#a lot of gender marginalization experiences overlap with how they experience gender and sex

[heckacentipede]

small reminder this pride season that in the natural world you will find examples of animals changing their sex [such as the peacocks, or those lions], or being multiple sexes [such as bilateral gynandromorphs], or similarly being what you want to call "naturally nonbinary" or "naturally trans".

it's fun to use these wonderful creatures as trans and nonbinary iconography, but please! don't forget your intersex siblings in your excitement. those are intersex animals, not trans or nonbinary

sincerely, a perisex bigender constantly bummed at the missed opportunity for cool pride art

[queergenders]

Introduction

Divided by tags:

social media + identity

social media + medicalization

pathologization in healthcare

The question I’m researching is: what role do medicalization and social media play in the formation of trans identity? I want to know how medicalization, specifically pathology influences how trans people understand their identity and the role of social media in the internalization of the medical model of being transgender. Further, I want to explore the broader role of social media in the curation of identity and how it strengthens or weakens the development and the mental well-being of trans individuals. Originally my question was about the intersection of psychological research, social movements, and social media in the identity development of transgender people but I realized it was too much to cover for one project. Once I started researching, I noticed a large overlap between medicalization and social media, specifically about transmedicalism. This was a concept I was previously familiar with due to my extensive time on Tumblr as a high schooler but learning about it from a scientific research perspective changed my understanding of how transmedicalism stems from cisheteronormativity. I’m mainly interested in asking this because the psychology of gender identity has been of interest to me since I was a kid who was beginning to explore my gender. I researched mainly sociological and neurological aspects of gender in high school but through this project, I’ve realized the importance of social support, community, advocacy, and adequate healthcare in identity curation even more than previously mentioned factors.

My research relates to queer psychology through a few different components: minority stress, the mental well-being of queer people, using an intersectional framework to analyze connections between race, gender, and sexuality, studying queer spaces online, and attempting to decolonize gender. The bulk of my research is on the current time period, however, historical context can aid in understanding what systemic factors inform identity development such as the history of pathology by the medical community, psychological research, and the medical model of disability. 

Methods:

The main research methods I’ve used and read about are critical discourse analysis and the phenomenology method. Since a major part of my research was analyzing transmedicalism which manifests in online spaces, I looked at how these groups create distinctions between trans people and their interactions with each other and their opponents on social media posts. I also used the phenomenology method since a lot of this research is about understanding lived experiences of trans people through the lens of social media and medical institutions. Using semi-structured interviews was the most common strategy for gathering information on experiences such as access to hormone replacement therapy as a nonbinary person, how social media has helped or prevented trans people from finding community, and how transmedicalism as the dominant narrative has affected self-confidence and development for trans people.

Conclusion

The biggest takeaway from my research was how white supremacy seeps into every construct we have. Once you analyze sex and gender through a historical lens, it’s easier to see how white supremacy was incorporated into culture and self-expression. This helped me understand how transmedicalism works because, at first glance, it seems ridiculous for trans people to have so many rigid interpretations of what each gender should act like. But colonialist cultural norms can affect anyone and don’t exclude marginalized groups even if they are negatively affected by it as well. It’s also why intersectionality is important because only spotlighting white trans people would not give us the perspective of indigenous gender roles and concepts that are drastically different from European binary gender norms. Another big takeaway was the value of online spaces in our society. Online communities and friendships are belittled by older generations especially because it’s not something material or people you can see offline. But as technology changes the types of spaces we create, our relationships and layers of identity evolve. Relationships are defined by the people in them and there’s no reason an online network can’t be as meaningful as your family or school friends. Further, we know from research that sometimes online friends are more true and reliable for queer folks who have been othered offline.

The most common limitation was skewed sample sizes in research studies or lack of information. I tried to look for studies done by queer people because the perspective of a community member is incredibly important when researching something so personal as identity. Additionally, I looked for articles that mentioned race and intersectionality. Racialized sex-gender binaries from settler colonialism regard whiteness as a requirement for successful gender embodiment. As we discussed in class, most studies were done with white, young adult, urban-dwelling participants which don’t encapsulate the experiences of the most vulnerable queer people: working-class trans people of color.

I noticed more careful consideration of the terminology used in articles written by queer people versus those written by cisgender straight researchers. I also noticed that cis researchers were more likely to have binary options for demographic questions on surveys such as male, and female, and very broad categories of ethnicity like “Asian” instead of including different regions of Asia. Many studies also focus primarily on binary trans people which is an issue for me since I’m trying to research the effects of medicalization on nonbinary people particularly because they are not seeking the standard procedures when it comes to hormone therapy or gender-affirming surgeries. One topic I was interested in originally was researching how autism or neurodivergence affects one’s conception of gender as a construct but I couldn’t find enough research on individual aspects beyond surface-level studies or hypotheses. 

Some follow-up questions I could explore are steps towards creating a depathologized model for transgender healthcare that focuses on increasing the well-being of trans people instead of “fixing” a mistake. I’d also be interested in delving further into earlier interpretations of being transgender that contributed to dysphoria being added to the DSM-5 and how movements have organized campaigns toward removing it.

The online popularity of transmedicalism has faded notably in recent years. I want to learn about the circumstances that helped to change the dominant narrative to a more joyful interpretation of trans identity. I have noticed many former transmedicalists are passionately outspoken about the harms of medicalization so I’m curious what caused the shift.

Analyzing cultural phenomena alongside policy reform is important because politics informs culture and vice versa. By shifting the dominant cultural narrative, we can also begin shifting policy.

Sources:

D’Augelli, A. (1994). Identity development and sexual orientation: Toward a model of lesbian, gay and bisexual development. In E.J. Trickett, R. J. Watts, D. Birman (Eds). Human diversity: Perspectives on people in context (pp. 312-333). San Francisco, CA: JosseyBass.

Olson, D., Liu, J. & Shultz, K. (2012). The influence of Facebook usage on perceptions of social support, personal efficacy, and life satisfaction. Journal of Organizational Psychology, 12 (3), 133-144.

Oliver L. Haimson, Avery Dame-Griff, Elias Capello & Zahari Richter (2021) Tumblr was a trans technology: the meaning, importance, history, and future of trans technologies, Feminist Media Studies, 21:3, 345-361 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2019.1678505   

Psychiatry.org - Gender Dysphoria Diagnosis. (n.d.). American Psychiatric Association. Retrieved March 8, 2023, from https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/diversity/education/transgender-and-gender-nonconforming-patients/gender-dysphoria-diagnosis

Doss, B. (n.d.). 2018, December. Exploring the Role of Social Media in the Identity Development of Trans Individuals. BearWorks. Retrieved March 8, 2023, from https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4341&context=theses

Duguay, S. (2023). TikTok’s Queer Potential: Identity, Methods, Movements. Social Media + Society, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231157594 

Hendrie. S (2022) The Trap of Transmedicalization: Holding Communities and Identities Hostage. Colorado University Honors Journals. https://www.colorado.edu/honorsjournal/sites/default/files/attached-files/hj2022-genderethnicstudies-hendriethetrap.pdf 

Jacobsen, K., Devor, A., & Hodge, E. (2022). Who Counts as Trans? A Critical Discourse Analysis of Trans Tumblr Posts. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 46(1), 60–81. https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599211040835 

Konnelly, L. (2021, July 15). (PDF) Both, and: Transmedicalism and resistance in non-binary narratives of gender-affirming care. ResearchGate. Retrieved May 15, 2023, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353107335_Both_and_Transmedicalism_and_resistance_in_non-binary_narratives_of_gender-affirming_care 

Transgender Adolescents' Uses of Social Media for Social Support. (2019, November 2). PubMed. Retrieved May 15, 2023, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31690534/

Markovsky, B., Lovaglia, M., & Simon, R. (n.d.). Transnormativity: A New Concept and Its Validation through Documentary Film About Transgender Men*. Trans Reads. Retrieved May 15, 2023, from https://transreads.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/2022-02-09_6203f0f41135b_Transnormativity_A_New_Concept_and_Its_V.pdf

[redheadbigshoes]

i wish more people who support the concept or bi or m-spec lesbians would stop and consider just for a moment WHY lesbians might be so upset about people implying or outright saying that we can like men. these people (and people in general tbh) seem to think we're only oppressed for liking women, when, personally, i've faced way more hostility, aggression, and weaponized "ignorance" over the fact that i do not like men. (before anyone twists my words, i'm NOT saying lesbians have it worse than bi women/nonbinary people, because they also experience a unique axis of oppression that lesbians don't by being attracted to all genders. our experiences overlap, but they are different, and it's okay for both parties to talk about that)

growing up, i was terrified of the concepts of marriage, sex, romance, and love since everyone around me only spoke of my future experiences with these things under the rigid assumption that my partner would be a man. i tried telling them i'd rather be single forever (i had yet to realize i was "allowed" to be gay), and they always insisted that i would grow up and change my mind, which made me even more terrified. they presented partnership with a man as something that was an inevitable, unavoidable part of my future. i'm lucky to have had a (mostly) supportive environment when i finally discovered that i felt this way because i'm a lesbian, and i can happily say i'm no longer afraid of those things since i now know i can have them without a man, but holy shit, do people not get how traumatizing that is? to be a young person only able to concieve of love as a weapon to be wielded against you?

lesbophobia from cishet people is one thing, but when it's coming from my fellow lgbt people, who i come to for love, support, protection, and companionship after being isolated in my daily life as a result of my lesbianism (and being autistic and gnc), it's just ... unspeakably cruel. i don't think most or them fully realize what they're doing - i'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and say most of them are just young people that believe they're doing the right thing - but that doesn't excuse this level of violence, especially with how quickly the notion has become popular. they should know better.

also like. not to mention how fast they'll throw trans women and trans lesbians under the bus to dunk on "mono" lesbians but that's another conversation.

