🚧🌈☢️ BRUNO: Gender and LGBTQIA+ from MY perspective. -- [10/9] ⏯️ The playlist. It isn't very long yet. Also, a lot of it is trans-related, because transpeople are the current "front-facing" scapegoat. -- "If gender isn't binary, then good and evil doesn't exist!" is some of the dumbest !@#$ I ever done heard.
🚧 There's a lot to do here. We haven't even started. The "foreword" first entry ain't even how this post is supposed to go, though I suppose it serves as yet another example of why I want to do this post.
⏯️ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0ApZVcuDqQTZ0mLYCoOYYp-6UYaTsw-0
🎬 "100 UNCOMFORTABLE Transgender and Nonbinary Questions" by @Negative Legend -- It's important for you to remember that you need to figure out who you are on your own terms and on your own time. Don't adopt a label and then try to conform to the definition of that label or try to mimic someone else's experience or judge yourself by someone else's experience. We are not carbon copies of each other. We experience things differently. You need to figure out who you are, not who you are in relation to anyone else.
🌈 I've wanted to do this post since even before The Amazing Ig'nant put out that absolutely stupid video about how he "feels like a man and always has" so that means all men must feel the same. Goddess have mercy! Anyway, there's a few things that I want to do with this post, including explaining gender and various aspects of LGBTQIA+ from my perspective. Bear in mind that I am not transgender, and I am not a scholar on any of this, I'm simply gender-fluid and pansexual, and I read a lot, and I listen to people, and I try to understand things. We'll talk about labels and vocabulary too. This post will also include some criticism of the community in general, how we interact with each other, and problematic representation in media, especially media meant for children.
🎙️ How does it feel being on the wrong side of history? -- A better question would be, how does it feel sharing ideology with Adolf Hitler? Hitler hated LGBTQIA+ people. He rounded us up, pinned little pink ribbons on us, threw us in camps, experimented on us, and butchered us, for no other reason than we exist. And what did America do in response? They changed pink to "feminine", and blue to "masculine". It was the other way around before Hitler came into the picture. It's been 81* years since WW2. When, pray tell, do we start doing the same to child rapists and child rape enablers? Y'know, the actual monsters who harm children, instead of the scapegoat monsters in the closet. I think the song and the video are kinda corny, but a bunch of LGBTQIA+ folks ignored the risk and came together to make it, so I respect it.
☆// ⋆ 6/14/2026 - FOREWORD - AN UNINTENDED IGNITION:
Last night, I was reminded how bigoted and maliciously ignorant my island-country is.
A local trans musician did an interview where they talked about LGBTQIA+ acceptance in our music industry. I didn't even know we had a local trans musician, because I don't keep up with the local music scene. I also didn't read the article.
The comments on one of the social media posts showcasing the article was a mixture of shock and horror and disgust and righteous indignation at the fact that this person exists.
And it comes on the heels of yet another 12 year-old girl being abducted, raped, and blunt force trauma-d to the head until dead, by a 23 year-old cisgender man, who allegedly assaulted at least one other child in the past, but was never reported.
One of the comments on the post sought to highlight the fact that one of our greatest calypsonians (calypso is a genre of music), Calypso Rose, is openly lesbian and has been married to a woman for over two decades.
One of the many struggles that Rose endured was being raped at the age of 18 and ever since then she has not pursued a relationship with a man. Rose came out in an interview as a lesbian at the age of 72 and was married to woman for 17 years by then.
Her health was not always in its best form as she faced and survived breast cancer in 1996, stomach cancer in 1998, diabetes, and two heart attacks which was solved by a pacemaker.
-- Wikipedia [🌐]
I responded to that comment with my usual diatribe about how we have all this bigotry in a world where religious folks and religious institutions, and non-LGBTQIA+ folks, commit the most crimes against children, and pointing out how bigoted the rest of the comments on the post were.
A bigot saw my comment, nestled away from the bigoted comments, and felt the need to respond, possibly because they were triggered by my unyielding assault on their religious identity:
(I'll screenshot this shit later.)
We don't care about all of that, homosexuality is unnatural, especially that transgender madness. Leave it in the closet where it rightfully should be. Trinidadians [don't] want [no] part of that, as you can tell by any comments section!
To which I responded the obvious:
Of course you don't, which is why we have so much child abuse in this country. Cheers.
Ignorance is bliss, or so they say.
Homosexual behavior is entirely natural and has been documented in over 1,500 animal species, spanning insects, fish, birds, and mammals.
Far from being a modern anomaly, scientists observe same-sex courtship, mating, and long-term partnering for evolutionary functions like social bonding, conflict resolution, and co-parenting.
