#me personally? they’re non binary transfem. they/it/she. in that order

[catgirl-valeria]

all of the supernovas are trans. epic games told me. they r all transgender in one way or another. send post

[chromaticroses]

okay i said some of this in a reply but i’m gathering my thoughts a little more and wanted to put it into a reblog

i want to start by saying that i agree with the vast majority of this post, i think it’s very well written and explains the misogyny of chapter 2 very well. i also want to say that my personal interpretation of chihiro is that she’s non-binary transfem and that i don’t really agree with or particularly enjoy most interpretations of chihiro as transmasculine, for a lot of the reasons that you pointed out in this post (and the fact that i just don’t think it makes much narrative sense lol)

that being said, you said in this post that interpreting her as transfem acknowledges and deconstructs this misogyny, and in a reply that it doesn't enforce the idea that her femininity is weak, and i have to say i don’t agree that a transfeminine headcanon on its own does that.

the canon narrative of chihiro fujisaki is that he is a man who is too weak to be a real man and therefore has to pretend to be a woman in order to find respite from being mocked for not reaching expectations of masculinity

this is an unbelievably transmisogynistic narrative. in order to even begin to tackle chihiro in anyway that deconstructs the problems with her narrative this must be acknowledged. the idea that trans women are only pretending to be women because they “failed” as men is rhetoric that is peddled by transphobes and terfs all the time. taking that narrative and doing nothing but making chihiro textually transfeminine does not do anything to deconstruct the transphobia, misogyny, and transmisogyny of that narrative.

i want to be clear that i am very much not saying headcanoning chihiro as transfem inherently reinforces this narrative. i’ve looked at your other posts and i think you do do the work of deconstructing that narrative, and so do a lot of the other transfem chihiro works i see, and so does, if i may be so bold, the way i personally write chihiro.

but it is something that must be deconstructed. you can’t just put the transfeminine label onto chihiro and call it not problematic. which is why i disagree with the take away from your post, here. because you’re presenting a narrative in which the author slaps a transmasculine label onto chihiro and does none of the work to deconstruct the misogyny— which is a bad thing to do! and i definitely think there are people who do do that! there’s a reason i don’t like a lot of transmasculine chihiro content. but that lack of deconstruction is not a given. it is very possible to write transmasc chihiro while deconstructing the misogyny and transphobia and transmisogyny of chapter 2. and again, i don’t personally think that it will be as compelling or narratively coherent as the deconstructions you can do with a transfeminine chihiro, but i definitely have seen these deconstructions over the years.

i don’t think it is possible to fix the problems of canon with just interpreting them differently. you can’t headcanon your way out of a bigoted narrative. taking a transmisogynistic coded character and interpreting her as being textually a trans woman doesn’t get rid of the transmisogyny, it just means that you’re interpreting that transmisogyny as text instead of coding. and i don’t think you necessarily disagree with me on this op, but i do think some of the wording on this post implies otherwise, which i don’t think is a great thing to imply. both because i don’t want people to think that they can just write chihiro as transfem without doing any of the work of deconstructing what that narrative means and assume that they’re not perpetuating transmisogyny, and because i don’t really think it’s fair to assume that trans men writing transmasc chihiros aren’t doing that work of deconstruction… even if i don’t personally like those deconstructions all that much.

So recently I made a post about why I think Chihiro makes the most sense within the context of her own story as a transfem. It was a post made right after an all nighter, so I'm honestly surprised how coherent I was able to make it lol, but anyways, I wanted to keep talking about it. I think I covered pretty well about why Chihiro being trans is more impactful for her, but not so much why transfem specifically, and not transmasc. Basically, the goal of this post is to explain why I think a lot of people are weirded out by the transmasc headcanon in a way that hopefully doesn't feel like an attack

I'm well aware that a lot of people that enjoy transmasc Chihiro are transmasc themselves, and see themselves in said interpretation. This is generally true of a lot of trans interpretations of characters, but especially here, as the canon explanation of Chihiro's character is "he feels immensely uncomfortable pretending to be a girl so people won't make fun of him." I myself used to adore the transmasc headcanon. I hc'd Chihiro as wearing a packer, that Kyoko could tell it was an artificial dick, and everything that followed was the class being Super Cool about trans people because it just seemed like the easiest out for all the transphobia within her story. Besides, I quite liked Chihiro, and 'boy who feels like he must dress like a girl for people to assume his identity' was something I related to a lot.

