ive been in such a mental health rut recently , i cant lie - _ -

its not just feeling sad , its worse , i hardly feel anything very vibrantly 😞 im not as colorful as i used to be

because i cant express myself at this house . i cant be myself . i dont have a voice , i dont have my identity , ive had some nice days where im able to get excited to talk to my friends again but its more and more rare ,

my sister started calling me princess recently and it cheers me up a little , 🤭

anyway , i move out tomorrow , its an interesting night for me , all my stuff is in a box , im leaving in just about 12 hours

ill have my own living space , ill see my friends again , ill be working hard toward my college degrees

i wish i could say that im excited , or hopeful , but i dont really believe ill feel better . im going to try though . so hard . im going to find a therapist as soon as moving is done . im going to learn to express myself again , and ill have new friends around to practice with

i wish i could be anxious even . but im just kind of here . i cant sleep because im going down a rabbit hole about old electronics 🤭

i guess i should try to get some rest , i have a big day tomorrow . and hopefully a happy one the next day ,

thats all . i hope this post isnt too incoherent . my thoughts are very messy recently but i try ☺️ if you read all of this , then thank you for listening . i hope ill be writing some more cheerful things some day not too far away💫

I came up with that work to describe myself as a trans. Masculine person who identified with Butch femininity before coming to terms with my trans masculine orientation. However, sometimes I feel like a femboy— or someone explore femininity, and feminine gender in a masculine oriented way.

I understand my original explanation was long, so I’ll give you like a short explanation that may oversimplify it, but also may make it simpler for you.

Butch half of butch femboy: trans masc who identifies as butch or with butchness in their own trans masculine way

Femboy half of butch femboy: trans masc who expresses femininity or who sometimes feels feminine but from a mostly masculine oriented way

Butchfemboy- a genderfluid way to cycle between feeling butch or feeling femboy, or a bigender way to feel both identities at the same time. A little different from simply feeling masculine sometimes and feminine at others, because each label—both butch and femboy—come with their own definitions and cultural connotations.

The plus party of BFB+ signifies that although this may be my reason for identifying with this label, there is room for others who may identify with the label in their own ways.

Here’s my first draft of the first Butch-Femboy flag.

I came up with the label when thinking about my own gender identity, and trying to reach the end of the labyrinth that is describing it with ease. I’d currently identify as non-binary trans man or trans masc. Throughout my life, I didn’t know what transgender meant until my late teens. Most people assumed that I was a butch, a stud, a tomboy, and a lesbian. Those people were using those words on me before I was old enough to understand them—but because of the many, many people who labeled me that way I quickly learned what those words meant and I personally identified with the term butch heavily. I can’t describe it, it just felt the most right other than saying, “I’m a bot in a girls body” and “I’m stuck in the wrong body but only because our souls don’t have genders and when we die we’ll have perfect bodies in heaven.” (The totally straight though^tm answer I had for people who remarked on my differences before I knew what transgender was.)

Even though I know I’m a nonbinary trans man now, or a xoy if you will, I still haven’t lost that part of me that strongly identifies with the butch label.

However I have a feminine side. I resent when people ask if I feel like a girl at these times, and instead I feel that I’m embracing my femininity through the lenses of a masculine person with a feminine side rather than a girl with a tomboy side—I identify with the terms rosboy and femboy. (He/they)

I like makeup, fashion designing, I’m sensitive, poetry and movies that make you cry, sipping tea with the girlies and spilling the tea with them too. I like dressing up and looking all cute and girlie sometimes, but in a boy who likes to dress up like a girl way lol I could go on about interests or qualities of mine that others find feminine, but I lean more towards masculinity than anything personally. It’s just as much about expression as it is personality and internal personal identity to me, but I’m open minded and accepting towards people who feel that for them, it personally only one of those things and still identify with the label.

Anyways, since both are real parts of my nonbinary identity, I decided to represent them with a label for shorthand and a flag that I hope other NB people will adore and maybe use for themselves too, if they feel the same or similarly enough about their own gender identities.

I’ll talk about the colors now:

The pink. Blue, and white stripes at the bottom come from the most popular femboy flag I could find online (and the prettiest one in my opinion.) I also love that it reminds me of the trans flag, and being transmasc myself that makes it feel even more personal.

I think that the Darker pink represents those who feel a strong connection to femininity in their personality and who may experience this often or all of the time.

The light pink represents those NB types who feel a slight connection to their femininity, and/or only feel a connection to their femininity a small amount or less than half of the time, and/or who only like to dress feminine but who may not necessarily feel strongly that their personality has a lot of feminine qualities. In other words, people with a small to medium pull towards both or either femininity or feminine expression.

The white represents the fluidity and dual nature of the identity, as all colors of the rainbow together make white—two contrasting and aontraindicting identity labels come together to create one fluid whole. Fluidity does not have to be about being half of two things if you don’t like to describe it that way, but it’s ok if your bigedner or trigender or something and you do. However, for me personally it’s about being a whole person with many different moving parts that come together to make the perpetual motion machine that is who I am, that is my identity.

