A few minutes later, I received a message from an acquaintance; it read as follows: „pride parade in berlin was cancelled someone hit the crowd with their car“

My first reaction was nothing, I felt nothing maybe because it was in the middle of the night maybe because my brain switched immeaditely to „another case of stochastic terrorism, sadly surprise, nothing to see here please move on.“ Cynical and lacking in empathy, I know, which is why I’d better make it clear: just because a crime falls into the category of ‘stochastic terrorism’ doesn’t mean it isn’t a tragedy. It is, and nobody should have died or been injured that evening. At the same time, at a time when anti-queer sentiment is becoming more visible and socially acceptable once again, it was only a matter of time before such an incident occurred. It should also be noted that it was purely down to luck that the perpetrator carried out the attack at 10 pm and not during the actual parade. Over the course of the following morning and day, more and more information trickled out into the public domain. And the more information became public, the more the rights of queer people were exploited by all manner of politicians for their own ends. This is by no means new; it was simply the speed at which it happened that was astonishing.

My personal life carried on without further incident; I was busy keeping a child occupied at the playground. Nevertheless, sooner or later, the interpersonal and media fallout caught up with my everyday life too. On the one hand, a friend of mine wrote me an angry plea about homophobia in society and why, for that very reason, she would never hold hands with women in public. On the other hand, I found it troubling how a German media outlet interacted with the perpetrator’s family and featured them in one of its reports.  Furthermore, I could only shake my head at our federal government’s desire to tighten security policy in our country even further. Which means nothing other than more spending and powers for the secret services, the armed forces and the police.

No one paused to consider the real problem. The actual reason why this attack took place was that a young Muslim man sympathised with the terrorist organisation Islamic State and its ideology, and wanted to put it into practice. In other words, he became radicalised and everyone stood by and watched. Or rather, the young man had apparently been radicalised for some time, was known to the police, and they allowed him to walk around freely and unmonitored. Because, as we know, the only job our police seem to do is either not to do their job or even to help the attackers. Instead of asking why the young man had become radicalised, the media merrily continued to sensationalise the crime.Which is why I’m asking this question here: why did the young man become radicalised? What did this misanthropic ideology offer him that his family, social circle or professional environment did not?

Perhaps he had none of these? No prospects and no political interest group to represent his rights and potential demands as a young immigrant man of colour in politics. As is so often the case with marginalised groups or minorities. I do not sympathise with the perpetrator, as he committed a serious crime. However, I found it disconcerting that, when the news broke that the police had shot him in an allotment area, many people in the comments were praising the police, cheering them on or generally celebrating: “Because the bloke really deserved it.”

Did he deserve it? No. Nobody deserves to die, even if that person has committed a serious crime; otherwise, the death penalty would still be in force in Germany, and I’m glad it was abolished in 1949 and 1987. What the young man should have been given instead was a fair trial in accordance with Art. 20 Abs. 3 based on ourconstitution:

„Die Gesetzgebung ist an die verfassungsmäßige Ordnung, die vollziehende Gewalt und die Rechtsprechung sind an Gesetz und Recht gebunden.“

However, this paragraph alone does not confer a right to a trial. For this reason, Art. 1 Abs. 1 („Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar. Sie zu achten und zu schützen ist Verpflichtung aller staatlichen Gewalt“) is usually also cited in the same sentence, along with a reference to the European Convention on Human Rights. The right to a fair criminal trial is addressed in much greater detail there, which lends it even greater weight. We will never know to what extent racism or Islamophobia might have led to an excessive sentence, or whether the latter was even possible, because the perpetrator is dead and will never have to explain himself. Why he is said to have attacked several SEK officers with a bladed weapon also remains unclear. Of course, bladed weapons are dangerous. At the same time, I wonder what must have happened beforehand for a man to ‘charge’ at several armed and armoured officers with a bladed weapon (we do not even know what type it was).

Apart from that, it also remains unclear why he became radicalised. The fundamental problem of a lack of social support for young men of colour remains unspoken, unresolved and continues to persist. Yes, this man was a religious extremist, a murderer and allegedly attacked the police with a knife. We will never know why he did it or what events happened before the knife attack. Ultimately, he was a criminal, and another man of colour was shot by the police. It is highly likely that a white man would have survived.

It is estimated that he is now one of nine people to have died at the hands of the police this year. These are estimates, as the German police do not keep statistics on how many people die during their operations. At this point, scientists rely on various groups in civil society, such as the Humboldt University-based project „Bürgerrechte und Polizei“, which only documents victims of gunshot wounds. People who suffocate, are set on fire in a prison cell or are denied life-saving medication during police custody are not included.

So, instead of solving the problem, our government wants to enforce the police for our own good, which will likely result in more deaths because people of colour, homeless people, addicts and people with severe mental illnesses are the most vulnerable when faced by the police. This group also includes queer people. So thank you, dear conservative people. You are killing your own citizens. No further questions asked.

The newest developments are: searching for a flat next to job hunting and worrying about my uncertain future. So far my counters show:
Possible flats: 0
Submitted applications: 42
Rejections: 20
Ghostings: 2 (possibly more bc a lot of institutions take several weeks to respond to their applicants)

Despite all of it, I continue reading, even if it is just for escapism’s sake. A few days ago I’ve gotten my hands on a prosaic autofiction. The main character is trans and tries to cope with reality through sex, BDSM and loads of drugs. Apart from that, the writing style confused me, the prose felt more pretentious than anything else, and the main character ticked every box of the deviant, addicted, broken, fucked up trans-archetype. Policed, dispised and judged by the public, but also secretly admired and sought after. If you made yourself a life at rock bottom, nobody can ruin your reputation anymore. Maybe that’s as close as we can get to freedom these days…

The past few days I started seriously considering to jump on that bandwagon, turning myself into one of those queers who embrace their inner deviance and engage in fetish modelling, sex work, activism and endless DIY-projects. Fostering a hands-on mentality, taking part and later even teach certain workshops, start making zines and sell them at the local art market. Gain a reputation and social standing in my community until a publisher contacts me and offers me a contract because, of course, I am a talented writer. All of this sounds at least better than my (chosen?) reality.

Instead of using my newly gained free time to jump on dating apps, have the best hookups and sex, try out sex work, practise my non-existent domination with friends, turn myself into a trans femme fatale or become a companionship service, I sit in my flat, do bad art, support my girlfriend in her daily life and keep an eye on my godchild. Recently, I have had to read his favourite book to them in French because they know the English, Spanish, German and Dutch versions by heart. I try not to look at my bank account, even though I know at the back of my mind that the money is just getting less and less. I try to ignore the appointments with my bank and doctor, and the messages from my parents who eagerly ask how I am doing and how the job search is going. I avoid every news section on the internet so as not to trigger the nagging feeling of impending doom, which is already ready to jump at me from the dark.

