i am lucky to have a lot of great femmes and allies in my life, but it really has started to bother me how people around me decide/assume someone is gay based on appearance, without thinking about it at all. i often get told that i now look ‘less gay’ because i’ve grown my hair out, and while i understand that this isn’t meant to be femme hate, it still irks me that the automatic assumption is that longer hair or more feminine clothing = straight.

Pretty on purpose. Femme identity makes me feel powerful. Femme hate is so real that I use it against them. They never see me coming. People are always assuming they know who I fuck. They can go ahead and count the glitter on my middle finger if they really want to know. 

[Image: Kiri, a white trans lady, wearing a red, cleavage-showing dress, giggling at the camera.]

Femme hate is real, and femme trans women know this better than anyone. When we wear dresses and cute girly things, we are presumed to be weak “sissies” on one hand, and evil duplicitous “traps” on the other. Hatred of femininity is one of the foundational pillars of transmisogyny. We are considered less worthy, more “fake”, more “manipulative”, because femininity itself is seen that way. This is why we are dismissed, and why we are feared.

I have come to embrace my lady fearsomeness. Wearing dresses and girly things makes me feel amazingly badass, as does being femme in general. In doing so, I am kicking cissexist heteropatriarchy right in the fucking teeth, and (hopefully!) looking adorable while doing it. If bigots fear me because of that, so be it. They should.

(And yes, I know that my hair is messy in this picture. That’s why I chose it.)

beautyoverthelimit:

Tara Lynn

“Red Collector”

by: Robert Jaso

wtf did they do to her? Why are they trying to make her look so thin??!?!?!!