news cycle, then I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this. Two executive orders were written yesterday by Donald Trump that specifically target transgender rights and freedoms. One targeting the rights of transgender members of the military, another targeting the healthcare rights of transgender youth. These orders state in no uncertain terms that trans people are unsafe evil liars deserving of contempt and exclusion. This is not an exaggeration, and the shift in the narrative behind these executive orders is extremely alarming and likely to be seen again as the basis for further attacks against us.

There is a narrative created by these two orders. A narrative that trans people are dishonorable, that trans people lack selflessness and humility, and that we are liars. That we are wrong that our existence is wrong. That it doesn't matter whether transition decreases our suicide rate, whether it allows us to live happy, fulfilling lives. That death itself is preferable to the existence of an adult trans person. That being transgender is by itself wrong and makes us worth less than cisgender people. A narrative that children must be protected from becoming transgender people, even if it means they die. That no one can be allowed to think that being transgender is alright, that it's okay to be a transgender person.

This cannot go unchallenged. It's not enough for trans people to resist alone. This has to come from as man voices as possible. The writing is on the wall. This amounts to dehumanizing persecution intended to foster perceptions of us as inhuman. It is going to get worse. This is week 2. What awaits us in a year no one can say for sure. We need protests we need civil disobedience. We need to help our most vulnerable get out. We need to protect trans youth.

Please refer to the transgender resistance network for mutual aid and help. I had tried last year to organize something here but was not capable of it due to problems in my own personal life.

We need solidarity. We need to help each other. And we have to resist. Not just these orders, not just this narrative, but we have to resist the fall into hopelessness and acceptance. We have to fight. Our lives have value. Our lives are worth the same as anyone else. Don't let them get to you, don't believe in the narrative. Transition saved my life, maybe it saved yours too. Transitioning and seeing others transition has been the most beautiful and rewarding experience of my life. I refuse to accept a reality in which we are forced into closets, forced into hiding. I beg of everyone to join me in refusing that outcome.

185
submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by LadyAutumn to c/mtf

Like in 2016 a rising tide of conservatives emboldened by the Republican victory are starting to crop up online. Hate speech and random attacks directed at the trans community in online spaces will continue and most likely grow louder in the coming weeks. For our safety and mental health I encourage everyone to avoid online spaces that are not strictly moderated. Avoid social media where transphobia and misogyny are tolerated. The effect of constact exposure to hate speech is profound and horrific. We need to shelter ourselves from it as much as possible. I know it doesn't sound very brave to say that but its the truth. We need to look after each other of course, but first of all we have to look after ourselves.

Like everyone here I've been through a chaotic mess of emotions over the past couple days. I am furious, heartbroken, terrified, and sick with anxiety. I have picked apart everything thats happened in the past few months and tried to make sense of how this could happen. The hows and whys of it dont matter though. This is the reality we are confronted with and we have to exist within it. There is no use in praying for a different world. There is no use in lamenting the reality as it exists.

Trans people have made it through so many eras of open hostility towards us. Our community is built on the foundations laid by those who came before us. We persevere because of our solidarity, our empathy and our unity. We must now turn our attention to how we can fight back against this system. We must move our focus to how we can persist within a new world. Trans people still need hormones. We need ways out of hostile communities. We need protection and we need security. Our focus must change to how we can provide those things without the help of institutions. We need networks of supportive cisgender people throughout deep red states. We need supply chains for bringing hormones to people who cannot access them. We need communities online oriented around supporting our most vulnerable.

I am committed to this community supporting all of those efforts, and am looking to become personally involved in organizing efforts as time goes on. Channel your anger and your fear into action. Process your feelings together, support each other, and remember that youre not alone. We are not alone. Things aren't okay. They won't suddenly be okay tomorrow. But we can look after our community. We can push back. It's our duty to do so, for trans youth and vulnerable trans people who can't advocate for themselves and are subject to the whims of the system.

622
submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by LadyAutumn to c/mtf

I don't know what comes next. I don't know what to expect. It's serious. It's real this time. Prepare for the worst-case scenarios and do not assume anything. A lot has been said about how this administration plans to handle queer rights. It could mean anything. No level of institutional violence against trans people is off the table as of now. Medications can be banned, non-conformity with assigned roles can be criminalized, conversion therapy can be accepted as widespread policy. I don't know. The end result is it's not good. Whatever this change in power means for us, it's not good. I don't want to downplay the seriousness of what's at stake here.