My reality checks do tell me that there is no community that will go with me through good times and bad. It’s wonderful when people experience this, but there’s no community of siblings or found family with whom I could process trauma, make plans for the future, or fight against the world. I never put in enough effort to integrate myself into the community. Instead, I formed a bond with a few people around me who are now very dear to my heart, and that has to suffice. Forging that bond was hard enough.

It was all the more ironic when a friend messaged me late at night to tell me about the attack on the CSD in Berlin. She didn’t so much describe what had happened as explain how it had affected her, even though she hadn’t been there and doesn’t live in Germany. I was aware that I should show empathy and engage with her angry rambling instead my mind opted out and I shut down. Whilst my brain was already filing the crime away under ‘stochastic terrorism’, I focused on replying to my friends’ messages without letting my emotions get the better of me. At the same time, my guilty conscience gnawed at me, asking: ‘Are you really that lacking in empathy? Monster, and not the good kind.’

When my guilt became too unbereable, I texted my best friend and asked him why dealing with people wasn’t my strong suit.
His answer was short: „Patience and mercy both come with time and start with yourself.“
I frowned, secretly I hoped for something more dramatic and not something that hit too close too home. But alas… I asked, I got an answer. Jokes on me. Considering it all. I have improved over the years. I’m not a master, but I’m definitely higher than junior level, maybe even senior. For now, I’m just depressed, obsessive, grumpy, tired and in pain. I haven’t stopped eating, I try to socialise, I have healthy relationships and I no longer bang my head against walls until my vision goes black or destroy my favourite things, because I was convinced that I didn’t deserve them in the first place. See? Lots of mercy and patience here.

Instead of torturing myself physically, I continue to torture myself mentally. I’m upset about the exploitative conditions in the German cultural sector and how everything I seem to be good at is apparently no longer needed. Instead, society needs more IT workers and care workers, and as a by-product, it also gets a lot of assholes who punch down on vulnerable people. And, of course, I am also thinking about the fact (yes, again!) that my brain is everything except the thing that I would need the most right now: being an autodidact who taught himself all the good things because bored me and grades had zero impact on me what so ever. Surely it’s still allowed to dream, isn’t it?

‘Slow,’ I replied, still wary of the peace we had established a few minutes ago after an endless battle over which film to watch tonight. The only notable event from our meeting was the one for the queer library. We finally had time to go through all the book donations, sorting them and weeding out any problematic ones.

‘Problematic ones?’

‚Yeah. Novels or films that haven’t aged well. For example, we had a few lesbian romances written by straight women that featured harmful stereotypes. That didn’t really surprise us, given that the work was published in the early ’90s, but still… I wouldn’t recommend anyone read it in their free time.“

As I began to give a few more examples, my girlfriend’s expression grew increasingly gloomy. In the end, she cut me off: ‚Wait, hold on… You mean you’re censoring your library?!‘

It took a few seconds for her words to register. ‘Uhm, no. What on earth made you think that?!‘

‘Well, you’re withdrawing content from your readers.’

While she was still horrified, I was just confused. ‘We’re not withdrawing content from our readers. We’ve removed harmful work that was queerphobic, or that was written by non-queer people for non-queer people who had very strange ideas about queer people. These works would be of no value to our readers, unless they were studying literature and writing an academic paper…”

‚But whether or not the content is anti-queer is something people have to decide for themselves.‘

‚Yes and no?‘ We also have queer children and young people among our readers, and they might not be in a position to judge that yet. Besides, why should anti-queer books be made available in a queer space that’s supposed to be a safe space?‘

The discussion continued, but I couldn’t convince her. Frustrated, I changed the subject to salvage the ruined atmosphere of the evening. Days later, I was still mulling over the conversation. Why on earth did she accuse us of censoring books? After all, defamation, insults, and incitement to hatred are offences under the German Criminal Code, not to mention the European Digital Services Act and the Code of Conduct+. Surely the Criminal Code applied to libraries as well, at the very least?

In a rather grumpy mood, I began my research, spending the first few minutes simply googling random words. Eventually, a specific question took shape in my mind: What is censorship?Fortunately, Germany has this government education portal that has saved my neck on more than one occasion. It has done so again, as I discovered here. From that short article, I learnt the following:

Censorship is the deliberate editing, alteration or omission of information necessary for the general public. This definition primarily applies to states and their citizens. Incidentally, German laws that prohibit insulting or defaming others, or inciting hatred, do not constitute a restriction of freedom of expression. If such content is reported and removed, this is an act of civic courage, not censorship. The reasons for this are hopefully logical. For German media outlets, this means neither publishers nor private individuals need to seek permission from the state to publish specific pieces. However, they may face criminal prosecution if they insult individuals, spread misinformation, or incite hatred against other groups. It is, however, perfectly permissible to strongly criticise those who publish such content if one holds a different opinion.

So far, so good, but what did this mean for my voluntary work?

The library I helped to run belonged to a registered association, so it was not a state body and could not exercise legal censorship. Even if we chose not to include certain books in our collection because we did not share their values, people could still borrow them from other libraries or buy them in bookshops, provided they were not illegal. That said, we only screened out books in advance that were at least partly illegal. In short, we weren’t censoring; we were curating.
It’s just like any other bookshop or library. We also had to consider what our customers might like, what would fit within our budget and where there were gaps in our range. This method does have its weaknesses, but we haven’t yet come up with a better solution. However, we have improved our model over the years! For example:

Trigger warnings! Yes, trigger warnings remain a contentious issue to this day. There are now plenty of studies showing that these warnings do not prevent those affected from being triggered. Nevertheless, some people in the community would still prefer to know what they’re getting into when reading. This is understandable to a certain extent. We have therefore decided to use content warnings, but only when dealing with truly difficult topics. We cannot retroactively add content warnings to all 800+ books, but we have made it standard practice for new additions. Among other things, we have put up a notice reminding people to let us know if they feel certain books deserve a Post-it note listing the topics covered in the book. Fortunately, more and more indie authors are also turning to content warnings, and they are appearing more frequently on publishers‘ websites, too. I recommend the following website to everyone: Does the dog die?

But what about all the GREY areas? I’m glad you asked, because we’ve covered that too, and I think we did a good job of exploring every possible shade of grey.

For example, there’s a big difference between depicting queerphobia and writing a queerphobic story. The former would receive a content warning from us, depending on how explicit the anti-LGBTQ+ content is, while the latter would be moved to our dedicated section.

