#and i also feel like the idea of queering gender is like. central to how i relate to it

[iztopher]

on that note. a week or two ago i swapped out some info in my about to list my gender as genderqueer as a super low stakes way of feeling it out lol

ive spent pretty much my whole life w/ my gender on a sliding scale from "agender" to "gnc cis girl" and while i definitely still feel more connected to the former than the latter rn i like. really appreciate genderqueer as a term that captures every stage of that

[antifranchaela]

Why I hate Male!Michael & why that's got NOTHING to do with Heterophobia.

I feel like it's important for me to make this post, so y'all understand WHY I've made this blog.

So, first off - the central theme of Francesca’s book is moving on from the love of her life.

You do need to actually wait for Francesca, Michaela, and John to have more than 1 minute of screen time together to know more about Francesca's feelings for John in contrast with the instant sexual attraction (or as some may say "letting her pussy drop") for Michaela

That's super interesting. & 2nd CHOOSING a partner she knows she can't have a kid with is entirely different from not being able to have a kid because 1) Queer people are also infertile and also choose to give up being able to have bio kids to be with their partners and 2) Francesca is literally able to have children in the end because of Julia Quinn Magic Dick???

Most of you are the making the case "oh, they can still do all that" which is TRUE

I'm a proud lesbian woman.

Using Francesca’s story for our issues is AWESOME

Also Eloise should be queer too.

She could have easily chosen not to have the kids she ends up having & be content raising Marina's children with Philip. She's a nonconformist already! It wouldn't have been a stretch for her to fall in love with Philip's sister, who's raising the kids after both Philip and Marina died. It wouldn't have been a stretch for her to move in with the lady who doesn't care about society, only for her studies and children.

It IS NOT a stretch for Francesca to marry a man after being raised her entire life with everyone telling her that marriage is her entire purpose, attempt to have a child with him, lose that pregnancy after the tragedy of losing said husband, while struggling to understand her confusing feelings for his cousin since she literally has no idea what they mean and has no idea queer women are even a thing. she may think she can never really be with michaela in the way she wants to when she decides to remarry in the books. she may think she can never have a family with michaela - the way she yearns to in the books. she may fear she won't ever be accepted as her partner in the society she grew up in ON THE SHOW! but since this is Bridgerton there will be a Happily Ever After ending based on REAL LIFE LESBIANS who were able to live together, raise families together, and even get approval DIRECTLY FROM THE REAL LIFE QUEEN

Doing this to Fran is AWESOME! because of the genderswap and the talented actresses Masali and Hannah and Victor!

[Excluding this section from my satirical repost because this is a serious part and I genuinely resonate with the OP here and wouldn't belittle their experience here]

Francesca's story always spoke to me on a personal level. & I love Michael's gender change and am excited to see how the relationship between John and Francesca is also handled

This was the way to do it!

Also - I feel like it's important to say this : Don't go harassing the actors over this. Don't start blogs where you say the actress isn't suited for the role and where your icon is literally her face with an X over it. If you have to - get a life and some hobbies instead of going after Jess, Shonda, Netflix & Julia.

[solisaureus]

I’ve noticed you criticised the barbie movie multiple times for its misogynistic portrayal of femininity and if you don’t mind I would like to understand your point of view more? I have a hard time really grasping why the movie came out as a message that traditional stereotypical femininity is the correct way of showcasing womanhood in your opinion. Yes, it’s shown through the aesthetic of barbies, but I don’t think it pushed that vision as superior? Would love to know your interpretation and the reasons for it! 🫶

Oh jeez. Are you sure you want to know lol

Disclaimer before i start bitching: I enjoyed the Barbie movie on a level of pure entertainment, the music and costuming and set design were fun, and Ryan Gosling certainly put everything he had into the role of Ken. The astronomically high budget was apparent from every angle.

