My biggest condolences...

happy birthday!

sick asf fr-s stopped by and we chatted up the owner while he ate tacos on the rear wing, beautiful experience

i can think of a lot of reasons why that's the case but if you look at it from an outside perspective it does seem like a strange place to draw a line. maybe i'm making this line up in my head from just the posts i've seen, who knows

none of you are ever seeing pretransition pics either, i have beef with that too but that's a whole 'nother issue with very different implications. which, actually, is really interesting now that i think about it... trans people post transition timelines but their deadnames are more taboo

but also i need to learn how to do it, because while i believe i have the right instincts for it, i need guidelines and targets to hit or else i'm too scatterbrained to pull it together

i need to internalize that being performative will get me places and that friends will respect and understand if i change my presentation

because of that. but only expecting validation from friends puts me in this area where i can't get it from strangers, because i just don't present with as much effort as i could

i want to do it. i think i need to do it to improve both my own view of myself and other's views of me.

my "strategy" so far has been to slowly grow friendships with people that unconditionally respect me and expect them to validate me. they do, and i know that all of my friends are real ones

the problem is that gender presentation is kind of a catch 22. i see myself as feminine but am outshined by friends and others i meet. being more feminine means going against my current instincts, redefining my definition. preparing for the effects of a change in perception. being performative.