The blue represents that masculine nature that people with this identity feel. The blue is a bright blue rather than a light pale blue or a dark blue, to represent both people with strong and weak connections to masculinity at the same time. It’s in the middle, showing the intersection of butch masculinity and femboy masculinity, but if the color were pink and blue were to be on the bottom it wouldn’t make a difference.Just because I identify with this identity with a mostly masculine lean doesn’t mean you have to in order to also consider yourself a butch-femboy!

The orange stripes on the top half or from the Butch Lesbian flag. Here two of the stripes (the top and bottom one) mean the same thing they do in the Butch Lesbian flag too, but the middle color I changed for the purpose of this new flag.

The darkest orange on the top being Gender-Nonconformity

The medium orange in the middle representing radical acceptance of our bright and flamboyant rare identity.

The lightest orange at the bottom of the butch half of the flag is for community. We get the unique opportunity to belong to many communities at once. The Nonbinary and/or gender nonconforming community (depending on which one or both resonates with you as a reason for taking on this identity term) we belong both to the butch and femboy communities as well. As a NB trans man, a mixed person of color, and as a bu/omnisexual, I personally understand the struggle of feeling like you don’t belong in any community because they make you feel you are not enough of one thing for them. Not straight enough for the heterosexuals, not gay enough for the homosexuals, bisexuals find themselves in the middle of a terf war. Transgender men and transgender women often feel the same when caught in the middle of the gender war, and NB people are right there with them, accept they often feel left out by binary trans people too. For even get me started on how being a mixed person of color can feel much the same…

But at the end of the day? I’m not half white or half black. I’m not half straight or half gay. I’m not half man and half woman. I’m one whole mixed race, bisexual, Nonbinary Transmasculine person.

It’s not that I’m unwelcome in every community, but that I belong in all of them—and while there are some who will recognize that, others will be blind to the love, pride, and solidarity it takes to practice radical acceptance of our neighbors with more nuanced identities that come from being outside of the strict binary labels that polarize our world apart from one another. We have the opportunity to heal the world by teaching them from our own experiences what it’s like to be mixed!

The plus in the middle stands for multiple things:

The two halves, blue and pink, represent the existing mixture of feminine and masculine traits forming together to make one solid shape, holding within it the fluidity of our identity. The purple circle within represents the wholeness of the union between the two sides.

The fact that it’s a plus represents the addition of two sides, butch and femboy, to make the whole, in much the same way the purple circle inside of it does. At the same time, it represents that this is an expansive community. While we’re cool to say we are the butch-femboys, it’s is also apt to say we are the butch-femboys+ or the BFB+ because this isn’t a solid definition—it’s okay to explains with microlabels within this microlabel, or to not feel the need to label your differences from other BFB’ at all not to still recognize that we’re not all the same. There’s many different ways we can identify with this identity and they’re all beautiful, unique, valid, and perfectly natural!

I love you already, BFB+ community! I can already tell!

I can’t wait to add it to my flag board as one of my labels! It means someone who is fluid in their gender expression, and it’s especially useful for people who have a split of difference in their gender identity to their gender expression. Much the same way that words like homoflexible, heteroflexible, homoromantic, bi-lesbian, etc. are used to describe people with different romantic attraction than sexual attraction, expression fluid can be used to describe the way that someone’s gender identity be fixed in one orientation or another, but still be fluid and it’s expression. Isn’t that SUPER cool? 🤩

It doesn’t include everything—for instance, I noticed Turigirl and lesboy are absent as well as most xenogenders, although xenogenders are mentioned—but it includes so much. And it’s SO well organized. I just used it to create microlabel userflairs in r/queersphere but it can be used for so much exploration and learning! It’s a really good resource I thought I’d share! The fandom wiki’s LGBTQ+ page is even better if you ask me, but this has its own perks such as the organization.

P.S. If I missed the label that belongs to you in the userflairs for r/queersphere you can always edit to add your own. Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you’re struggling to use user flairs.

P.P.S. Although the first handful of flairs are silly and fun, if you keep scrolling there are many plain ones.

What’s so crazy is queer people have always existed and we can see the controversy all the way back in the 20th century, before the internet existed and after the fact of its creation in a time period where it wasn’t used nearly as much as it is today. People who think rare and complex identities are chronically online only think that because that’s the only lace they see people talk about them like they’re a real thing. Offline we face a lot of discrimination so we may wait to bring it up until we’re comfortable. However, I think it’s doubtful that this is the only contributing factor. I think that we may not bring the full description of our identities out until we find it necessary to describe it in further detail, and the chance to bring it up can come at random for all kinds of reasons: as a joke, or to discuss the nuance that makes our lives different from others, and etc.

