#Supreme Trans Concepts

[rrcraft-and-lore]

In addition to my Monkey Man post from earlier, the always kind & sweet Aparna Verma (author of The Phoenix King, check it out) asked that I do a thread on Hijras, & more of the history around them, South Asia, mythology (because that's my thing), & the positive inclusion of them in Monkey Man which I brought up in my gushing review.

Hijra: They are the transgender, eunuch, or intersex people in India who are officially recognized as the third sex throughout most countries in the Indian subcontinent. The trans community and history in India goes back a long way as being documented and officially recognized - far back as 12th century under the Delhi Sultanate in government records, and further back in our stories in Hinduism. The word itself is a Hindi word that's been roughly translated into English as "eunuch" commonly but it's not exactly accurate.

Hijras have been considered the third sex back in our ancient stories, and by 2014 got official recognition to identify as the third gender (neither male or female) legally. Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and India have accepted: eunuch, trans, intersex people & granted them the proper identification options on passports and other government official documents.

But let's get into some of the history surrounding the Hijra community (which for the longest time has been nomadic, and a part of India's long, rich, and sometimes, sadly, troubled history of nomadic tribes/people who have suffered a lot over the ages. Hijras and intersex people are mentioned as far back as in the Kama Sutra, as well as in the early writings of Manu Smriti in the 1st century CE (Common Era), specifically said that a third sex can exist if possessing equal male and female seed.

This concept of balancing male/female energies, seed, and halves is seen in two places in South Asian mythos/culture and connected to the Hijra history.

First, we have Aravan/Iravan (romanized) - who is also the patron deity of the transgender community. He is most commonly seen as a minor/village deity and is depicted in the Indian epic Mahabharata. Aravan is portrayed as having a heroic in the story and his self-sacrifice to the goddess Kali earns him a boon.

He requests to be married before his death. But because he is doomed to die so shortly after marriage, no one wants to marry him.

No one except Krishna, who adopts his female form Mohini (one of the legendary temptresses in mythology I've written about before) and marries him. It is through this union of male, and male presenting as female in the female form of Mohini that the seed of the Hijras is said to begun, and why the transgender community often worships Aravan and, another name for the community is Aravani - of/from Aravan.

But that's not the only place where a gender non conforming divine representation can be seen. Ardhanarishvara is the half female form of lord Shiva, the destroyer god.

Shiva combines with his consort Parvarti and creates a form that represents the balancing/union between male/female energies and physically as a perfectly split down the middle half-male half-female being. This duality in nature has long been part of South Asian culture, spiritual and philosophical beliefs, and it must be noted the sexuality/gender has often been displayed as fluid in South Asian epics and the stories. It's nothing new.

Many celestial or cosmic level beings have expressed this, and defied modern western limiting beliefs on the ideas of these themes/possibilities/forms of existence.

Ardhanarishvara signifies "totality that lies beyond duality", "bi-unity of male and female in God" and "the bisexuality and therefore the non-duality" of the Supreme Being.

Back to the Hijra community.

They have a complex and long history. Throughout time, and as commented on in the movie, Monkey Man, the Hijra community has faced ostracization, but also been incorporated into mainstream society there. During the time of the Dehli Sultanate and then later the Mughal Empire, Hijras actually served in the military and as military commanders in some records, they were also servants for wealthy households, manual laborers, political guardians, and it was seen as wise to put women under the protection of Hijras -- they often specifically served as the bodyguards and overseers of harems. A princess might be appointed a Hijra warrior to guard her.

But by the time of British colonialism, anti-Hijra laws began to come in place folded into laws against the many nomadic tribes of India (also shown in part in Monkey Man with Kid (portrayed by Dev Patel) and his family, who are possibly

one of those nomadic tribes that participated in early theater - sadly by caste often treated horribly and relegated to only the performing arts to make money (this is a guess based on the village play they were performing as no other details were given about his family).

Hijras were criminalized in 1861 by the Indian Penal Code enforced by the British and were labeled specifically as "The Hijra Problem" -- leading to an anti-Hijra campaign across the subcontinent with following laws being enacted: punishing the practices of the Hijra community, and outlawing castration (something many Hijra did to themselves). Though, it should be noted many of the laws were rarely enforced by local Indian officials/officers. But, the British made a point to further the laws against them by later adding the Criminal Tribes Act in 1871, which targeted the Hijra community along with the other nomadic Indian tribes - it subjected them to registration, tracking/monitoring, stripping them of children, and their ability to sequester themselves in their nomadic lifestyle away from the British Colonial Rule.

Today, things have changed and Hijras are being seen once again in a more positive light (though not always and this is something Monkey Man balances by what's happened to the community in a few scenes, and the heroic return/scene with Dev and his warriors). All-hijra communities exist and sort of mirror the western concept of "found families" where they are safe haven/welcoming place trans folks and those identifying as intersex.

These communities also have their own secret language known as Hijra Farsi, which is loosely based on Hindi, but consists of a unique vocabulary of at least 1,000 words.

As noted above, in 2014, the trans community received more legal rights.

Specifically: In April 2014, Justice K. S. Radhakrishnan declared transgender to be the third gender in Indian law in National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India.

Hijras, Eunuchs, apart from binary gender, be treated as "third gender" for the purpose of safeguarding their rights under Part III of our Constitution and the laws made by the Parliament and the State Legislature. Transgender persons' right to decide their self-identified gender is also upheld and the Centre and State Governments are directed to grant legal recognition of their gender identity such as male, female or as third gender.

I've included some screenshots of (some, not all, and certainly not the only/definitive reads) books people can check out about SOME of the history. Not all again. This goes back ages and even our celestial beings/creatures have/do display gender non conforming ways.

There are also films that touch on Hijra history and life. But in regards to Monkey Man, which is what started this thread particularly and being asked to comment - it is a film that positively portrayed India's third sex and normalized it in its depiction. Kid the protagonist encounters a found family of Hijras at one point in the story (no spoilers for plot) and his interactions/acceptance, living with them is just normal. There's no explaining, justifying, anything to/for the audience. It simply is. And, it's a beautiful arc of the story of Kid finding himself in their care/company.

[theonevoice]

For fanart purposes, I've unilaterally decided that the current appearance of Heaven as we see it in s1 and s2 is just a reflection of Gabriel's taste for "(trans-historical) big tech minimalism" aesthetic, as represented by his beloved tailored suit, and when Aziraphale takes over as the new supreme archangel his personal preferences will re-shape the halls of Heaven:

Concept editing based on the Sainte Chapelle (Paris). Ignore the perspective errors, this was just to see how it would look.

[metalheadsagainstfascism]

"We're all on the same side. We're all on the same side."

I keep forgetting that liberals have like... no human decency. Especially in my local (mostly right leaning) community.

I keep getting called a troll for sharing leftist ideas with them or accused of being a MAGA plant.

Like I shared that meme about how Rowling is to women what Tate is to men. And no... liberals in my local community don't like that very much.

"Well Rowling didn't traffic women and blah blah blah."

Rowling's funding if anti-trans legislation is actively putting trans people in England in danger. Actively. Recently the UK Supreme Court ruled that trans women don't get the same gender protections as cis women because they're not "real women" and "gender is binary".

This action has signaled the go ahead for anti-trans groups to start fighting to roll back gender affirming care for trans people including hormones and puberty blockers.

So no... Rowling isn't actively trafficking women or whatever. But her voice as a TERF are just as harmful to trans people as Tate's voice as an misogynist.

I said what I said. If you don't agree with that, then you don't understand the threat that rolling back trans rights poses to trans people.

And I don't believe everyone on the anti-Trump side is on my side.

-fae

[kalinara]

So, I've been toying with this post a while, and I may well delete it like the chickenshit coward that I am. It's obnoxious, judgmental, and hypocritical. But what the fuck, I'll say it anyway.

Shut up about Harry Potter.

You're not a bad person if you liked it. You're not a bad person for not catching all of the hidden racism, sexism, whatever, that folks will smugly point out when explaining why they hated JKR's work all along. You're not a bad person for finding comfort in a work that has meant a lot for a lot of people. I maintain that.

But you can stop fucking talking about it.

Because here's the thing, fanwork doesn't operate in a vacuum. Every bit of non-critical meta that you post, every bit of art that you draw, every bit of fanfiction that you write - you are engaging with that woman's work. You are promoting it. You are reminding people what they loved about it. And you are encouraging people to bend over backwards to keep giving money to that woman.