A lot of them don’t want to think for a few seconds why we’re so upset about it. They don’t want to recognize and accept our lack of attraction to men because a lot of them are misogynistic, they don’t think there’s people out there who are not attracted to men. It’s not a coincidence that “mspec lesbian” supporters are most likely the same ones saying everyone is bi.

This is what happens with every type of prejudice. People who don’t experience certain thing are less likely to sympathize with people who do face that. Therefore they think we’re exaggerating or that it’s not real because they don’t face it. The saddest thing is that other marginalized people should be able to sympathize with other prejudices because they face oppression.

And lesbians suffer a very unique type of oppression because it’s directly connected to both homophobia and misogyny. Just like you said: we’re not trying to say we have it worse than other sapphics, we’re just trying to make people listen to us and take lesbophobia seriously. And what I say might be controversial but from my experience observing other people it does feel like lesbophobia is taken less seriously than other prejudices related to the LGBTQ+ community. Especially because it’s a very ignored and erased oppression since people immediately box us with gays by calling what we face homophobia when sometimes is a way more specific oppression than that.

It’s frustrating because most of queer lesbophobes are also fighting other kinds of oppression, but they’re actively silencing and promoting lesbophobia. A lot of people might not agree with me but I think they deserve all the hate and oppression they get, very hypocritical wanting to stop [insert phobia] while promoting others.

[shaftking]

https://www.tumblr.com/clearlyyoudontownanairfryer/706320605175267329/stop-erasing-peoples-aromantic-identities-to

Posts like this just remind me of how illogical inclusionists are. Being aromantic alone doesn’t make someone LGBT. What is even the point of having cishet people be apart of the community when the whole point of it is to unite against oppression based on same sex attraction and gender dysphoria in pursuit of achieving rights and acceptance? This is why including the “A” in the initlialsm doesn’t make sense. Why can’t these people just stick with AVEN? This reminds me of one time I had a class assignment to write about LGBT representation in video games, and one person exclusively wrote about aroace stuff instead of actual LGBT identities 💀 Inclusionists’ priorities are so out of wack, man. 😔

I have some mixed feelings about the split attraction model on a good day, and usually only think it actually works for asexuals specifying who their dating pool is (ie gay asexual only dating men). But usually my opinion is that it’s just something that enables a lot of internalized homophobia/biphobia and allows cishets that get crushes infrequently to think they have the same place in the LGBT community as a gay or trans person. (Newsflash: they don’t.)

The original A in LGBTQA was for allies and was only infrequently included because while it’s great to have non-LGBT people supporting LGBT people, they’re still not technically a part of the community as far as who it is meant to benefit. As far as AVEN, the fact is that asexuals destroyed it and decided to try and rewrite history to claim they were always a part of the LGBT. It had its problems, but instead of sticking around and trying to fix it, they jumped ship and started doing historical revisionism.

The fact is that a LGBT activism is incompatible with activism for asexuals a lot of the time. There might be some overlap in goals or experiences, but I could say the same for a lot of marginalized groups and LGBT. This doesn’t mean that disabled people are LGBT, or racial minorities, or polygamous people, or people who do BDSM, or religious minorities, or furries, or literally any other groups with a minutia of overlap. LGBT is not just a blanket group to throw in anyone who society finds weird or unusual, it is for lesbians, gay, bisexuals, and transsexuals, specifically on the basis of those demographic features in order to gain rights and tolerance, if not acceptance.

[runthepockets]

I also can't lie to you all it's kinda hard for me not to raise an eyebrow at people invalidating the social analysis / emotional response of various men who've been harmed under patriarchy cus "what if they're MRAs".

Like, ok dude. I've been abused by a lot of women (mostly white, but sometimes not, both cis and trans in all contexts). I'm pretty apprehensive and fairly jaded in my relationships with them sometimes, but I've never once shrugged or rolled my eyes at hearing women are statistically less likely to earn as much money than me, or anything, cus at the end of the day women-- even the ones who fucked me up big time-- are still people, and no one deserves to get hurt or bullied or killed for something as facile as the gender they were born as / chose to be.

What if I discounted every single aspect of feminism just cus I've personally been fucked up by women who have so deeply internalized their trauma with ruling class men that they decided it was ok to use me as their punching bag solely by virtue of my status as a marginalized male? What if I went on tangents about how exploitation of sex workers in the porn industry and domestic violence against women and the fact that most people in positions of authority in the workplace are men aren't issues to be taken seriously, and they're all personal problems in women's heads, because 1) I have personally been hurt by women and 2) radfems, who are notoriously some of the most delusional and hateful individuals in the gender liberation movement, bring these points up. More often than not in bio essentialist contexts, solely to disregard my feelings and experiences as a man by painting me as a wild animal lacking emotional depth or incapable of feeling love.

Do you see how fringe and cruel that is, making individuals pay for the actions of an unrelated few? That's what a lot of you are doing with subjects on the ways in which men experience alienation under patriarchy and the ways in which we statistically are more likely to be in jail / homeless / (often violently) victimized by acquaintances or strangers, painting our voices as monolithic and innately toxic just cus MRAs bring those topics up in bad faith sometimes. Like I understand the apprehension after dealing with so much bullshit from MRAs in the 2010s, I get that "misandry isn't on the level of misogyny", but this default gut instinct response to shut down everything that leaves mouths of individually traumatized dudes with feelings and experiences and needs as vast and unique as any woman's isn't healthy. If you continuously shrug off all of men's problems as personal failings rather than institutional issues that, more often than not, have a lot of overlap with the bullshit women are forced to go through, nothing will get done. You're just a piss poor feminist who cares more about complaining about individual dudes rather than dismantling a deeply broken system that keeps both men and women bogged down and forced into this bullshit rat race that enables us to be apathetic and dismissive of one another's needs.

Whether transandrophobia is "legit" or not idrc I just don't understand why it's such a crime for trans dudes to talk about the unique intersections of being trans and male under patriarchy. Like why does that automatically equate to "this guy is a raging misogynist MRA" to some people? Everyone has unique experiences under patriarchy, even the most bog standard rich cishet white dude. This is intersectional feminism 101.

[weirdmageddon]

(dont rb) so i might be thinking im nonbinary

i was talking with my mom yesterday about the rate of nb and trans people in individuals with autism and she sees a LOT of it where she works, she read a lot about it the night before actually and sent me a few studies

on twitter i wrote:

even though im cis ive had an uncanny ability to just understand gender as well as nonbinary and trans individuals do, as if i wasnt cis..like obviously, being cis, i dont experience stigma of being non-cis but i understand gender conceptually the same as they do because i feel super in tune with how they describe it and i think this is because im autistic. and gender/gender roles are societal and social constructs.

and i then asked on twitter how do i tell if i’m nonbinary and the truth is there’s no clear-cut answer but i still want to know....where does the fine distinction lie between nonbinary and cisness...where does it change?

if i am nonbinary, i dont have any dysphoria (and i know you dont need dysphoria to be nb or trans). im fine with she/her pronouns and my name being sara. i dont care for dressing feminine but i dont despise it either, it its more of a sensory problem so i just wear t-shirts and pants all the time. but i dont think i’d wear feminine clothing even if i didnt have sensory problems (which is kinda hard to imagine since autism is such a big part of my life that this stuff is sorta ingrained) just because i like the tshirt pants vibe better.

i just always felt a “whatever” about my gender. i never felt the need to present like a girl, i just sort of am..but its not super important that i be a textbook girl. i dont want to be refered to as a boy tho because i feel more in line with my womanhood, but just not society’s idea of it. btw ive always seen my body parts/gametes as being completely separate from my identity. ive never been dysphoric about them but i just always felt that they were insignificant in terms of my identity. my identity is more “me (girl)” than “girl (society expectations and everything that comes with womanhood from hormones to caring for children and having certain attitudes and “girlfriends” that arent romantic)

so basicaly im girl (my idea of it for myself).. and my question is is all of this nonbinary or just a variation of cis experience?

thing is i would feel weird coming into a place with marginalized people when ive identified as cis my whole life it would feel like im only standing in shallow water of a 14 foot pool. because i could easily pass for cis still if im comfortable with my body and my name and pronouns are still “female” aligned. when im in group of people i feel like i can speak for them but in this case if i started to identify with the nonbinary label i still would feel like im talking over other nb people who are further from the binary than i am. i dont even know what label i would have. demigirl? idk

[mogai-sunflowers]

I need help can you explain to me what mogai is and how xenogenders work I want to make my own genders and sexualities but I don't want to accidentally make them offensive

hiya! you bet!

