I think we're losing... It's gone too far

[Patty78]

It seems that everyone I talk to knows someone who is transitioning or is non-binary. I sometimes try to find out how terfy or not someone might be. And they're not because they have a niece or friend or friend's child who's trans. I feel quite alone in my thoughts.

Pronouns at the end of emails are everywhere. I've not been asked to do it yet, but I know it's coming.

I'm a freelancer. I'm on a trial period with a new client. I'm writing a script for a webnovel. The main character is non-binary but looks like a woman. I've been told that I have to write in a gender-neutral way. But it's vampire erotica. And nobody is allowed to be anything - no genitals/breasts. A lot of the other writers on this project are non-binary or FtoM. A lot of cosplay stuff. It's really hard to write. I'm upset because they clearly don't like me. I was hoping for lots of work from this client. Ties are REALLY hard. They loved the test I did for them. But they don't like my story. I just can't do this GenZ/Queer thing. I'm lost. I've always been a loony lefty, always been woke... but I'm all washed out now. I can't keep up. I'm really upset. I have to feed my kid and keep a roof over our heads, but I feel a bit pushed out. I could fake it, pretend I'm non-binary or something. I'm just very down. Very.

I feel like they're going to find out I'm in my 40s, have two tits, single mother, 6 cats... and it just won't wash. It's not cool. I don't have a TikTok where I cosplay. I don't really have much of an online presence at all. I don't pose in fetish gear on Instagram.

I live abroad. Very, very rurally. In the local arts centre I met a MtoF who just looked like a giant trucker in a dress. I know that sounds rude. And I can't believe I'm saying it because I never would have said anything like that in the past. He was complaining about going to a lesbian event and having to drive two hours to get there and that when he arrived, none of them were very nice to him. All the women I was with were comforting him and saying how terrible it was. He said there was a "very masculine energy from the butch lesbians" at the event and that they made him feel very ill at ease. I piped up and suggested that maybe that was because they were lesbians and that lesbians are attracted to women, and it did not go down well. So, I backed off. And now, I smile at him whenever I see him, and we have a pleasant chat. I don't have the courage of my convictions.

Today, I was on a phone call with an old client who might have a little bit of work for me. I told her that I was just finishing up a non-binary vamp story. To be honest, I was hoping for some "terf" company. She was delighted. Her daughter is non-binary, and her daughter's girlfriend is on testosterone. So again, I backed off.

I think this is how it will be. I can't make a living unless I play along. I feel so fed up. I really believe in women's rights, but I can't risk speaking out.

This isn't a very well-ordered post. Sorry. I needed a bit of a ramble. I'm really quite down.

Sometimes we have to wear a mask to get a job done - like pretending to be corporate for an office job or being totes down with the Trans peeps to get some paid writing done.
It's just a mask and it's not you on the inside... it's also not forever.

Audiences like what they like and this is a very, very niche audience. You clearly have writing talent and the vast majority of publishers don't have the same constraints. You'll get publishers which don't want any mention of genitals and fluids directly, others which are OK with anything. It sounds like you and the publisher are simply a bad match, and you could reach out to a more mainstream outfit.

My daughter who is a secondary school teacher tells me her pupils are always eye rolling and making jokes. One said "Miss, there are three genders Male, Female and Mentally Ill" and another "Oh no, not all that trans stuff Miss, I don't agree with it".

Yeh, not everyone gets to " bring their whole self to work".

Yes, nipples are in for a transwoman wanting to do chemically induced breast feeding.

Or binding them out of all visibility if the subject is a girl ( that would still mention nipples). Or artistically repositioning them after a mastectomy. Or maybe a transwoman into breasts could buy one on the black market so as to have breast implant surgery for three breasts. Maybe Extra nipples could be body art fashioned out of some other bit of body like fake vaginas sometimes are. Queering the body is art.

How does one write a vampire story with no mention of bodily fluids?

The blood sucking thing is pretty central to the character, it’s why they have pointy teeth, for starters.

It's getting ridiculous. Though at least now they are trying to stop men competing in women's sports.

When DS was little indigo kids were all over the place. Havent met one (or an indigo adult for that matter) for many a year.

It’s a trend, a fad. BLM was all over the place a few years ago too. it will go the same way as all fads. In the dustbin of ‘Christonnabike I can’t believe we did that’. Like ra-ra skirts, blonde streaks, sweetie cigarettes and clackers.

Op can you see how far you can go with the ridiculousness of it as a way to amuse yourself? Like almost out Woking them with your wokeness. To the point it’s a piss take but they haven’t noticed?!

When DS was little indigo kids were all over the place.