That being said, as escape and resistance efforts materialize, this community will support them. We will persevere as queer people have always had to. When the systems fail us, we rely on each other. Grassroots efforts will come together in the coming weeks and months. I encourage people to do what they think is right and to do what they think will keep themselves and their families safe. We have to stay together and we have to love and protect each other. No matter what happens. Unity and queer power doesn't stop now. Today is a day to mourn the loss of a safe world for so many queer people. Tomorrow, we should begin to steel ourselves for resistance.

I hope the best for everyone. This community is here to support us all as this unfolds. I'm so sorry. I wish there was more I could say or do. The waves of anxiety and fear have been washing over me for the past couple of hours. Let's mourn together, I guess. And get ready for what comes tomorrow.

There's some crisis lines in the sidebar I encourage anyone to make use of if you're unsafe right now. Those are all explicitly trans affirming support lines.

73
submitted 1 year ago by LadyAutumn to c/mtf

I havent gone swimming in around a decade, and now that I'm a little over a year post up I really want to but I'm still so nervous to actually go and buy a swimsuit. 😅 there's something intimidating or nerve wracking about the process.

Anyone have experiences buying swimsuits? Is there any tips going in I should know? I think I know what style I want, a 2 piece with high waisted bottoms and a top with an underwire.

[-] LadyAutumn 316 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It should be illegal to misrepresent an ad as a post or comment. This exact thing should be against the law. The boundary between advertising and social media is so thin at this point. It has to stop. It's dangerous for consumers. Corporations should have to clearly label themselves at every turn. The usage of AI to intermingle advertising and social media should be blanket illegal.

40
submitted 1 year ago by LadyAutumn to c/mtf

I was thinking of making a community engagement post last week in the run up to the Easter weekend and transgender day of visibility, but it got lost under a recent promotion at work and a few busy days.

So yeah how was your Easter weekend / TDoV? 😊 Most of my family is on vacation so I just had a quiet weekend at home with my partner. All the drama that went down with TDoV landing on Easter Sunday was.. unsettling to say the least. I hope everyone was able to weather that storm of hate and propaganda safely.

39
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by LadyAutumn to c/mtf

Hello everyone,

Just wanted to quickly add that the finalized format for requesting engagement has been decided. A commenter in the other thread suggested a similar format. (Thank you @Kayday@lemmy.world)

At the start of the body of your post, not in the title, the first line should look like the following.

[Requesting Engagement from _________]

For clarity purposes, this is the official way to request specific engagement groups. I'll respect other methods, but this way, it keeps things nice and transparent.

[-] LadyAutumn 147 points 1 year ago

Honestly, same boat. Our power bill has gone up over 20% this past year like it's insane. Our grocery costs have easily doubled in that time, too. Like I'm doing the math and seeing the numbers like I'm making more than I was 3 years ago, but I wasn't living paycheck to paycheck then, and I'm rationing food today.

I also can't count the number of times prices have gone up on common groceries in the last year. Every time I go in I'm spending more than I did the previous time. And the grocery stores around here have started phasing out their cost saving brands. More and more lately what used to be the expensive brand is the only one left, and I'm paying twice as much for half as much compared to what I was getting before. They're not even trying to hide what they're doing.

52
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by LadyAutumn to c/mtf

Hi everyone,

I've been thinking over how to address large amounts of outside engagement disrupting the safety of our community. As Lemmy is a large space that extends well beyond the borders of our community, when posts hit front page we often start getting a lot of engagement on posts by people outside of the transfeminine experience. Often well-meaning people engage here and say things that are insensitive, require OP to further explain themselves and their experiences unrelated to the topic of the post, or disrupt the safety of the space for transfeminine people.

This is a problem that I'm taking seriously. The purpose of this community as I see it is and has always been to provide a safe supportive community to transfeminine people. So with that in mind posters are now allowed to request engagement from specific groups on their post. This can be gender diverse people, trans people with unsupportive parents, trans parents, people who have struggled with addictions, trans people of color, etc.

I've seen a few people make comments on engagement issues lately and so I've decided that this course of action makes the most sense to preserve the safety of the community while still allowing engagement from other people when that engagement is wanted.

How you choose to make this clear is for the moment up to you. You can add a tag in your title, state so explicitly in your title, or write it somewhere in your post (try and do so clearly as I might not have the chance to fully read your post in time).

Moderator action may be taken per your request. I'm choosing to keep a steady eye on how this affects the community and to ensure that it isn't being weaponized against marginalized people within our community. I ask that everyone is patient and expect some adjustment to this new rule. A certain amount of discretion will also be applied on a per incident basis, this is not a rule banning all non-transfems from the community just providing posters a choice with regards to engagement.