so, mogai is an acronym that stands for Marginalized Orientations Gender Alignments and Intersex- it's a term conceptually similar to the LGBTQ+ acronym, but the MOGAI community focuses a lot more of its energy in the specificities of identity as opposed to more general queer terminology!

what i mean by that is that, despite there being great overlap between MOGAI and lgbtq+- communities/terminology, lgbtq+ terminology focuses a lot more on general queer identity- like gay, trans, bi, ace, and so on and so forth! but when it comes to mogai, while all the aforementioned are part of it, it's more dedicated to taking general queer terminology and providing nuance to it to explain a greater diversity of queer/gender/orientation experiences!

so, when something is specified as MOGAI, this means it's probably more specific and to do with defining intricate, less common subsets of identities and defining gender identity, orientation, sex, and amory on a basis of individual identity, rather than being geared to a wide umbrella label!

so in general- yes, the LGBTQ+ and MOGAI acronyms/spaces are basically both queer communities, the MOGAI community defers to describing and explaining specificity of queer experience, whereas the LGBTQ+ community/terminology defers more to describing community-level queerness, and not specific microlabels. while many specific labels of MOGAI are also inherently LGBTQ+ because they fall under the umbrella of LGBTQ+ terms, many of these terms are more easily identitied as mogai terms due to their specificty- both of these things are great! they're both equally wonderful communities, they just approach queerness differently is all :D

so, with that out of the way, xenogenders are basically gender descriptors! gender really is a personal experience, and it's complex and ingrained, and while for many people, that experience is binary, for many others, it has nothing to do with the binary! while one person's gender could be female, another person's gender could feel like a rainy day! xenogenders are not exactly genders themselves, as obviously one's gender is not a physical thing and therefore can't be a physical object or concept.

the best way for me to describe xenogenders is like they're a metaphor for gender identity! they're not necessarily concrete, proveable theorems, just qualities like happiness, objects, emotions, etc. that are not normally associated with gender, being applied to gender! just as one may describe their emotional state at one point as being "down in the dumps", someone can describe their gender in a similar fashion! like, "my gender is soaring through the sky near the sun". no, when you're upset, you're not actually sitting at the bottom of a dumpster, but conceptually, this metaphor pinpoints your emotion, and with xenogenders, it's that kind of concept, just applied to gender!

genders can genuinely be based off of anything! so, as long as you're not making genders based on harmful things of any sort, you're good!

and, as for sexualities, the most common issue i've seen with sexualities is that their definitions can be, either intentionally or unintentionally, transphobic, as attraction labels have been oriented as being cis and binary, and while that's not at all true, that ideal is still ingrained, so make double sure the thing you're coining doesn't actually mistreat/ostracize/discriminate against trans people, and you're probably good to go with coining the orientation you'd like to coin!

hope this is helpful, pls lmk if you have any more questions :D

[queermediastudies]

Identity, Infidelity, and iPhones: A Critique of “Tangerine”

Tangerine, set in Los Angeles in 2015, follows the journey of two black transgender women through the streets of West Hollywood the day that one of them is released from jail. The main character, Sin-Dee Rella, learns from her friend Alexandra that her fiance, Chester, has been cheating on her while she was in jail for a month. Sin-Dee sets off to seek revenge on Chester and the “other woman”. The film, which takes place over the course of Christmas Eve, depicts sex work, infidelity, drug use, singing performances, transphobic violence, and more. The plot comes to a peak with all the main characters in one donut shop, where the biggest secret of the film is revealed. Part drama and part comedy, Tangerine is a story of revenge, friendship, identity, sexuality, and love. 

The reception of Tangerine was rather mixed. The film was highly acclaimed for its methods of production, as it was shot entirely from three iPhone 5s smartphones. It was also praised for its casting: the two main characters, Sin-Dee and Alexandra, are played by Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor, two openly transgender actresses. Taylor won several independent film awards for her role (Shawan, 2015). Today, the film has a score of 96 on Rotten Tomatoes. However, the film has also received criticism about its portrayals of trans characters. 

While Tangerine exhibits themes that align with aspects of queer theory, it also has some problematic elements within its production and content. As a viewer, my personal subject positionality impacts my interpretations and criticisms of the film, and my identity informs how my reading of the film differs from others’. Overall, Tangerine is a complex text that requires many different perspectives to dissect.  

One of the major themes evident in Tangerine is intersectionality. This film follows the lives of two transgender black women who are also sex workers. This represents an intersection of marginalized gender identity, race, and class, all of which overlap and inform each other to create experiences unique to these particular positions in society. The intersection of these many marginalized identities is not often represented on screen, and this film was made in the 2015, pre Pose era. 

Other apparent themes in the film include trans identity and gender performativity. In one scene, Sin-Dee drags Dinah, the “other woman” to Alexandra’s performance where she sings Doris Day’s Toyland in a club. Dinah later refers to the performance as a “drag show”, to which Alexandra sternly replies “I am not a drag queen”. This exchange challenges Dinah, who, rather than deconstructing her ideas of gender, still thinks of Alexandra as a man performing as a woman. Although Tangerine includes trans characters, the film does not give Sin-Dee or Alexandra much more background or storyline other than their trans identity, a critique that will be explored more in later sections. 

One of the most common praises for Tangerine is for its method of filming: the entire film was shot using iPhones and a four dollar editing app. This cheap, user-friendly technology exhibits a queer approach to production. As Scott & Fawaz point out in Queer About Comics, “low-tech quality makes comics either fundamentally democratic or especially available to democratic practices” (Scott & Fawaz, 2018, p 201). This idea is reflected in Tangerine, as the groundbreaking use of iPhones showed audiences the endless opportunities available with more readily accessible technology. The editing of the film also exemplified some nontraditional techniques. The footage was edited to be quite oversaturated, giving it a slight orange hue, thus the name Tangerine. These film choices deliberately broke cinematic norms.  

Tangerine mirrors Pose when it comes to some of its criticism. Because of the casting of two trans women of color, the film was able to deflect a lot of criticism. Dr. Martin makes this argument with Pose, saying that “These gay and trans actors of color function as a shield for Pose’s problematic representational politics” (Martin, 2018). While the casting of these two actresses seems groundbreaking, the film itself was created and written by two straight, white, cisgender men, Sean Baker and Chris Bergoch. These two men received the praise and profits from Tangerine even though there were many problematic layers within the casting, production, content, and intended audience of the film. 

For one, although Baker and Bergoch may have had good intentions by trying to cast black trans actors, their methods for finding actors were questionable. Their desire to create this film came from Baker’s “fascination” with a particular Los Angeles intersection that was known for sex work. “As straight, white, cisgender men, he and frequent writing partner Chris Bergoch knew they needed a collaborator familiar with the area’s culture. Approaching people on the street proved futile, so they wandered over to a nearby LGBT center. There, Baker instantly “gravitated” toward a transgender woman named Mya Taylor, an aspiring entertainer who had never acted before, but was game for whatever Baker and Bergoch wanted” (Jacobs, 2015). The intense interest in a community that Baker is not a part of seems voyeuristic if not intrusive. Also, the way that Baker found Mya Taylor shows a situation where Taylor has very little power in the creation of this film. While Baker did intend to get an “inside perspective” of the area’s culture rather than relying on his own perspective, his casting of Taylor seems to be solely based on the fact that she is a black trans woman and was willing to participate. This has some connotations of tokenism and performativity that must be looked at more closely. 

Secondly, the film itself has many issues of representation of trans lives. Overall, Sin-Dee and Alexandra have been propped up as “window dressings” of the film. As Rich Juzwiak states in a critique of the film, “We get virtually no sense of Sin-Dee’s interior life, and the sense we get of Alexandra’s is eye-rollingly trite (she wants to be a singer)” (Juzwiak, 2015). We do not get much of a sense of these characters’ lives outside of sex work, such as their backgrounds or even where they live when they are not on the streets. Instead, Baker and Bergoch rely heavily on tropes and stereotypes of black trans women as well as sex workers. On the other hand, they show the family and home life of Razmik, a cab driver who is a regular customer of Sin-Dee and Alexandras. This makes sense with the later plot, but the stark distinctions between these characters are clear.

The obsession with anatomy in Tangerine presents another layer of concern. For one, the fetishization of trans women was a major component of the film. Razmik consistently objectifies and fetishizes trans women. We see this when he unknowingly picks up a cis woman, then proceeds to kick her out of his car when he realizes she is not trans. This fetishization is dehumanizing, as it portrays trans women as objects of a straight male’s gaze rather than people with complex identities. Cavalcante (2017) criticizes films such as Boys Don’t Cry and TransAmerica for “scenes in both films that fetishized genitalia” (Cavalcante, 2017). This obsession with the anatomy of trans bodies is also shown when Dinah calls Chester “homo” for wanting to marry Sin-Dee. Selena, the woman that Razmik picked up, also called him “homo” when she realized he was looking for a trans woman. This implies that Sin-Dee and other trans women are men, invalidating their female identity. There are also consistent references to Dinah as a “real” woman or a “fish”. This reference implies that, as a cisgender woman, Dinah’s biology is what makes her a woman, and that trans women are not real women. While the trans characters use this reference themselves, it is still problematic to use biology as the determining factor for womanhood. Rather than challenging this implication, Tangerine consistently perpetuates transphobic language and ideas.