And before you say "But Sej, we're not animals!" - we are mammals - tell it to the men who reduce themselves and each other to being no better than dogs in heat in order to make excuses for rape: "But what, pray tell, was she wearing?! Was she being flirtatious? DID SHE SMILE?!"
"Gender" is a social construct (I'll give it to you from my perspective later), different species have the ability to change their sex and/or self-fertilize (like the Mangrove Killifish), and many civilizations throughout history have had gay and transpeople in them, including African and Indian civilizations - the demographics that make up the majority of Trinidad's population - and, last but not least, INTERSEX PEOPLE EXIST.
Homophobia, and many other forms of bigotry, is rooted in religion.
The same religion used to enslave and justify enslaving my ancestors.
I'm of mixed descent (Chinese, African, Indian, and indigenous).
Some of my ancestors came to my island-country on transatlantic slave ships, others on "indentured servitude" slave ships, and the ones who were already here, were forced to convert to Christianity and work their own land as fucking slaves.
We don't care about all of that [...]
It's never about the children either.
They just hate LGBTQIA+ people, simply for existing.
The same way that racist and xenophobic white folks hate colored folks for existing and expecting to be treated like equal human beings.
But the discrimination and dehumanization is totes not the same, aye!
Because "God" says LGBTQIA+ is an abomination.
Because I live in a backward, third-world country, desperately clinging onto our colonial bigotries and ideologies, because to do anything else would require taking a good hard look in the fucking mirror, and "God" forbid anyone ever self-reflect on this fucking island.
The man who raped and butchered the 12 year-old child a few days ago, was neither gay nor transgender, was he?!
These maliciously ignorant motherfuckers don't even know that sodomy, by definition, includes oral sex between men and women.
Oh, how I would revel in enforcing Biblical Law upon these maliciously ignorant, bigoted motherfuckers, just to see how they like it.
No tears, please! It's a waste of good sufferi-
WHOOPS! 🙀
Un momento! 😸💧
I need to adjust my "Mask of Feigning Tolerance and Civility Towards Intolerant Bigots"! It almost fully fell off! I usually wear it on the side, like an edgy anime character. 🐱
Where was I? 😺
A-ha! 😹
Rape is a common occurrence in my country, and various forms of bigotry, including racism, sexism, homophobia, and now transphobia, is normalized. Also, shh, incest is thing that happens more than people are willing to admit - and by incest, I mean grooming and rape.
For example, we had a serial rapist who targeted young boys, and he got away with it for years because no one was willing to report it, because I live in a country where the worst thing you can be, as male / a man, is perceived to be LGBTQIA+ or be known to have taken it up the ass.
I'm very crude in the way I talk about these things, I know.
Refining it into something palatable, is an insult to how horrendous all of it is.
The term "grooming" didn't enter our vocabulary until bigoted, child-rape enabling and child-raping Americans, started projecting child abuse and child rape onto all transpeople, despite the fact that I would assume almost every Trinidadian above a certain age, has heard a story about a local pastor fucking a teenager from their congregation, a.k.a. grooming and rape.
We don't care about all of that [...]
Of course we don't.
Hence the reason my country is still a shit-hole, despite 60+ years of "independence".
Is only grooming when is gay and/or trans, don'cha know!
<INHALES SHARPLY>
I TIGRESS! 🐯
There's a BRUNO post for Trinidad and Tobago, and I intend to utilize it.
Also, this post isn't meant to be like other BRUNO posts.
☆// ⋆ TBC...
Comments (2)
Are you on drugs?