Another example would be books about the darker sides of queer life, or novels featuring queer characters who behave badly, just as real-life queer people sometimes do. Both have the right to exist in our library; anything else would indeed be biased, because queer people are like every other human being: messy, complicated and sometimes just not great. The same goes for ‚the queer life‘: wherever people come together, there is drama, and one is often exposed to prejudice or discriminatory structures. Withholding these analyses and perspectives from others would be biased and would not help solve these problems.

Regarding the planned special section, this will include all books that were historically significant for the queer community, but which have not stood the test of time. Topics can range from outdated discussions about gender and sexual stereotypes to many others. Currently, however, we lack the space and a catchy name for the category.

A right that we had to fight for for much longer was the right to an 18+ library. Whenever we raised the issue, we were met with various excuses as to why this would not be possible. Some arguments were sound and fair; others were simply driven by personal opinion. Undeterred by the hollow outrage of some staff members, we methodically worked through the requirements of the Youth Protection Officer, and, sure enough, our 18+ library was finally approved. It was housed in a separate, lockable cupboard. The key could only be obtained if there were no minors in the building and an age check had been carried out beforehand. The date of birth was particularly important here rather than the name. Even then, many questions remained, such as: where does ‚pornography‘ begin and where does erotic/romantic literature end?

If we were to place educational books with an instructional approach in the 18+ section, where would we draw the line? The same applies to guides explaining how sounding or choking worked to readers. Honestly, the line is sometimes really blurry, especially with some guides. We didn’t really know what to do with them. Some went into the library, but others were very detailed, so we put them into the +18 section for the protection of minors and because some kinks are very niche and not suitable for beginners. Such topics shouldn’t be left lying around randomly in a community centre. We’re aware that youngsters can easily access the most extreme pornography online, but that is their responsibility, not ours.

Another question that suddenly arose was: who counts as kinky, and who doesn’t? Which literature should belong in this 18+ library? Should it include books featuring only queer people or heterosexuals as well? At first glance, the answer seems simple: queer things belong to queer people. Full stop. However, the history of BDSM and kink is a little more complicated. So what should we do with heterosexual people who aren’t intersex, transgender, aromantic or asexual? They aren’t queer, yet they engage in queer sexual practices and often follow alternative relationship models such as polyamory or relationship anarchy.

Consequently, one could argue that straight people aren’t as straight as queer people would like them to be. Furthermore, BDSM was classified as a mental disorder in the DSM and ICD until 2013 and 2019 respectively. Germany has not yet approved the ICD-11, which distinguishes between consensual paraphilias (including BDSM) and compulsive sadomasochism or sadism. Consequently, all kinky people continue to be regarded as ‚mentally ill‘, regardless of their sexuality, gender, or relationship status. In the European context, there is a further historical argument to consider. During the 1930s and 1940s, people who did not conform to social norms were often branded with an inverted black triangle and deported to the nearest concentration camp. This group included sex workers, who have always been paid to engage in sexual practices with clients that fell outside the norm. Nevertheless, times change. They became more progressive, but are unfortunately becoming more regressive again. However, our library remains for and by queers, which is why we continue to support queer authors who write queer erotica (with a few exceptions).

Incidentally, there was also a very small but vocal group who feared that we would become the city’s Pornhub, but that won’t ever happen. There is far too little tasteful queer erotica available in printed form. Many are either out of print, sold out, or unavailable through German bookshops, so books that can actually be ordered are few and far between. The difficulty level increases as soon as you want a nuanced portrayal of BDSM or to read in a language other than English. So far, our lifeline has been independent authors whose work we purchase if we have any funds remaining at the end of the year. Donations would certainly be welcome, but these authors usually have even less money than the centre and certainly deserve and need it. Furthermore, most of them include content notes on a voluntary basis, which for us means: Less work and more fun time!

„Ah, knew I would find you here.“, he said cheerful. 

Grumpily, I sucked in air and puffed out my cheeks.

„That is not an appropriate greeting, young man.“ 

I stared at him.

He stared back and then leaned slightly towards me. 

„Well, how about ‚Ah, nice to see you too. I appreciate you being concerned over me.“

After a couple of second he sighed… „Alright. How are you?“

„Bad.“

„Figured that much. Wanna tell me why?“

I grumbled again, not sure where to start…

„I did something stupid. And now I am facing the consequences of it and it truly sucks.“

My uninvited visitor sat down on the reclining bench next to me and put his feet up. 

„Go on.“

At first I didn‘t. I wasn‘t keen on telling him the same story I went over and over in my head, bending and twisting it, in the hope that I had overlooked something. But no. I had to face it: I had fucked up.

„Well, did you ever say something that wasn’t entirely a serious answer and then somebody took it as one and then got angry?“

„No.“

„Well, good for you because I have.“

„Why are you not going to the person and telling them?“

„Too late… and by now the situation is too serious to make ‚jokes‘ about it.“

„Was it a joke?“

„No! I was just insecure, alone and had no idea what I should say… and I panicked and I was stressed and time seemed to matter. So I had to answer urgently and didn’t feel like being able to sleep a night over that problem…. I hoped that if I would propose something we could work out something together, and instead… well, I might have lost a potential friend.“

„And that is what’s bothering you?“

„Yes and no…“

„Go on.“

„No…“

„No? Why not?“

„Because it is selfish…“

„It is selfish to have feelings?“

„No. But it is selfish to self-center yourself even though you are the oppressor and part of the problem and not the victim.“

„Ah… but you are still sulking.“

„Yes.“

„Then stop sulking.“

I grumbled again. I didn’t want to stop. I sighed—why was this so hard?

„Well, maybe if you tell someone you will stop sulking. If I’m not the one, then so be it, but then find someone else…“

I expected him to get up and leave annoyed by my behaviour, but instead he just tilted his head back thinking.

 Silence. 

The longer the silence lasted, the more uneasy I became. Was his plan to say nothing until I told him more? I automatically furrowed my brow. Did I want to give him what he wanted from me? On the one hand, I wasn’t thrilled about giving in, but on the other hand, I partly agreed with him. I had to tell someone, and who better than someone who was freezing their butt off with you by a river in the darkest night? „Fine you got me… one person or maybe several… I don’t know for sure. Anyway, they accused me of taking sexual harassment lightly.“

For a second, I could have sworn a small smirk flickered over his face. Then he turned to me,“ Do you?“

„Fucking hell, no… but apparently it seemed like it… and now I don’t know how to fix it.“

„Apologize?“

„Already did.“

„Well, you can’t do too much about it. Because now the other person has to decide if they want to forgive you or if they can or even want to engage.“

„I know. Doesn’t make anything of this easier… It is just… I don’t like this feeling. I don’t like to be the oppressor. I don’t like to be the perpetuator of continuing systemic violence. You know what my biggest fear was and still is before I transitioned? That one day I will be one of these old white powerful men that don’t care about anything else than themselves and getting even more money… and now I am one.“