As viewers, it is important to recognize our own subject positionality when critiquing films. Personally, as a young queer woman of color in college, I often tend to have a critical, almost cynical lens with many texts. For one, as a mixed-race person, I rarely see images of myself in the media, so I understand the importance of representation. When I do come across characters that I identify with, I often will fall prey to the trap of representation without considering larger structures within media. 

Because of my subjective experiences as a queer woman, I would say I am also sex-positive and sex work positive. I had trouble with some criticisms of Tangerine that I found online because many people took issue with the portrayal of Sin-Dee and Alexandra as sex workers. The particular editorials I came across used a lot of anti-sex worker language. While I agree that “trans women as sex workers” is a trope that must be challenged, my own positionality tells me that there is nothing inherently wrong with sex work. Sex workers deserve to have their stories told and they deserve respect and dignity. While there is a lot of questionable material in Tangerine, I don’t think the presence of sex work alone is inherently problematic. However, the portrayal of sex work as indecent, as it was sometimes portrayed in Tangerine, contributes to the stigma against it. My personal experiences and views further complicated my reading of this film. 

At first glance, Tangerine seems indisputably groundbreaking based on its cast and the characters it is representing. However, a closer look behind the scenes reveals that the features praised in the film are a veil for some questionable processes. A close examination of the text recalls Tourmaline’s Teen Vogue piece: “Too often, people with resources who already have a platform become the ones to tell the stories of those at the margins rather than people who themselves belong to these communities. The process ends up extracting from people who are taking the most risks just to live our lives and connect with our histories…” (Tourmaline, 2017). If we truly want a raw, real look at the lives of trans people of color and sex workers, we must leave the storytelling up to them, rather than approaching these communities with nosy voyeurism as Baker did. However, Tangerine revealed the possibility of a full-length film created with very limited technology. Perhaps the next breakout film will be a story created by trans women of color using nothing but iPhones.  

  Works Cited

Critique by Lucy Briggs

Jacobs, M. (2015, July 9). Tangerine may have had a tiny budget, but the film's heart is bigger because of it. Huffington Post. Retrieved from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tangerine-movie-transgender_n_559bc990e4b05d7587e22881.

Juzwiak, R. (2015, October 17). Trans sex work comedy Tangerine is the most overrated movie of the year. Gawker. Retrieved from http://defamer.gawker.com/trans-sex-work-comedy-tangerine-is-the-most-overrated-m-1717662910.

Martin, A. L. (2018, August 2). Pose(r): Ryan Murphy, trans and queer of color labor, and the politics of representation. Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved from https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/poser-ryan-murphy-trans-queer-color-labor-politics-representation/.

Scott, D. & Fawaz, R. (2018) Queer about comics. American Literature, Volume 90, Number 2, June 2018, pp 197-219. Doi: 10.1215/00029831-4564274

Shawhan, J. (2015, August 6). Beyond using progressive filming techniques and casting, Tangerine is expressive and warm. Nashville Scene. Retrieved from https://www.nashvillescene.com/arts-culture/film/article/13060247/beyond-using-progressive-filming-techniques-and-casting-tangerine-is-expressive-and-warm. 

[void-official]

“Micro-identities/’Mogai/ya’ll literally just be making shit up now” OK. i’m sorry im stuck on this and this is the last i’ll talk about it today bc fuck it. I’m gonna be Real for a second. And it’s going to be awkward, and it’s going to be long, and I’m gonna Lose Follower bc defending micro-labels is Cringe. Whatever. I get it. go ahead and unfollow. The rest of you who actually care. and in the spirit of Pride Month, as someone who feels like they’re almost never allowed to express Pride in who I am? Here we go.

I’m bi. Most of you can probably tell, im not exactly subtle about it.

I’m bi. But

my actual interest in dating or having sex with Anyone has been pretty much negligible for my entire life. I just don’t Care. I never have. Dating and sex seem like a hassle to me and I don’t feel like i’m particularly missing out by not taking part in them. It doesn’t negate my enjoyment of peoples bodies necessarily, nor does it mean I never get crushes on people it just means at the end of the day, my desire to go out there and find people to have sex with and/or date has always been like. really really low. Even if the opportunity was there. And i’ve come to terms with this. I accept this about myself.

There is actually a great deal of overlap between bi and ace identity. all those ‘weird little terms’ like ‘demisexual’ you guys hate so much were originally created for people like me, who feel like they are fundamentally not allowed to call themselves something straightforward like ‘bi’ (or straight/gay/lesbian) without people inevitably screaming at them for Doing It Wrong. So they can describe how they feel in a brief word, instead of having to go through the pains of explaining the complex relationship they have with sexual attraction to every fucking person who asks what their sexuality is.

saying ‘well you should just be able to say bi and leave it at that’ doesn’t actually account for the experiences i have when i Just Say i’m Bi. Even me Just Saying ‘im bi’ i’ve always gotta deal with harassment from people whoget weirdly agressive about -why- i’m not out there fucking or dating the people i claim im attracted to. Am I a prude? a Tease? Just an ‘Acey’ lying for brownie points? Am I Actually Just Traumatized? (They ask in a really aggressive condescending way, like thats actually how you should talk to someone you think is potentially traumatized) But by the standards of this discourse, i’m not allowed to call myself ace either, because then people are going to yell at me that if I experience the tiniest smidgen of sexual attraction or romantic inclination sometimes, or post pictures of sexy video game characters, clearly i cant be that either  I literally can’t win. there is not a thing I can call myself that won’t earn me the ire of LGBT people on tumblr who think they know me and what i should call myself better than I do. And believe me i hate talking about this More than you do. I’d rather just shut up and let people Assume i’m whatever they want me to be sometimes but then mutuals i thought i trusted will inevitably openly make fun of the people who outwardly call themselves demisexual or whatever microlabel is trendy to shit on currently, and usually i bite my tongue cause at the end of the day its Just Words, right? I don’t even use that word, right? Its just words and some words can be interchangeable and not everyone knows what they mean which can feel alienating and unnecessary to people who don’t understand them. I -get- why people ‘cringe’ when they see like 10 terms they don’t understand in someones bio. why do you think i don’t even list anything about my sexuality in mine other than my pronouns?

but I always remember like. just bc that label isnt For Me, it doesn’t mean there might be someone in a similar position to me who doesnt feel comfortable just calling themeslves bi, and prefers the label ‘demisexual biromantic’ who feels like that phrase puts them in a place of peace and contentment, and I wouldn’t argue with them about it. Bc thats their fucking choice. Them being happy with who they are takes priority over my personal opinions of the language they use. same with gender nonconforming people who dont want call themselves trans or nonbinary. Thats fucking Fine. I’m not telling you to have to use the same words as me if you don’t feel like they’re necessary or accurate. I literally don’t give a rats ass what words you use to identify yourself so long as they’re not being used to hurt other people. I just want to be able to have Words, for myself, that describe how I feel, that don’t result in people treating my entire identity like some shitty discourse Meme. And right now I have none. No matter what I call myself, people choose tell me it’s not accurate, or its too complicated.

As for all these shitty fucking posts about people ‘forcing’ young people to take up labels. This. This doesn’t actually happen? (OK I won’t say it doesn’t happen ever on an individual level? but that its not something enforced or encouraged by any group as a practice, and that distinction is necessary, bc saying it happens on a large scale literally implies predatory intentions from a massive group of people instead of members of the group behaving poorly as individuals)

Demisexual people as a whole have literally never told me i had to call myself demi just bc my sense of how i experience attraction might be similar to theirs. Ace people as a whole don’t usually tell people whose lack of sexual attraction is caused by trauma or who havent developed enough to experience sexual attraction that they -have- to call themselves ace. Most Bi or Pan people are fine with the fact that their labels have a lot of overlap and that the line between these things can be murky, they arent actually constantly ready to tear each others throats out over whose terminology is correct. All of this shit is made up by hateful people, or people taking a few examples of poor behavior out of context as an excuse to shit on everyone else, and well meaning people keep falling for it bc it -seems- helpful to be. reactive. I guess? to people you’re constantly told are hurtful to the causes of marginalized people. but im telling you. its not true. literally nobody forces you to call yourself any of these words, they just Exist out there in case you want them, and if you think thats somehow a threat to other peoples identities or to Minors just like, conceptually, for existing, for being Too Specific, im sorry but what other word is there for your reaction than phobic? If an individual derails a conversation about Y to be like “You didn’t include _X_” or tries to force their views on a minor who hasn’t developed a stable sense of identity yet, that is an Individual behaving in an inappropriate manner, not an invitation for you to throw the whole group under the bus. I hate to tell you but if you’re using examples of individuals on tumblr who say stupid shit, everyone on tumblr says stupid shit and butts in conversationally where they’re not welcome. Universally. It’s how tumblr is formatted. Trust me, I have like 4 viral posts going right now.

i’m just tired of it at this point. im not cool with people who stretch to make fun of micro-labels all the time and think they’re being woke allies or w/e to the ‘real LGBTs’.  Even if a lot of the time I personally don’t care for all the labels and wouldn’t choose them for myself, I still feel like If you can’t treat people like individuals and assess their character on a case by case basis, i don’t trust you. I don’t like people who stereotype and LGBT people are not immune to this behavior. Like i don’t say it often but it fucking hurts, and it hurts other people I’m close to who I know have similar complicated identities and struggle coming up w/words to describe themselves that the whole of tumblr LGBT+ will approve of and agree with (clearly an impossibility because there are still people who don’t want bi and trans to even be in there). I might tolerate the constant jokes and not block on principle of knowing not everyone has ingested and thought about this discourse in the same way I have, and im a big tough adult, ultimately i can take it. but inside i know no matter what i call myself, if i were earnest with some of you about how i feel I’d probably be just another ‘special snowflake Delusional mogai creep’ to you, and i can’t deny that fucking hurts to think about. I try not to talk about it openly bc it embarrasses me, bc i dont think my sexuality should have to be battle ground for discourse for people who are supposed to be on my side. But there it is. I think most of this discourse is Trash, and clearly not for the reason most people on here say its trash, not bc theres ‘too many specific words, y’all just be Making Shit Up’ but because so many of you are more caught up in the words than the substance of the arguments or the needs of people whose experiences might have a lot of overlap with yours regardless of what word they’re using to describe it.

