IRL Daun (pics and info)

[Deleted]

I decided it's time to put together a little bit of information on me so you can know who you are talking to!  

My given name is Stefani Joy, and you may have seen me use that as my screen name. When I joined this forum I was struggling with my identity, and have since decided to go by the gender-neutral name Daun.  I am a 20 year old genderfluid individual residing in a very rural town in Oregon. I prefer using only they/them pronouns.  I bought a house here to supplement my animal addiction!  I work full time, but when I am home I am tending to my loving little family.

I've been a mustelid (and aquarium) lover for a VERY long time, this is from 2007!!



My family is from South Africa, and I have chosen to be a part of the Jewish community. I love helping out at my local ferret shelter, and creating projects at work. I work as a senior team leader at a cell phone company, and I very much enjoy my job.  My hobbies include art (traditional/digital/watercolors), pottery, and embroidery. My career goal is a tattoo artist, and I am currently saving up to get an apprenticeship and a license. 




This is me, now.  My animals are very important to me, and got me through a lot of hard times. My first pet was Diesel, 7 years ago, and he is still my baby.  My first "exotic" pets were axolotls, after I got into aquarium keeping at 15.  I've had all kinds of fish and up to 8 tanks in my house at one point, and ferrets have been my first cage-mammal type animal. 

My ferrets free roam in my room, which has a half-door to prevent escape. They have a Ferret Nation 182 cage, eat completely whole prey and occasionally go outside, or have a pan of snow to play in.  Enzo was diagnosed with insulinoma this month (December), but is doing very well on preds. We are hoping to add a third member to our business in 2016...

My mother currently lives with me, but she is planning on moving out to her own place in the next few years. So I will have an extra room in my house, and will have a bit more space for more family members... I have plans to own a few more ball pythons, a tiger salamander, and some fancy goldfish.  But those plans are a long way off, but we're excited to see how it goes.

Thank you for having me as a party of your community.

[Deleted]

I can understand the identity issues all too well. I went through it when I was younger and it was frustrating since I felt something didn't feel all 100% and I couldn't understand myself. I actually saw this youtube video by laci green and everything she was talking about when it comes to pansexuality just clicked for me. So now I'm pan-sexual and pan-gender. Pan gender is quite similar to being gender fluid. However I consider myself kind of gender blind in a way since I kind of don't say I'm a certain single gender. I was born female, and I have no issue with people seeing me as 'female', however when I look at myself (because in the end all that matters is how we see ourselves), I don't see myself as male, or female, I'm kind of... everything~ Sometimes I feel little more of one gender than the other, but its never one or the other at any given time.

You're a very creative person~ That's great! 
I would love to see some of your creations. I'm an illustrator (but on hiatus currently because I study business at the moment) I was also hoping to go down the tattoo artist as well. (Ended up going on to studying visual arts)
Good luck with saving up for that apprenticeship.

Wow axolotls are cool! I saw one once at a petshop and thought they looked adorable. I learnt recently that they're amphibians and carnivores. What do you feed them?

It's sad to hear Enzo was diagnosed with Insu, but It sounds good that he's showing improvement on medication.

Sounds like you really adore animals. I would love to see some photos of all your babies~

[Deleted]

Thank you! Arts are definitely my passion, alongside animals. Here is a few of my art:


I unfortunately do not have pictures of my pottery, and everything has been packed up for the winter, so I will not be producing any new pieces soon.

Axolotls eat brine shrimp as hatchlings, blood worms as juveniles, and common earth worms as adults. They've very simple animals, fed 2-3 times a week, at least 20 gallons per axolotl and a sponge filter. Sand or barebottom tanks only, cannot be on gravel. Live about a decade I believe? They're pretty awesome.

And photos of my babies? Honestly, it would be easier to link you to my blog than copy them all here. I love photographing my animals, and if you follow the links on this page you can see lots of pictures of each of them.

[Sherry]

Hi and welcome You are a very talented artist.

[Deleted]

MORE NON-BINARY/GENDERFLUID PEOPLE, HUZZAH! I'm Zeke <3 and I don't like any pronouns but they/their(singular usage) will do, or zhi/zhir/zem(pronounced zee/zehr/zehm) if you're willing P: But mostly Zeke.

O: Diesel is SO HANDSOME!

I can't wait to see some of your pottery! Your watercolors look phenomenal!

[anunnaki]

I have seen your animal family I believe and now it is nice to put a face to the name! I too think you are very talented and I admire your commitment to your animal family! Becoming a tattoo artist sounds amazing to me. I am not a talented artist lol but I used to want to be a piercing artist? Not sure if that is what they are called because I stopped getting facial piercings years ago! I would like more pictures of your art too. I love when people upload photos of anything haha it really makes the forum even more fun to participate in. Good luck with getting all of your goals sorted out!! On the other hand, I must admit that I had no idea that there were names for the way I or we feel! My husband loves to call me a lesbian (which annoys me to no end) and I know he is kidding but when he finds out there are actual names for what I am (if I am not mistaken about all of this) he will be excited. I have struggled with the same things yall are talking about almost my whole life. Machan, I too feel more male some days and more female other days and I am more comfortable being "everything." I have tried both and never felt 100% myself until now at almost 30yrs old I feel neutral/both and I am happy!! Yall just blew my mind and now I am going to dive head first into research to better understand this. I can show yall a couple of pictures to illustrate my point
Dressing like a boy at a very young age and then swinging dramatically back and forth over the years:

And of course my avatar is only a week or so old and I dress very neutral now with a comfortable mix of both. It's nice to talk to yall about this!!! I love this forum more and more!