„No, you aren’t. You made a mistake, you care, and you want to fix it.“

„Yes, but do I want to fix it because I want to stop being upset or do I really care?“

„Can’t decide that for you… but my impression is that you aren’t that selfish.“

„No, I do indeed care and I really see where I fucked up. It is just… suddenly I realize how my world turned. Like, as if I am on another side… but also not quite there…. what hurts the most is that someone assumes I take this lightly. I don’t… it is just unfair. It is not like I or actually more like us hadn’t seen it coming. I mean… it was just a matter of time and now everyone makes a shocked Pikachu face after it happened. It is so frustrating. And the people who should actually be affected and interested in what they did (or did not do) in the past are no longer involved and therefore no longer have to take responsibility. It’s frustrating. At the same time, there are also people who helped to hold up the non-existing standards by not helping, and they are still not helping and just shrugging. Absolute indifference pisses me off.“ To emphasise my words I kicked a tiny stone down the steps. It rolled down the first step, then the second step through the grass before disappearing into the darkness. „It is like talking to a child. ‚Attention, the stove is hot, don’t touch it.‘ Several times and the child still touches the hot spot and burns themselves. But none of those who were involved were children, which makes it even worse. Plus the worst is, the ones who were affected ranted about the incident on social media. No names were named and everything was coded, but still. Another friend read it and liked it. And then I talked to them about it, because at least I intended to give a full picture of the situation… but they wanted to remain neutral and I respect that. Still, they appreciated that it was openly communicated… I told her I didn’t or we didn’t due to the pressure. And that we had way too few facts. I can emotionally understand why, I would have probably done the same… still. There is a part of me which feels betrayed by everyone. Like first your concerns don’t get taken seriously, then people don’t do the work, you do the work, then fuck up because I am human and I make mistakes and then I need to fix it which I am trying but arg… I am not the cause. At least I don’t feel like being…. But I am also sure, the other person also thinks they didn’t do anything wrong…“

„Sure, but let’s stay with you. Why do you feel betrayed?“, our eyes met. 

„What do you think?“, I aksed him in the hope he would take over some of my emotional striptease. 

To my disappointment, he just shrugged, „I have my suspicions, but at the end of the day, I’m not you. Only you know.“

I stared at him. Sometimes he really was a pan in the ass, a helpful one, I had to give him that, but still… damn him, „I feel like… as if womanhood had turned against me? Or at least all the other queers? It is not true… but it feels like it. It hurts when someone directly says to your face that you don’t take their sexual assault seriously… How can I take them not seriously? I didn’t live through 24 years of misogyny to just shrug if someone comes to me and gathers the strength to talk about the issue. My mom trained me in the evenings on how I could escape from a man when he grabs me from behind. She also trained me on how I can escape from under a man, how to fuck up cars if a man stalks me… I didn’t just get several times in my life a slap on my ass in public without ever figuring out who it was because the idiot disappeared into a crowd of people. One guy tried to pressure me into smoking weed with him, another guy just assumed we were together although he never asked me and just told everyone. In addition, I didn’t just read through the rape threats of a friend of mine with …18 and shrugged them off like nothing. I was pretty terrifyed back then.“

Silence again. Now it was really his turn to say something. I had absolutely no intention of revealing more of my feelings. 

And again, he took his time. In the meantime, the wind had picked up, making the already cold air even colder. My teeth began to chatter, and I pulled my hands deep into my sleeves. My counterpart didn’t seem bothered by the temperatures. Thoughtfully, he scratched his chin and then took a sip from a bottle. 

I frowned, „Uh, since when do you have that?“ And immediately came to mind. What was that about not talking again?

 „Guess you should pay more attention to what your brain is doing in all areas instead of focusing on just one big ball of hurt.“

„You mean, I should stop sulking?“

„Yes and no. You still feel all the feelings through, which is good. You shouldn’t shut them down. You also called me, which is also good so that you aren’t entirely alone… but maybe talk to someone real.“

„You are real.“

„Someone with a physical form.“, the last two words he emphasized particularly clearly.

I had planned to, but now that you insist, I don’t feel like it anymore.

„Just to piss me off? Are we feeling dramatic again?“

I crossed my arms, pouting. „You can’t make me.“

„No. But I would appreciate you not hurting yourself. It will bubble up anyway sooner or later, hm?“

„Hm.“

„Is there anything else? You still seem… grumpy.“

„Well, it didn’t help that the whole thing heated up further on social media.“

Now he sighed.

„Yeah… the girlfriend of the person concerned vented her feelings; we suspect that she is also affected, but since no one is talking to us… we don’t know. Apart from that, the conclusion was: none of those affected (whether in the second or first row) have any specific requests for improvement… their dream would be to have an organization without cis men. Which is understandable but also strange. On the one hand, the person who caused everything was not cis, and the cis male organization had nothing to do with the whole thing that happened at the regulars‘ table.“

„And this upsets you?“

„Well, not so much the critique, because there are enough cis men who are part of the problem and just don’t do anything. I am upset that they implied that they don’t want to have cis men there. Which means, I will be immediately clocked as trans in the future… it reminds me hard of those women, lesbian, inter, non-binary, trans and agender circles. So yeah… I mean, I wouldn’t mind staying away from the gathering anyway, but hearing this from a fellow trans person sucks again. Like every media has such a hyperfocus on trans women—either they see them as sexual predators or as the most vulnerable group. And although the latter is true, it feels weird to get thrown under the bus. I feel like if I would write about my own personal experience on a bigger plattform, then social media would start yelling at me to shut the fuck up because trans women have it worse. I know that… and I wish they wouldn’t. No one deserves to suffer… okay, some perople really do, but that’s besides the point.“, my voice trailed off.

He nodded. 

„Being invisible is sometimes really frustrating and makes me feel lonely. Yesterday S. asked me if I would help her set up her booth at the Christmas bazaar. I had of course agreed, until I found out that it takes place in the women’s center and I then asked her if I was even allowed in there and she had to look it up. Turns out: I’m not allowed in. Of course I totally understand and respect that, but at the same time it does hurt somehow? Because, sure, there are women’s shelters for a reason… but where should I go if I am ever threatened? This world suddenly feels very scary.“ 

„You know? Just because you feel it, feelings aren’t true. There are people who care about you. And you aren’t as invisible as you might think.“, he tried a reassuring smile, but even he couldn’t quite manage it.