Anyway. happy pride to LGBTQA+ people who still dont really feel pride in themselves or their identity. I’d say you’re valid, but you don’t need my validation or anyone elses to understand that you’re a person deserving of respect and compassion. You exist as who you are, and you have to come to terms with who that is, regardless of whether or not you feel like you’re accepted for it. if not pride then, settle for confidence in who you are.

[radiqueer]

about your "bad take". that actually makes a lot of sense to me. can you say why it is not true?

i was afraid of this

let’s take the entire text bit by bit, for my ease of reading and yours

i said: the fact that many nb and trans afabs don’t consume f/f - but have no problem consuming m/m - is because we as a society are trained to think of men as universally relatable characters, but only ‘women’ read about women. so if you’re trans/nb and you’re afab and you don’t like reading about women, it’s because you think that you have to be a woman in order to consume female-centric media. you have internalized misogyny :) 

1. the assumption that trans and nb afabs haven’t done the work of critically examining their own gender, and haven’t yet sorted through their internalized misogyny, is a radical feminist lie to devalue the experiences of trans and nb afabs. their take on trans/nb afabs is literally ‘trying to identify out of oppression in any way they can due to self hatred and internalized misogyny’. I’m recycling a radfem talking point and that’s already a strike against me. 

2. it is true that we’re trained to think of men as universally relatable and women as….not universally relatable, but that’s a big picture take. the small picture take, tailored to trans and nb afabs, is that we desperately don’t want to see ourselves as women, we don’t want to think of ourselves as women. and of course it’s possible to retain your personhood even when you’re consuming media…or is it?

consuming media is a deeply intimate and transformative act, when done correctly. and many trans and nb people just don’t have a strong enough grasp on their personhood to feel safe consuming a piece that they know will touch and transform them. this fear arises out of the fact that binary, cissexist society constantly attempts to strip us of our words and impose another narrative on us, and feeling like we’re living a story that isn’t ours is a facet of the trans experience many of us would rather leave behind. 

3. many trans and nb afabs do consume and enjoy f/f media. many of us write it! many of us love women and want to live through loving women in a non-predatory fashion that is easier to find in f/f than in m/f, which may or may not have triggering tropes. 

4. the idea that the media consumption habits of marginalized groups arise out of the same social conditioning as the media consumption habits of privileged groups is……..a lie. M-groups do not experience social conditionings the same way P-groups do! we don’t! that’s the kind of talk that leads to saying that trans women experience male socialization…firstly, male socialization isn’t even a coherent concept, and secondly, they don’t. they are socialized as trans women, which is a unique set of experiences which has more in common with (cis) womanhood than (cis) manhood but is still notably distinct from it. in the same way, trans and nb afabs experience social conditioning as trans and nb afabs. that’s a distinct set of experiences that isn’t reducible to cis womanhood. 

when we understand how social conditioning works for marginalized groups we also understand how our identities and experiences intersect and overlap, and where they differ. that understanding is vital to realizing why people consume the media that they do, and the answer to that is…

it depends. it’s all subjective. you can no more come up with a 100% accurate theory of why people consume x media than you can turn into a shark. because people consume media for all sorts of reasons, ranging from ‘i watch this because i hate it’ (unironically) to ‘if i didn’t read this i would be dead’ to ‘it shows me a better way of living’ to ‘it shows me how bad things could get’. we all read and watch things for different reasons. the best you can hope for is to understand why you, personally, like what you like and dislike that you dislike. and even that’s dicey. hoping to see into other people’s minds is a bit of a distant dream.

of course, you can come up with general theories. ‘most people watch porn to get off’ is an accurate statement, the keywords there being ‘most people’. some people watch porn for sex education (bad idea) some people watch porn for the dialogue, and some people watch porn so they can make themselves angry about the treatment of women. who’s to say?

[a-polite-melody]

It's "interesting" that polyam people are usually one of the go-to "NEXT YOU'LL BE SAYING WE SHOULD INCLUDE THEM!" groups for regs, considering one of the primary arguments abt excluding anybody who isnt exclusively attracted to their own gender is basically "but they dont get marriage inequality!", when bigamy is an actual literal crime pretty much everywhere, and one that can lead to time in jail regardless of consensuality...

Ooh boy am I likely going to get some shit over fleshing outmy thoughts on this matter. But you know, I think it’s important I do moreproperly solidify my thoughts, and the easiest way for me to do that is towrite things out, so let’s do this... And this is probably going to be long,ramble-y, wordy, and whatnot, so it’s going under a cut.

Anon, that’s always been something that’s bothered me too.Like. Not even just people we’d typically consider REGs - like aspecexclusionists, multispec exclusionists, nonbinary exclusionists, transexclusionists, truscum, TERFs, etc. - do this, but people who would considerthemselves to be against gatekeeping also do too.

Especially when you consider just how much of the polyamcommunity is queer beyond their being polyamorous, and also consider the amountof shared history between polyamory and queerness (because when you see theformer you almost always see the latter as well - in terms of individuals andgroups/collectives), the amount of using “including polyamory” as a slipperyslope argument, as well as just the general disdain for “including polyamory”is... sketchy at best to me.

I guess it comes down to what we think the LGBTQ+ and queercommunities are as a whole. How do we define those? And with that definition,where do we put things like polyamory? And are we defining things well ifgroups with a lot of shared history and a lot of overlap in issues areexcluded?

Let’s take a look at some definitions of what exactly theLGBTQ+ community is and how those boundaries are put up, starting with theleast inclusive I’m willing to deal with and going from there:

1. The popular aphobic REG definition:

The LGBT community is for combating homophobia andtransphobia. Therefore, the LGBT community is for people who experiencehomophobia and transphobia.

I take huge issue with this, because I think that multispecantagonism has a lot of difference from homophobia and cannot be grouped as a“subset” of homophobia. There are issues that have to do specifically beingattracted to multiple genders - regardless of if the individual experiencesattraction to the same gender or not. The same goes for exorsexism being itsown separate issue and not a “subset” of transphobia, because of, for example,our genders being completely erased and believed to not exist at all.

Then, there’s the issues related to orientation beingexcluded entirely, such as aphobia, and the issues related to sex and genderbeing excluded entirely, such as perisexism.

Under this definition, only lesbians, gay people, bi people(with the caveat of bisexuality requiring attraction to the same gender, if notyou’re not bi, even if you’re nonbinary and (potentially) included because ofthat, because it’s totally fine to erase orientations if you include forsomething else???), and trans people (with, being completely generous and notincluding truscum or exorsexist beliefs on top of this, the caveat that ifyou’re nonbinary you must consider yourself trans) are part of the community.

While I despise this definition entirely, I do get thatthose who do favour it are exclusionary of polyamory as being a qualifier asbeing part of the community... because they’re exclusionary of quite a lot ofthings.

-

2. The one that essentially “MOGA”:

The LGBT+ community is a community for people ofmarginalized orientations and gender alignments/identities.

Basically, this boils down to... Having an orientation thatis not straight (and regarding split attraction, having at least oneorientation that is not straight) qualifies you for being part of the LGBTQ+community because you have an orientation that is marginalized. Also, having agender that is different from the gender you were assigned at birth qualifies youfor being in the LGBTQ+ community because you have a gender alignment/identitythat is marginalized.

This is better, but it still excludes issues surroundingperisexism. There are other issues I have with this one, but they’re alsoissues I have with the next definition, so I’ll leave this and move onto...

-

3. IMOGA, MOGAI, or just typical unnamed inclusionism:

The LGBT+ community is a community for people ofmarginalized orientations and gender alignments/identities, AND because ofshared history and issues, also people who are intersex if they feel as thoughthey want to be part of our community.

Essentially, this is the above, but includes issuessurrounding perisexism, and therefore includes intersex people if they feelthat they want to be part of the LGBTQ+ community specifically because of theirbeing intersex.

