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I feel personally targeted by this comic (Real Life)

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by Jaylah, Jul 23, 2020.

  1. Jaylah

    Regular Member

    Joined:
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    Location:
    Europe
    Gender:
    Female (trans*)
    Gender Pronoun:
    She
    Sexual Orientation:
    Straight
    Out Status:
    Not out at all
    Yeah, someone mentioned this comic to me and oh my goodness, it's just too real.
    I feel targeted. I am talking about that whole story that starts from that page.

    Let's see now, parallels between the comic and my life:

    1) The female persona, the id, comments that "Technically you're part of me, since I've been around here the whole time. You didn't come around until later, but of course you get to be in the driver's seat."

    "You exist to get us what I want in a way that doesn't put us in any danger. You're there to keep us safe."


    This is pretty much the conversation I had with myself, when I was meditating a while back while taking a bath. I remember the female presence inside of me raging at me "No! I was here first, you were formed to protect me from a world that couldn't handle me, from a world that violently rejected me!"

    2) "Id: You're the one who would choose shapeshifting as the superpower you wanted most. You're the one who finally decided to start playing female characters in games. You have NO IDEA how good it would feel when you would finally give me just the tiniest bit of consideration."

    I remember watching the X-Men way back when in early 2000s and wishing I had Mystique's power of shapeshifting, so I could try living as a woman. Also I always make a female avatar when given the option, never thought too much of it, but in retrospect it is obvious what I was doing.

    3)"Greg: But what about all the movies, comics and anime about the crazy antics that happen when people swap genders? I mean, look at Ranma 1/2, for f**k's sake!"

    Again, this has sparked a memory of pre-teen me reading Ranma 1/2 and feeling super jealous of the protagonist's power to swap genders. Man, what a trip.

    4)"Mae: And then you wonder why you look in the mirror and don't give a crap about your appearance. You don't IDENTIFY with yourself. That's gotta mess someone up, you know?"

    Ouch. Seriously, get out of my brain.

    5) And finally the guy (well, now a girl, I guess) wakes up and has a conversation with his girlfriend:
    "Liz: What are… what are you doing?
    Greg: Washing my face?

    Liz: No, I can SEE that, but… I mean, I’ve never once seen you wash your face outside of the shower. I’m not even sure if you’ve washed your face IN the shower.
    Greg: I just got up this morning feeling good, and I wanted to start taking care of myself a bit better."


    Yeah, I've definitely started taking better care of my body in every way after I started considering maybe I'm not a guy. I have so many skincare products now, I eat healthy, I even force myself to exercise because I want to have a more feminine body, and fit into pretty dresses.

    Well I guess I just wanted to share that comic with the world, it has certainly given me food for thought, maybe someone else who reads it, sees themselves in it.
     
    Sparky2002, solarcat and Clara7 like this.
  2. solarcat

    Full Member

    Joined:
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    Location:
    Arizona
    Gender:
    Female (trans*)
    Gender Pronoun:
    They
    Sexual Orientation:
    Bisexual
    Out Status:
    Family only
    I started coming to terms with my gender about 9 years ago. I've never read this comic before, but man does it bring back some memories.

    Still, this doesn't quite echo my story the way it seems to echo yours.

    I actually did care about my appearance. Not like I had a whole beauty regimen or anything, but I thought that maybe if I looked like a good-looking guy then I could relieve some of my issues about my appearance. Trouble is, making myself look good means looking in the mirror, so... ew.

    I never created or chose female characters because I was afraid someone would ask me why, or tease me for it. But I loved it when a game had a female character by default.

    Oh, but Ranma 1/2... I never did see why this "curse" was so bad. Seriously, the last panel are both me right now. I remember thinking that I would have wanted to get splashed in cold water, and now I'm wondering how I could have missed that.

    Thanks for sharing this!