Oh lord yes they were, weren't they! I'd forgotten all about that, there were books and everything.

Ha! I’d forgotten about the indigo children too 😂

My client's just told me to "pause". I'm pretty sure she's about to tell me I'm being sacked—well, not sacked but "unhired".

Perhaps it's a blessing in disguise. They can soddingwell pay me for the last three weeks of total bloody nonsense, though.

I don't think my dialogue is GenZ enough. She's not happy. It's a choose-you're-own-story book.

I was relying on the work though. Back to the drawing board. I'm so fed up.

Does anyone need any choose-your-own-erotica stories writing? I can do it with plenty of tits and arse... or none.

I'm pretty sure she's about to tell me I'm being sacked—well, not sacked but "unhired".

’Differently hired’?

Sorry things aren't going well. Have you investigated self publishing on Amazon as @ItsFunToBeAVampire suggested?

I do think kids latched onto the gender ideology as a way to rebel. Once it becomes passe they will rebel in another direction.

It was always thus.

One things I do wonder, especially as I live in a fairly deprived area and my 14 yr old goes to a bog standard working class comp: is the rebelling towards 'I can be any/no gender if I like' predominantly in the middle and upper classes?
None of my child's year group seem remotely interested . . .

I would go into self-publishing if I also had something regular. I can't take the risk at the moment. I suppose I could write in the evenings when DD is in bed. I'm on my own. Well, a man in a very dirty New Order T-shirt who I vaguely know through some charity work knocked on my door last week and gave me some teabags. And today, another man, who I've met only a handful of times came to the door and gave me a bottle of rum. All very random. Either I look dehydrated or I'm giving off pre-menopausal stress hormones and it's attracting the local oddballs. Like my vampires, neither of them were invited to cross the threshold. Third time lucky, maybe? Before I forget what genitals are. It might be Matt Damon next time. I'm hoping he brings nibbles. I've got booze in now.

@greatvisuals IME trans/NB trend in schools occurs in pockets, usually where there is a staff member encouraging it or where the local school policies have been heavily influenced by activist groups. It was absolutely huge in my stepdaughter’s mixed sex, affluent, commuter belt SE comprehensive and it is totally non existent in my younger daughter’s inner city girls only NW high school (which is overwhelmingly non-white pupils).

The majority of the kids who take up a trans identity do seem to be middle class but there are also disproportionately high levels of gender distress/trans identification by children in the looked after system. Whether that is related to prior trauma (sexual abuse, lack of fixed identity due to genealogical bewilderment, non acceptance of gender non conformity by homophobic birth family) or influenced by the same sort of activists operating in schools also being embedded in the social services field it’s impossible to tell (probably a bit of both because the over representation seems to have existed way before the enormous rise in numbers of children and teens with cross sex identities that took off circa 2015).

Presumably many of the more middle class teens will abandon the identity as the fashion falls away? It’s harder to predict what will happen to the more vulnerable cohort.

I very much hope you are keeping a diary @Patty78 .

Thanks @TheClogLady, that's really interesting.

Come to think of it, a very high proportion of the children referred by children's services to an intervention I used to run were indeed trans and trans questioning. So your summary fits well. I wonder if it was easier for trans activists to influence well meaning liberal commuter belt schools as well as the vulnerable children. What an awful business plan. 'Let's target the well meaning and the vulnerable - they'll be easy targets.'

I noticed the other day that all the 'rainbow' branding in supermarkets seems to have disappeared, or at least been very toned down. At one point it seemed to be everywhere. Really hard to avoid buying things with it. One charity I follow on facebook has significantly downplayed their 'inclusive' promoting. A secondary school near me used to have a rainbow display and poster outside. That has gone. So hang on in there OP, maybe one day soon there will be a market for stories about brave de-transitioners.

@Patty78 - your writing is funny and has made lots of us here laugh (love the post about Matt Damon briniging nibbles!) Please write the book!

One writes for a publisher without such constraints!

I’ve no idea how you can write about vampires without mentioning blood.

Agreed. The expose of the decade.

A bit like "Fashion Babylon", but in the YA arena.

Children in care of the state were targeted very early on by certain transactivists who wrote policy, training courses etc.
These children were exceptionally vulnerable, often with mental health problems and looking for something that could magically change their lives. How the adults responsible failed to notice how children were being cynically exploited I'll never know.

Seriously the book about you losing your mind trying to abide by all their rules could potentially earn you more money in the long run!

If nothing else you could write it during the times you are having a head banging on wall moment when trying to avoid writing the words breasts and genitals. You may find it cathartic.

(May work better as a comedy series)