This seems to be where a lot of inclusionists sit in termsof their definition for the community. And this set of beliefs is conducive tothe exclusion of things like polyamory, even though there are shared issuesbetween these two communities - like the given example of marriage equality.You might get a, “they’re separate but related communities,” when you bringthis up. That reads... similarly to, “aspec people should have their own communityseparate from the LGBT community,” to me. I suppose you could justify that,because polyamory isn’t an orientation and so it’s different. But I still takeissue with that.

For me, the big issue here is that in all of this discussionpeople have pointed out, time and time again, usually related to argumentsagainst the use of “queer community,” that the LGBTQ+ community is a coalitionof the lesbian community, the gay community, the bi community, the transcommunity, the queer community, and so on. And so... why are we drawing theborders here - at orientations and gender alignments/identities that aremarginalized... oh, plus intersex people because of shared history and issuesstopping there in terms of shared history and issues? Which brings me to...

-

4. The definition I subscribe to:

The LGBT+ community is for combating pericishetero-society.Therefore, the LGBT+ community is a community consisting of many differentaligned groups or smaller communities that all differ frompericisheteronormativity, which individuals can choose to opt in or out of.

Same deal, where the LGBTQ+ community is a coalition betweenmany interconnected communities, linked together by differing frompericisheteronormativity.

And that covers... a lot.

Perinormativity: the assumption that everyone falls withintwo distinct categories biologically of “male” and “female” with all of sexchromosomes, gonads and other genitalia, and hormones being aligned from birthwith one of those categories.

Cisnormativity: the assumption that everyone identifies withthe gender that they were assigned at birth, and by extension, that there areonly the two binary genders of man and woman, and that people will present insuch a way as people can know which of the two binary genders you are.

Heteronormativity: the assumption that everyone is attractedto the opposite binary gender, and by extension, that they are only attractedto one gender, experience that attraction as both romantic and sexually, andexperience it regularly as part of day-to-day life, that there is a goal as theresult of this attraction to be in a romantic and sexual relationship thatlooks and works a certain way with a single individual.

Basically, besides perinormativity targeting prettyexclusively intersex people, cisnormativity doesn’t just target trans peopleand heteronormativity doesn’t just target gay people.

Cisnormativity’s primary target may be trans people, but italso harms nonbinary people regardless of if they consider themselves to betrans, and people who are GNC.

Heteronormativity’s primary target my be gay people, but italso harms multispec people regardless of if they are attracted to the samegender, aspec people regardless of other orientations they may have, polyamorouspeople, and - *gasp* - kinky people - how dare I!?

So yes, my view of the LGBTQ+ community is that it includespeople that tend to be not included by people who consider themselvesinclusionists. It includes people who are cis but are GNC. It includespolyamorous people, even if they’re cis and het with no split attraction. Itincludes kinky people, even if they’re cis and het with no split attraction.

Stay with me. I know this sounds out there but hang on.

It includes these groups because they directly opposepericisheteronormativity.

But that doesn’t mean I think cis people belong in transspaces and can speak on trans issues just because they’re GNC. And that doesn’tmean I think het people can belong in spaces for people of marginalized orientationsor can speak on issues surrounding marginalized orientations just becausethey’re polyam or kinky. Just as aspec people shouldn’t speak on issues aboutbeing gay or trans (if they’re not also gay or trans, that is), for example.

A coalition of many smaller communities.

Sure, we could say that the polyam community is separate butadjacent to the LGBTQ+ community since they do share a history and some of thesame issues. But why if we’re also including being intersex as part of thelarger LGBTQ+ community because of a shared history and shared issues (whichI’m 100% supportive of, by the way, as long as they would like to be included)should we exclude these other adjacent groups as being entirely separate? Whycan’t they exist within the larger umbrella of the LGBTQ+ community?

And really, quite often, they actually do exist within thelarger umbrella of the LGBTQ+ community. For example, my campus has a kinkcollection as part of our LGBTQ+ library. And this, as far as I know, is pretty commonplace. Because of a hugeshared history. Pride parades quite often have some form of kink pride - hell,there’s even a leather flag. Same goes for polyamory. And gender non-conformityhas similar connections.

There’s one part of the above definition I haven’t reallytouched on yet - besides for intersex people - and that’s the “whichindividuals can choose to opt in or out of.” That part is important. Not justin terms of the inclusion of intersex in the community because there are someintersex people who do not feel that being intersex makes them part of theLGBTQ+ community, but also in terms of, well, removing the boogeymen, so tospeak.

Being LGBTQ+, as much as so many people in the communityseem to be trying to say otherwise (only when it suits them, mind you) is thatthere are people who don’t belong who want to invade. The Straights will callthemselves trans, or nonbinary, or bi, or pan, or ace, or whatever just becauseit’s “trendy” to be LGBTQ+. And. Just. What???

It’s even more odd when you consider the whole “only when itsuits them” part. Because other times The Straights actually despise us and useour terms derogatorily. And... that doesn’t line up. If it were “cool” or“trendy” to be LGBTQ+, why would queer still be used as a slur? Why would “gay”have become a synonym for other derogatory terms like “stupid”? Why would “nohomo” have been such a huge thing?

Straight people, people who conform topericisheteronormativity, want to distance themselves from us at all costs. Tothe point of going way out of their way to be sure that people know they’rejust our allies and not one of us because they don’t want to be seen asactually one of us.

So those “straight frat boys who use aromanticism as anexcuse to fuck tons of women and then ghosts them all,” and “straight men whouse polyamory as an excuse to cheat on their girlfriends,” and “straight menwho have five girlfriends who all aren’t allowed to have other boyfriends,” and“straight men who get off on hurting their girlfriends,” and “cishet men whosometimes wear eyeliner,” aren’t going to call themselves LGBTQ+. Because theydon’t want to be one of us.

Sure, there will be het-attracted aspecs who are part of thecommunity, and straight polyamorous people who are part of the community, andstraight kinky people who are part of the community. But they’re the ones whodon’t conform to pericisheteronormativity. They’re the ones interested indismantling those systems. And hell yes I think that they’re just as deservingof a spot in the larger community discussions on how to accomplish that.

Anyway, that’s my position on the whole thing. Please directyour angry comments about how “wanting to hit your partner isn’t LGBT” or“wanting to fuck multiple people isn’t LGBT” to my ask box where they will doabsolutely nothing to change my mind or my position on the matter and will onlybe answered specifically in a nice tone if you want to pay me $20 to put inthat effort.

(And before anyone decides this includes pedophiles and people into bestiality... Nope! The object of your attraction being an individual who can’t consent doesn’t mean you’re going against pericisheteronormativity! Nothing in what perinormativity, cisnormativity, and heteronormativity are includes the age or species of individuals you’re attracted to!)

[agnesgoesadventuring-blog]

1/? I'm pretty sick of the way some people act like it isn't possible for some queer people to treat other queer people badly and that saying so is wrong. I'm asexual and biromantic and there have been so many queer people who have told me I'm not welcome and that I'm basically straight, and I'm only welcome if I'm with another woman. I've had people tell me that I'm using a fake sexuality so I can say that I'm queer without actually doing anything that would make me queer and I've had people

2/? anything that would make me queer and I've had people who are queer tell me that I just hadn't had good sex yet and that once I did I'd realize that asexuality isn't really a thing. I've also read fic where asexuality is sort of fetishized. I don't know if that's the right word, but there have been fics in a couple of the fandoms I've been in where the writer writes one of the characters say they're ace and then they have sex with the other character and they're "cured", and I KNOW at least2/? anything that would make me queer and I've had people who are queer tell me that I just hadn't had good sex yet and that once I did I'd realize that asexuality isn't really a thing. I've also read fic where asexuality is sort of fetishized. I don't know if that's the right word, but there have been fics in a couple of the fandoms I've been in where the writer writes one of the characters say they're ace and then they have sex with the other character and they're "cured", and I KNOW at least  3/? one of those fics was written by a wlw. I don't know enough about the m/m ships individually in the Critical Role fandom because I don't go read those fics so I don't know if there are fics fetishizing those ships. But this fandom really does put m/m relationships above all other relationships and focus on them way more whether they're canon or not, and that's something that seems to happen with the ships where m/m pairings get fetishized. So it's not like there aren't things in the fandom  4/? things in the fandom that show that maybe this could be happening. We just need to stop acting like it's not possible for queer people to be horrible to other queer people. And we need to stop acting like people pointing that out are horrible homophobes making bigoted accusations. Underneath the surface there can be a lot of division in the queer community, a lot of gatekeeping and prejudice from some groups for other groups in the community. If people want to ignore that by pretending that5/5 queer people can't treat other queer people in bad ways and try to shut down that discussion by accusing people of being disgusting and homophobic for talking about it then they are a big part of the problem.

I've seen asexuality treated in some ignorant and uncomfortable ways in fic, too. Like you, I don't know if fetishization is the right word, but it's definitely something that does happen, however rare in comparison to other things. The reality is that, regardless of whether or not it qualifies as "fetishization", pretty much all queer identities have been treated in problematic ways in fanfiction and by fandom in general. In a lot of cases it's rare that it happens, but it does happen here and there, and in other cases it's a bit more common.                                                                 

There are going to be in-group/out-group dynamics and power structures within any community, and the queer community is no exception. It would be nice to think that everyone who has experienced exclusion and prejudice based on their sexual or gender identity would want to do everything they can to make sure they don't do that to other people, but as we've seen from the amount of things like bi, ace, and pan exclusion and erasure that happens in the community that this is not always the case. It's unfortunate, and I wish that people having those experiences would make them not want to inflict similar experiences on others, but the fact of the matter is that human psychology is going to exist in any kind of group or community, and a person being a part of a marginalized group doesn't somehow mean they're not just as susceptible to pretty common human psychology.

