Brutkey

Tattie
@Tattie@eldritch.cafe

Edinburgh-based root system of starchy tubers posing as a trans woman. Trans liberation, autistic pride. autism heart_transgender 🥔🥔 heart_lesbian 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

I write things on Medium! Click #TattieWrites for a list of my articles on being trans and other thoughts.

#woman #trans #sapphic #lesbian #plural #witch #feminist #ActuallyAutistic #ptsd #widow #Scotland #Edinburgh

See pinned posts for introduction and image descriptions


Notes
12777
Following
0
Followers
0
Age
early forties
Pronouns
she/her
Location
Edinburgh, Scotland
Tattie
@Tattie@eldritch.cafe

Pinned post: profile pic

New year, new profile pic! Once again commissioned from the lovely @SummerKnight@mastodon.art

Cartoon drawing of me standing amongst overgrown marble pillars, Greek temples on the hills behind me. I'm wearing a slightly translucent purple halter-neck dress with a high slit at the thigh, low neckline, and floral pattern at the hem, and high-laced Greek sandals. I have bangles around my left wrist and a bronze sickle in my right hand, held loosely at my side. Around my waist is a garland of the cream and violet flowers of potato and nightshade. The sky above me is blue with clouds, where a kite wheels overhead. I am reaching up with my left hand towards an outsized ladybird beetle fluttering above me, a calm smile on my face. You can just about make out the cherry blossom tattoo on my left shoulder.
Tattie
@Tattie@eldritch.cafe

Pinned post: selfie

This is me. I'm a non-binary woman with long, wavy chestnut hair, white skin with a warm yellow tint, hazel eyes, and Mediterranean features. In this photo I have my hands on my hips and a gentle smile on my face. I'm wearing round tortoiseshell glasses, a black dress with fuchsia flowers, and a black pearl necklace. I have on mascara, winged eyeliner, and plum lipstick. Behind me are Christmas decorations-- fake pine garlands with huge red ribbons, wound round the stair rails.
Tattie
@Tattie@eldritch.cafe

New instance #introduction

I'm Tattie, a 40-something programmer who grew up every which where and is now happily settled in Edinburgh, Scotland. Proudly trans and autistic. Diversity, empathy, solidarity, liberation!

I write on Medium as https://medium.com/@tattie_potate

Tattie
@Tattie@eldritch.cafe

Pinned post: writing index

✏✏️ Fragmented Memories:
https://mastodon.scot/@Tattie/110418198876642782
My first piece, about "earliest memories" of transness, and seeking to find a new narrative of life.

✏✏️ Of Apples, and Yew, and Clouds:
https://mastodon.scot/@Tattie/110437622277931018
A short piece on a formative childhood memory.

✏✏️ Body positivity whilst trans:
https://mastodon.scot/@Tattie/110459988349154667
How do we reconcile positive thinking about our bodies with the trans experience of dysphoria?

✏✏️ What is gender dysphoria anyway? (And who decided it had to be a thing?)
https://mastodon.scot/@Tattie/110554635084754124
A Reddit meme that turned into a full treatise on dysphoria, or gender trauma.

✏✏️ On a God lost to me
https://mastodon.scot/@Tattie/110590243110088420
Who do you talk to when you lose your faith? And where do you go from there?

✏✏️ Saving myself
https://mastodon.scot/@Tattie/110684438408572523
My darkest piece, about surviving suicidal thoughts, and time travel.

✏✏️ Fear of Flying
https://cutie.city/@tattie/110856516422366639
An unexpected side-effect of transition. A quick piece written on an actual flight.

✏✏️ The double-shelled egg
https://cutie.city/@tattie/110895087800082534
What happens when your egg cracks, but you can't reconcile it with society's prejudices?

✏✏️ Grief and hope and how we change
https://cutie.city/@tattie/110978798330163969
On the relationship between grief and hope, and how each effects change.

✏✏️ Finding the will to transition
When you want to be everything you are not
https://cutie.city/@tattie/111700555640748728
A story of letting go of self-hate, and embracing what you can be

✏✏️ This brief, brief life
https://eldritch.cafe/@Tattie/113183799088575362
What becomes of our stories after we lose the person we share them with? How do we move forwards?

✏✏️ The right hormones
https://eldritch.cafe/@Tattie/113280103574861507
Are brains designed to run on either estrogen or testosterone? I have some reservations.

✏✏️ Finding my own space
https://eldritch.cafe/@Tattie/113335154532644774
Discovering one's own identity in the wake of first a marriage and then a bereavement

All articles can be found directly at https://medium.com/@tattie_potate

Tattie
@Tattie@eldritch.cafe

Remembering a moment reasonably early in #transition where I was in boymode and decided to pop into the supermarket.

And as I walked around, I started to notice... looks. Not particularly mean ones, just slightly longer and more curious than I always used to get

And I realised that my clothes might not have been femme, but my body language was. The way I was walking, holding my hands. I was probably reading as rather camp. And it was entirely subconscious. My entire being was just refusing to do the "cishet guy" mask anymore that had protected me thru most of my life.

And in a flash it dawned on me that no matter what I did now, whether I kept transitioning or not, dressed femme or masc, embraced the increasing curviness of my body or disguised it, I was visibly #queer. And would be for the rest of my life. There was no way back anymore, not that I could permit myself.

It's both powerful and scary, when the world has convinced you thru most of your childhood that the only way to be safe is to conform to something that isn't you; to say to yourself "I can't, anymore".

But that is what authenticity is. And authenticity is freedom.

Tattie
@Tattie@eldritch.cafe
Grief and grieving

My wife should have been 44 today.

Less than two years gone, and I'm alone with my grief. No messages of remembrance or condolence from friends who knew her, from my family.

They can't have forgotten the date, surely.

