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Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

170K followers 4K following 18K posts

journalist, author, reads too much. haggard and unblest. newsletter:
buttondown.email/theswordandthesandwich

buy my new book!! https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/talia-lavin/wild-faith/9780306829192/

contact: talialavinwrites@gmail.com

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Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

but coming out as trans THIS year feels ... a little like deciding to punch the world in the face and wait to see what happens. the support here has been awesome. and i appreciate it more than you know. im just a happy lil dork, as best as i can be.

tal looking bemused and happy in glasses and a kippah

December 1, 2025 at 12:43 AM

Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

one thing ive found since upping my dose of T is uh my compliments have gotten more aggressive

not to be a macho dickhead but the thought of anyone ever being mean to your kids makes me want to defin a shark with my bare hands
Dara Kaye
Bro how much t u on

moshe i would stab someone for you and go full mike ehrmantraut to dispose of the body, you are one of my best friends in the entire world
Delivered
That is such a lovely sentiment you are bedrock and everlasting friend to me

November 29, 2025 at 5:14 AM

Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

got my first yarmulkes today and im feeling. A Lot about it. im in my yeshiva bocher era. gonna roll up to the kollel and dominate this chavrusa. pilpul game unmatched. googling "trans bar mitzvah"

tal looking pensively out over the water with a ridiculous ninja turtles kippah on

tal throwing a peace sign in a kinda hideous high domed yarmulke

November 28, 2025 at 6:46 PM

Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

im on long island and this is the most long island thing ive ever seen. and i kind of want one

a motorcycle with the GAUDIEST spiderman paint job it's incredible

November 28, 2025 at 5:15 PM

Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

listen this is a cool ass waistcoat Okay

November 27, 2025 at 5:44 PM

Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

i'm tal
he/him

i write books and read way too much and i love drawing badly and im new to being trans but to be honest its the freest ive ever felt in my whole life

and i make really good soups

a photo of a trans guy in a green waistcoat and black t shirt

November 21, 2025 at 4:16 PM

Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

Why Not A Bomber Jacket And Khakis. Sure. Figuring Out How To Man

tal sitting splayegged in an armchair in brown shoes, khakis, and a bomber jacket with a fleece collar

November 20, 2025 at 3:53 AM

Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

i also own a green waistcoat and since i am very shory am taking sartorial inspiration from hobbits. here i am moisturized, flourishing, in my meriadoc brandybuck era

a fat lil guy with a sword belt and a green waistcoat

tal looking bemused in green and brown, holding a sword

November 20, 2025 at 2:59 AM

Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

at any rate i now own this ridiculous garment. it's quite warm

tal with a hideous haircut in a calf length red velvet smoking jacket

November 20, 2025 at 12:41 AM

Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

also when he casually roasted the british so hard john franklin read it and died again

they had anticipated. M'Clintock used the same thing forty years ago. It was not their fault that they were born in a country where the use of snow-shoes is unknown, and where snow is scarcely to be found throughout the whole winter.
Nevertheless, despite the fact that they had to gain their experience of snow and snow travel during their sojourn up here
-despite the fact that they were without snow-shoes and had to toil on as best they could with sledges with narrow runners over uneven snow-covered drift-ice-what distances did they not cover, what fatigues and trials did they not endure! No one has surpassed, and scarcely anyone approached them, un-less, perhaps, the Russians on the Siberian coast; but then they have the great advantage of being natives of a country where snow is not uncommon. "

November 18, 2025 at 12:51 AM

Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

good night bluesky.........

christopher lee sexily being dracula holding a cup of BLOOD probably. in his sexy hands

November 16, 2025 at 5:10 AM

Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

Frankenstein (2025)

sadiq
@SadiqoJN • Follow
Why do bash "dead-beat" dads for not being there for their kids but we never question if the child has bad vibes? Or if they're just unpleasant to be around?

