I started blogging online in the early days of the internet during a time when netizens were few and internet culture was less synonymous with pop culture. Xanga was my platform of choice, and each day, I’d come home from school and write about my day or whatever happened to be on my mind. Eventually, that graduated to a Blogspot account that I aptly titled “Androgofem”, a term that resonated with me at the time that I borrowed from my favorite podcast at the time, Gay Pimpin’ with Jonny Mcgovern. That was my first attempt at an “official” blog, and I wrote about my own experiences and thoughts from the perspective of someone who, at the time, identified as “Gender Queer”. But today, I’m a very different person, with very different desires and goals. And yet, I feel myself drawn more and more to returning to the person I once was, but I think I’m finally mature enough to actually create the blog I thought I was creating back then. And my life is much more interesting now.

As discussed in my previous post, I’ve recently experienced a bit of frustration with both my Facebook page and twitter being hacked. Meta’s lack of response was, in a way, very empowering to me. If you followed my Facebook page at the height of its popularity, you know that at some point, virtually everything I posted went viral. I can primarily thank Facebook for catapulting me to the modicum of success I currently have thanks to my work for Everyday Feminism and the collaboration and support of Franchesca Ramsey; who also had her page hacked. My page was poppin’. I reached 4 million people a week and maintained a speaking tour for several months during the height of my page’s popularity. I posted virtually every day and I genuinely loved engaging with my followers. Now my page is being run by someone in Indonesia. Posting spam and false stories about celebrities that I would never care for (it’s not a secret that I am not a celebrity crazed person). Beneath those posts are other fake accounts engaging with the post to share it to other people and the hackers are already using my page to spread revenge porn and AI art. All on a page that is verified, with my name on it… The hackers effectively were able to receive more support from Meta than I did with my several contacts. I’m accepting that my page is a loss.

Surprisingly, with just a few clicks and email exchanges, I was able to regain complete control of my Twitter account and getting it back made me ask if I should, as a creator, entertain the idea of investing in a blue subscription to protect myself. That’s when I started thinking about how miserable the platform was and my feelings about twitter are fairly similar to my feelings about facebook. I don’t use either platform and neither are as relevant as they once were. If this is my job, and these platforms are important, why shouldn’t I invest in them? And to be frank, as I thought about that, I remembered a time where I would just log onto my blog, write what I wanted to write and I didn’t have to worry about the myriad of issues that come with sharing my content on other platforms.

Recently, I did a photoshoot with a rope artist and when I posted the photos on instagram, I was informed that the photos were explicit and for that reason, my profile was hidden. This frustrated me as part of my energy that has returned to me since leaving twitter has gone towards creating content for instagram and those photos were supposed to make the change of my profile looking a bit more official and professional. But no, instagram can’t handle a photo of me in a bikini. And that’s when I realized that I can just post these images… to my blog. There was a time where that was just what I did every time I took interesting/cool photos, but I had lost sight of that and just how much blogging in this particular format excites me.

While I’ve become more of a speaker and performer over the years, I am a writer at my core. When I started this blog, I did it with the intention of only posting incredibly profound things, but I realized after thinking about it for a bit that this was becoming a silly excuse for me to not post here. Something I’m trying to do more of is HAVE FUN doing this work. Frankly, I’ve spent too much time online taking myself too seriously and I don’t think any of you are really here just for that. So as an extension of my blog becoming more all encompassing of who I am as a person, I’m going to start posting here way more frequently and my instagram is going to be a space where I share my blog posts and romanticize myself. I think I will always continue to write profound things and I’m excited to just re-establish this habit I once had of sharing as freely as I once did in a form that is honestly far more accessible to me than video production often is.

I’m starting to think more and more about how people are fighting desperately to erase people like me. I used to feel like the trans women who created content of themselves looking good, but saying nothing were part of the problem. That they needed to use their platforms to draw attention to the real plight of transgender women. However, as time goes on, I recognize how immensely powerful it is to be not just be visible, but confidently so in a society that does not make much space for you to do so. Offline, I spend a lot of time going to fun places, exploring new spaces and building community with other weirdos. I’ll always be a Youtuber who makes video essays and such, but I want to start blogging about that. I think I needed something like my Facebook page getting hacked for me to really value having my own website and centralized blog. Through my content strategy, I forgot the power of having one page you redirect people to where the content is supposed to, theoretically, remain there. Expect to see more posts from me on here. Maybe I’ll even start a Substack.

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