Maybe they don't grieve as I grieve. They face the pain with some sort of Protestant reservation. Quietly. Alone.

Fuck that.

Tattie
@Tattie@eldritch.cafe

"So... at what age did you realise that you wanted to play with dolls and not trucks?"

Fuck that shit.
I never played with dolls, never wanted to.
I read books, I built stuff out of Lego, I solved and created puzzles. Oh, and I climbed every tree in the neighborhood at least once.
And you know what? I took exactly after my mother that way.
And my sister was even less taken with dolls and dresses than either of us.
But the gatekeepers would deny my womanhood because my childhood didn't tick enough femininity boxes for their liking.
Fuck. That. Shit.
#Transgender

Tattie
@Tattie@eldritch.cafe

Thinking for some reason today of all the horror stories I was told about Eastern European socialist countries to characterise them as rapidly failing states.

"Systems and products never worked, despite all the glowing propaganda; people just shrugged and accepted it."

"Jobs and contracts were granted based on who you knew, not what you knew."

"Friends and family of the party could get whatever they liked, everyone else struggled even to get housing, food, and essentials."

"Unbiased reporting was nonexistent; the media just printed endless propaganda."

"You could be grabbed off the street by police for saying the wrong thing."

Tattie
@Tattie@eldritch.cafe

Arranged a group trip to a show called Late to the Party: The ADHD Hour, and:
Two people left late, are in a taxi rushing to get here on time
One person gave up in panic after they realised they weren't going to be here in time, and called it off
One person got here three quarters of an hour early, just to be safe

Tattie
@Tattie@eldritch.cafe

Surely I will not regret applying this to the outer surfaces of my body

A bottle of body wash, proclaiming itself to be "86.0% natural origin content". Below it, macro text tags "oh cool, my body wash is 14% ingredients of unnatural origin". The last four words are in a creepy "Zalgo text"
Tattie
@Tattie@eldritch.cafe

Pinned post: profile pic

New year, new profile pic! Once again commissioned from the lovely @SummerKnight@mastodon.art

Cartoon drawing of me standing amongst overgrown marble pillars, Greek temples on the hills behind me. I'm wearing a slightly translucent purple halter-neck dress with a high slit at the thigh, low neckline, and floral pattern at the hem, and high-laced Greek sandals. I have bangles around my left wrist and a bronze sickle in my right hand, held loosely at my side. Around my waist is a garland of the cream and violet flowers of potato and nightshade. The sky above me is blue with clouds, where a kite wheels overhead. I am reaching up with my left hand towards an outsized ladybird beetle fluttering above me, a calm smile on my face. You can just about make out the cherry blossom tattoo on my left shoulder.
Tattie
@Tattie@eldritch.cafe

Pinned post: selfie

This is me. I'm a non-binary woman with long, wavy chestnut hair, white skin with a warm yellow tint, hazel eyes, and Mediterranean features. In this photo I have my hands on my hips and a gentle smile on my face. I'm wearing round tortoiseshell glasses, a black dress with fuchsia flowers, and a black pearl necklace. I have on mascara, winged eyeliner, and plum lipstick. Behind me are Christmas decorations-- fake pine garlands with huge red ribbons, wound round the stair rails.
Tattie
@Tattie@eldritch.cafe

New instance #introduction

I'm Tattie, a 40-something programmer who grew up every which where and is now happily settled in Edinburgh, Scotland. Proudly trans and autistic. Diversity, empathy, solidarity, liberation!

I write on Medium as https://medium.com/@tattie_potate

Tattie
@Tattie@eldritch.cafe

Pinned post: writing index

✏✏️ Fragmented Memories:
https://mastodon.scot/@Tattie/110418198876642782
My first piece, about "earliest memories" of transness, and seeking to find a new narrative of life.

✏✏️ Of Apples, and Yew, and Clouds:
https://mastodon.scot/@Tattie/110437622277931018
A short piece on a formative childhood memory.

✏✏️ Body positivity whilst trans:
https://mastodon.scot/@Tattie/110459988349154667
How do we reconcile positive thinking about our bodies with the trans experience of dysphoria?

✏✏️ What is gender dysphoria anyway? (And who decided it had to be a thing?)
https://mastodon.scot/@Tattie/110554635084754124
A Reddit meme that turned into a full treatise on dysphoria, or gender trauma.

✏✏️ On a God lost to me
https://mastodon.scot/@Tattie/110590243110088420
Who do you talk to when you lose your faith? And where do you go from there?

✏✏️ Saving myself
https://mastodon.scot/@Tattie/110684438408572523
My darkest piece, about surviving suicidal thoughts, and time travel.

✏✏️ Fear of Flying
https://cutie.city/@tattie/110856516422366639
An unexpected side-effect of transition. A quick piece written on an actual flight.

✏✏️ The double-shelled egg
https://cutie.city/@tattie/110895087800082534
What happens when your egg cracks, but you can't reconcile it with society's prejudices?

✏✏️ Grief and hope and how we change
https://cutie.city/@tattie/110978798330163969
On the relationship between grief and hope, and how each effects change.

✏✏️ Finding the will to transition
When you want to be everything you are not
https://cutie.city/@tattie/111700555640748728
A story of letting go of self-hate, and embracing what you can be

✏✏️ This brief, brief life
https://eldritch.cafe/@Tattie/113183799088575362
What becomes of our stories after we lose the person we share them with? How do we move forwards?

✏✏️ The right hormones
https://eldritch.cafe/@Tattie/113280103574861507
Are brains designed to run on either estrogen or testosterone? I have some reservations.

✏✏️ Finding my own space
https://eldritch.cafe/@Tattie/113335154532644774
Discovering one's own identity in the wake of first a marriage and then a bereavement

All articles can be found directly at https://medium.com/@tattie_potate