Wanna know something kinda fucked up? Serotonin is the neurotransmitter that makes us feel good, right? Mostly wrong. About 95% of serotonin is made in your gut, appears to function as a key chemical in digestion, and there's a direct relationship between-- www.gastrojournal.org/article/S001...

I don't like drag shows. Performers? Fabulous. 10/10, no notes. But the shows are loud, crowded, usually boozy, and the audiences often give weird vibes. I'd say I'd love to hang out with folks doing drag with no show to go to, but that's just a cosplay convention. 🤣

I saw this post a while back and it stuck with me, and feels rather relevant here. Doesn't matter if your good actions are "performative", what matters is that you're doing them in the first place.

A tip: If the response you're writing to something someone else wrote about themselves includes a "suggestion" about praying Stop typing Hit delete Then turn your phone off. Literally nothing you could ever write that includes those things will be welcome or helpful. Ever.

Wait, hold up, I finally found a picture of how the insides of my body should look. *At all times*.

There's probably as many ways to transition, as there are trans folks...& none of us have 'The Trans Guidebook'. We've all just made the leap, & stumble forward, knowing only, it is what we MUST do... Transition is being scared shitless, & doing it anyway.

Since we were talking lipstick the other day: I put this lip on at 9 this morning. It's 7:30 now. I haven't touched it up, and I have eaten meals. Superstay is something else.

Someone offhandedly coined a word talking about this article: Dyssynthesia--pain caused by not having the right bodily composition. That... I like that. That feels right.

Learned a lot of things from this piece. I think Doc & I are a lot alike in this, but there are differences (I'm allosexual, for instance), which rather makes the tragic solitude of this piece resonate even more loudly. I usually call it gynoid gender, but words fail yet again ...Thank you, Doc 💕

If you were touched or intrigued by Panel Lines, today, my dear friend Nyri has a lot of important stuff to say about being altersex herself. I think you should give it a read.

Going for vibes today, I guess.

I am altersex. And... it's more complicated than that. This week on Stained Glass Woman, we talk about the Panel Lines I don't have, being born in the wrong century, and what it's like to live without the words to describe who you even are. It's a lot. stainedglasswoman.substack.com/p/panel-lines

I just learned There is a woman in Japan Whose full-time job Is to "massage" other women's breasts To make them grow. ...... *I got into the wrong line of work*.

Hey. Hey, you. Yeah, you, specifically. I'm glad you are the you you are. The world's better because you're you. 💜

Tomorrow morning, I'll be launching Panel Lines, my Stained Glass Woman article on being altersex, and the particular, quite unusual, way that I, personally, am altersex. It's a *six thousand word* mega-article. It's challenging, it's sharp-edged, and I really, really hope it connects with people.

Oh my God I felt this right in the solar plexus

Everything about transfeminine culture eventually circles back to Ranma 1/2, doesn't it? 🤭

This is one of those things I don't talk about much, but: I wrote my dissertation on the last words of every American citizen executed between 1985 and 2012. I analyzed the rhetoric of what they chose to say. So if you've ever wondered why I'm so fierce about justice, not law, that's partly why.

*Big exhale* Tomorrow morning. 24 hours.

Okay, crackpot half-asleep theory time: What if the reason that Boomers and Gen X are so sex-negative is that 5% of them are trans and self-closeted, so anything vaguely sexual makes them more aware of their bodies and gives them horrendous dysphoria? So, like, they lash out at sex-positive people.

So, how're we feeling about neon pink high gloss lipstick? Is this one a keeper?

Sadly Evergreen.

*Wakes up* *Checks phone* Jesus fucking Christ. I am, simultaneously, horrified, stunned, and completely unsurprised. Unthinkable. Monstrous. And yet, somehow, exactly what you'd expect from that motherfucker. Jesus fucking Christ.

In light of this dynamic, it is essential that universities claim and maintain their own autonomous sphere for knowledge-making, thinking, critique. As educational institutions, we should rigorously defend our realm, especially as regards teaching, against the pressures of tech sector shell games.

Wow, that's bittersweet, and captures A LOT of trans feeling.

Share a card that you like playing that you don't normally see during a commander game! I honestly think that Silent Arbiter should be a GC candidate. It's meh at cEDH levels, but in Bracket 3, it's absolutely a "deal with it or the game is forever warped for everyone" card. Insanely powerful.

I read this earlier today and it made my blood boil. Seriously, read this, and start paying your tips to the driver in cash.

10 years. Holy hell. Thanks for coming along for the ride all this time 💜

I am officially a middle-aged woman. I bought a "walking pad" (read: treadmill) today. I love living in the north, but when your main exercise is not an option when the world is frozen, and you're the kind of person who just plain need a half hour or so of exercise a day for MH, you gotta act.

I just had a great question on Ozempic derivatives (Wegovy, Zepbound, etc), generally known as GLP-1 agonists, on my Heavy Stuff article. In short: given how cautious I am about intentional weight loss there, GLP-1's can't really be safe, right? Wrong! stainedglasswoman.substack.com/p/heavy-stuff

I know I've said it before, but it bears repeating every now and again: Under no circumstances will I ever allow anyone to feed anything I've made to generative AI. I don't care how you feel--these works are my creations, and I do not consent to them being fed to copyright infringement machines.

Happy New Year, everyone. May it be better for us all.

Jezebel was, and continues to be, one of the last loci of real reporting left, and I will never forgive Hulk Hogan for his role in destroying it. Also, keep in mind that *every time* you hear from some corpo dem that they'll win if they sacrifice trans people, I guarantee they're on the listserv.

May this be the year we all stretch out of the dirt of the past and bloom proud in the sun.

Me too. It's fucking hard to be on your own, and transfem creators inspire the life into me. 💜

Uhh... what? Lmao, Merriam-Webster, at least pack the thing with words that'd make sense in the context of your gimmick. 🤣

Okay but actual health PSA: if you're transfem and you've been taking spiro and come off it and suddenly have a bunch of new problems, get your blood pressure looked at - spiro is actually pretty effective blood pressure medication and you might need dedicated blood pressure meds now

Hey, you. Yes, you. You, specifically. You deserve to take up space. To ask for help from your friends when your heart hurts. To share your joy at your triumphs at full volume. To live as the most authentic version of your self, no matter what other people think. You deserve to be life-sized.

A message for you all to carry through the year

Oh, and one last thing: SGW will be returning on Monday. It will be a jumbo, 5000+ word article. It is also the most deeply personal and painfully raw article I've written since the Black Box articles, and the most test-read since Beneath the Surface. It's the altersex article.

Here's to the hope that 2026 will be better than 2025 was. It doesn't have to be good. The bar is in fucking hell. Just... better.

Since a lot of folks are posting retrospectives on 2025, I suppose I should add mine: This year was a profound mix for me. I did the very best scholarly writing of my entire life this year, hands down, and I hope y'all get to read it next year with the (planned) publication of The Book. But.

Being both a page design expert and a book nerd is super weird sometimes because an author will use a weird, obscure, artistic font on their book's cover and your first reaction is "oh, that's [font name]. Neat that they could afford the $500 publication-use license!" 😅

What's your greatest impact on the internet? Mine is the site that cracked a hundred thousand eggs. gdb.fyi

What's your greatest impact on the internet? I accidentally wrote what has apparently become THE go-to piece on trans folks, kink, and figuring out your gender. I thought it was just gonna be the logical extension of another article's work.🤷‍♀️ stainedglasswoman.substack.com/p/beneath-th...