(no subject)

Here's a thought I had on my ride home from work today:

Non-binary people can't be stealth.

Now, before I say anything else, I want to be very clear that I am *not here* for debating the merits of a trans person being, or not, stealth. It's a choice that only they get to make, for themself, based on their own assumptions of safety, happiness, self, etc (to say nothing about passing). My debate here is not on the virtues (or not) of stealthness, just on the fact that it is an option available to some trans folk, but not to enbys.

A non-binary person can be closeted. That is, in fact, how I live over a third of my life, shifting through the school day and smiling politely when people say "miss" and "her" and other incorrect words about me.

But I can't be stealth. Stealth involves being able to wrap yourself up so properly in your correct gender that your incorrect one is unrecognizable. Which...I don't think I can do? The vast majority of people will assign a binary gender to every stranger they meet, within seconds. What can I possibly change about my presentation so that I am looked at and thought of as "ah yes, they don't have a gender" without also getting "girl"? If I make someone hesitate, I fear it will always come paired with "figuring it out".

I'm not necessarily upset or morose about this --I like being as out as possible, as often and loudly as possible, about as many things as possible. But it's an interesting problem of being outside the binary, and not one I think I've heard mentioned before.

***

In other trans news, I am going to be really fucking furiously angry if I get a permanent career and can therefore out myself at work under proper union protection, but can't actually do so because the world shifts to no longer offer those protections. Fucking vote, my friends.

~Sor
MOOP!

(no subject)

What else is going on?

I have finally, after about eight hundred years of being the worst, started reading dreamwidth again on the semi-regular. This has had the side benefit of me stumbling into the (actually active!) dreamwidth of one of my bellfriends (hi!), which I'm pretty keen on, for lots of reasons.

One thing I didn't mention in my bellspost yesterday is that I *really* appreciate how much post-hobby social the Boston bell scene engages in. This is doubly important in a life where I no longer have friends.

That's an extremely melodramatic statement, but I want you to recall that I spent 2015-2016 biking twenty miles a day so I could work a job that made me feel weird in Newton (and was therefore exhausted and busy all the time), then spent the vast majority of 2016-17 Srsly Depressed, and now am in year two of Dream Job No I Swear but also I average ten hours of work a day and have to go to bed before eleven like every night. And I'm still dating three people (does it count as dating if mek and I have not had a proper date in forty-eight years?) and while Squares finally dropped back off the radar, there's Scottish and Highland and oh yeah I'm supposedly running Scots Pinewoods this year.

Friendship and social stuff takes _time_ and it takes _energy_ and it takes _logistical organization_ and wowzers have I been fresh out of all of those. So the thai food and picnics and ice cream with the ringers have been *critical* to my sanity.

All that being said, I've actually been reading dreamwidth for...okay, like two weeks maybe? And I've been trying to hang out in the Pie Shop¹. And I got to see some people I liked at Honk, which was cool. But I need to start working real "hanging out with friends" into my life somehow, and I'll try, even if maybe it's just gonna be "you work on your shit and I'll grade and occasionally we'll chat a bit and sip our tea".

I was going to try an actual life update, and instead it is me continuing to whine about how _fucking difficult_ it is to make plans when you're never home and have no time. This seems like an unusual problem to have, given the rest of my life :p

Hope y'all are well.
~Sor
MOOP!

1: The Pie Shop was started in like...2008 or 6 or something as a deviantArt chatroom. Actually, really it was formed out of the 2004-era AIM chatrooms where I played digital truth or dare with mostly people I haven't talked to in years. At any rate, it's been hopping from platform to platform for most of my digital life, spawning stories and roleplaying and goofing off. mek and Dave and Har and Jake are the long-time friends who chill in the current version, and now I get to hang with Quads sometimes too, and I think even Zeebs pokes their nose in every once in a while. It's good times.