However. I am extremely frustrated by its messaging and even more frustrated by how often I see otherwise progressively-minded people herald it as a feminist masterpiece. This movie was Not Feminist. Here are some reasons why I think that:

First and foremost, it is a transparent marketing venture. This is Mattel and the Barbie brand rehabilitating their image and inserting themselves back into the cultural mainstream. This movie was made primarily to profit a brand and market products. Any art or meaning that it conveys are entirely secondary.

The adherence to the idea that identity politics are liberating is clear throughout the film. Barbie is feminist because a woman is president, Congress and the Supreme Court are women. I won't get into how much of a shallow, weak fallacy this is but you can easily google it.

There is a pervasive message that womanhood=hyper-femininity. Not a single one of the Barbies is even remotely gender non-conforming. The one female character who was even slightly less feminine was Sasha, and by the end of the film she starts wearing more feminine dresses and accessories. They never had to say outright that hyper-femininity was the superior way to be a woman. There was simply no alternative in their perfect gendered utopia. This is also a standard that Barbie (the brand) has been criticized for pushing onto young girls for decades.

There is a clear message of bioessentialism. When Barbie loudly announces that she doesn't have a vagina in response to being catcalled, the joke is that she's a doll (a Barbie doll which famously do not have sex organs), not a human. At the end of the film, when Barbie decides she wants to become human, her first big step of womanhood is going to the gynecologist. Barbie's womanhood and humanity are tied to her having a vagina.

There is absolutely no room for queerness and transness in the utopia of Barbieland. Barbieland is dominated by a heavily enforced gender binary, and at no point are queer or trans people acknowledged onscreen. I've seen some people argue that Alan was the "nonbinary option," and that's fine if it's their headcanon, but I would caution against giving the producers credit for that. Let's be clear, Alan is a man -- a man that doesn't feel as served by the patriarchy as other men, but that could mean many things. If the writers wanted to make Alan nonbinary they could have easily done so. I can't imagine that with everything else going on in this movie they would've felt stifled by that creative choice. I don't need Barbie to be a queer story, but if it's going to tackle the patriarchy in its central thesis, then it feels really intentional to exclude queer and trans people.

There's an uncomfortable theme of motherhood being the peak of womanhood. In fact as I recall there's a spoken line that says "Mothers stay in place so that their daughters can look back and see how far they've come." Is the implication here that a woman stops growing as a person as soon as she becomes a mother? How is that feminist?

One of the climactic moments of the film is when Barbie gets depressed by the Kendom and gives up as soon as things get a little bit difficult, and Gloria gives her a rousing speech about the unfair expectations of women that spurs Barbie back into action. How is it feminist for the white heroine to rely on the Latina supporting character to do all the hard work and coddle her? How are we supposed to think positively of Barbie after this?

This isn't directly related to feminism but the whole portrayal of Mattel executives as clueless bumbling fools seemed really insidious. These represent real people that are not harmless or incompetent.

The whole bit about Depression Barbie struck me as shockingly ableist. It contributes to so many negative misconceptions about depression, such as like...that it's the same thing as disappointment regarding a failure (which is the thing that launches the whole bit in the first place. Barbie is "depressed" because she couldn't reverse the Kendom). Depression is blatantly reduced to some weird shabby, (literally) marketable aesthetic with this scene. Look at this haha hilarious hashtag relatable funny #bit about Depression Barbie! She has messy hair and wears sweatpants and eats ice cream and watches BBC pride and prejudice! Depression is a catastrophic, life-threatening disease. People die from it every day and it ruins the lives of countless others. This joke was horrifically ableist and disrespectful and perpetuates harmful misinformation about what depression is.

This Letterbox'd review points out many of my other criticisms and disappointments with this movie.

Honestly, overall, this movie felt like it was priming a generation for tradwife messaging. If I'm being completely tbh honest. This movie was funny but it was NOT progressive. Even the valid feminist points (like Gloria's invigorating speech) was extremely basic, surface level, white, cishet feminism. And in 2024 I really don't think that deserves any applause from progressive audiences.