My thoughts started spiraling again, „What about the prisons? I never planned to go to prison ever, but I am not sure about how cis men would treat a trans man if they found out.“ 

„I don’t know either, but this is also not your problem at the moment and not your problem to solve. Let’s stay in the here and now, do you have a plan? You always have a plan…“ 

„Waiting? Waiting for possible answers? Otherwhise, trying to create a safety system for all people that might attend our group in the future… maybe, I added ina secretive tone, we even might be able to remove the cause but not the symptom.“ 

Now he looked at me completely confused and raised an eyebrow, „Care to explain?“

„Sure, but first let us get going because I am done with freezing my ass off.“ 

How can I be silent when I live in a country…
… that is obssed with destroying cultures since no time has passed since 1904–1908; 1915 or 1941­­­­–1945?
… that releves in continuing turning the Mediterranean Sea into a mass grave?
… that has a chancellor, who never worked a single day of his life, but wants to reimplement the 50 hours work week?
… that loves its dead jews, but not the ones who are alive?
… that hates its youth so much that warfare is once again normalized as a valid option?
… in which living is the most expensive hobby?
… in which children under 18 are the biggest minority nobody listens to?
… in which it is just a matter of time before medical assisted suicide is allowed by law to kill people who are to exepensive for the state?

But you can’t change anything anyway, can you? Why get upset? Concentrate on the things you can change…

What things can I change?
What soya yoghurt do I buy while billionaires blast thousands of tonnes of CO2 into the air with their private jets and yachts?
Yes, the youth are screaming. Marginalised people are screaming. We are screaming.
We also scream for those whose voices are not heard or who are denied the right to a voice beforehand.

They will continue to say:
Your rage about the people who hurt and wronged you is valid, but don’t act on it…
Your anxiety about your potential lost future is valid, but don’t act on it…
Your grief about loosing your friend is valid, but don’t act on it…

But what if I don’t want to make the world a better place anymore?
What if the chance for building a better world is long lost?
What if I want to thrive in the act of breaking a bunch of noses?
What if I need to see the 1% burn like they make the planet burn every day?

Well-meaning intellectuals support the youth, who have other plans than war…
I pause and think for seconds and then minutes? Do I have other plans besides war? Do I even have a future in this country? Because the politics of this country make it clear that it doesn’t want a future for its young people. It doesn’t even want to organise the retirement of people who have worked their whole lives for this country.

Why convert the phrase of passive resistance I would rather not to an active one?

Yes, I have two wolves in me. Both are afraid. And while one of them whispers in costant repition: I shall not hate the others one is gnraling and showing its teeth. because this is the the only thing it can do.
Why not set the world literally on fire because this world is one fire anyway? Better an end with horror than horror without end.

But desprite the gnarling, the rage, the grief, the exhaution of simple existing in this world the wolve(s) won’t bite.
Why?
I don’t know? There are enough reasons for it.
But they stay put.

And. I. Hate. Every. Second. Of. It.

It wasn’t so long ago that I really devoured everything on the subject of kink and sexuality. This included the podcast ‘Why Are People Into That?!’, also known as ‘Ya(P)->T?!’. Once a week, producer and sex worker Tina Horn interviewed her respective colleagues from the BDSM scene. Each episode focussed on one topic relating to sex, kink and gender. The best thing was that the podcast was not ashamed to address kinks, which even kinksters prefer to keep quiet about, such as cannibalism, fascism/Nazis, clowns, piss and poppers. But there were also episodes on erotica, trans porn, how sexy books can be or which BDSM comics people can recommend in the podcatcher. As you can imagine, I was a little sad when I had listened to all the episodes and realised that no new episodes were being produced. From my point of view, I still had a long way to go and the topics were far from exhausted.
But people move on, find other projects, and I didn’t have to wait long before I received the announcement that Tina Horn would be publishing her podcast as a book in the near future. I’ve been waiting eagerly ever since, and suddenly the time had come. The wait was partly worth it…

The actual meat

The book consists of nine chapters (plus Intro and Outro). Each chapter (similar to the podcast back then) deals with a main kink, which sometimes also functions as a hook, which Horn then uses to roll out and explain further topics.

In the first three chapters, Horn uses the more well-known kinks such as Feet, Impact Play or CNC as an introduction to possibly pick up the fresh meat of the kink scene and to discuss the basics of the BDSM scene. What does BDSM mean? What are misconceptions? What are the basic things to bear in mind when practising BDSM etc.? The CNC topic in particular serves to explain why communication, check-ins, consent models and yes-maybe-no lists are important.

After that, it quickly gets down to business. Six further chapters follow, in which the sex worker explains her relationship and the cultural significance of the following kinks in essay form: fisting, cash, cannibalism, sploshing, bimbofication and orgies. There are also explanations of vore, ageplay, mommy/daddy, fauxcest, sex parties, poly relationships, masturbation and porn.

To be honest, the book doesn’t really pick up speed until the fourth chapter. The basics are ticked off and Horn finally dives into the world of kink, without any additional explanations or comments on safety, but instead it’s finally all about kink and the cultural readings and interpretations of it. Only then does Tina Horn mention more colleagues and other publications that deal with the practice and cultural history of BDSM. If you’re as much of a book nerd as I am, you’ll be delighted with the many small footnotes and the final bibliography.

Each essay is fluid, the subdivisions that sometimes pop up sometimes come up a little short. What takes centre stage is narrative prose; the academic explanations with the help of Sigmund Freud, Judith Butler or Julia Kristeva are brief and provide more of a supplement than the focus of a chapter. Which, to be honest, I very much welcome, because the last thing I want to see in my kink and in a BDSM book is psychoanalysis (I have a deep aversion to it).

Nonetheless, the book isn’t perfect. I know that book titles, like blurbs, don’t necessarily have to come from the author themselves. Once the author submits the manuscript, the publisher will do everything possible to edit the book so that it sells well. Of course, the author can object, but in the end it’s the publisher who decides whether the book is published or not. In other words, the title of the book is completely misleading.

This book only deals with the US BDSM scene. Other continents or scenes such as in Germany or Japan do not appear and are not mentioned. What’s more, yes, the book only touches on psychoanalysis, while at the same time empirical studies on sex, kink and gender are missing, and anecdotal evidence is the unit with which the book works. On the one hand, it is understandable that a sex worker does not have the academic resources to administer various studies. However, as a really successful and established sex educator, she would have the social connections to possibly access them, provided they have been published. And even if there aren’t many studies on BDSM, they do exist. The fact that they are missing here is a shame and a waste of potential. (My personal go-to would be the Pubmed platform or the personal website of a sociologist called Slut, PhD whose studies deal with the topics of sex, gender and BDSM. If you still haven’t had enough, you can read up on TASHRA [The Alternative Sexualities Health Research Alliance] or even become active in the organisation yourself.)

Furthermore, the first three chapters really dragged on. I know that safety, consent etc. are important in the BDSM scene, but I would really like a kink book that doesn’t take me by the hand like a small child and explains the basics to me again in great detail. There is enough introductory literature for that.