The thing is, the more I looked into that interpretation, the less sense it starts to make. Again, as a GNC trans man, I like to wear skirts and things like that. Clothes don't have gender, after all, and they can be way more comfortable than pants, especially when you don't shave. But Chihiro isn't GNC. Her story as it's meant to be interpreted expressly says feminine clothing makes her feel lesser than. She's described (by Monokuma ofc) as hating said femininity. It makes her feel weaker, like those skirts and female identity is an inherent weakness. And that's what I think the main problem is; even when under the guide of being a trans man, Chihiro's story still falls as one rooted in misogyny as most logically presented.

The story presented in chapter 2 is inherently male-centric, to the point where its title is "Boys' Life of Despair". It's a story about men, questioning the identity of men, and focused wholly on men. The one (canonically) fem character that's important to the chapter's plot is Toko, and only to perpetuate an ableist trope as a red herring. Even then, when Syo reveals herself, all her dialogue is explaining why men are so important to her. I don't think having a subplot that focuses on male characters or the concept of masculinity is a bad idea on paper, especially not when within the confines of an overarching plot that very much does utilize women as leading characters, but in practice, the plotline about toxic masculinity is used *at the expense of* women, rather than existing in tandem with them.

Throughout the entire chapter, it's established that women are weaker via Chihiro. When Mondo says that women are naturally weaker, Chihiro starts crying, and Mondo is made to apologize. HOWEVER, the reason he apologizes is not because of the blatant misogyny of the statement, but rather, because he yelled too loud. Even when Hina and Sakura are involved in the conversation, neither of them seem to care about the sexism. Even in the stage play, when Sakura DOES take offense to it, it's shrugged off as a gag, with Mondo saying she's 'special.' Sakura is held as an exception to the rule. AT NO POINT IN THIS CHAPTER IS THE ASSERTION THAT WOMEN ARE INHERENTLY WEAKER THAN MEN EVER CONTESTED. Later in the same chapter, Makoto (the player character whom we're supposed to be projecting onto) says that Mondo was right, and that girls aren't strong.

Chihiro's backstory and the way she views herself *as presented by others* only reinforces this idea. The parallels between Chihiro and Mondo are a story about strength and weakness. Chihiro is physically weak but mentally strong, and Mondo is physically strong but mentally weak. This is the point of them being paired together, and the foundation upon which everything else found in the chapter is built on. So when you have Chihiro, a canonical man who wears skirts, and give her an inferiority complex about her weakness that's inherently tied to how similar she is to women, you end up with an inherently misogynistic narrative. According to Danganronpa, Chihiro is weak BECAUSE of her similarities to women, as is enforced by the language used and the presentation of Chihiro's identity. Similarly, the assertion that Chihiro makes to Mondo defining her 'mental strength' is the assertion to no longer be fem-presenting, to destroy everything feminine about her and to become a 'real man' like how she perceives Mondo. This part by itself could be interpreted as transmasc, but when paired with the rest of the chapter's insistence of the weakness of women? It's not transphobic anymore, sure, but it still has that inherent core of misogyny, without any real acknowledgement or deconstruction of it in the way that the transfem headcanon does.

Ultimately, fiction is meant to be interpreted by those who consume it, and you can fanonize as much as you want. Just don't be too surprised when women, especially trans women, don't like the way you're interpreting it. It is always worth deconstructing your own biases and the way you consume media

[eldorr]

Desert Enbian

Plain flag (left), Flag with stripe meanings (right)

This term/flags were originally posted June 5th, 2022.

Last year or so (actually around 2 years now upon re-posting) I made my own take on the lesbian/gay/vincian/enbian flags since I am critinclus/radinclus. However one of the two posts detailing these flags was lost, so I am remaking/renaming them, along with simplifying and cleaning up some stripe meanings.

The original flags I made were 9 stripes, and I didn’t like the way I simplified them into 5 stripes, so I’ve decided to make a simple 6 stripe one. Some of these flags will look very similar to the ones I originally did, and some will look way different.