Something that's really important to remember is that the queer community is not some homogeneous group where everyone has the same identity and the same experiences. It's a community full of different, sometimes overlapping groups. Those groups are made up of identities that are similar in some ways and very different in others, and some of the experiences that those groups have overlap with each other, and some experiences are wholly unique to that group. So it's entirely possible for someone from one group to be ignorant about people and things that happen in another group, to not understand some of those experiences and to, whether intentionally or not, do things that exclude or otherwise hurt them.

On another note related to the discussion of fethishizing queer identities in fandom, someone I was talking to about the topic brought up an interesting point about how there are some ships where the fetishization becomes normalized and it just becomes the general standard and norm of how the ship is treated, written about, etc., so it starts out as people treating the ship in fetishizing ways, as a means of using the gay male experience as a means of titillating and basically getting off, and doing things like depicting unsafe and unrealistic sexual practices and pushing heteronormative gender and relationship roles onto the characters, and it just happens so much that those ideas just kind of become the way people think about the ship and the way people write about the ship, because it's just sort of the status quo. So it starts as pretty blatant fetishization, but over time people are just writing these heternormative ideas and such, without even an intention to titillate or "get off", without realizing what they're doing, because it's just they way things are done in that fandom. That's where it gets REALLY troubling, and that's one of the reasons it's so important to call that kind of fetishizing out when it happens. I'm very glad that I haven't been actively involved in any fandoms where that kind of normalization has happened, but I've talked to people who have been in such fandoms, and it's just heartbreaking to hear them talk about it.

[violenceinintersectionality]

Throughout this semester, a topic that stood out to me was intersectionality. This especially caught my attention when we read Chinelo Okparanta’s novel, “Under the Udala trees”. With this in mind, I will be discussing violence in intersectionality, discrimination, and my personal experience with witnessing violence in intersectionality.

Intersectionality is defined by Merriam-Webster as, “The complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, or intersect especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups”. In other words, the effect that discrimination has on certain groups that are especially discriminated against. As a white female, I find myself being discriminated against often. Whether it be because of my looks, age, race, and even financial status. As women, I feel that this is something we all have to deal with at least once in our life. What frustrates me, personally, is that in my opinion, sex and race are two of the most prominent factors in intersectionality and I believe that women of color are the most affected by violence in intersectionality. I read an article during this class that explained how race is a social construct. Reading this article really made me wonder why women of color are treated so differently, especially when I was reading these wonderful works that the women had written. The author of the article, Angela Onwuachi-Willig wrote, “Race is not biological. It is a social construct. There is no gene or cluster of genes common to all blacks or all whites. Were race “real” in the genetic sense, racial classifications for individuals would remain constant across boundaries. Yet, a person who could be categorized as black in the United States might be considered white in Brazil or colored in South Africa”. Therefore, in my eyes I see a world that has created a prejudice to certain people because it’s just what they felt they had to do. On top of that, women are also seen as a minority to some. In the Neolithic era, all women were caretakers of the children who also farmed and protected their home while their husbands were out hunting. Women are the reason that we’re all prospering and obviously alive. So I cant help but wonder when this idea that they are somehow less of a person than men came about. Between the idea that women of color are somehow different in their humanity and that women are less important than man, it’s easy to see how ignorant people can be so careless when it comes to equality.

When I wrote my paper analyzing “Under the Udala Trees” I found myself unable to stop my brain from getting my hands to stop typing. The story truly spoke to me in a way that lifted me up but also broke my heart. In the story, the main character must deal with homophobia, religious differences, domestic abuse, and more. This class has truly opened my eyes when I thought they were already open, learning stories about these strong, amazing women who have been to hell and back make’s issues in today’s society all more real. Specifically, the main character, Ijeoma, was forced to suppress her sexuality and when it was discovered that she was in love with a member of the same sex, religion was forced upon her, her friends were killed, and the man who became her husband inflicted physical, mental, and emotional violence in her. While this story may be some words in a book to some people, things like this are happening in real life every day. If I could convince every human on the planet to at least take this class and educate themselves on what women who have dealt with these things in history have been through, I would and there is no doubt in my mind that it would make a huge change in this world. This is where violence in intersectionality comes in. If you take these ideas about women of color being unequal and factor in people who feel they are better than these women, you get the notion that those people feel they can push the women around. When Ijeoma’s husband threatened her with violence, he must have truly thought in that moment that he was so much better than her because of his “status” as a human. When people with violent tendencies get into this mindset, there is absolutely no limit to what they can do. The Institute For Women’s Policy Research stated, “More than four in ten Black women experience physical violence from an intimate partner during their lifetimes. White women, Latinas, and Asian/Pacific Islander women report lower rates. Black women also experience significantly higher rates of psychological abuse—including humiliation, insults, name-calling, and coercive control—than do women overall. Sexual violence affects Black women at high rates. More than 20 percent of Black women are raped during their lifetimes—a higher share than among women overall. Black women face a particularly high risk of being killed at the hands of a man. A 2015 Violence Policy Center study finds that Black women were two and a half times more likely to be murdered by men than their White counterparts. More than nine in ten Black female victims knew their killers”. I made sure to include all of these statistics in length because they need to be acknowledged. Almost everything we’ve read from female authors this semester includes a portion where they mentioned the trials and tribulations they went through to get to the place where they are, regardless of race but still so unbelievably appalling. I can only pray that these statistics are better recognized and improved.

I live in a rural, conservative, small town area filled with closed minded people. I often take a lot of heat for attending High Point, with people calling it a “rich kid liberal school” among other things. However, I couldn’t be happier to announce that I go to High Point because I have the ability to learn from and among some of the most welcoming people I’ve ever met. It’s a different story where I live though. Racism is so prominent and absolutely horrifying. A few years ago, I was dating a guy who most would consider “redneck”. On top of that, I was also in his friend group. We would go for bonfires, mudding, truck shows, the classic country boy stuff. During all of this however, any time we would pass a person of color, the men in that group would quietly refer to them with a derogatory, horrifying name that shocked me every time. At first, I kept quiet and didn’t say anything, which was obviously the wrong thing to do and a big factor in this societal issue. After some time though, I began to speak up and explain why those words were wrong and hurtful, to which they often responded with “When did you become a snowflake libtard?” I hear this question in my head on a daily basis. The group refused to acknowledge people of color and eventually I became aware of an incident where a few boys were cut off by a black woman on the road and followed her home, waited until she was inside, and smashed the woman’s car windows, doors, and ripped up the seats. The boys were laughing when they told me this story and that instance changed my life forever. I broke up with my boyfriend, left the friend group, and called the police immediately and two of the men in that incident served 6 months in jail which personally I think is not enough. To this day I still receive hate messages about it, and I can’t imagine it’s helped their moral values at all. I tell this story because it’s one instance that I’ve witnessed as a white woman, someone who doesn’t experience severe discrimination everyday in much worse ways and it still changed my life. When listening to Chimamanda Ngozi Ndichi’s Ted Talk, she mentioned that many of her peers were shocked by her experiences. They had formulated these ideas in their heads about what her home, Nigeria, was actually like based on things they had seen through the media. The boys I dealt with all those years ago would have looked at her the exact same and most likely in a more negative manner. What she dealt with was an instance of intersectionality being played out and hopefully her peers were able to learn from her as a human not to expect less of someone because of where they come from.

In conclusion, this class has truly opened my eyes to so many issues present in our world. I fully believe that along with me, many others who have taken this class have an entirely different view on women of all genders, races, shapes and sizes. The author’s we’ve learned from this semester have definitely had people question, if not change their actions after hearing their stories, inspiring all of us to make this world a better place.