All in all, the book is suitable for advanced beginners who would like to take a closer look at the subject of kink in their free time. For all humanities scholars who are also kinksters and thought that this would be their publication, I’m sorry to disappoint. You are really better off with the podcast of the same name. Nevertheless, it was enough for at least two new favourite quotes and because you’ve held out this far, you can read them now:

„Fetish is an aesthetic of intrigue. The fetishist obsesses. The fetishist experiments. The fetishist explores the limits of what the object of their desire can do when it is inserted, compressed, or drenched. The fetishist is driven to experience how their lust loses and maintains its form, in ways that are mundane but unexpected, like a foot pressed against a transparent windshield. But just because fetishists are interested in one thing, that doesn’t mean they’re indifferent to everything else.“

„Those of us who have never had access to those things love cash because it’s freedom we can touch and smell and stack. Interest rates and the price of gas and the promise of student loan forgiveness may fluctuate, but with cash stashed in your boot you can get at least some of what you need to survive another day. Maybe that’s how money can make us horny: by alleviating anxiety so that we can enjoy life for a moment.“

Book data:

• Author: Tina Horn
• Year of publication: 2024
• Publisher: Hachette Book Group, Inc.
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 320 pages
• ISBN: 978-0306832567

]]> https://barksandscales.com/2025/02/09/review-time-why-are-people-into-that-a-cultural-investigation-of-kink-by-tina-horn/feed/ 0 https://barksandscales.com/2025/01/12/how-i-became-an-anal-slut/ https://barksandscales.com/2025/01/12/how-i-became-an-anal-slut/#respond Sun, 12 Jan 2025 07:00:08 +0000 https://barksandscales.com/?p=239 This will be less of a ‘how to anal sex’ guide and more of an ode to sex with the part of the body that concerns us all: our bums. Everyone has one, and since everyone has one, regardless of their gender, butts are totally inclusive and don’t even let bigots take them for their crude views of the world. Furthermore, they belong to our more fleshy body parts. You can grab it, slap it, photograph it, worship it, paint it, lick it, bite it, pierce it, massage it, caress it, put it into plaster, spit on it, sit on it, trample on it, hold on to it, write on it, use it as bongo drums or as a base for your tablet or eat directly from it etc. All in all the ass, ass cheeks and the asshole provide a wonderful base for further exploration and perverted creativity.

The (queer) history

Another reason to try anal sex is the ‘Gotta Catch “Em All” of sex practices that used to be considered sodomitic. The fact that only homosexual men were, and presumably still are, labelled ‘sodomites’ is a fairly recent development. Christianity in particular was a master at framing all sex practices that did not fall under reproductive sex as sodomy and therefore as sin. By the earlier standards, almost anyone who has sexual intercourse today would be a sodomite: mutual or solo masturbation, oral sex, the use of sex toys, grinding, frottage, lesbian sex, etc. While I imagine the non-queer population of this country has definitely masturbated, performed oral sex or possibly even used sex toys, anal sex is not on the list for many. So buck up and contribute to the already loaded history of anal sex to make it even more loaded.

Pegging

I’m a big fan of equality, which means that everyone is allowed to top or be the bottom (if they want to). At the same time, I’m a big fan of the British sex historian Kate Lister, who wrote an excellent article called ‘Why all straight men should try pegging once’ – and to be honest, I completely agree with her.

The main points are: Although pegging is always portrayed as a heterosexual practice, anyone can be pegged or pegging. All you need is a strap-on, a dildo and plenty of lube (there’s never such a thing as too much lube!).
Secondly, the more people (especially heterosexual cis men) embrace pegging and enjoy the truly powerful orgasm, the less homohysteria and bottom-shaming will be accepted and hopefully they will begin to disintegrate like other forms of discrimination.
Thirdly, destigmatise male health care! Prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer in men in both the UK and Germany. According to the Robert-Koch-Institut, around 65,820% of men are diagnosed with it every year. Why? Because men don’t go to the urologist and have their prostate examined. Despite sexual education, the critical masculinity movement, feminism and greater acceptance of homosexuality in society, cis-hetero men are still afraid of someone sticking their hand up their bum. Sure, the first time isn’t pleasant, but that’s why it’s worth thinking about pegging. On the one hand, it trains the sphincter muscle to relax; on the other hand, you are less embarrassed during check-ups. Granted, getting fucked in the bum is still more pleasant than a medical examination, but dear men, you get the idea, don’t you?

Queering the prostate tissue

So far, so good. So far I have found that anal sex is usually accompanied by some form of prostate stimulation. Sometimes just stimulating the anus with tongues or fingers is enough, but even here: You get the principle. Now there are exceptions, and that exception is me. So not me, but trans men or any person who undergoes gender reassignment surgery that involves testosterone. In 2020, The American Journal of Surgical Pathology published a study that found areas of partially advanced prostate tissue in the vaginal canal of a total of 7 out of 8 trans men who received testosterone and four intersex people who had an excess of endogenously produced androgens. The scientists concluded that our bodies are much more flexible in the expression and development of our sexual characteristics than previously assumed. This makes sense when you consider that the respective primary and secondary sex organs only begin to form in the sixth week – there is no difference before then. So I may have several mini prostates in my vagina. Sadly, I can’t feel a difference between my sex life before being on testosterone and now.

The actual meat of

Ever since I made the conscious decision to join the dark side and allow myself to be corrupted (there wasn’t much left to be corrupted), this has been an important part of my interests. But the practical realisation was not so obvious. I lived with my parents for a relatively long time and had a lot of questions about the subject anyway, which is why I was happy to put it to one side. I had a lot to consider: hygiene, training and the appropriate aids, which I didn’t have the money for. I also had health problems that came up at random. The questions about suitable products and methods remained unanswered. My former partner was able to answer some of them for me, but the complaints remained. The idea that intimacy should not be work also left its mark on me. All the effort involved in healthy eating, hygiene and training was five steps too many in the heat of my newly discovered feelings.

Then I moved out, had my own four walls, my symptoms disappeared, I started hormone therapy and discovered cheap but good products. However, nothing changed at first. I didn’t have anyone who wanted to get intimate with me for the first time, and even the people on Grindr weren’t keen to be my first experience. Lube was essential by now anyway, but suitable aids for beginners were still not in the budget. I tried a few times with a relatively small toy and it hurt so much that I didn’t try it.