Because people will. We saw it with Fantastic Beasts. We saw it with Hogwarts Legacy. We see it with the amusement parks. We're going to see it with that new series coming out.

Even if JKR had a truly terrible IP lawyer and doesn't get a dime from some of these things, they still serve as advertisement for her books. They still serve to tell companies that they should pay her money to adapt or license her property.

And she will use that money against trans people. She does, she has, she will continue to do so.

This is a woman who gloated today about that horrific UK Supreme Court decision, because she knows full well her role in making that happen. US politicians QUOTE HER to push their agenda here.

STOP.

If you MUST write Harry Potter fanfic, then file the fucking serial numbers off and write it as an original story. JKR didn't invent the concept of a British boarding school with magic. Make it different! Maybe lose some of the horrific racism and misogyny. Or at least give it a fucking point in the story.

If you MUST draw Harry Potter fanart, then change it up a bit. Wizard kids are a dime a dozen. Take out the scar, make some of them non-white, change the robe design and colors. Do your own thing!

If you MUST write Harry Potter meta...

Well, don't do it. Or write it out in a composition book and set it on fire in the backyard. There's no insight that you or I could bring to this series that outweighs the damage that supporting it and its author has caused.

And at the very least, if you are going to continue to support this woman, if you're going to advertise her work and put money in the pocket, then you're going to have to accept that people will call you out. And leave them the fuck alone.

[self-loving-vampire]

i think youre kind of constructing privilege as a concept in your head as merely an interpersonal thing as opposed to a systemic matter, which is a pretty normal misperception and most discussions on this website surrounding privilege refer back to this inaccurate conceptualization, even amongst people who largely frame their discussions as being about systems of power rather than individual interpersonal benefits. male privilege is not a matter of simply being treated better than women in most situations on a personal level-- it is that the entirety of society is designed primarily for white cishet men and tends to default to allowing them to run the world in lieu of others. that said, these systems which prioritize the default status of cishet white men can be perpetuated by anyone who is placed in a position of power, and often it is through this perpetuation and subsequent betrayal of their class that they acquire power (i.e. supreme court justice clarence thomas being a black man but largely supporting policies which are used to systemically disenfranchise black men. the same can be said for amy what's her face the charismatic catholic lmao) its often been said that even if every corrupt white cop were replaced, the system they work within would still incentivize and reward racialized violence in the name of the protection of white people's property

i do hate discussions of privilege on this website since they so often revolve around interpersonal matters that could much better be conceptualized through very basic concepts about in-group/out-group behavior. many people who are within the same class of people or subcultural group tend to trust people within that same class/subculture more than those who are outside of it, so the interpersonal power dynamics at play within a group of all women except one man will be completely different from that of general society, and the women will be more likely to trust each other and mistrust and potentially do harm to the man (even if he has done nothing wrong) which i think many feminists are resistant to acknowledge because it runs counter to the general narrative of women being eternally disempowered as compared to men (and morally righteous-- again, in-group thinking!) and you can naturally see this play out specifically in discussions of the power dynamics within the "queer community." yes, there are instances wherein the in-group is nonbinary nontransitioning people afab who are less likely to trust or side with transfems, but the inverse is also extremely true, and its clear that these groups, especially on here, react to that in-group/out-group dynamic by calcifying the dynamic even further, to the point where productive discussion is essentially impossible, because it concerns interpersonal power dynamics, but is framed as evidence of some system of power that incentivizes one kind of transness over another, which is demonstrably untrue, lmao. anyways... see ya space cowprince

It's not about how I personally construct the concept (if I was to use that framework at all I'd point out that cisgender privilege seems like a much more relevant factor, or that there's actually systemic matters that favor women). It's about how it is actually applied in practice, which almost always sucks but especially in the context of trans people.

This is why I described it as a bad faith argument. It often boils down to efforts to play oppression olympics by misrepresenting other people's experiences. Or worse: To do gender essentialism.

It would be foolish to ignore the context of how people actually use these terms in real life and what they really mean by them. The use of euphemisms and misleading branding like this is extremely common in politics.

For example, people who call themselves "pro-life" to mean they want to ban abortion, or people saying they are in favor of "parental rights" to mean specifically parental rights to mistreat their children.

The people who are desperate to pretend that trans women are oppressing them via invocations of "male privilege" are just as dishonest and paint a worthlessly inaccurate picture of the situation.

Especially given that a lot of the people who talk about this stuff don't actually have the knowledge to be making insightful comparisons of these experiences, so they fill in with assumptions that are often not true, or fail to realize how many of the benefits are conditional or highly restricted.

For example, a lot of those old "privilege checklists" from last decade simply assume that men never experience any kind of sexual violence.

People kinda just make shit up about what people outside their own gender do or don't experience.

(Not just about men either, I have seen similarly absurd arguments by incels who think women cannot be legitimately depressed or that women are "playing on easy mode".)

[popculturebuffet]

Coagula and Rachel Pollock Tribute: The Laughing Game and Shining Through the Wreckage Review: Put a Trans Lesbian on the Supreme Court

In Loving Long Overdue Memory of Rachel Pollack 1945-2023

Happy pride all you happy people! It took a bit to get to my annual pride coverage but i'm proud to finally do this one. It's one i've wanted to do for a while. As a brother, uncle and friend trans folks and with the right having made trans people their scapegoat djour, it felt like the perfect time to spotlight some trans media this pride.

So starting us off i'm looking at one of DC's most criminally underused and underrated superheroines... and their first trans one.

Kate "Coagula" Goodwin was created by trans activist, writer and pioneer Rachel Pollack. Pollack had a long career before writing the strangest heroes of all and I was plesantly suprised to find she was one of the first out trans writers, not an easy thing to do and even more stunning when you realized she was doing it in the 70's. She was an activist, tarot expert and all around neat person I need to read more of and she sadly passed two years ago, and ever since i've been trying to do this review in her honor.

Kate was a member of the Doom Patrol, one of my favorite dc teams and far and away it's weirdest. Given some of my other faviorites are teens from the future and said teens from the future's niche but loveably enduring rejects, it's not a huge leap.

For those less familiar with the strangest heroes of all the Doom Patrol started in the 60's: The Chief, an engmantic wheelchairbound genius, gathered three people who all had been the victim of a tragic accident that also gave them superpowers.. and unlike most cases in comics it destroyed any chance of a normal life. This was just around the same time Marvel came up with the thing, so it was not only a radical concept but a brilliant one. They were the negative man, test pilot larry trainor who got irradated what bad on a flight and had to be wrapped in special bandages to not die and could release a negative spirit from another dimension fofive minutes at a time, Elastigirl, no not that one but Rita Farr an actress who found some strange goop and could now grow giant and this being the 60's was considered a freak for it for some reason and Robotman, Cliff Steele a race car drive whose body was destroyed in a wreck so the Chief put it in a robot.

They became the Doom Patrol, deciding to fight for a world that hates and fears them and long before that was the x-men's main goal. Having read a chunk of their silver age run the doom patrol is awesome and mixes the kind of weirdness you'd expect with their main foes being a brain in a jar and his gorilla boyfriend, alien invaders and of course animal vegtable mineral man

I do not have time to explain Animal-Vegatable-Mineral-Man but you deserve to know he's there.

The book sadly got canceled and ended with a bang, the patrol sacrificing themselves to save a small town with a population of 14.

The Patrol ended up in limbo. Writer Paul Kupperberg spent the 70's trying to revive them. Kupperberg's heart was in the right place, but he made the team a more standard superhero team which defeated the purpose: while they did standard superhero stuff, they were people with disabilities getting on with their lives in a world that rejected and othered them.

Thankfully when editorial looked to revitalize the book, they found the right weirdo for the job: non-binary icon, writer supreme and hero to queer bald nerds like myself everywhere, Grant Morrison. Morrison's Animal Man had been really popular so they were given their pick of obscure titles and Grant wanted the Patrol, and Kupperberg graciously agreed to kill most of his team to leave the slate clean.

So Morrison rebuilt the team from almost scratch: He only kept three members: Robotman, Dorthy Spinner, one of my faviorite characters and a tween with the face of a chimp, a heart of gold and the power to summon her imaginary friends to real life, and Josha Clay, tempest a guy with temprature powers who was made support crew. Another one did come back but it was in a weird coccoon and not as a member.

