Sex Toys for Transwomen and Nonbinaries

[ysabetwordsmith]

This extensive review article profiles many sex toys for people with different bodies.  Ace/aro folks who enjoy autoerotic activities may also appreciate the generally practical and non-genital appearance in some of these toys.  It's your body, enjoy it!

Not Safe For Work in most professions.  

Comments

[cmcmck]

I've always found that the off the shelf goodies work perfectly well! :o)

Yay!

[ysabetwordsmith]

That's good to hear.

[flamingsword]

Minor linguistic quibble: My trans woman friends have cautioned me against the use of "transwoman" or "trans-woman" as it positions trans folks as a different kind of woman. Trans is an adjective and as such would be a separate word. If you don't call your fat friend a fatwoman, then it is linguistically a mistake to smash trans onto words that it is supposed to be describing.

Unless we are speaking German, but I think I would have noticed.

[lb_lee]

I've heard that argument too, but there's no way for me to sugarcoat it: I think it's a dumb argument. We use congresswoman, policeman, etc., and don't feel that that magically makes them less than women or men. If we use cisman or ciswoman the same way, there's no othering effect, if there was one in the first place, and I was never convinced of that.

Especially since I was seeing the transman/transwoman/transchick from my fellow trans people; it seemed to be a coining they came up with on their own, and seeing other people go, "No, stop oppressing yourself! TRANSMAN is bad and oppressive, TRANS MAN is good and liberated!" made me roll my eyes.

And no lie, it also slowed down my own transition, because instead of figuring out anything important, I found myself agonizing over whether to call myself a trans man, transman, trans* man, or trans-man, afraid that if I did it wrong, I'd get thrown out of the clubhouse.

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Technically "trans-" is a prefix, not a standalone words. It can be turned into a standalone word if people wish, because language is flexible, but it didn't start out that way. Using it as a prefix remains a legitimate use. Lots of transfolk use "transwoman" and lots use "trans woman." Both are fine.

Telling other people how to talk? I'm not happy about that. The rule is that every speaker gets to decide how they use language. In America, it's codified as "freedom of speech." That's under heavy assault right now from several angles, which is not a good thing.

You decide for you. Other people decide for themselves. Because if you can tell other people how to talk, they can tell you how to talk, and that just starts a lot of fights.

Good practices are hard

[flamingsword]

"Policewomen" is a thing some women DO. It is not a state of their being. Police is not an adjective, it is something that you opt into and can be opted out of. Trans people cannot be fired from our gender, or our lack of gender. It is us as we ARE.

The trouble is that people who think they are being good allies use "cis woman" and "transwoman", or worse "women and transwomen". That does read as othering to the minds of people who are predisposed against us. And we cannot make non-allies stop, so we kinda have to lead the people who want to be our allies by example. And we just kinda hope that those allies can put social pressure on bad actors.

It is really sad that the generational trauma of trans people makes us all hypersensitive to percieved threats. So many in the community have unacknowledged or borderline PTSD that it is becoming a comedic trope. But comedians always forget to ask WHY those tropes are where they are. Poor people love fast food? It's all they can afford. Trans folx snap like abused dogs? Maybe we were abused like dogs. It's not okay, and I'm sorry you are getting mistreated because of it, but please do not turn your back on real offers of community just because that community has problems. Bc trust me, cis people have their own problems, and are a lot less likely to change themselves to fix those problems.

Re: Good practices are hard

[lb_lee]

I'm sorry I bit your head off. You make good points, and I forget that my experience of transness seems to be an outlier. (For me, gender IS a thing I do, and often treated by the people around me as a job I can be fired from if I perform badly. I recognize most trans people don't see it that way, but for me, it helps.) I did at least find that source I was looking for, and the history crap, looks like I don't have a good bead on that, but at least I found the damned thing.

cis people have their own problems, and are a lot less likely to change themselves to fix those problems.

It's true! However, at least I know exactly what forms their malice will take, so even though the danger is higher, crunching the threat equations is easier. I have fortunately found trans community, though, and I'm glad it sounds like you do too.

Re: Good practices are hard

[flamingsword]

If gender is a thing that you perform, are you agender? Like me?

For years I tried to perform womanhood, and it only succeeded at making me miserable. I felt like a failure at a really basic thing until I realized that my whole conceptual model was wrong and just chucked the damn thing. Now I perform gender for funerals and times when I want to be fancy and it has been remarkably freeing.

Re: Good practices are hard

[lb_lee]

Oh man, I feel your pain! I'm male, actually, but I kept being trapped in endless whirlpools of navel-gazing and self-analysis, and finally saying, "it's not what I am, it's what I DO" helped cut the Gordian knot for me. It meant that I could be what I choose to be, even if other people didn't see or agree with it. I could perform my own masculinity, make it my own, even without an audience. My feelings and belief could be gaslighted and manipulated, but my actions gave me freedom, if that makes any sense.

Also, I want to apologize again for going off on you. I acted exactly like the PTSD trans you described, and your comments made me realize that I have some baggage what still needs dealing with. So thank you for helping me realize that.

Re: Good practices are hard

[flamingsword]

You are welcome and I get it.

I am doing cognitive behavioral therapy journaling under friend-lock over on my journal, partially to process and retrain myself away from these same reactions and reflexive navel-gazing that centers *me* as the problem instead of society itself. I'll give you access in case you want to do it with us.

It is easy to think "everyone I can see thinks this cis-hetero-normative way about it", but that is actually two different logical fallacies jammed together. Visibility bias against the people like us who are hard to see and thus get discounted plus the bandwagon effect of thinking everyone is supposed to go along with what is popular like we are all the same - that shit is really hard to puzzle your way out of from the inside, especially in a culture that teaches rugged individualism and the internalization of shaming messages and victim blaming.

It's really hard to market things to fix you as a person to people who don't feel they need to be fixed. So the media and advertising have to make you feel ashamed and broken. They know it is bad for people's mental health but screwing people over for money seems to be a fundamental facet of capitalism. The advertising industry in particular has so much to answer for.

I can

Re: Good practices are hard

[lb_lee]

Sure, thank you! Yeah, now that I've calmed down, I'm impressed at how well you de-escalated this conversation, and feel like I have some new tricks to learn for sure! Well done!

Re: Good practices are hard

[flamingsword]

Thank you. I have a tattoo on my right wrist for the specific purpose of reminding me to be merciful. It's good to know that I am finally doing well at internalizing that message.