This new change has been added to the sidebar and is considered effective immediately.

Feedback on this change would be great. If you think some aspect of this should be changed or you have concerns please let us know.

43
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by LadyAutumn to c/mtf

It's been a while since we've had a general discussions thread, and with the holiday season ramping up, I imagine a lot of us are feeling very stressed and worn out.

Spending time with family members is always a time, to say the least. Getting my family to respect my partner's they/them pronouns has been frustrating and exhausting. It enfuriates me that they can understand and respect my pronouns, but only because I'm binary gendered. Getting very sick of deconstructing the "them is multiple people" argument, as well as the "I'm still a lesbian even though my partner is transmasc non-binary" conversation. 😓

But aside from that, I'm actually excited about the holidays this year. And I hope everyone has something to look forward to, time with friends and family who love and accept us. We all deserve love, compassion, and acceptance, and to be able to enjoy a time of year that should be representative of all those things.

This space is 100% open and welcoming of venting, frustration, whatever you want to post here. And if you see cishet people disrupting you, disrupting the community, invalidating your feelings or opinions please report them and we will deal with them accordingly. I'm not handing out bans to every cis person who has an opinion on anything here, but this is not a space for cisgender people. If you're reading this and you're cisgender, you are welcome to post and contribute here. By all means, do so. But keep in mind that this space is not for you. You are a visitor in this community. How we feel, how we struggle, the experiences we as transfeminine people have come first every single time. I won't change that. And if you're going to participate here, you need to abide by that.

I just wanted to get that out of the way because occasionally we get an influx of people from other parts of the fediverse here and they are welcome but I continue to see cisgender experiences being used to invalidate transgender ones. And that's going to be a focus of mine going forward.

What are your thoughts on this time of year? What's been your experiences so far with family, the good and the bad? Let's all support each other through this. And what are your thoughts on how this community has been over the last few months? I'd love to hear it if anyone had any suggestions or thoughts on how our community has been operating.

30
submitted 2 years ago by LadyAutumn to c/mtf

I'm starting to hit a bit of a wall with voice training lately. I can find my resonance, I can adjust the positioning of my vocal cords and where my voice is coming from. I occasionally pass on the phone, and I work all day over the phone so I do get pretty regular indirect feedback in terms of how my voice gets me gendered.

But I am very much struggling with pitch and maintaining consistent pitch. It's just not happening and even when everything else is perfect my pitch will slip, and then I'll get misgendered. I cant seem to find a specific pitch and comfortably rest there. I'm also 8 years in at this point, I've been doing voice training for a long time and I just think when it comes down to it I might be one of the women for whom training alone just isn't enough.

I've done a lot of research into glottoplasty and find myself in a financial position where I could hypothetically afford it. Most accounts from people who've had the procedure seem to indicate they've had great results with it, but there's a lot of people who swear that it'll basically render me mute if I get it done. Its minimally invasive and the surgeon I'm considering has good rapport with his patients and I'm confident he'd do great. But on the whole I'm hesitating a little bit and curious what other people think. I do IT work that involves using the phone quite a bit, but if I had to take time off work for a little while that would almost certainly be fine. I don't sing and really don't have any concerns with regard to vocal range either.

Are you considering vocal feminization surgery? Why or why not? Have you experienced similar things with regards to voice training, or has training alone been enough for you?

Feel free to chime in with whatever thoughts you have on the operation or voice training in general.

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submitted 2 years ago by LadyAutumn to c/mtf

I'd like to welcome @ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone to the transfem moderation team! 🤗 Ada is one of the admins of the lemmy.blahaj.zone instance and a very active member of the transfem community. She has already been providing me with assistance in running the community and answering any questions that I have, she's a perfect fit for our second moderator.

The addition of Ada to our moderation team helps maintain the safety of our community and our readiness for more complex moderation issues. Please as always report any rule breaking you see and we will address it as soon as possible.

Thank you so much Ada for joining the moderation team! 😄

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submitted 2 years ago by LadyAutumn to c/mtf

I hope everybody's had a great week so far. I wanted to make some kinda post to engage everyone in a casual context. I was originally going to ask in the title "who has been really supportive in your life recently?" So if you want to answer that I suppose you can lol.

I myself have to work all weekend but its the evening shifts so I'll be fine. My best friend has been especially supportive of me lately, she took me out shopping when I was in between paychecks and even bought me a couple crop tops I wanted. I really appreciate her being so willing to do those kinds of things with me even tho she has social anxiety. Having supportive people in your helps a lot.

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LadyAutumn

joined 2 years ago
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