Adding to the team Morrison revamped negative man, having larry merge with the negative spirit and his nurse to become the nonbinary icon Rebis, complete with triangle shades, and rounding out the trio and replacing Rita, who sadly remained dead for decades, was Crazy Jane, a woman who'd been hit by the metagene bomb that recently went off, long story that and had DiD.. and a power for each personality. They didn't add onto the team much but did make their home eventually in my faviorite member danny the street: a sentient genderqueer street and refuge for other queer people who can appear anywhere they want.

Morrison's patrol is one of the most gloriously weird, sometimes incomprehensible runs on a comic of all time: Morrison was serious in their promise to make the team not only weird again but as weird as possible: Instead of a brotherhood of evil, they fought the brotherhood of dada lead by a former brotherhood of evil member who was just.. a guy who got bent into the loveably nonsenical mr nobody who had no clear goal, spoke nonsense, used a painting to eat paris then as an encour near succesfully ran for president using a bike that made everyone trip on lsd. And that's not getting into scissor men who snipped people out of reality and spoke in nonsense, a department of normalcy, the team teaming up with 50's muscleman flex mentallo, hero of the beach with super muscle powers, and of course the beard hunter who wanted to shave the chief's beard for his collection. The Patrol was unafraid to be weird, non commerical and it made it a rousing success and the blueprint most future runs followed and the ones that didn't tended to once again try to make them more traditional heroes which how can you keep them down on the farm when they've seen a painting eat pariee? Come on.

When Morrison decided to bow out, with Tempest dying, Rebis having to go now their planet needed them and Jane being rescued from a nightmare reality by a now planet sized Danny. That left the deck clear again and a vacancy. Pollack campaigned for the role playing a fan who wanted to write the new book, aka herself just not having already basically gotten the job.

Pollack's run kept the weirdness of morrisons but made it less abstract and more about found family. What little was left of the team settled into Rainbow estates, with Cliff not exactly happy to be on the same team as the Chief as it was revealed at the end of Morrison's run he'd caused the accidents that created the original team and then tried to conquer the world.

Thankfully the team found stable loving new leadership who put up with miles but were clearly more in charge. George and Marion were two free spirits who were kidnapped by the goverment an dmade into bandage ghosts. They escaped and found a home in rainbow estates which due to a lot of weird sex related deaths had a bunch of sex ghosts around it. They became the parents Dorthy always needed, valued emotional support to cliff and a needed check to The Chief. There was also charlie, an omnius puppet what talked to Dorthy who despite having a creepy face was entirely a good guy. The team remained weird, but had more of a nice, peaceful vibe to it. It makes what happened to this incarnation so much more infurating but we'll save that for later.

For now we're looking at when Kate enters the picture and i'm not going into her too much as the issue gives us her full origin story, and her resurrection last year. Yeah she died, and it's a whole thing we'll get into after we meet her under the cut.

The Laughing Game

We begin issue 70, Kate's intro with a tale that's gotten more and more relevant with time, of a man who makes his own insecurities everyone else's problem. We never get a name for this gentlemen outside of the codename he picks and i'm letting the comic speak for itself. This chap's supervillian origin story is as pathetic as it is common

Yeah this woman made up a really thin excuse to try and turn him down.. and his result was "GRRR HOW DARE SHE SOMEHOW MAGICALLY PREDICT MY DONGER IS TOO SMALL". And look as someone whose been unintentionally creepy with women in his youth, it's better to just firmly state your not intrested.. but I also completely get WHY many women don't: Some men can turn violent and given this one in particular will spend the rest of his life paranoidly assuming every rejection is because he's not packing, she's very lucky he just stood there grimacing instead of trying to put a hand on her or shouting at her calling her a whore or some such nonsense.

He doesn't stay unshouty for long as we see him in college where he yells at a woman he was "dating".. aka just went on three dates blaming his small member for it. He upgrades to grabbing a woman and saying "bitches" in adult life. It's a slow gradual and realistic escalation and works so well because it's realistic. Had this guy just worked on himself or gotten some help, he could've seen the problem was he was clingy and obessive, glomming onto every woman and then falling back on the same excuse again and again. When a surgeon he goes to to get enlargment surgery suggests therapy, he says "You want to shrink my head make it small enough to fit the rest of me is that it?"

And gets defensive with a sex worker who isn't even mocking or caring that he isn't packing.

Okay so first, women, and any gender, .. have every right to have a size preference. While I haven't done anything myself I've picked up from media that some can be too big, some can be too small. You have to find the one that's just right for you. If your fine with oral , toys or other ways, then great, there's a workaround. Everyone is different sexually and it's clear Pollack is aware of that and uses that.

The second is what makes this character work so well.. this idea that the problem was never physical.. it's mental. The problem is in how the guy HANDLES rejection, finding a coinvent excuse instead of looking inward. I learned from the many rejections i've had and realized how I done fucked up. Sometimes I didn't they just weren't intrested sometimes I was creepy without meaning to and adjusted my behavior.

This douche on the other hand simply blames the women "Their not satisfied with someone like me. It's them. it's their problem! "

It's something we see online far too often with people like incels, who blame women for not fucking them, various assholes complaning about women "not being sexy anymore" in video games when their just.. not as fanservicy and often still attractive and frankly that's a you problem anyway, or in one case complaining about a statue's boobs.

If I had a nickel for every time i've had to bring this stupidity up i'd have two nickles.. which isn't a lot but it's infuriating and unsurprising it happened twice.

It is incredible to not only see this represented in the 90's but so well. This is a villian who could easily make a comeback for the modern eras but in many ways is so perfectly used as a one and done here, a perfect symbol of toxic masculinity and trying to "fix" the wrong things about yourself that i'm reluctant to.

And yup I wasn't just being cute this really was his supervillian origin a fun wholly realistic parody of how petty supervillians are and how petty toxic masculinity is cumilating in the reveal of his name

Codpiece is objectively funny. See the Bronze and Dark Age of comics, while not lacking in great villians like The Iron Monger, Apocalypse, and Venom was not batting a thousand. A lot of villians really aren't that far off from Codpiece in terms of rediculous gimmicks. Like a pre-revamp calculator

Or mindworm

For every fantastic villian there were 8 or so who were just mid and either got heavily reworked or banished from time and space as they deserved. The fact Codpiece wasn't some one off batman villian james gun worked into the suicide squad is a stroke of fate and satire. The fact he wasn't in the doom patrol show at all, much like Kate herself is a shame and the fact he's not in the DCU yet is simply a matter of when rather than if. I know he's already got plenty of roles showing off his talents, but please put Sean Gunn in a giant cybernetic strap on to get punched in the face by someone.

We then get to our main cast as George and Marion plan to go out for the day. Cliff is rebuffing attempts to go along: he dosen't fit in, hates his body (even though the two assure him his is lovely). It really sums up the character: Cliff will protect humanity because no one else can fight the things they fight the way they can. But he's under no illusions he'll ever be accepted and chooses to wallow in self hate and the hate around him. Dorthy is staying to keep an eye on cliff. But I love George and Marion's reasons for going out: they should be out in the world, their normal as anyone else. THey also take some of the sex ghosts with them which should be handy later.

We then meet Kate and her introduction is just perfect: casually hanging out with a friend of hers. She came into town for her birthday and they go into a bar where everyone knows their name, accepts them.. and allows Kate to do her trick: she can make things coagulate aka change a fluid to a semi solid state or change a solid to a liquid. It's all very scientfiic, very specific and a perfect fit for our heroes: Something useful.. but something weird that you wouldn't see on a children's cartoon back then.

Kate has agreed to give her friend her secret origin story. Kate is a freelancer having talked about having done trucking, computing.. and being a sex worker. There's a modern lack of judgement in Kate's career that's refreshing, with Pollack being just as caring to sex workers as she is to trans people, treating them as they always should've been treated: like anyone else. It's just what she does to get by sometimes.

One of her clients turned out to be Rebis. It was so good and weird she didn't take their payment and the negative spirit came in and out of her a few times in both ways. As a result Kate gained powers... at least as far as she figures and so far canon has just gone with this and i'm fine with it. We don't know if Rebis had other partners at the time, if Larry could do the same, because no one's really bothered to unpack this concept and for Rachel it was just a way to give Kate a connection to the team's past.

Speaking of a team's past there's a bit of the origin that's a bit thorny for me personally. When her friend brings up being a superhero Kate admits she treid that... and got turned down flat

The reason this is thorny is given the timing, it had to be during Morrison's run... it was likely the Justice League International that turned her down, aka one of my faviorite superhero teams ever.

