First attempt at a wood/linoleum/whatever block print (well, first attempt since printmaking class six-or-so years ago) Not bad, i think. Managed to do the whole thing without stabbing myself once, which i think is a record for me. And it’s more or less clear what it’s supposed to be. I even got the ‘exist’ lettering (mostly) legible. Lessons learned: details are way harder than i remember (carving them wasn’t so difficult, but getting them inked just right was damn near impossible). And in large ‘blank’ areas the background-carving is going to show up at least a bit, so ‘carve it all out the fastest way possible’ won’t necessarily look good.

Oh, and because i just need to promote it damn near everywhere: prints available. But big fancy mass-produced prints, not the original. Well, i guess i could sell originals, but they’d end up being more expensive than the IK ones. Maybe i’ll toss some up on Etsy or something. Whatever, y’all know how to bug me if you just must have a crappy-but-one-of-a-kind print.

So, story behind the illo: the Illustration Friday theme for this week is ‘resolutions’. I could go on a big long-winded wordvomit on how i don’t do regular resolutions but i do want to learn woodcarving this winter, hence the block print, and i’m trying to be more… open, i guess?… of my neutrois existence. This is hardly a New Year’s resolution so much as a resolution i made some time ago… and have been constantly reminded of since. Because every damn day i hear some variant of ‘genderqueers don’t exist’. Trans* people are all mentally ill, androgynes are just trans* folk in denial, genderqueers are all attention-begging emo kids trying to look special.

And it’s like, whoa, people, why do you need to do this to me? Or anyone else, for that matter? We’re not hurting you, we just want to exist. Right, you think we don’t exist. And you need to tell the whole world your opinion on our lack-of-existence. Hey, do you think maybe we’ve all got the message nobody believes in our existence? Do you think the binary-gender bathrooms and the ‘male’ and ‘female’ check boxes on every form and the ‘can i help you sir, um, ma’am?’s seriously haven’t clued us in? Maybe if we’re still stubbornly insisting we exist it’s because we actually really do exist, and would appreciate it if you could just get out of our way so we can go on being Real People. GAH.

Also: Binary genders aren’t even fully supported by biology; there’s various surprisingly common intersex conditions, including ones in which a person has neither XX or XY chromosomes. Also-also, for the religious (or at least Christian-religious) naysayers: Galatians 3:28 = God doesn’t care.

Yeah, i’ve gotten a bit sick of having to fully justify a major component of my identity. Which apparently i should never bother doing because it’s totally irrelevant and i’m just one of those attention-begging emo kids for even acknowledging it, amirite?

I don’t think cis people realise just how gendered the world is. It’s not something they need to think about much so most of them don’t. And by extension they don’t realise how much of life is centred around whether you’re a ‘girl’ or ‘boy’ or ‘man’ or ‘woman’ and whether you’re a masculine/feminine/flamboyant/natural/etc version thereof. And then people like me get to hear shit like ‘I don’t see why this is so important to you.’ Um, because of all the years i spent going through ultra-feminine phases and still not being ‘ladylike’ enough. Because of all the people who asked me if i was a lesbian in a tone which implied their view of my worth depended on my answer. Because of the ex-co-worker who would come up with any reason to stand by me as i worked so he could stand there whispering ‘dyke. dyke. dyke. dyke.’

Because i’m a Real Person. And i’m never going back.