Raven really is a good force in the Netherlands I feel like. I don’t regularly watch TV, but a while ago I was at my parents and there we had a TV show on which primarily featured Raven inviting guests on their farm. My parents, who normally are mostly okay with trans stuff but also quite unaware and a bit ignorant, seemed to like Raven as a person and therefore also seemed quite open to their identity and opinions. The show also contained some candid discussions about the subject, including the impact of the way people still fail to fully accept people who don’t fit the binary. I think Raven actually contributes a lot to Intersex and non-binary awareness.

As a queer guy wearing nail polish, I have a different (though not negative) experience. In my experience people do notice it, but often either give compliments or make slightly bigoted remarks that can be pretty easily laughed away or countered. I haven’t come across anyone who was a total asshole about it up until now though, even when I pivoted to colours that weren’t black.

It’s also not that I’m a necessarily queer-positive environment or that people support it because of my queerness. Both family (apart from parents and siblings ) and colleagues are generally not aware that I’m LGBT+, and they’re also usually leaning slightly “anti-woke”. But at the same time they also seem to abide by the Dutch “live and let live” mentality. It seems like they just think “oh cool, he’s a guy who painted his nails”, which is definitely better than I was expecting of some of them.

I’m actually aro/ace tho. But as a femboy, femboys are still cute in an aesthetic way :3

Hehe same tbh :3

Uhhh, as an asexual this is kinda not a mood and also kind of a mood.

It was inevitable after their atrocious behavior. It sounds horrible to be caught in such a crossfire as an instance admin. Especially because they used their queerness as a weapon to paint us as the bad ones for splitting the community. A painful reminder that not all queer people are necessarily good people.

Thank you for dealing with this situation and making this instance a safer place.

Hopefully that does remain the same yeah. I think we’ll be fine though. Most ace or aro people will probably be inclusive because they understand what it’s like to not be (fully) straight. At least to me this made it a lot easier to also understand the struggles of other LGBT+ people.

I also hope that we can shake the “pendulum effect” that the subreddit had. Where there seemed to be a constant cycle of “subreddit is mostly sex-repulsed memes -> sex-neutral and favourable people feel left out and get annoyed -> subreddit is mostly sex-neutral or favourable memes -> sex repulsed and averse people feel left out and get annoyed -> subreddit is mostly sex-repulsed memes” .

This is actually one of the main reasons I had for coming out as aro/ace. Not necessarily only grandchildren, but also remarks about getting a girlfriend etc. Coming out had the intended effect though, it has effectively stopped these remarks from occurring.

There being many trans people says nothing about how good or bad it is. While we should ideally stand together, the behaviour of quite some hexbear users is honestly incredibly annoying. Us defederating would be a consequence of their actions. These are not “arbitrary reasons”. They’re brigading a lot of threads, constantly derailing the discussions with all kinds of whatabouttisms and overwhelming all other voices.

This very thread should’ve been a honest conversation with other blahaj users, instead hexbear has taken over everywhere and is leaving no room for opposition. Before this thread I honestly wasn’t against them, but today I’ve been noticing them derailing threads everywhere.

I thought this was a bit overkill, because they seemed well behaved for the most part, although a bit annoying every now and then. But this comment section shows exactly why we probably should. They’re so combative and seem to completely dominate the discussion.

I’m a guy (at least for now) and in recent years I’ve switched to basically using “female” versions of all shower-related stuff. Shower gel, shampoo, conditioner. The female versions are just super nice, whereas the “male” stuff is often “20 in 1 shower gel” or ridiculous stuff like the image is making fun of. I’ve gotten some shit for it at some point by a certain type of men, but I’ve actually also met plenty of guys who do the same.

Times are changing tho, and it does look like more and more “male” products going the right way with actually nice scents and separate conditioners.

“Straight” from what they are right now, so for a trans woman (MTF) that means being a woman attracted to men.

This is a common meme that’s not meant to be taken seriously. I don’t think OP is trying to literally spread that message. Someone else posted this example further down in the thread:

I was kinda hoping to figure this stuff out before non-binary day, so it would be a day of celebration. But honestly I still don’t really understand what I feel like. I’m AMAB. For years I’ve felt like my perfect “me”, if life had a character creator, would be a neutral or more AFAB body (without boobs) and a more masc clothing style. I was generally at peace with everything though, thinking “nobody looks exactly how they want to look like”. However, a bit over a year ago I started exploring more of my feminine side and honestly it’s thrown everything into chaos. Painting my nails, shaving all body hair, (privately) wearing feminine clothes. Many days I come back to the feeling that I wish that I was AFAB. But still idk what I’d present like if that were the case.

One day I’ll damn it all and decide that I have no issue with being male, the next day I desperately wish I was a girl (and I’ll fantasize about being one), and the next day I decide that I must be non-binary. It’s quite chaotic and I’m kinda confused about it all. I never used to feel like this. For now my conclusion is that it’s fine to explore it all, there’s no rush to get it right. I’m probably “at least” NB, and maybe even completely a trans woman. But as long as I’m happy and just learning a bit more about myself every month, it’s not big deal.

I’m aro/ace, and never felt attraction to anyone. Being sex-repulsed, I also had a hard time with the constant stream sexual topics coming up all the time. For the longest time I just felt like something was wrong with me, because no one told me that being aro/ace was an option. Everyone around me was talking about love and sex, and sometimes also asking me about these topics. I just pretended to be straight but “focussing on school and hobbies” so I didn’t" have the time" for a relationship.

At some point in my early-mid twenties I ran into a survey which listed “asexual” as an option, and I just selected it without really knowing what the exact definition was, because it felt like a perfect description. After this happened another time a few weeks later (I like surveys), I started investigating what it actually meant and finally found my place.

Discovering being aro/ace actually made me more more positive about sex and romance, even though I’d still never have sex myself. It allowed me to explore this side in much further depth, and to also find the parts that I am more comfortable with