That said i'm not so thin skinned about my faviorites that I can't imagine that some of the league would do this. And by some of them... I mean Guy, guy did this. For those who haven't googled him for his upcoming role in Superman Guy Gardner is a green lantern... and was also a right wing asshole who no one else on the team liked and was mostly kept for a combo of his powers and the fact he'd probably sneak in at night and wreck up the place if they fired him. So a guy who saw sylvester stallone as his hero, licked regan's boots and would've gladly declared war on russia if someone asked him to and once nearly created an international incident.

It's also just as likely that Maxwell lord, 80's business man who was the team's manager basically... woudl've done it. I don't think he woudl've been as bluntly transphobic or sex worker phobic as guy, but he defitnely would've wanted to make some changes or not have her be publicly trans, both things Kate would rightly find a dealbreaker. The rest of the team I think would be fine with it and at most just put their foots in their mouthes. In paticular Martian Manhunter is only not nonbinary because they haven't got around to classifying him as such (if with he/him prounouns), ice is lovely to everyone, Fire seems open and Ted isn't mean. He'd probably again put his foot in his mouth. It may just be me thinking the best of characters I love and I have no doubt they'd fumble the bag somehow in handling it. But I also can't imagine any of them being super bigoted except guy and I want to make it clear that while still an asshole, I can't picture modern day guy in the comics being transphobic. He's not a right winger anymore far as I can tell, just a douche. He's a prick to everyone equally.

So back with Codpiece whose taking his wonder wang on a test drive: it fires off like a gun, has a drill, a sonic canon and just for added subtley fires off rockets everywhere. He decides to hold the city ransom after doing some light bank robbery. NO ONE CAN STOP CODPIECE.

To stop Codpiece enter George and Marion who first just go about their day. Marion has the proper response to an obnoxious kid who wants to take their bandages off and won't ask

And one of my faviorite scenes with the issue which shows off WHY I love these two and how much this issue has reminded me why George and Marion are fantastic and criminally underated.

It's such a powerful scene.. and a beautiful one. These two would have every reason to tell this woman to fuck off, having her tell them their brave.. just for existing as they are. instead she politely tells her... their happy. They enjoy themselves. They suffered great tragedy.. but they love their lives. It's a nice counter to the core misery the patrol have often faced an acceptance that yes their diffrent, always will be.. but they can live just the same and be happy as who they are. And when the girl breaks up in tears.. they comfort her. Because alice isn't saying that to be a passive agressive bitch or anything: she shouldn't have and it was still offensive and it's good she learned, but there's no reason to laugh at her for it. It takes a big person to let that slide off and offer instant forgivenss.. but they do. It also shows a diffrence in how they handled the kid: this woman wasn't being hostile.. she was just being stupid in a way that can be all to common, pitying someone for their disablity instaed of treating them like anyone else... something i've been subject to myself with my autisim. It's fine to offer help when someone needs it.. but someone shouldn't be ashamed to be who they are or told their brave just for existing and be patronized. Just be accepting, be open and don't be a dick.

Our happy couple notice the explosions, leave their bags with Alice (though tell her to run if things get intense) and we get a neat battle. They dont' do much to cod piece, but it's still a fun action scene including them releasing the sex ghosts.

They don't scratch captain compensating for something but do distract him and make enough ruckuss Kate notices and uses a frog mask she got earlier to give cod piece his just deserts

Kate talks with the couple who are impressed and greatful. Kate brings up Rebis but they don't know them.. they'd like to though. They'd of loved them. But they do offer her a spot on the team all the same, offering to explain it on the way.

We'll ignore the rest of the issue as it's a lead in to the next arc... but the laughing game is an excellent issue, cod piece being a perfect parody of over the top villians and toxic masculinty with the pitiful ending he deserves, his dick exploding, and Kate getting incredibly fleshed out in just one issue.

Kate would join the team.. she almost says no because the Chief is an asshat, but relents and soon becomes a loved member of the family and very close to Cliff, especailly after the two merge breifly. The comic dosen't hold back either: Cliff is transphobic for a bit after finding out, claming she can't be a woman even though she removed her penis .. and she fires back he dosen't have one either so how the hell is that a qualifier. What matters is what you feel and seeing her past, feeling who she is... gets him over himself and to apologize, the two becoming very close. What's groundbreaking is they do form a relationship.. but i'ts platonic. Kate is only attracted to women, that sticks, and Cliff is effectively celebate. It's a relatoinship between a trans woman and a possibly non binary robot that's beautiful.

Now you may be wondering where Kate went and sadly talking about good storytelling is supsended for a second. Sometime after Pollack's run came John Acudi's one I haven't read that did have an intresting setup: a new corprate team including cliff using the name, that seemed to be more tradtioinal.. but it was a swerve. The problem was for no real reason Arcudi decided to kill off what was left of the previous team: While George and Marion were spared, Dorthy's powers went wild putting her in a coma and killing kate with Cliff later taking Dorthy off life support. IT was a stupid shock death and a tone deaf fridging of a beloved trans character and another beloved character for no reason.

What's weirder to me is Kate.. took till 2022 till someone tried to ressurect her. While the Doom Patrol got a big come back in the late 2010's early 2020's thanks to Gerard Way's run and the excellent TV Series i'm bound to cover some day (Possibly after I finish giant days)... the Pollack run was left ignored and George and Marion didn't return till a 2023 halloween special for a cameo. Why Way did this I don't know: it dosen't ruin his run for me but it is disapointing as while I get glossing over some runs like Arcudi's, Byrnes or Giffens, Pollack's is so perfectly in line with both what way was doing and with morrison's run whlie being it's own thing it's a shame.

An attempt WAS made to ressurect Kate with dc's first pride one shot in 2022, something they've done every year since, also bringing back dorthy to my delight.

That sadly was short lived. The next writer for Doom Patrol decided "You know those beloved characters.. their still dead so cliff can angst! And you know what would be fun? If I dug up dorthy's corpse to have the big bad use it as a weapon?"

Yeah this was awful and I stopped reading Unstoppable Doom patrol before we got to digging up a beloved dead character for shock value. Hopefully someone brings Dorthy back next time the team rolls around. The timing was not helped by the fact Kate and Dorthy were revealed STILL DEAD right before Pollock's death. While that wasn't obvioulsy planned it did make the tributes ran for her ring hollow.

Thankfully dc made up for it and in 2024 we got Joe Corallo's Shining Through the Wreckage, a story that reconciles both of these.

SHINING THROUGH THE WRECKAGE

This story picks up shortly after the whole descreation of a corpse thing and also makes it clear the previous sightings of kate were in fact canon: something is up and Will Magnus, creator of the metal men and long time ally of the patrol has figure dit out: due to their being mentally merged that one time, a piece of kate is stuck in Cliff's head.. and could be a way out for her. Their at the pentagon for two reasons: the first is that a tower of babel , what merged them once, is under it. Long story there. And during another story a copy of cliff's conciousness was sold on the internet. This story is pretty much a long cavlcade of nods to Pollack's run and I love that.

In the dreamworld or wherever she is Kate is woken up to a bunch of wild rabid children, the results of an anthro fox's evil schemes. She frees the kids, and zooms into her next memory. The False Memory a villian who parodied edgy backstories by giving kate one where she was raped.. that she rejected. So once Kate realises who it is she rejects it... though the False Memory of the False Memory hopes she finds the real one some day as she feels her real world self is probably also contrite.

Finally Kate auditions for the justice league again.. and is offered to stay by superman who naturally never would've tolerated the shit she went thorugh.. but she can't stay. She has a life to live and will see the real george and marion when she gets out. Cliff finds her after that and since she can apparently access other realities with computers

She is brought back iwth a kiss.. and some coagulation to escape the grave. Kate is back... and she was always there. Hopefully we'll see her again soon but for now thanks for brining her back dc.. and thanks rachel for giving us this gift. I miss you and I wish I could've met you but I hope wherever you are up there... your happy.

[ezkel]

transphobia is such a strange concept to me, there have been trans people all throughout history. and not only in humans, there are several animal species that portray "gender non-comforming behaviours" (as the researchers say) the idea that some people cannot accept something that has been part of life for thousands of years is odd, disturbing and makes me concerned for their lack of intelligence.