November 13, 2025 at 11:45 PM

Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

thanks to @flaminghydra.com and @mariabustillos.com for letting me ramble on about the absurdities of figuring out Myself As A Man
flaminghydra.com/issue-442/#n...

am at the beginning of this story, in a way: coming out is a long process, and while social media makes for shortcuts, there are friends and family members who merit personal explanations (and close family members I have not come out to and may simply avoid discussing it with until I grow a beard, chop my tits off, or both). The distance between trans-guy-who-still-looks-like-a-woman and trans-guy-who-looks-like-a-guy is farther than I could have expected, even with the heady new experience of taking testosterone (the experience of T gel and mapping the changes day to day is exciting, even if it feels awfully like smearing oneself with hand sanitizer on a daily basis). One of the big waymarkers, it turns out, is a wardrobe.
How does a man dress?
Moreover-how do you dress for the gender you want when your body doesn't remotely resemble it?

So I cracked the shell on my modest nest egg and started buying, with all the painful, mixed-up yearning I've hoarded for years surging into the purchases. Sweatpants and T-shirts, all about five sizes too big to overhang the betraying curves; tight-binding tank tops to go under huge flannel shirts. I decided that Men Wear Overalls, although I'm not sure why precisely, and bought five pairs, two of which hung off me, and one of which is a proper Carhartt duck-bib number that would get me through more manual labor than I have ever done in my life, and which doesn't remotely fit, but which I treasure. If I am ever called on to survey lands or shuck corn, I will have my outfit.
A gigantic leather jacket. Men wear leather jackets, right? James Dean, but with gigantic and unwelcome honkers.

Weirder stuff: a green waistcoat that makes me look like a resident of Hobbiton. Men wear waistcoats! Cream-colored suspenders for future dress pants, because a man in braces is a striking sight, right? A smoking jacket, because I smoke, and men used to wear smoking jackets? Blue suede shoes. Elvis was very manly, for a guy in show biz. The process was a masculine collage, a series of stabs in the dark at what a man should look like, at what a man could look like, if I could look like a man. Still the thought that I could never be an Adonis haunted me. I cupped my chin and wished it squarer and firmer. Even though I was no longer drowned in a dress, I didn't want to think about my body, still.

November 13, 2025 at 11:10 PM

Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

hell yeah it's frankenstein time

<chanting> polar exploration hell yes

a screenful of ice

Caption: Farthermost North, 1857

grizzled looking captain: "We will reach the North Pole."

November 13, 2025 at 10:27 PM

Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

i already have garlic and onion (on my thigh). the next one is gonna be a stylized chicken and then i have a full soup goin' :)

my forearm with my tattoo of a garlic bulb and clove

November 13, 2025 at 6:06 AM

Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

my hands are unremarkable but check out my sick dill frond tattoo

a reasonably sized hand probably? with a dill frond botanical illustration tattoo. background is a floral sheet

November 13, 2025 at 6:02 AM

Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

today's sketch is i stealthily drew my bf while he was busy murking orcs in shadow of mordor (trying out oil pastels, badly)

a bad oil pastel sketch of the handsomest nicest boy in the world

November 13, 2025 at 1:29 AM

Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

total leona dare vibes

victorian trapeze artist leona dare, in a gorgeous striped costume holding a long rope

November 11, 2025 at 2:23 PM

Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

hear me out: victorian strongwomen are an entire beautiful vibe

a gorgeous muscular woman flexing in a giant hat and diaphanous garment

a gorgeous muscular woman in a turban casually lifting three men in eveningwear

Vulcana, the Muscular Beauty

showing off some sick arm muscles while wearing what appears to be an ancient greek inspired leotard with unfortunate diaper resemblance

a gorgeous lady with huge muscles and a short bob with beauteous eyes

November 11, 2025 at 2:01 PM

Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

today's 10 minute sketch is me freestyling based on a postcard of a victorian trapeze artist

a pencil sketch of a muscular woman with long dark hair holding a trapeze

November 11, 2025 at 4:08 AM

Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

i think it is very masc of me to get a comically oversized leather jacket and then immediately stain it with paint

a person with a big leather jacket and light blue paint stains

November 8, 2025 at 9:29 PM

Tal B. Lavin

@swordsjew.bsky.social

the name: Tal (male form of Talia, which means "dew of god"; i simply dethroned god to make a new name)

pronouns: he/him, not they/them

hair: short

arms: gettin swole