[katherine-rambles]

so i figured out why i’ve been feeling uncomfortable on both sides of the ace-inclusionism movement. 

me being uncomfortable with the side of “against”: 

this stance, and the attitudes it can engender, further marginalizes and demonizes a vulnerable group of people. 

while i can’t imagine there’s much scientifically rigorous data on ace experiences, i also can’t imagine it trends positively when compared to the average of the population. at least not in current american culture, at any rate. (and that is the culture which, for most intents and purposes, i limit myself to.)

arguments against ace inclusion sound a WHOLE FUCKING LOT like terfs, biphobia, etc. 

there IS a huge shared swath of discrimination, especially regarding coercive sexual acts perpetrated against aces and other parts of the LGBT+ community

there’s a lot of overlap between identities already. almost all of the inclusionism arguments i’ve seen that are convincing have come from folks who are also somewhere else on the LGBT+ spectrum. i’m not sure if i know any self-proclaimed cis/straight aces.

i personally see no reason why aro/aces can’t be included in lgbt+, and i don’t know why i feel less good about heteroromantic aces being in the community, so. i like to err on the side of being kind. and also i don’t know if i know any cis straight aces, so? 

neutral:

most of the ‘against’ arguments i’ve seen have come from non-teen folks. i... don’t know how i feel about that. i’ve heard a wider variety of support for inclusion in terms of age ranges, but.... again, not sure what to make of that

the “A” did originally stand for “ally”, as far as my sources can tell me. that’s not what it necessarily means now, thanks to competing definitions. so depending on the person, it could be “ally” or “ace” or both.

i’ve always liked the ace community better when it is viewed/portrayed through the lens of a variety of libido. like, it’s the ‘sexuality’ of ‘not having that’; but is it not equally as accurate to say it’s not having libido? it’s having to do with how and why one is sexually attracted to others. 

which. on the one hand, seems different from lgbt in a distinct way. lgbt being about whose genders you are attracted to and what  gender you may be

i don’t know what to think about that

me being uncomfortable with the side of “for”:

i think there’s a tendency in ace communities to divorce romanticism from attraction. this makes sense in some contexts, but less in others. 

context: i am likely a lesbian, who thought for years i was bi and demisexual. maybe i actually am, but... i don’t really think that anymore. 

it’s very common for folks to see their disinterest in the “approved” gender as ace; many think that without that halfway-'realization’, they would’ve figured it out sooner. 

ace stuff is appealing to uninterested-in-sex youth... but that’s, you know... normal to be young and not care about getting laid. 

all this is to say, the divorcing of romanticism from sexuality is something you really only see inside the ace community. and-- you know, that makes sense there. but it’s... easy to get lost in there, and not realize that it isn’t necessarily the label(s) you need. 

this is why exclusionists say “no cishet aces”-- meaning, to them, no cis heteroromantic aces. no straight aces. 

but many in the ACE community see that as an oxymoron-- reading it as “no cis heterosexual aces”, and take issue with the “heterosexual” part. 

the other part of the romantic/sexual separation is that it, by default, sexualizes wlw and mlm, given the current terminology of ‘homosexual’. the oversexualization of LGBT is already kind of a huge issue; straights seem hellbent on erasing the romanticism aspects of queer identities, reducing lesbian & gay folks to sex acts, and reducing trans folks to sex parts.

additionally, a large part of the ace sphere is downplaying the role of sexuality in one’s life. whereas that is a HUGE COMPONENT of many LGBT spaces-- being able to reclaim that sexuality and repurpose it to their own desires, safe and away from society at large, that seem to view them only as sexual tourism. understandably, this leads to conflict. these are directly competing needs. 

anyway... just thoughts, as i try to work out where i actually stand on this issue. still leaning towards inclusion, but it’s... not a cut-and-dry decision by any means...

[michaelbranch]

A Brief Summary of Ideas: Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat

*These summaries are kept intentionally very brief, just hitting what I consider some of the important/interesting takeaways, most word-for-word or paraphrased. I strive to be objective as possible and not include any review/opinions on the material. My goal is also to stick to ideas/principals, not specific examples, that might guide others (or my future self) in deciding the value of reading (or re-reading).

Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals

Author: Hal Herzog

Inconsistences in our thinking about animals is not the exception, but the rule.

Moral considerations for pets can be varied (whether we keep them, how we keep them, feeding them [other animals?], their effect on other animals [ex. cats killing other small, wild animals], breeding ethics, spaying/neutering, etc

Anthrozoology: study of nearly all aspects of our interactions with other species. AKA Human-Animal studies.

In animal-assisted therapy using dogs most studies show improvement at about same level as depressed people get from using pharmaceuticals.

Hawthorne effect: temporary improvements caused by a change in routine.

Childhood animal abuse is more common than generally recognized.

"Cuteness" matters a lot in how most people think about the treatment of other species (ex. humans innately drawn to anything that looks like a baby--big eyes, soft contours, etc.)

Sometimes the words we use for meat can help avoid thinking about the ethical implications (ex. beef).

Human propensity for categorizing animals starts very young (can distinguish living creatures from inanimate objects).

Sociozoologic scale: category system based on the roles animals play in our lives. Culture plays major role.

We have a natural proclivity to divide our social words into two broad categories, "us" and "them". For most of human history nonhuman animals have been "them", but shifting views of animals (like pets) are making them "us".

Evolutionary psychologists argue the capacity to infer the perspectives of others, called theory of mind (to put ourselves in their shoes mentally), would have been a big evolutionary advantage. When we anthropomorphize we are extending our theory of mind to other species, and this is at the root of many of our moral quandaries with animals. Likely opened he door for taming them and forming bonds.

No hard definition of a pet, one is animals we live with that have no obvious function.

We don't really know why we keep pets. Evolutionary quandary (animal we invest time, energy, and resources in that doesn't have useful purpose).

Companion animal and pet guardian are linguistic illusions that enable us to pretend we don't own the animals we live with.

Humans are the only animal that keep members of other species for extended periods of time just for enjoyment.

Shifts in culture due to our copycat nature. Power laws, a statistical distribution, show that large numbers of people influence each other (ex. 80/20 rule). Whether something gets copied is largely a matter of chance.

Hereditary diseases are the rule among purebreds.

The direction and size of gender differences in interactions with animals depends on the type of relationship.

Women dominate animal protection groups. They also dominate abusers (when taking hoarding into account, but men dominate violent acts.)

The big differences only come into play at the extremes. When two bell curves overlap a small difference between averages means big differences at the extremes. The size of the differences in animal interactions within sexes is bigger than between the average male and average female.

Some differences in the legality of how we treat animals (ex. 9 billion chickens killed per year for food vs. cockfighting, or horse racing) is a matter of money/power.

Culture is biggest contributor to food tastes.

Moralization is the process by which neutral preference becomes regarded as moral/immoral.

For most people health is the primary reason for considering vegetarian diets. Most return to eating meat.

Often the more justified the use of a species is scientifically the less its use is justified morally.

The justification for animal experimentation ultimately rests on the premise that smarter organisms have the right to power over less smart ones.

Argument from marginal cases: animal research is predicated on the assumption that nonhuman species lack certain abilities/functions that humans possess. But what about humans that don't posses these?

Difficult to set moral bar high enough to exclude all nonhuman animals and low enough to include all human beings and still be based on morally relevant traits.

Animal welfare act defines animals as any live or dead dog, cat, nonhuman primate, guinea pig, hamster, rabbit, or other such warm blooded animal, which is being used, or intended for use for research, teaching, testing, experimentation, or exhibition purposes, or as a pet.

More research mice are killed each year than used in experiments.

Its a paradox that you need to conduct animal research to determine if it is immoral to use a species in animal research (dependent on our knowledge of their mental attributes).

Most peoples view of the treatment of other animals known as "vacuous attitudes": collections of largely unrelated and isolated opinions, not a coherent belief system.

Psychic numbing: the larger the tragedy, the less people seem to care.

New beliefs and new behaviors reinforce each other.

Ethics involve drawing lines.

Phrase for when people take logic to extremes: caught in the grip of a theory.

How do we know what is right? Emotional and intellectual methods both seem flawed.

Cognitive dissonance is when our beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes are at odds. Uncomfortable so we try and resolve these (by changing them).

The drive for consistency seems to be a motivator for moral reflection and development.

"The fact that you can only do a little is no excuse for doing nothing."-John Le Carre

[filipinx-activism]

West and Zimmerman’s article Doing Gender posits that gender is a product of social interaction. It is fundamentally about those interactions and relationships. Doing gender produces, reproduces, sustains and legitimizes the social meanings accorded to gender. Gender is not a role since it is a continuous action, whereas roles are fixed/situated, and insinuating that gender is a display implies something that is not fundamental to human interaction. In order to attain effective change, modification in cultural and institutional aspects of the sex category, as well as the interactional level is necessary. SO again, how does this relate? Without Filipinx Activism, there’s no framework from which to re-examine - as to why conformity to heterosexuality can be damaging, and on top of that identities are excluded. Without the framework to analyze generations of trauma, nonnormative identities will remain culturally unintelligible and therefore marginalized. It’s like an identity politics movement where Filipino communities acknowledge the existence of blended gender identities. 

Speaking of Frameworks, I want to draw on Kimberlé Crenshaw’s piece on intersectionality because, on top of being Fil-Am, I am a middle-class person of color, and a non-binary, lesbian – and as far as navigating the world goes, it is difficult because when facts don’t have a way of fitting into available frames (hint, heterosexuality), people have a difficult time incorporating those facts into their way of thinking about a problem. Crenshaw said that in her Ted Talk about intersectionality. Being one of the few, brown, nursing students at Marquette University, a few years back, was stressful because I didn’t have academic, or financial resources to help me succeed in that endeavor. I failed chemistry and biochemistry and was held back because I didn’t have the prestigious, high school experience a lot of students attending Marquette had. All the microaggressions and the overlapping discrimination is why Crenshaw’s piece is so crucial to this research especially, now, knowing that academia can be inaccessible. This isn’t about getting special treatment, it’s about acknowledging the lived experiences of students like me, of Filipinx identities. Crenshaw said that because the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the way marginalized identities are subordinated. It’s a framing problem. The Filipinx Movement is a framework that addresses intersectionality in identities.

Additional Source: https://www.ted.com/speakers/kimberle_crenshaw