Jkr donating that money and the UK supreme court ruling against transwomen's very existence is disgusting. and not only that but really shows that not a single person in that room knew anything about what they were ruling on. even IF their horrendous transphobic beliefs were correct, they talk of biological sex but are they even aware of the existence of intersex people? are they aware that even biological sex isn't just "man" or "woman". have they ever considered doing even a moment of research into a topic they're making laws around.

anyway, historical transwomen for you guys to do some reading into: Elagabalus, she was a Roman emperor (for four years before she was assassinated at 18), there is evidence that she told people to call her lady instead of lord, she often dressed like a "lady sex worker" there are even reports of her trying to remove her genitals and asking for a doctor to give her gender affirming surgery, however, the surgery did not happen.

go read into her and go read into more of the dozens of people in history that we have found evidence into being trans, because knowing history is important when it comes to paving the path for the future.

[mariacallous]

The most heartening, and maybe most important, event of the Trump Administration so far arrived just before 1 A.M., on Saturday, in the form of an unsigned order from the Supreme Court. The order—responding to an emergency request to prevent the immediate removal of Venezuelan migrants—was gratifyingly unambiguous. “The Government,” it said, “is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court.”

Thank God for the Supreme Court. This is not a sentence that I have been accustomed to typing in recent years—not since President Trump, during his first term, engineered a six-Justice conservative super-majority. But, at a time when the legislative branch has been shamefully supine and the public has been alarmingly complacent, the federal courts represent the last best hope—at least, until the midterm elections—of combatting Trump’s outrages against the Constitution.

Lately, the federal judiciary has responded with impressive speed and fortitude to Trump’s fusillade of executive orders and other actions. Judges across the country—appointed by Democratic and Republican Presidents alike, even Trump himself—have rebuffed the Administration on its attempt to eliminate birthright citizenship, its effort to bar trans people from serving in the military, its crackdown on law firms whose attorneys and clients Trump dislikes, the moves by the Department of Government Efficiency to obtain personal information stored in government databases, and more. Though the courts have not invariably ruled against Trump, the Administration’s record so far is, to use one of the President’s favorite words, sad.

But it was not at all clear—in fact, it was disturbingly uncertain—how the Supreme Court would respond to this onslaught of cases. The conservative Justices may not all be fans of this particular President, but they are generally inclined to an expansive view of executive power. This is the Court that just last year gave us Trump v. United States, with its inflated concept of Presidential authority and extensive grant of Presidential immunity from criminal prosecution. And, in the few cases challenging Trump’s executive orders that have made their way to the Court, its messages have been repeatedly—and, I believe, deliberately—muddled. The Justices give and they take, sometimes within the same opinion, as in the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man who was deported to a prison in his home country in what the Administration admits was an error. Earlier this month, the Court said that an order by a federal judge “properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.” Then it left a loophole big enough for the Trump Administration to disregard the directive, making a distinction between whether the lower court could order the Administration to “effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return or merely “facilitate” it, and instructing the lower court to “clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”

Similarly, in an earlier chapter of the dispute that resulted in the Abrego Garcia order, over the use of the Alien Enemies Act to send Venezuelan migrants to a notorious Salvadoran prison, the Court found that those detained under that order “must receive notice . . . within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek” court review. But it also said that the migrants had brought their cases to the wrong place (the District of Columbia, rather than Texas, where they were being held) and in the wrong legal form, sparking an angry dissent from the liberal Justices, which was joined in part by Justice Amy Coney Barrett. “The Government’s conduct in this litigation poses an extraordinary threat to the rule of law,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Now, finally, clarity plus backbone. What happened? In all likelihood, the Trump Administration’s behavior became too much for the Court to ignore—that is, with the exception of Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, who dissented. In the first phase of the case, the liberal Justices had no difficulty recognizing what the Administration was up to, with its clandestine effort to rush the Venezuelan detainees out of the country before courts could intervene, followed by its flouting of a court order to have the planes carrying them return to the United States. Yet the Administration persisted with its disobedient, if not contemptuous, behavior. Attorney General Pam Bondi, in the Oval Office with Trump and the Salvadoran President, Nayib Bukele, last week, misstated the Court’s ruling in the Abrego Garcia case. (“The Supreme Court ruled that if El Salvador wants to return him . . . we would facilitate it: meaning, provide a plane,” she said.) In that same meeting, Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff, falsely claimed that the ruling was a nine-to-nothing win. By then, Administration lawyers had returned to the lower court to argue that all the Justices meant by “facilitate” was “taking all available steps to remove any domestic obstacles that would otherwise impede the alien’s ability to return here.” In other words, the government was doing nothing. The Justices, most of them, must now understand: we are not dealing with an Administration that deserves the benefit of the doubt. And so, when A.C.L.U. lawyers raced to the high court with an emergency petition indicating that another group of Venezuelan migrants was receiving the scantiest semblance of due process—notices of removal in English only, with no information about how to contest designations as “enemy aliens” and no suggestion that there was any opportunity for judicial review—their pleas had new resonance. The ensuing 1 A.M. order represented the Administration reaping the results of its own bad-faith arguments and behavior with the Court.

Except, of course, for the two most Trump-inclined Justices. Alito, in a dissent joined by Thomas, accused the majority of providing “unprecedented and legally questionable relief.” In a particularly disingenuous passage, Alito quoted a government lawyer who assured a lower court that no deportations were planned for Friday or Saturday. In fact, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign had said, “I’ve spoken with D.H.S. They are not aware of any current plans for flights tomorrow, but I have also been told to say that they reserve the right to remove people tomorrow.” That is hardly comforting, especially considering that the government’s position is that once detainees are out of the country, they’re out of luck. Still, even Alito took pains to note the government’s responsibility. “Both the Executive and the Judiciary have an obligation to follow the law,” he wrote. The Court “should follow established procedures,” and the Administration “must proceed under the terms of our order” requiring due process for Venezuelans whom the Administration claims are “enemy aliens.” It is hard to see how even Alito and Thomas could argue that the Administration was faithfully following the Court’s instructions in its lead-up to a new round of deportations. It had people loaded on buses headed for the airport when the lawyers filed their request for emergency intervention.

Maybe I am being overly optimistic here. This could be the high-water mark of the Supreme Court’s resistance. The Justices have disappointed before and no doubt will again. And in the Venezuelan case, the protection the Court granted isn’t permanent—it will last only “until further order.” But after weeks of mixed and muted messaging, the Court has spoken, finally, with clarity and strength, in support of the rule of law. We should take heart that at least one branch of government has the courage to do so. 

[we-are-not-a-number]

I read and laid out Trump's "DEFENDING WOMEN FROM GENDER IDEOLOGY EXTREMISM AND RESTORING BIOLOGICAL TRUTH TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT" so you don't have to. Aka, the starting brigade on trans rights.

Trump defined sex as an "immutable" biological classification at birth with it innately only being male or female.

Defined terms such as "women" and "man" only being for adult biological males or females.

Defines male and female as "sex that produces the small reproductive cell".

Defined "gender ideology" as "replaces the biological category of sex with an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity".

Defined "gender identity" as "reflects a fully internal and subjective sense of self, disconnected from biological reality and sex..."

Declared women are "Recognizing Women Are Biologically Distinct From Men" and there will be an expansion on this order.

End protections or recognition for trans individuals in federal agencies, "Each agency and all Federal employees shall enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations to protect men and women as biologically distinct sexes.  Each agency should therefore give the terms 'sex', 'male', 'female', 'men', 'women', 'boys' and 'girls'..."

All federal agencies and employees will use sex and not gender in all applicable federal policies and documents.

Has ordered "...shall implement changes to require that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards, accurately reflect the holder’s sex..."

..."Agencies shall remove all statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other internal and external messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology, and shall cease issuing such statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications or other messages."

Statement to attack Bostock v. Clayton County "The prior Administration argued that the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which addressed Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, requires gender identity-based access to single-sex spaces under, for example, Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act.  This position is legally untenable and has harmed women."

Remove transgender inmates from prisons of their gender, remove all access for gender affirming care to incarcerated individuals, "The Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security shall ensure that males are not detained in women’s prisons or housed in women’s detention centers..." may need to amend "...Part 115.41 of title 28, Code of Federal Regulations and interpretation guidance regarding the Americans with Disabilities Act." If necessary.

"...no Federal funds are expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex."

Access to public amenities is defined by sex, "The Attorney General shall issue guidance to ensure the freedom to express the binary nature of sex and the right to single-sex spaces in workplaces and federally funded entities covered by the Civil Rights Act of 1964." And, "Agencies shall effectuate this policy by taking appropriate action to ensure that intimate spaces designated for women, girls, or females (or for men, boys, or males) are designated by sex and not identity."