Then my accident happened. I was not allowed to have penetrative contact for six weeks and my involuntary celibacy and suffering took its course. After four weeks, I developed detailed techniques to climax through external stimulation alone, and it wasn’t long before I was really considering the legendary ‘special climaxes’. I told my girlfriend all this while she showed me her adjustable toy, which unfortunately was far too big for me. She turned to me, gave me a long look and said, ‘Too big isn’t the problem, I have some smaller ones too,’ and with that she presented me with three tools just the size of my finger. Before I could even protest, I was lying on my back like a defenceless bug, my legs were folded upwards and with a lot of lube and an uncomfortable tug, something was suddenly stuck inside me. ‘Well, that was fast and… unexpected’ was the only comment my brain could come up with. There I was, lying in a double bed in a basement flat somewhere in southern Germany, having a light-hearted conversation about intimacy that escalated within seconds. The feeling was… strange. The first few minutes were not pleasant, it felt more like I had to go to the toilet very urgently and couldn’t. A bit of walking around worked and relieved the tension, but in the end I was interested but not yet convinced. When I got back home, my curiosity got the better of me and I tried it out. In the meantime, I had two smaller aids, a small toy and a normal-sized toy, which at the time was practically the final boss for me.

I quickly realised that there is no such thing as too much lubricant. Erotic media helpes, as does external stimulation, as does relaxing beforehand and – even more difficult – staying relaxed while being penetrated. (If anal sex is particularly painful to you, you might wanna look into your pelvic health.) With that, a practice routine was found, and soon I had worked my way up from finger-wide to small to long-thin to my final boss. Which not only (shamelessly) boosted my ego, but also satisfied my cravings, stimulated my digestion (yes, too much information. I don’t care), gave me intense climaxes, I slept better and gave my purple toy a second raison d’être, as I could no longer use it for my go-to-routine. To all people, who are new to testosterone vaginal atrophy is a bitch and every vaguely realistic dildo with a slightly bigger corona glandis will be a pain to insert, therefore just don’t do it. It is not worth it in contrast to good anal sex.

Non-fiction book

– Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History by Stephen Jay Gould

Queer content

„You can borrow it if you want.“, she shrugged.
I smiled, „Sure, thanks a lot!“
I wasn’t so sure after all, but you must start somewhere and getting a hood for free for a few days seemed a pretty good one to me.

A few weeks later I had my own, which fitted more my vibe. A few months later I sat in a dark cellar in the south of Germany barking, growling, and cuddling other puppies, predatory cats and kittens. Lucky me, I finally found a place, which gave the impression of something worthwhile pursuing. Of course, these are just a few snapshots but for the moment the people that I have met feel less judgmental and more welcoming than folks that are just strict into power dynamics…
I am probably not the only person who noticed that although BDSM is always mentioned in the same acronym, the communities vary. Like Sadomasochism and power play are often combined, but if you are just into one of them it gets very hard to find a partner who is willing to just be the top, a sadist on the lesser extreme end, or if I want to tip my big toe into power play impersonates a more caring dome. This gives rise to the following problem: How to have completely deranged and very queer sex without any committed partner that fits one’s own current needs? Right, you can find the answer in the paragraphs above.

Despite that, no it is possibly not the most deranged sex that someone could have, but it is the most deranged sex that is accessible for now to me.

The “other”

Pet play has several advantages for me. One of the biggest would be that it is not dependent on the gender aspect. The role models of pet players are not Christian Greys in suits, private helicopters and millions in bank accounts, but pets, usually in the form of dogs and cats. Those who insist on an upgrade call it animal play and sneak through the dungeon as a tiger, fox, wolf or snow leopard. Unlike humans, animals only have genitals and reproductive organs but no gender. Quite apart from that, there are plenty of animals that change their gender during their lifetime, without any psychological expertise, letters of indication or everyday tests. You would have to be a clownfish or a ray-finned fish… or not. I have no desire for scales, gills or fins, but the feeling that my reality is not completely trans male, but rather remains trans male and something else.

This ‘something else’ is the crucial sticking point, because as a teenager I realised above all that I was many things, just not female. But I wasn’t male back then either and so I was forced to make myself comfortable somewhere between these two poles and far beyond. But there was no room for ‘in between and beyond’ in my social circles and so I remained emotionally and physically resistant. Try as I might, I didn’t fit in anywhere and everywhere I went, sooner or later I was exposed as a ‘weirdo’ and either merely tolerated or actively ridiculed. At some point, I decided that it was all too stupid for me and stopped trying to fit in. Instead, I mentally sought refuge in the animal kingdom, because animals cared very little what others thought of them, they were wild and free. For me, all of this was reason enough to fill the hole inside me that I knew existed, but didn’t know how deep it really was, with these animal characteristics, because the human ones didn’t do anything for me, nor did they seem to be valued by others. Being or trying to mimic normal human beviour made me feel bad and not myself, so it seemed very easy to just disregard the human aspects that I needed to keep holding up for pleasantry.

Admittedly, feral, menacing, entertaining an affinity for morbid things, prefers to communicate in hellish screeches, would love to be able to manipulate my own skeletal structure as a means of combat aren’t necessary the average needs of a human being or a pet, they are simple my needs. But to close the circle, my own mask, which I bought myself, is not a baby dog mask, but that of a hellhound. Ein otherworldly being with several heads and sometimes a huge appetite for blood. When I am fussy, my Pet Play unites less me being a pet and more me exploring transcending my gender into different realms of possibility for example mythology.

Ah yes, the non-toxic masculinty

It is not just about my gender identity but also about the performance. I won’t stop being adamant about the fact that not every dom has to desire being Christian Grey. Yes, „50 Shades of Grey“ fulfilled a lot of women’s fantasies and empowered them to pursue the start of their BDSM journey. But how many Christian Greys are there outside? Maybe even way too many, especially if you look at Christian Grey’s abusive behavior. Nevertheless, I personally don’t strive to be one.

I will never be a millionaire, I hope I will never turn abusive, and especially, I despise suits and the aesthetic of BDSM. Don’t get me wrong, black and red are fine, but not everything. Suits are, for me, the epitome of „professionalism,“ but a professionalism that is rooted in racism and ableism and denies people the right to wear their cultural equivalents of professional dress and denies neurodivergent and chronically ill people access to workplaces or higher positions. Anyway… back to the topic of „pet play.“

The pet play community is not without its faults or free from the stereotypical idea of the ‘manly man evil dom’. It exists here too, just usually in the form of the big bad wolf, the dealer in unimaginative GEAR Berlin get-up, the leather daddy à la Tom of Finland, the leather/latex dominatrix or the conniving cat lady. However, and perhaps this is due to my kink circles, the practice here is far less anchored in the norms of fixed cliché thinking of roles and positions and hard rules. The fun aspect tends to take centre stage, service tops are more accepted and things are generally more playful. For me, this means that if I ever top or domme, there is no pressure to fulfil an expectation or stereotype, which in turn makes it easier to get started.

The last (plus) point is that Pet Play leaves more room for fashionable ‘deviance’. The two-coloured Mister S masks still dominate the community, but even these are not necessarily black and red. More and more often I see homemade masks made of neoprene or an attempt to find a middle ground between the grim, dark cliché and the exact opposite of the rainbow-coloured unicorn.

