Festa Junina or Festa de São João
Translating literally, June Festivities or Saint John's Festivals is a celebration on the months of June and July in Brazil. It originated from European midsummer celebrations and includes some similar traditions like a large bonfire (that seems to make a lot more sense in the southern hemisphere because it happens during winter months) and also a dance derived from palatial European court balls, modified and redefined with new meaning, related to popular and rural themes and paired with brazillian "forró" or country music.
Dressing up and dances
Traditionally everyone wears plaid shirts/dresses, straw hats, painted on gap tooths, very blatant blush on cheeks and lots of painted freckles, girls wear their hairs in pigtails and boys paint on moustaches and beards. This is the stereotypical exaggerated rural look, and is more common for kids to dress this way, while in parties with mostly adults it's more common to just wear plaid shirts, a straw hat and do some make-up.
The dances are choreographed but very standard between places, with someone announcing vocal cues for specific dance steps, switching partners, doing coordinated group moves and sometimes ending in a mock wedding.
Traditional food
Now, the best part of it all, my favorite thing from this time of the year, THE FOOD!
The traditional foods are super delicious and mostly made out of corn, like corn cakes, cural, pamonha, but there's also peanuts, specially sweetened peanuts, popcorn, sweet or salted, caramelized apples, quentão, which is a warm spiced drink, that may or may not be alcoholic and is one of my favorite things.
I'll try to update the thread with some recipes later or maybe just talk more about food, but I can't promise I actually will.
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Being trans sucks. The internal and body stuff, plus society. Worst shit ever. 1/10. And I could go on and on and on about either of those issues.
Nah, this ain't it, cis people are honestly so fucking mid and boring. Wouldn't want to be one of these losers, imagine a doctor looks at your junk and assigns you a gender and you just nod along and accept that bs, how fucking pathetic would that be?
I'd actually love it if I loved the junk I was given TBH, I am that much of a loser
Fair, bottom dysphoria can be a mfer. Thing is, what sucks about your situation isn't that you're trans, it's where you're at rn in your transition, how transphobic people are and so on. And it always helped me to hate that for what it is, things that are either temporary or external. It's not something that's integral to being trans and it helped me a lot to not frame it as such. You can change your voice, you can change your junk, and while you can't make transphobes go away [EXCEPT IN MINECRAFT], you can get to the point where you are mostly among people who treat you with respect and dignity and love. It's work, it's painful and i hate the whole trans heroism braver than the troops shit because i do not want to be brave, i want to be left in peace and be a cute critter that makes funny noises. But there's hope. Being an unrepentent t slur can be a beautiful thing that is worth fighting for.
I can definitely respect thats your experience and your like truth and all, I personally love being trans! It rocks! Even the early stages, there were parts that were rough as fuck but the euphoria was great. Later, Ive had HRT for a while, voice training, bottom surgery, and its all just background stuff (which is a great passive boost tbh)
So I do like the euphoria, lately that's been watching my tits come in, but there's just soooo much I struggle with. Like even just that I have to voice train, and get srs (and all the after), and ffs, and all of it is so much I hate it. Plus society. If I was post all of that I'm sure I'd dislike it less.
Thanks for responding :cat-trans:
yeah it is a lot of effort. totally discounting society, it takes so much energy and intentionality to mold yourself someone you can be happy living as. idk about you, but i was checked out for two decades because it was easier to go with what i was supposed to do than conceptualize and act on gender. now its so much goddamn work, all the time, but i feel so so good about it
i was reading an older academic book by a trans man and i thought this was very apt at encapsulating the level of effort that goes into our realities
but instead of wage slavery, it’s for yourself!
society is locations based unfortunately, but hopefully the center after the move can help!
For me, it was more about finally letting go and doing what I felt was right at a gut level rather than thought. Being a man took way more effort for me than being a woman ever did, because being a woman came as natural to me as being a mammal (so below the level of concious thought). Now, theres a whole lot of women in my life from family to friends to mentors to professors to people I look up to, that are alt, femme, resilient, strong, traditional etc so I had plenty of examples to learn from over the hegemonic ideal of Femininity™️
you know, that’s a good mentality. i hope to get there eventually, but practically it’s been a lot of steps in these first months. i’ve started to develop some close relationships with women i admire but there’s so much to learn/unlearn and figure out that i can’t say it’s come easy just yet. plus still being closeted in the workplace has been a major block on getting closer with anybody tbh.
i can totally see it coming down the line though. i don’t anticipate life always needing this much brainpower, but there sure has been a lot to figure out and process within the first year
It is not coming naturally to me 😭 the things I'd do for that to be my experience. This shits hard as fuck and takes so much effort.
Yea it really is :/ totally agree with that quote too.
Society is shit everywhere, maybe maybe Cuba is good for us. But overall everyone is pretty shit on us. I'm really hoping so though! I am really looking forward to it.
Even having had maybe the worst setback I could possibly imagine in my transition that costs years of time to fix, I wouldn't change being trans. I feel peace with who I am and comfort in my identity. Just want to add to the responses saying it doesn't definitively suck.
I know you had a huge setback... It is really hard for me to understand why you wouldn't, but I'm glad for you.
I feel like I get comfort from being a woman too, but discomfort from being trans.
I feel like I've seen the way you talk about yourself shift a bit as you progress in your transition, though. Do you feel like your outlook on transitioning has shifted at all?
I mean yea, it has a bit. Last night was especially bad for me tbh but in general I've been feeling better lately.
I don't know. I have been really happy seeing my boobs come in. But I'm still very pessimistic about voice training (both possibility for me as well as results I'll be able to achieve), Surgery seems like something I need to do (for me) but is still really intimidating, I still really care about passing in general. I feel more optimistic I won't just be stuck looking like a man. Overall I think I might feel better about it? Only because of how bad I used to feel about it.
I am still mostly dreading being out full time. Mostly because of family and work. Outside of those its quite exciting.
Tell me if any of this makes sense.
edit: oh, I'd like to add that lately, after showing someone some pics, I'm definitely feeling better about a few traits I was worried about. Hairline, shoulders, etc. Which does have me feeling a bit more optimistic.
Feel free to respond whenever you want/come back, if you want