States 30 days shall present a bill to modify above into law.

I may have missed some policy, comment below if I missed anything and I will add it. This was terrible to read.

120 days for federal agencies to comply

This is stated to be a part of the "Restoring Sanity" agenda.

If you're trans (or have trans loved ones), try to have a clear schedule to fume a bit before you read this crap

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Andrew Doyle

Published: Dec 30, 2024

‘Protect Trans Kids’. It’s one of the many slogans you will see frequently displayed at protests by gender ideologues. At the recent demonstrations outside the US supreme court, where the state of Tennessee’s ban on ‘gender-affirming care’ was being challenged by the ACLU, there were even young children holding placards bearing the phrase. But if adults don’t understand what it means, how can the children who it ostensibly describes?

The concept of the ‘trans child’ has become an essential tool in gender activism. In order to justify reorganising society according to ‘gender identity’ rather than sex – and thereby admitting men who identify as women into female-only spaces – it must first be determined that the concept of a ‘gender identity’ is real. And if there is such a thing as a sexed soul that is misaligned with our body, it must surely be present from the moment of conception. As such, being ‘trans’ is not a decision one makes in adult life, but an innate quality that exists at all ages.

J. K. Rowling posted a statement on X regarding this topic earlier this week.

‘There are no trans kids. No child is “born in the wrong body”. There are only adults like you, prepared to sacrifice the health of minors to bolster your belief in an ideology that will end up wreaking more harm than lobotomies and false memory syndrome combined.’

The subsequent firestorm was inevitable. Even the most sensible of comments on this topic are liable to whip up a frenzy of rage and indignation. This in itself is proof of the absurdity of the proposition. If the concept of a sexed soul was legitimate, measured debate and discussion would be adequate to persuade the undecided. But given the weakness of the claim, threats, insults and tantrums are the more likely tactic.

The term ‘trans’ has been muddied in recent years by insisting that it is an abbreviation of ‘transgender’. Previously, it had denoted ‘transsexual’, a term that specifically relates to those who have undertaken surgery or other medical interventions to appear as the opposite sex. The lexical shift to ‘transgender’ implies that the existence of a ‘gender identity’ is incontestable, and that we each have ‘an essence of male or female’ (as one trans campaigner explained to me). No such essence exists, and so ‘transgender’, like ‘non-binary’, is grounded in belief rather than reality. It is a form of self-identification, a way to classify oneself with a concordant set of behaviours, tastes and dress codes, much like ‘goth’ or ‘punk’.

Given that no human being has ever changed from male to female or vice versa, the term ‘trans’ must therefore refer to a process undertaken to appear as the opposite sex. There are two methods by which this can be achieved. Firstly, there is the transvestic approach, by which attire, accessories and behaviour is adopted according to sex stereotypes. For example, a man might wear a frock, high-heeled shoes, lipstick and a long wig, tilt his head coquettishly, and generally behave in a caricatured manner of a woman. Cross-dressers rely on sex stereotypes for effect; whereas many women routinely wear jeans and a t-shirt and no make-up at all, a man who did this would be unremarkable and not identifiably ‘trans’.

The other approach is surgical intervention. For men who wish to appear as women this can include: orchiectomy (removal of the testicles), vaginoplasty (removal and reshaping of the male genitals to create a faux-vagina), breast augmentation, facial plastic surgery, tracheal shave (reduction of Adam’s apple), vocal surgery to raise pitch, hair removal and hair transplants. For women who wish to appear as men, this can include: mastectomy (removal of breasts), pectoral implants, hysterectomy, vaginectomy and phalloplasty (the removal of the vagina and creation of a faux-penis), and body contouring.

Whereas any adult surely must retain the right to dress as he or she chooses, there is a debate to be had regarding the ethics of such surgical procedures. To offer an analogy: if a man desperately desires to have his own arm removed, is the doctor who carries out such an operation not violating his professional responsibility to ‘first do no harm’? Would not psychotherapeutic treatment be more appropriate? On the other hand, many individuals who identify as trans argue that ‘gender-reassignment’ surgery is a psychological necessity. Irrespective of where one stands on that debate, it should be clear that no child can possibly give informed consent to any of these procedures. And so if ‘trans child’ approximates to ‘transsexual child’, then such a thing cannot rightfully exist.

However, if we decide that ‘trans child’ means ‘transgender child’, then we are in the realm of a philosophical or pseudo-religious belief. It is certainly possible for children to believe that they have gendered souls which do not align with their bodies. But such an esoteric view has not developed from a mature process of reflection and analysis. This is the same reason why Richard Dawkins objects to the concept of a ‘Christian child’ or a ‘Muslim child’. In such cases, invariably we are using a shorthand for ‘the child of Christian parents’ or ‘the child of Muslim parents’. Children are simply ill-equipped to have grappled with complex theological belief-systems and weighed up whether they accept them as valid or not.

Moreover, the term ‘transgender child’ points to a highly specific principle within a broader ethos. Given that it refers to the notion of a soul in the wrong body, it is closer akin to the idea of a ‘possessed child’ rather than a ‘Christian child’. Again, it is unfeasible to suppose that an infant could possibly have interrogated these beliefs with any degree of intellectual rigour. The main difference is that trans activists are lauded by the media and political class, whereas exorcists are given a wide berth.

As such, whichever way one looks at it, the very concept of the ‘trans child’ is incoherent. It makes sense to speak of ‘trans people’ because it is an effective shorthand for ‘people who call themselves trans’ or ‘people who believe they were born in the wrong body’, or ‘people who, out of psychological desire or necessity, present in accordance with the stereotypes of the opposite sex’. For the same reason, we can describe someone as a ‘Catholic’ without sharing his or her faith in transubstantiation.

But we need to recognise that this is a belief-system that no child can possibly comprehend, and so the phrase ‘trans child’ makes no sense. To use the phrase at all is to participate in the indoctrination. So while anyone has the right to refer to ‘trans children’, we have the right to tell them why such a phenomenon does not exist.

--

"A child is not a Christian child, not a Muslim child, but a child of Christian parents or a child of Muslim parents." -- Richard Dawkins, “The God Delusion”

"A transgender child is like a vegan cat. We all know who's making the lifestyle choices." -- Blaire White

==

The idea of a disembodied gendered "essence" disconnected from the biology of your anatomy is as ridiculous magical thinking as auras, astral projection, Islam's djinn, the Xian soul and Scientology's thetans.

Anyone who goes on about a "gender identity" should be treated no differently than someone with a ouija board and tarot cards, handing out copies of The Watchtower, or inviting you to a free "audit" session.

[sarah-ankh]

This decision by the supreme court makes a mockery of the equality act, of the law and of human right. It spits in the eye of justice, fairness, and equality.

By repeatedly refusing to consult or even acknowledge the voices of trans people, and making this decision for us in our absence and without representation, the supreme court has pissed on the concept of democracy.

The ruling rolls back our rights and our protections, and opens the door to further bigotry and hatred. Within days of this ruling, policy decisions have been made within the NHS, the prison system and the British Transport Police that endanger the mental and physical wellbeing of transgender men and women by publicly outing us and putting us at risk of harassment and abuse.

By supporting the ruling Labour has betrayed the ideals upon which the party was founded, they have turned their backs on their principles, and caved to the pressures of the regressive right wing who wish to strip the entire LGBT+ community of our rights.

The trans community is the canary in the coal mine. Mark my words. It has begun with us, it will not end with us.

If you will not stand with us now, then we will not be capable of standing with you when your turn comes.

[picathartidae]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Wasn't tagged, but I saw @hyperions-light do this, and decided I wanted to play along because it looks fun and I never have the courage to talk about writing things. So here I am.

No pressure tagging;

@sandcastlekings, @derelictjunk, @shewolfofvilnius, @vestigialpersonality, @rinwellisathing

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

I’m up to 35 now, which is insane to me. Though I’m debating if I should delete one or two, so it may go down. I also mostly write shorts and oneshots, which is probably the main reason why the number is as high as it is.

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

508,114! Which is also insane to me.

3) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Most is Closer, the first of my two slightly trashy Miraculous Ladybug fics, by a long, long way. Then its sequel, Further. After that, it’s Song of Songs, for GreedFall. Then a couple of Dragon Age fics, Home is Where the Heart Is, and Field Dressing.

4) What fandoms do you write for?

