(no subject)

[sorcyress]

Thanksgiving happened! It was good, I think, although only one of my sisters was there, which was a bummer.

Oh yeah, dunno if I've mentioned that yet --my middle sister came out as a trans woman a couple months ago. She actively wants us to come out for her "because coming out is exhausting". Her new name is Shannon, and it seems like she's gonna be a lot happier now, which is really important to me. I'm working very hard on figuring out what presents to shower her with at Christmas because *of course* I am going to give her every possible makeover thing I can (if she's into it) but also it's pretty important to me to also get her non-trans/femininity related stuff because she's still my rad sibling who reads way more than I do and always brings home the good shows.

Back to Thanksgiving though, I got some quality youngest cister¹ time, and had some good chats with mum, and got to see three uncles, two aunts, and three cousins. First time seeing only the younger Dalanta² cousin, since Katie got married last August, but that's okay, since Billy is the geekiest person in the family outside my immediate nuclear bit.

*Serious* quality chats with Abby (in the early stages of grad school for her MD-PhD) and Sadie (last year of college, double majoring chem and math), who are seriously quality people and make me feel deeply inadequate in the best way possible. They're the Vermont cousins, and they're sharp and funny and have voices that are similar enough to Alys that I kept looking up startled at the not-quite-right.

There were lots of board games (ranging from Hearts to Illimat) and in the early Thursday evening, when Aunt Elizabeth learned that like half the family hadn't seen the first Fantastic Beasts, she set up the projector and had it going. I half-watched, while playing video games and being very happy-warm-cozy by the fire. It was totally decent and entirely forgettable. The CGI made me cringe, which is a shame --I don't know what exactly makes me spoiled/snobby about this regard, but there you have it.

(The plot with Jakob the no-maj³ baker was the best part and I don't normally ship het as hard as I did him with Queenie. I wish they explored him more though --he had a lot of Telling (mostly from Queenie reading his mind, occasionally from other characters describing him) that he was Spectacular, but not nearly enough Showing. This ain't "The Booth at the End", you need to actually make me see why your characters are wonderful.)

All told, it was only about 48 hours spent with the family, and then I spent the rest my time off of work fucking about and playing video games. Yesterday I managed to do my Habitica dailies all the way for the first time in an age --that's why you get a post today, so I can write my 750words.

Hope yinz are well.

~Sor
MOOP!

1) It's been two months and I am not even a *little* bit bored of this joke. Alys supports me in it.

2) My dad has four younger sibs. The various branches of the family tend to name themselves by what state or city they're in, which worked great until my parents moved to Dallas where Uncle Pete had already been living for like ten years. So now there's the Dallas-Atlanta (or Dalanta) branch, and the Dallas-Maryland (which does not yet have a portmanteau) branch. There is also the Ohio branch and the Vermont branch. Uncle Tim is just Uncle Tim, because it's only him and Aunt Lynn living in Connecticut, so there's less need to label a whole clan.

3) Stupid name.

Comments

[metahacker]

*because coming out is exhausting*

oh, god, yeah. The polite fiction that one gets to "come out" and have a big day and then everyone in the universe updates their little notebooks and you're good--it's such an alluring fantasy, and so far from the actual truth of the matter.

Hmm. Now I'm wondering if it's a myth imposed on us by people who want a simple narrative to fit their simple world view.

[eftychia]

Ayup. Both to the "is exhausting" part, and to the incorrectness of the "and then it's done" notion of it. Um, and the likelihood that that idea is imposed (probably not quite consciusly) by folks who want our narratives to be simple and easily categorized. (Simple boxes, like "out = all the way out and well known, neither still coming out a year and a half after deciding to start nor coming out again and again because of meeting new people who weren't around to hear it before". Not to mention not being able to keep track of who already knows what and who still needs to be told. Or in my case, "yes, I explained it differently when I came out the first time I came out to you because that was what was true then, but since then things changed and eventually I accepted that they changed, and now I'm coming out about that and I'm sorry this is confusing".)

In any case, congratulations to sorcyress' sister, Shannon!

[sorcyress]

It's also so hard given how unsafe it can be to be out in certain environments. I had the opportunity recently to say "hi, I'm Kat, I use she pronouns professionally and they pronouns personally" and OH GOD DID I HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT THAT.

I don't like that I'm not out as genderweird at work, because I think it would be SUPER POSITIVE for my students to have a genderweird teacher/role model, and also because then I wouldn't feel that tragic, painful twitch every single fucking time I got "miss'd".

But even in our liberal paradise of Massachusetts, I don't *actually* feel like I can be out until I have tenure. One year and five eighths to go!

~Sor

[sorcyress]

I am a person who tries really hard to be as out as possible, and that still leads to things like six months after starting bellringing one of my friends there awkwardly being all "so, uh...do you use they pronouns?"