Hey again! I got a mild little squirm of joy? Dread? WHO KNOWS! When I saw a Bruno in my email, cos they're fantastic reads and super relevant but that TITLE. I LIVE THAT TITLE! I'm transmasc. I'm also a... semi-homeless? Homed? (I have a partner in Texas I live half the time with and then sorta stay in my mother's home for a part of the month in Louisiana. Mostly because I lilterally can't get most of my medical care in TX so I keep what i'm able to tied to LA. Go Figure.) But bluntly: as a transmasc guy? Hell, I'm also white and fairly androgynous minus the unfortunate rack I've had my whole life that now the states are refusing to let me get removed under insurance after I met all their stupid strict requirements. You're not remotely in the minority in my experience. Both on the bigot side and on the ally side and hell even in the community side! I'm very, VERY invisible in queer politics. My family already was the sort that is heavily anti-queer being in a very rural red Catholic family hiarchy, but I've always been the... Well. I'm a mix of the black sheep and the shining beacon. From their view, I'm hyper-intelligent, super accomplished and driven, and super reliable. I'm also "unfortunately" very "mistakenly" liberal, argumentative and headstrong (aka I don't listen to the low grade psychological manipulation from them), non-religious, etc etc. Somehow, in all that. The fact that I'm trans rarely if ever makes an appearance. UNLESS. Unless. One of them is loudly ranting about transfolk a la perfect exemplary of your BRUNOs (why does Charlie always come up in these rants? -not yours, theirs, just... wao). I just glance over if I'm around and say "Hm, didn't know I did that" or whatever variation of dismissal because realistically I can't afford to get any of them RAGING at me, they have guns literally beside them and poor trigger discipline. But they then MID EMPASSIONED RANT will dismissively shake a hand/head/whathaveyou and say, "You're different, this has nothing to do with you" and keep going. To which I just a touch loudly say, "No, it has everything to do with what you think my people though." Because, frankly, they honestly don't think that way with me. Unfortunately for me, since I was very small I was very aware of the difference between who you are as a person and the version of you people carry in their minds. I have never attempted to perform to change that version, because everyone's is different and on some level, always going to be wrong. In my family's case, the wrongness is a huge margin. I'm trans, but trans isn't real. I've "always been like that". I'm "different from everyone else". I've been alienated from everything my whole life. The first time I got to accept the concept of community was really a struggle, and I still struggle with it because I'm used to the de facto isolation of not being understood on one or several levels. And it isn't just my family. Be it the casual what the actual fuck disregard of my being trans because I've always been this way and no one is like me therefore I have no input on my own kind, to the just normalized 100% focus on trans women. I hate hate HATE the focus they garnish because it's always hate and never love. And then, much like my entire life, I'm invisible, because it's much harder to repackage me as a threat. So much easier to package me as a mental issue or a search for power or whatnot that I'll clearly never obtain because I'm "not a man". The only time you really get a focus in my experience as transmasc is just that: if you state you are what you are in-topic, then they might attack you because, rabid denial and they can always tell, but it never seems to come up otherwise, out of context. I repeat: It's much harder to repackage me AS A THREAT. But because of the same situation, they will also deny me to be IN ANY DANGER. Gotta love it. Again, personal experience, personal anecdotes. But it is my lived experience. I'm 5'1". I'm petite. I'm androgynous. I'm white. I'm told I'm attractive. While I AM a paranoid schizophrenic with high anxiety, I'm very medicated and very high functioning. I have psychotic episodes vs regular psychosis. I'm HIGHLY KEYED INTO noticing active threats around me (I'm told I'm just like my father and "too good at reading people for my own good"). My partner is highly keyed into noticing active threats (she's very much a "Wish a bitch would" kind of person on the daily). All this to say, it is hard to visually place the narrative on me that I'd be a threat in "men's spaces", and obviously they're not going to want to DEFEND me by saying I'M at risk in "men's spaces", right? That hurts their narrative. And I'm also not saying I'm inherently at risk. I have been at risk many times in my life and I somehow always have a guardian around. Could be a complete stranger, often is. But someone has always stepped in to have my back and get me out of the red zone. I live a very, very blessed life in that regard. What attracts the danger to me also attracts the safety. There is still safety, somehow. I don't know how. So I strive to be that safety for others. I also carry a knife. I have a long, very complicated history with sexual predators, pedophiles, psychological abuse, alcoholics, parentification, neglect, you name it. Mostly, I bore witness my entire life if not experienced directly. My earliest memories involve navigating info most people say "no child should ever see/know about". I'm damaged psychologically, both with my inherent natural status with my disorders (I identify as myself with them, and they're not an issue for me but for people around me) as well as the actual damage inflicted upon me by my lived experience. Part of that damage, which takes a LOT of conscious effort to override, is being way too damn blase about most of the topics I dealt with personally. They are so damn normalized to me that I struggle so hard to be empathetic or passionate towards others, especially children, who I know on a logical level do not deserve the level of dismissiveness I knee-jerk feel. I don't like that element of myself, and even then, I say those words but I don't... feel it too deeply. I feel it, but not as much as I should, I know this. Posts like your BRUNOs help give me a passionate mental state to actually grow and nurture that. I want you to know that. When I leave a random aside that I love your BRUNOs when I comment, I do mean it. You're helping me deal with a part of me I would rather snuff out, at least for the benefit of those around me. It does no harm to me to be rid of that element of myself, but can and hopefully would be a benefit to others. I do want to find therapy to tackle it in a more official capacity, but the struggle of finding a therapist that isn't religiously-tied, pro-LGBTQIA+, liberal, non-sexist, and the list goes on is so... so hard. That'll be a long path. For now, I read and absorb and appreciate things like your BRUNOs to try and cultivate more compassion in myself. And all this, because this particular BRUNO started with an admission that trans men can be invisible. Cheers, Sejian. I hope the worlds we live in stop being utter madness, but for now, arming with truth and knowledge.