This flag is coined as a Enbian flag, however anyone who is Q4N (Queer for Enbies/Nonbins), NLN/KLK/XLX, or identifies their attraction to enbies as queer regardless of their own gender or other attractions. (Basically anyone who feels like a enbian, but may not 100% identify with the enbian label for any reason, is allowed to use this flag, as long as they recognize it as the Desert Enbian/Q4N flag. You could call yourself Desert Cenelian/Omni/etc in order to make that connection.)

This flag stands for inclusion and solidarity within the Enbian community, and between the Enbian community, other Q4N communities, and other non-primarily Q4N Queer communities (Lesbians/Vincians/etc). Generally just look at the stripe meanings if you want the general idea, I go into more detail for my reasoning below each meaning. This is a LONG POST.

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The Stripe meanings:

Top/Vibrant Aubergine Magenta: Aspec Enbian, Monospec Enbian, and Mspec Enbian inclusion and solidarity.

The Desert Enbian flag is radically inclusive of Aspec and Mspec enbians, even though I personally haven’t seen much anti-aspec or anti-mspec stuff coming from Enbian spaces, I do remember one time two people arguing with me that Enbian’s exclusively NLN, of which it never was or will be, so here we are regardless. Monospec Enbians should have solidarity with Aspec and Mspec enbians.

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Second Stripe/Vibrant Wine Red: Multigender Enbian, Genderfluid Enbian, Genderflux Enbian, Monogender Enbian, Xenogender Enbian, Agender Enbian inclusion and solidarity.

Of course these are not the only genders included under this stripe, however these are some of the more excluded and misunderstood even by general enbian spaces, so they’re here to explicitly say they’re included under this flag. Monogender Enbians should stand with Enbians with more complicated gender identities.

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Third Stripe/Orangy Red: Pronoun-Non-Conforming Enbian, Gender-Non-Conforming Enbian, Pronoun-Conforming Enbian, Gender-Conforming Enbian Inclusion and Solidarity

This stripe is here due to some exclusion in enbian spaces against feminine, xenine, and masculine enbies; believing that non-binary presentation can’t be masc or fem. This stripe is for explicit inclusion of she/her, he/him, it/its, neopronoun, nounself, emojiself enbians, fem, transfem, transmasc, azalean, carnatian, butch, femme, rosarian, transxen, xenic, amaranthian enbians. Gender and Pronoun conforming enbians should include and have solidarity with non-gender/pronoun conforming enbians.

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Fourth Stripe/Faded Orange: Enbian and Non-Enbian Q4NB inclusion and solidarity

This stripe is here to include non-enbian Q4N in enbian spaces, conversation, etc. This stripe stands for and includes anyone who has Queer love for enbies, and doesn’t primarily identify as a enbian. This includes saturnic, cenelian, celarsian, hecatolic, turquoian, etc. This stripe can also include enbians who are not explicitly Q4N, and may be NBLNBM/NBLNBW enbians. Non-Enbians are not the enemies of enbians, and enbians should include and have solidarity with other Q4N.

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Fifth Stripe/Hazel Yellow: Femme Enbian, Futch Enbian, Butch Enbian, Twink Enbian, Otter Enbian, Bear Enbian inclusion and solidarity.

This stripe is here partly for the same reason as stripe number three, however with the added notion that Femme/Futch/Butch are not lesbian exclusive terms, and that Otter/Bear/Twink are not vincian/gay man exclusive terms. There may be many reasons someone would use these terms, Femme/Futch/Butch generally relate to gender-presentation, and Otter/Bear/Twink generally relate to one’s body. Of which there is a lot of fatphobia in queer communities, so this stripe is primarily here to focus on challenging what a enbian “looks like”. Butch and Femme enbians are not the enemies of Futch enbians, and Bear enbians and just as valid in their enbian identity as Otter and Twink enbians. Be inclusive and have solidarity with other enbians, even if they don’t “look like” a enbian. Challenge fatphobia, transphobia, and queermisia in your own communities.

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Sixth/Last Stripe/Vibrant Dark Olive Green: Otherwise Marginalized Enbian inclusion and solidarity.

Like I mentioned in stripe number five, there is not “look” to being a enbian. This stripe is for the explicit inclusion of otherwise marginalized enbians, whether they be BIPOC, a religious minority, trans, intersex, polyamorous, chronically ill and/or disabled, neurodivergent, fat and/or a bear, etc. Include and have solidarity with other enbians, whether or not they’re like yourself. Challenge bigoted rhetoric in your own communities.