I've been thinking hard about trying to train my tongue to say "hi I'm Kat I use they pronouns" as my introduction sentence, but it's _so much harder_ to do that as the marginalized, because then suddenly it's a Whole Thing. (I know that cis people doing this intro-with-pronouns also have a Whole Thing, but they can come at it more comfortably because it's not as fraught --it's "weird" to specifically say you use "she", but no one's going to try and prescriptivist at you.)

At any rate, I meant to say that I would be way more into the Coming Out Process if it was a one-and-done deal. Ideally as a party. Maybe I should just host a gender reveal party for one of my birthdays or something.

~Sor

[mindways]

This ain't "The Booth at the End"...

Do you know of anywhere this can still be seen online? I tried pointing a friend at it recently, and could find nowhere that still had it actually available, unless one wants to buy Region 2 DVDs.

[mindways]

(Also: I enjoy seeing life-snippets from you. :)

[sorcyress]

Yay, thank you! The feeling is definitely mutual.

I am definitely happier and more stable when I'm writing more regularly, which means that every once in a while I attempt to actually do that. I've actually been reading DW regularly for the last some months (as with so many things, you can thank my clone for that), which is a huge difference over the last five years or so. More reading should lead to more writing, damnit!

~Sor

[sorcyress]

Man, I do not! I wish I did, because it is an excellent piece of storytelling and I'd love to see it again as well --we watched it on Hulu back when Uncle Keith¹ pointed us to it, but it seems liek now it's only there in other regions.

~Sor

1: Baker, natch, who in addition to writing good games has excellent taste in media. He's the reason my family knows about Middleman!

Yes, I'm name-dropping for no good reason, except general hyperness!

[child_of_the_air]

Awww...*offers congratulations and wishes of good luck to Shannon*. I really am starting to get the impression that The Trans runs in families, given how many trans people I know with trans siblings. (I don't recall if you identify as trans, or just non-cis, but either way, it supports the pattern.)

And wow; I continue to be amazed by how nice your blood family sounds like it is, and am glad you had such a good Thanksgiving!

[sorcyress]

I really really appreciate you making the distinction between trans and not-cis, because I have been feeling kinda uncomfortable lately about the fact that I don't identify as trans. (This thought was inspired by the otherwise really awesome trans 101 mandatory training we had at work, where at one point the speaker said something along the lines of "if you're not cis than you're trans".)

FWIW, I also very strongly do not ID as cis.

My guess would actually be more nurture than nature --it's not that my family has The Trans running in it so much as we have really welcoming and kind parents, and my mother especially has shown me throughout my life that she is cool with the queer. Even more than that, my mother has always been pretty progressive about gender stuff --she's the first woman I knew who doesn't bother to shave her legs, and she owns a nice tux that she wears to dressy events about as often as she wears her pretty dresses. I grew up with pictures on the mantle¹ of my parents wedding and my mom's three bridesmaids in pretty pink dresses and one in a dashing suit, all holding the lovely bouquets of flowers.

(Uncle Johnny apparently offered to wear a dress, but mom said the suit was fine.)

Anyways, yeah, my blood family is A+ awesome², and I was thrilled that every single person at Thanksgiving, when told about Shannon, responded with some version of "Oh good for her, I hope this makes her happy."

...I should write about my family and gender sometime. Maybe that'll be tonight's post.

~Sor

1: Metaphorically. We did not actually have a mantle.

2: Mostly. My da is...getting increasingly meritocratic in his old age, and us sibs spend a lot of times rolling our eyes across the table at him. He escalated to flat out Active Racism when driving Alys back to her school, and she shut that right-the-fuck-down. *somebody* will be getting lots of exciting books written by Native authors in his Christmas stocking this year, and hopefully he'll learn him something. If not, we'll keep telling him he's an ass as appropriate.

[child_of_the_air]

*nods* Yeah, I thought you might be one of the neither cis nor trans non-binary people.

This seems to be a case where the terminology gets badly confused due to people not agreeing on what the words mean in the first place. I've been trying to get in the habit of saying "non-cis" more frequently, but I admit I'm not always that great at it.

That does make sense about it being at least partly environmental, and I think most of the families I can think of with more than one trans sibling also have relatively supportive parents?

Anyway, I kind of hope I get to meet your blood family someday, because they sound really cool, and much less objectionable than mine often is. Although it seems hard enough to even manage to be in the same place as you these days.

(By the way, I just bought tickets to arrive in Boston on the morning of 24 December. I'll probably be there for about a week, but don't actually know when I'm leaving next, as it depends on about three other constraints I haven't figured out yet.)

And good luck with correcting your dad!

[verdantry]

Dallas-Maryland = Dallyland? It's where the dalliances happen! :p

[sorcyress]

I'm into it, except for the part where I refuse to accept us as Dallas-folk, really. We're the Maryland branch, and we just happen to live in the wrong state these days, and yes I say that as someone who does not have particularly strong ties to where they grew up.