As soon as you undergo training to become a poll worker, you are told that you should not wear any objects, clothing or symbols that could suggest a political affiliation while on duty on election day. As I don’t own a Circle-A or a hammer and sickle and was able to leave my numerous rainbows at home, the issue was quickly resolved. Or so I thought, because suddenly I was confronted with the question: What makes a political symbol a political symbol, and to what extent was the stereotype of a queer guy with piercings, alternative clothing and dyed hair already an indication that you most likely wouldn’t vote for a conservative party? How did a guy with baby beard shadow, who was clearly having a voice change, had too expressive gestures for the stereotypical cis guy and whose binder passed as a crop top because it was simply too hot for more clothes? What were binders anyway? Medical gear or a matter of self-expression? When did self-expression and personal style become political? I didn’t know, but apparently my grey trousers, black t-shirt, colourful bandana, lots of jewellery and face fuzz weren’t political enough to be sent home. Gender Fuckery was tolerated as a poll worker.

»Horniest« – Grant

Last time I wrote briefly about the problem of how difficult it is to find the right penis for you. If your own isn’t enough – the clitoris also grows on testosterone, and sometimes not even a little. However, this also means that you suddenly have growing pains in places that I, at least, didn’t realise were even possible. But growth isn’t the only thing that hurts there, it’s also the days when your libido shoots through the roof so much that it hurts between your legs, and it hurts hard (pun intended). There have also been days when I couldn’t sit up straight, and there were days when masturbating didn’t really solve the problem. Now I can at least understand a little bit why male teenagers want to shag everything that’s not up to scratch. Perhaps young people should be encouraged at their confirmation or consecration not to use the money to buy expensive clothes or a computer for gaming, but to invest in good and, above all, quiet sex toys.

My libido wasn’t the only thing that went through the roof. My kink did too. Whereas I used to be quite picky about my kinks, I now have days when I could easily tie an orange hanky to my trousers and scream it out to the world: I am ready for anything at any time! Don’t be shy, be nasty!

The bigger picture:

To this day, I’ve hardly told anyone from my home town that I’ve started taking testosterone. The last time I visited them, it was still up in the air whether my wish would really come true and since then we’ve hardly had any contact with each other. Very few of them are active on social media and writing to each of them individually seemed far too strange. I don’t have to explain anything to them, I don’t owe them anything and I’m also of the opinion that testosterone only changes me in the sense that I’m finally a much happier person who likes his body and has left the depressed teenager behind. I don’t think I need to come out for that.

The few people who know that I am now on testosterone are happy for me and otherwise nothing has changed between us. Only one friend was very confused at the beginning because he found me extremely attractive and through a chain of unexpected circumstances, one day he asked me if I would marry him and I said yes because I would marry all my best friends as opposed to my sexual partners. That really threw me for a loop, he didn’t understand my understanding of marriage, nor had he ever identified as bisexual. At the same time, it also made him feel guilty, because for both of us, his behaviour implied: In what way was I man enough for him? Obviously not enough, because to this day he still describes himself as heterosexual.

I couldn’t care less about the sexuality of this friend, but one thing does annoy me: that my gender identity is still dependent on how much I conform to the conventional image of a cis man. I’m not (yet) a fan of genderfuckery in the sense that I would walk around in a dress, but I still refuse to wear the black, white, grey and beige colour palette of the men’s department in department stores. Instead, I’m currently making myself comfortable in a bright and colourful alternative style of dress and hope that this already confuses people enough to cause social irritation.

I wish I was liberated enough to be above my own (non-)passing, but unfortunately my euphoria about being read as male is too great for me to trade it for deconstructing gender norms. Which leads me to the next question.

The „feminist“ conundrum

How can trans men be feminist without being reduced to being trans? A trans woman said in my indirect presence: ‘I’m glad I took the step. Testosterone is a real poison.’

Neither my brain nor I could necessarily agree with the statement, even though we both knew that testosterone had probably had more advantages than disadvantages for her. Furthermore, I knew that I would probably never be able to make such statements as ‘oestrogen is a real poison’ in future as a male-read person (I wasn’t planning to anyway). Why? Imagine a cis man making that statement, something like that would scream misogyny, wouldn’t it?

Apart from that, I can report for myself that after coming out to myself as a trans man, slogans such as ‘For the critical examination of masculinities from (pro) feminist perspectives’ have a different effect. As a woman, I was given all kinds of offers to strengthen my self-esteem and self-confidence, to demand my right to opportunities, resources, participation and self-determination, but as a (trans) man, all of these offers suddenly fell away. As a trans man, I avoidably move from the group that is affected by sexism to the group that is socially privileged, at least when it comes to wages, social recognition, leniency for my own misbehaviour, tax law, medical care, everyday self-realisation. Yes, I could go on with the list and yes, I am aware that intersectionality plays an important role in the points mentioned above.

Before I write an eternally long and nuanced argument about what and how anti-transmasculinity manifests itself in society, I would like to take this opportunity to point out three essays by the blogger S. L. Void. The first essay deals with how the identities of trans men and trans women are often played off against each other, the second essay deals with how trans men are socially and politically invisible and the third essay deals with the fact that not all trans men have always been men from birth, but that ‘being trans’ or rather ‘becoming trans’ can be a process.

In the end, what matters to me is that I personally am a fan of having something like a backbone, and my backbone means that I don’t behave like an arsehole. Above all, this means that I hold values such as: A person’s dignity is inviolable, integrity and morality.

At the same time, I also know that most of my character traits (enthusiastic, solitary, sprinkles of being self-righteous, easily bored, weird bursts of courage, perfectionist tendencies, sometimes cynical, fashionably angry, doesn’t buy bullshit, CHAOTIC, loyal towards friends) are only charming as long as I’m read as female. Because in the end, women who display a certain cheeky impertinence continue to be less ‘threatening’ than men. Does the idea of one day becoming one of those toxic old white men scare me: yes. Is the answer ‘then just don’t become one’ helpful? No, because the fear remains that I could fall into these traps of ‘toxic behaviour’ without realising it. At the same time, purely cis male-dominated spaces such as football stadiums, barber shops, pubs or stag parties seem like predator cages to me. As soon as you show vulnerability or weakness, you’re finished…

What remains

Despite all the thoughts and doubts, I wouldn’t change anything. I know you should never say never, but at that moment, no one could convince me to just stop taking testosterone. I stopped surviving and finally started living and thriving. I look at myself and think I’m sexy. I run around grinning so much that people think I’m crazy. If I could, I would continue to skip through the streets singing and dancing like in one of Disnes‘ older live-action films. I think these are all things that continue to show me that I was right in my decision to transition.