a goodbye and a little advice

hello, if your still reading this you've probably noticed that this blog hasn't been active in a very very long time, and so I've come to the conclusion that it's time to officially retire this blog. I have no intention of deleting it, my blog will stay here for as long as Google will let it stay, but I feel I've reached the limit of the personal growth this blog allowed, and similarly I feel I've almost hit the limit in the sort of help I can offer by running a blog of this kind.  so I felt it was time to end it, and for my final post and going to do my best to pass on some important advice for other trans girls who may find this.

 but first if you want to contact me, I still spend a lot of time online so you can probably find me on venatus.tumblr.com and from there you can also ask me for my steam ID or my skype ID (I don't do voice or video I just use it's chat feature). I'm always open to chat or to do my best to answer questions so please feel free to drop by, even just to say hi.

1. the most important piece of advice I can give is to find a community, whether you have to find online ones like I do or if you can find one near you, find a community.  unfortunately this one also comes with the biggest warnings, avoid any community that thinks gate keeping of peoples gender identities is acceptable. it doesn't matter if you don't have dysphoria or if your unsure if your trans or if you don't fit into either male or female, your still valid there's nothing wrong with you and you deserve a space to explore and express yourself.  communities that cater to non trans people are also something to be cautious of, I won't say their inherently bad cause I don't believe they are, but in my experience as they grow in size they will cater more to non trans people even when that involves hurting or belittling trans people.  even when that's not the case I feel there's a limit to how much someone can grow in their identity when those places are your primary source of community and expression.

for me I started off in a community that focused on the sexual aspect, and I've met some lovely friends their that I really cherish, but now I'm mostly using tumblr, and I feel that change has helped me grow significantly and has gone a long way in helping me accept myself.

2. find a way to express yourself, and do so regularly. I've gone through several, at first I used a role playing section in a forum, eventually I made this blog, and now I mostly use my tumblr blog.  whatever you choose try to use it regularly, even if it doesn't feel like you have much to add or say.  that's part of the reason why I tried to keep a schedule on this blog for a while.  trying to write something down even when I didn't feel like I had a lot to say really did help me open up to myself and I doubt I would have grown half as much if I just left this a "when I feel like it" update schedule. now using it often won't always require an arbitrary schedule but it is something you should keep in mind, the best medium for expression won't help much if you never actually use it.

3. try not to get attached to specific terminology or language it evolves fast in trans communities and I've seen a lot of people turned off by this fact, but finding a language that describes us while not demeaning or diminishing us is a challenge and one that is worth while. also note I'm talking about the words used to describe ourselves, not your identity.  language may change but don't feel ashamed to be proud and advertise who you are

and with that I bid this blog a fond goodbye, to all my readers past, present and future I would like to say thank you for showing interest in what this girl had to say and I hope to hear from all of you again someday.