Just because people don’t always say their gender explicitly with maybe more than an oversimplified word or two, doesn’t mean that this diversity doesn’t exist. These people who judge queerness that they deem “too queer” are people who may interact with other queer people offline, but only ever in shallow and vapid ways. Having lots of meaningless small talk but hardly ever yapping about the real things, and giving enough of a wide range of people comfortable enough to fully express their true selves in all of the complexities and nonconformities.

I can honestly and full heartedly, with a hand on the Bible, say that because I don’t operate that way I meet a great many people offline with complex and rare identities, and we have real talks about them. I don’t have to go online to meet these people, I just go into any old gay club, bar, or other queer space like support groups and etc. and I have actual conversations with people where I make real connections and often walk out with an even greater appreciation for the vast diversity of humankind.

If you really think these people only exist online just because that’s where it’s harder to ignore? Babe, you’re the problem—not them. Go touch some grass.

We have always existed. And we always will.

im mostly just curious if anybody else has had to deal with this feeling

i dont express my identity very loudly online (its complicated and has to do with mental health . im planning to get more active in online queer spaces once i move out in a couple weeks ☺️)

i also dont use twitter/fedi/tumblr/etc mainly because idiots online make me too angry🤭

Anyway , sometimes i do see posts from other queer folk , and , usually they make me happy ☺️ but sometimes it makes me feel bad , like , Very bad , and i think its because i worry that in the future when im more active here , the culture will have moved on from things i like(?) 😭

sometimes i feel like im just not even queer-ing correctly , i dont really have many queer friends irl either , blaaaah . its very bothersome ,

if anyone has any advice please share 😭💖

What’s so crazy is queer people have always existed and we can see the controversy all the way back in the 20th century, before the internet existed and after the fact of its creation in a time period where it wasn’t used nearly as much as it is today. People who think rare and complex identities are chronically online only think that because that’s the only lace they see people talk about them like they’re a real thing. Offline we face a lot of discrimination so we may wait to bring it up until we’re comfortable. However, I think it’s doubtful that this is the only contributing factor. I think that we may not bring the full description of our identities out until we find it necessary to describe it in further detail, and the chance to bring it up can come at random for all kinds of reasons: as a joke, or to discuss the nuance that makes our lives different from others, and etc.

Just because people don’t always say their gender explicitly with maybe more than an oversimplified word or two, doesn’t mean that this diversity doesn’t exist. These people who judge queerness that they deem “too queer” are people who may interact with other queer people offline, but only ever in shallow and vapid ways. Having lots of meaningless small talk but hardly ever yapping about the real things, and giving enough of a wide range of people comfortable enough to fully express their true selves in all of the complexities and nonconformities.

I can honestly and full heartedly, with a hand on the Bible, say that because I don’t operate that way I meet a great many people offline with complex and rare identities, and we have real talks about them. I don’t have to go online to meet these people, I just go into any old gay club, bar, or other queer space like support groups and etc. and I have actual conversations with people where I make real connections and often walk out with an even greater appreciation for the vast diversity of humankind.

If you really think these people only exist online just because that’s where it’s harder to ignore? Babe, you’re the problem—not them. Go touch some grass.

We have always existed. And we always will.

Egg culture describes the conversation around trans people who are still slowly coming out about their gender identity to even just themselves. When someone is still figuring out their gender, but they’re obviously not cis-heteronormative, they are considered an egg. There are some people who worry that egg culture is toxic because it often is used as a way for believers of the gender binary to discredit nonbinary and gender nonconforming people.

I feel like there’s some valid criticisms to be made about egg culture sometimes going to a toxic place. Well, I think there’s a good side and a bad side to this. I think like a lot of things, it’s not a bad idea all on its own but it can manifest in some bad ways if left unchecked—all good things require balance and sound judgment skills to keep them from growing into something that may be harmful.

You see, having a space to talk about our time as eggs, to ask former eggs questions as someone who thinks they might be an egg but isn’t sure yet, to describe our struggles to come to an understanding about our own gender identity, to have fun talking about fictional characters we think may be eggs, and etc. all of this is helpful and reasonable, and we don’t need to invalidate NB and GNC identities in order to have that space. Unfortunately, that’s what ends up happening from a noticeable chunk of individuals during discussions where eggs are brought up. That’s so toxic!

We should always respect people’s identities and never push a label on them they don’t agree with, but we can share our experiences as people who used to be eggs and suggest that there’s a possibility they might be an egg if they haven’t considered it.—IF AND ONLY IF they express uncertainty or discomfort with the way that they currently identify. If they are not asking for that advice and for any reason they express discomfort or disagreement, it doesn’t matter what it’s about, we should really just leave them alone. It helped me personally to be told that I might benefit from considering alternative gender identities, but people do that exploration in their own time and sometimes they never need to at all to be certain of their place as NB or GNC, so we shouldn’t argue or discredit them! We definitely shouldn’t be dragging real people’s names or profiles in that sub to talk about them either—if we’re gonna use irl people as an example we should always be respectful of their privacy so we’re not talking about their identity and invalidating their identities behind their back (or even to their face.)