Video games (specifically RPGs), almost exclusively. My main fandom is overwhelmingly Dragon Age, and that is once again my current hyperfixation, though I’ve also written a fair bit for GreedFall, and Baldur’s Gate 3 is persistently sticking around as well.

I just seem to like video games because they leave enough room for me to experiment with characters (which I love), without having to worry about plot (which I hate).

5) Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I didn’t used to, unless someone was explicitly asking me a question, but I try to do it as much as possible now. It just didn’t occur to me that responding was a thing I could or even should do, until I was informed that it’s considered good practice to do so. Nowadays, I’m trying to make friends. And as much as I am shy and scared of judgement, you have to talk to people in order to do that.

6) What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I write a lot of angsty or otherwise bittersweet endings, but the saddest and most brutal is probably The Last Day (Dragon Age: Origins). Honourable mentions to both Kings and Psalms (GreedFall), though.

7) What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I’m going to say Father, which is the final entry in my trilogy about my human noble Warden in Origins, and serves as a little ending coda to his story. It’s cute! Especially given that this is me we’re talking about.

Edit: I foolishly didn’t consider To Save the World (Dragon Age: the Veilguard), which also has a very objectively happy ending, and is probably the sweetest fic I’ve ever written.

8) Do you get hate on fics?

Surprisingly, no. I have, through some divine miracle, managed to completely avoid getting any kind of hate for the entire fifteen years I’ve been posting fanfiction on the internet. Though I think if I’d left some of my oldest stuff up rather than deleting them, I might’ve seen some by now.

9) Do you write smut?

No. I am so intensely sex-repulsed it’s not even funny. I would rather turn myself inside out than ever willingly look at smut, let alone write it. Best I can offer is a supremely uncomfortable dissociative fit of a sex scene that is made up entirely of vague allusions and implications, or a fade-to-black. 

10) Do you write crossovers?

Once or twice, because I had an insane idea that I could not for the life of me let go of (basically just cramming the concept of the show Sense8 into Dragon Age: Origins, though we do not speak of that fic). I generally prefer to keep to one fandom. My autistic brain will only tolerate obsessive encyclopedic knowledge about one thing at a time, these days. 

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yes, multiple times. I’m a little bit baffled by it, because I generally write genfic and otherwise niche stuff that doesn’t get a lot of traffic. The biggest and most egregious example was when my fic The Last Day was caught up in a mass-scraping a few years ago and ended up getting sold as an original story on Amazon.

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have! Way back in 2017, someone asked for permission to translate my fic After (Dragon Age: Inquisition) into Russian. I don’t think the translated version can be found anymore, however.

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I haven’t! I’ve honestly never really had any writing or fandom friends to ask. I’ve been invited to participate in events in the past, but this was back when I was terrified of talking to people, and was too petrified to respond. Hopefully I’m braver now.

14) What’s your all-time favourite ship?

I don’t really enjoy shipping in general, and it’s very rarely how I engage with fandom. But if I was pressed to pick relationships I enjoy the most, it’d either be Scott Summers/Jean Grey from X-Men, or Astarion/Resist!Dark Urge from Baldur’s Gate 3.

15) What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Genesis (GreedFall), absolutely. Adore the concept, love the characters, utterly despise working on it. Now it is a monument to all my failures.

16) What are your writing strengths?

I don’t know, I think I’m decent with characters and dialogue. I’m reportedly very good at themes and making people feel things.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

Description. I hate it. I write relatively canon-compliant fanfiction with the express purpose of getting the hell away from it. I also like run-on sentences way too much. Trying to write a nice natural ending to a scene or chapter has also historically been the bane of my existence. I famously suck ass at anything even vaguely romantic, because it’s all extremely gross and cringey to me.

18) Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

I don’t usually mess with that at all. If the perspective character understands the language being spoken, I’ll write out the dialogue in English, or otherwise summarise the conversation in prose. If they don’t, I’ll just describe people speaking without doing any dialogue at all. Too much potential to cause offence with my ignorance otherwise. I might include a single word here or there, if it feels important to the characters or setting.

19) First fandom you wrote for?

I remember dabbling in some eclectic stuff originally (like, Shakespeare and some of the classics, because I was insufferable), but what I consider my first actual proper attempt at fandom and fanfiction was for X-Men.

20) Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

You know, despite the fact that it’s currently actively killing me and everything I care about, I’m going to say Breathe (Baldur's Gate 3). Like, it’s such a chaotic experimental disaster of a fic, with an incredibly erratic writing style, a metric shit-tonne of repetition, constantly shifting tenses, featuring way too many dream sequences and the single most complicated traumatised mess of a protagonist I’ve ever put to paper, and accidentally mutated into genres I normally would never touch. It’s wild and violent and cerebral and dark and tragic and introspective and a constant source of stress because it's always a problem that needs to be solved and maybe the worst thing I have ever done.

And ignoring my current ongoing garbage destroying all of my ability and willingness to write, it’s the fic I’ve had the most fun writing in a long, long time. Also the fact that it’s one of those rare ones that has a couple of regular commenters despite my non-existent update schedule helps massively (hello, love you guys, thanks for enduring my insanity). The fact that I managed to put out over 30 chapters in a single year (this is unheard of for me) is a testament to how much it captured my imagination. I am hoping and praying and begging all the gods I know of that I will be able to see it through to the end.

[haggishlyhagging]

The rape of the Goddess in all of her aspects is an almost universal theme in patriarchal myth. Zeus, for example, was a habitual rapist. Graves points out that Zeus's rapes apparently refer to Hellenic conquests of the Goddess's ancient shrines. The early patriarchal rapes of the Goddess, in her various manifestations, symbolized the vanquishing of woman-identified society. In the early mythic rapes, the god often assumed a variety of animal forms; the sense of violence/ violation is almost tangible. In christianity, this theme is refined—disguised almost beyond recognition.

The rape of the rarefied remains of the Goddess in the christian myth is mind/spirit rape. In the charming story of "the Annunciation" the angel Gabriel appears to the terrified young girl, announcing that she has been chosen to become the mother of god. Her response to this sudden proposal from the godfather is totaled nonresistance: "Let it be done unto me according to thy word." Physical rape is not necessary when the mind/will/spirit has already been invaded. In refined religious rapism, the victim is impregnated with the Supreme Seminal Idea, who becomes "the Word made flesh."

Within the rapist christian myth of the Virgin Birth the role of Mary is utterly minimal; yet she is "there." She gives her unqualified "consent." She bears the Son who pre-existed her and then she adores him. According to catholic theology, she was even "saved" by him in advance of her own birth. This is the meaning of the "Immaculate Conception" of Mary— the dogma that Mary was herself conceived free of "original sin" through the grace of the "savior" who would be born of her. This grace received in advance, described by theologians as "grace of prevention or preservation," is something like a supernatural credit card issued to a very special patron (matron). Mary's credit line was crossed before she was even conceived. Double crossed by the divine Master Charge system, she was in a state of perpetual indebtedness. Still, as I have explained elsewhere, despite all the theological minimizing of Mary's "role," the mythic presence of the Goddess was perceivable in this faded and reversed mirror image.*

* In order to understand the Background of Mary, Hags should recall that she was known as "the new Eve." This leads us to look into the Background of Eve who, in hebrew myth, was a dulled-out replacement for Lilith, Adam's first wife. Patai writes of Lilith as portrayed in the Talmudic period: "When Adam wished to lie with her, Lilith demurred: 'Why should I lie beneath you,' she asked, 'when I am your equal since both of us were created from dust?'" (See Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, p. 210.) Any Crone-ographer, of course, can recognize this as a watered-down version of what Lilith really might have said, which would hardly have been an argument for mere "equal rights." As for Eve, constructed from Adam's rib—Peggy Holland has pointed out that this is an interesting mythic model: the first male-to-constructed-female transsexual. Patai affirms that it was Lilith who persuaded Eve to eat of the Tree of Knowledge and he acknowledges that Lilith was a Hag (pp. 210-13). According to Cirlot, Lilith, in the Israelite tradition, corresponds to the Greek and Roman Lamia. (See J. E. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols, trans. by Jack Sage [New York: Philosophical Library, 1962], p. 180.) Graves puts more of the pieces together, indicating that Lamia was the Libyan Neith, also named Anatha and Athene. (See Robert Graves, The Greek Myths, I, 61, 1. Graves adds that "she ended as a nursery bogey" (which is, of course, the fate of all Hags/ Crones/ Witches in patriarchal myth). Lilith is also identified with Hecate, the lunar goddess and "accursed huntress." After pointing this out, Cirlot remarks: "The overcoming of the threat which Lilith constitutes finds its symbolic expression in the trial of Hercules in which he triumphs over the Amazons" (Ibid., p. 180). Since Hecate was associated with hares, this suggests that rabbits are in the Virgin Mary's Background. Given the parthenogenetic propensities of rabbits and given the reversal mechanisms of patriarchal myth, this association makes sense. We are also led to think about the identity of the familiar "Easter Bunny" (and about the reversal involved in the image of "Playboy Bunnies"). Finally, when considering Lilith, Hags should note that this name is said to be derived from the Babylonian-Assyrian word lilitu, meaning a "female demon, or wind-spirit." (See Robert Graves and Raphael Patai, Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis [Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1964], p. 68.) This is interesting in view of the fact that the name of the "Holy Spirit," who is believed to have impregnated the Virgin Mary, is derived from the Latin spiritus. Is the holy spirit trying to copy Lilith? Also fascinating is the thought that since, as we have seen, Yahweh is a derivative and reversal of the Goddess, one of whose primary names is Lilith, he is exposed as an imposter, a female impersonator, and a transsexed caricature of that Great Hag herself.

-Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology

[yourskeletonpal]

The supreme court decision doesnt make it legal to discriminate against trans people based on their transness, it means a trans woman has no legal protection for discrimination against them as a woman. It has the explicit intent of segregating trans women out of single sex spaces (a still incredibly regressive concept I can't believe we're moving back toward despite an increased pushed toward gender neutral spaces in recent year)

We can't ignore how it erases the genders of trans men either, who apparently aren't allowed in women only spaces or men only spaces! It is the most disgustingly regressive decision the UK government has made in a long time, and trans rights orgs are already preparing to fight back. Trans people do and will continue to exist, all this does is make our lives harder which will drive some to detransition (not an admission that they arent trans, just that living authentically is harder than living a lie in the current political climate) and some to take their own lives.

I was planning on moving to Sweden if things got any worse but this decision by the supreme court has made me reconsider in a weird way. The country I live in hates me, but I am gonna struggle no matter where I am no matter the climate. Trans rights are worth fighting for wherever you are, whether cis or trans or anything else, because fundamentally what we want is what everyone should want: control over their own body, acceptance by society, and the ability to use resources that should be there to help us. Lets be honest, the exclusion of trans women from women's crisis shelters and women's changing rooms is not gonna create shelters for specifically trans women or trans exclusive changing rooms (itself effectively a form of segregation against anyone who does not align with a perfect white cis hetero view of womanhood), it just pushes trans people out of public life entirely.

I already feel like I have to make cis women comfortable at the expense of my own comfort purely because we live in a society where masculinity is something to be reviled and feared, this ruling just makes things worse. But if my country doesn't want me the solution probably isn't to leave, its to fight back against this oppressive culture and try to make things a bit better for the next generation of young trans people already being screwed over by Keir Starmer and his incompetent, rude and frankly unqualified health secretary, Wes Streeting.

And if it weren't already obvious, fuck JK Rowling and fuck anyone still trying to engage with anything she's written. You are part of the problem, and I'm tired of being nice about it. Your monetary support of her hurt one of the most vulnerable groups in this country, who were already under attack for the gall to stand up for their rights. Shame might not be the best way to convince anyone of anything, but its all we have left to make you see the pain you've caused.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

On Monday morning, the Supreme Court announced it would take up whether gender-affirming care bans for transgender youth violate equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution. The case under consideration involves the gender-affirming care ban in Tennessee, where the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the ban to take effect. The court ruled that transgender people do not have equal protection rights under the Constitution, citing the Dobbs decision overturning abortion and Geduldig v. Aiello, a ruling on pregnancy discrimination that has gained new traction in conservative courts targeting transgender individuals. Regardless of how the Supreme Court decides, the eventual ruling could have far-reaching impacts on transgender people across the United States; a ruling from this case could potentially be applied to many other laws targeting transgender individuals as well.

The announcement that the court would hear the case came on the second anniversary of the Dobbs decision, which ruled against abortion rights nationwide. One component of that decision was the Glucksburg test, which claimed that equal protection rights must be “deeply rooted in this nation’s history and traditions.” Notably, many things commonly found to be unconstitutional and atrocious, such as segregation and anti-miscegenation laws, are “deeply rooted” in American history and traditions. In the Tennessee 6th Circuit Court decision, which the Supreme Court is now taking up, the majority of justices similarly used the Glucksburg test to deny trans youth in the state equal protection, ruling, “This country does not have a ‘deeply rooted’ tradition of preventing governments from regulating the medical profession in general or certain treatments in particular, whether for adults or their children.” The 6th Circuit decision being considered by the Supreme Court also relied on Geduldig v. Aiello, a 1974 ruling which determined that pregnancy discrimination is not inherently sex discrimination because it does not "classify on sex," but rather, on pregnancy status, and that pregnancy status was not a proxy for sex in equal protection claims. 

It is important to note, however, that other courts have recently found such arguments to be faulty. For instance, the argument that there is no “deeply rooted” right to gender-affirming care was countered by a recent Idaho ruling which stated, “The parents’ fundamental right to care for their children includes the right to choose a particular medical treatment, in consultation with their healthcare provider, that is generally available and accepted in the medical community. And the Court has no difficulty concluding that such a right is deeply rooted in our nation’s history and traditions and implicit in our concept of ordered liberty.” Though the Supreme Court limited the Idaho ruling, it did so only on the basis of the scope of preliminary injunctions and did not consider the constitutionality of the ban. Notably, though, the Supreme Court is not taking up the parental rights/due process claim.

[...] Perhaps the most important decision likely to come out of the Supreme Court case will be the determination of what level of scrutiny judges should apply to transgender youth and potentially all transgender people. The eventual ruling could have profound impacts on a wide array of laws affecting transgender people, from bathroom bans to prohibitions on adult care. The 6th Circuit ruling hinted at the latter, denying equal protection rights “for adults or children.” A broad decision against heightened scrutiny for transgender people could pave the way for several states to implement openly discriminatory policies without challenge.

Those who are looking to find signals for what the justices will decide may have trouble doing so. Justices such as Roberts and Gorsuch have, in the past, sided with transgender people when it came to discrimination under employment law, stating that one cannot discriminate on the basis of gender identity without also discriminating on the basis of sex in the Bostock v. Clayton County decision. That decision has since been used to overturn many other kinds of discriminatory policies towards transgender people by applying similar rationale. If those justices decide on this case using the same logic, a 5-4 decision in favor of transgender people appears to be a possibility. On the flipside, many have speculated that Gorsuch may decide against protecting transgender care, siding with the 6th Circuit’s rationale in the wake of the Dobbs decision allowing for bans on abortion. One of the few times Gorsuch has opined on laws targeting transgender people since Bostock was during a recent debate over EMTALA protections in Idaho. EMTALA mandates that hospitals cannot deny emergency lifesaving care, including emergency abortions

On the 2-year anniversary of the disastrous Dobbs ruling, SCOTUS is taking up United States v. Skrmetti, a case that deals with gender-affirming care bans for trans minors (and adults). The case could have huge impacts on access to gender-affirming care (and trans rights more generally) nationwide.

Expect this case to be decided at SCOTUS sometime during the next term, likely in June 2025.

See Also:

The Guardian: US supreme court to weigh in on transgender healthcare ban for minors

[heaven-in-a-wild-flower]

Transgender women face discrimination for being transgender but they also face discrimination for being women. Seems like an easy enough concept to grasp but the UK Supreme Court is struggling. The same way a black woman faces both racism and sexism, a transgender woman may face transphobia and sexism. The UK Supreme Court however, has recently held that transgender women don't count as women for the purpose of the Equality Act. It's truly sad because this case was filed by a "feminist" advocacy group against an advisory by the Scottish Government which stated that women with a Gender Recognition Certificate become "for all purposes" the gender acquired through the certificate.

The court ruled “There may well be public boards on which it is also important for trans people of either or both genders to be represented in order to ensure that their perspective is brought to bear in the board's deliberations and in the organisation's governance. Nothing in this judgment is intended to discourage the appointment of trans people to public boards or to minimise the importance of addressing their under-representation on such boards."

Yeah because obviously by concluding that legislation aimed to help women does not intend to help transgender women, certainly doesn't discourage the appointment of trans people in various positions.

If you want to read more about it, this is the judgment and this is an article on it.