[librarycards]

hi!! could you explain what alterhuman is and what it means to you? it seemed really interesting

i think my brain is still very used to having to defend my humanity as a multiply disabled trans person so tearing away the concept of being human is very surprising/confusing maybe!

the folks at alt-h have a much more comprehensive description/set of operational definitions than me, but personally, i view alterhumanity as an umbrella term that encompasses many forms of non-/anti-/and dis-identification with the category of human. i've seen plural/multiple systems, otherkin, furry, and/or neoidentity users (such as voidpunks, whose reclamation of "void" functions as a reclamation of dehumanization/abjection by oppressive systems) identifying under the umbrella.

i've never felt human, and felt more proximate to an android or similar since i learned about them. i don't really feel "whole" or "complete" or "individual" in a way that aligns with both pre- and post-enlightenment mythologies of exceptionalized human personhood. never really felt inclined to id with being otherkin or similar, i'm not sure why. i don't think i really felt like i belonged to / in / with otherkin communities when i first encountered them. i also don't really feel... "other"? in the sense that my disconnection from my physical form and my orientation against the species i was assigned (as it were) only seemed tangentially connected. this is also true for the relationship between my (lack of) gender and my body.

now that i write that, i think that being genderless + being nonhuman -- that somewhat paradoxical identification w/ void that i come to understand these days as voidpunk -- are the most related parts of all of this.

as i engage more seriously with critical alterhuman scholarship, i am coming to find meaning in an explicit personal-political identification with the term, much as i do with the term queer. less because i immediately saw it and was like whoa, that's the essence of "me" (i don't believe in essences). more because i care about the political project of unseating "humanity" from its status of epistemic/material/spiritual supremacy, as it is bound up in white, cisheteropatriarchal, abled, sane supremacy, too. in short, "alterhuman" is a nice proxy (and, it seems, really vibrant and varied community!) for talking about my longtime disidentification w/ the human label, and my political orientation against it. (again, like queer!)

Some more ramblings on humanity, personhood, and oppression below the cut.

for me personally, again, i've never felt like a human being and as a result have never felt the declaration of "i am a human" to be meaningful, liberatory, or useful for me. i question the paradigm of "dehumanization" as out go-to metaphor for abjection, for the same reasons that i and others object to the phraseology of being treated "like a child" - okay, if you feel it is unjust to be treated as if one was under the age of legal majority, what does that say about how we, collectively, view kids?

likewise for statements re: being treated "like an animal" or "as subhuman." that these are our go-to shorthands for referring to violent oppression, i think, should lead us to think critically about the centrality of "humanness" in determining who and what is worthy of protection, of respect, of dignity.

ultimately, attempting to gain access to the category of human, for those who face dehumanization (that is, abjection), is as futile as any other bids for respectability and inclusion within violent systems. for us as trans disabled people, it can be really easy to cry out "i'm a human being!" in the face of eugenic systems, yet these systems are fundamentally incapable of granting humanity to those whose deaths uphold them. any tentative offer can be immediately withdrawn; any promise of permanent regard will inevitably further oppress those lower on this perverse social latter than we are.

so, the idea of "dehumanization" and reactive identification with "humanity" reinforces the idea that the human is always and already superior to the nonhuman (and more worthy of care and respect by mere virtue of the human label), that humanity is a fixed "thing" and not a capricious discourse that the oppressors manipulate to consolidate that power, and that there will somehow come a time where a privileged category, of any kind, will not by virtue of its existence do violence to those who do not fit.

so, what do we do? i'm very compelled by critical discourses of personhood, and particularly of crip works on de- and un-personhood. My first encounters with the difference between humanity and personhood were in conversations about ontology and abortion: namely, that an embryo or fetus can be, descriptively, a member of the species we call homo sapiens sapiens, and therefore "human" by any measure, and yet lack the legal status of "person" as in "rights-bearing subject", whereas the gestating parent *is* a person (despite, of course, the best efforts of anti-choicers).

to think about personhood denaturalizes the status of "human," and allows us to remember that material/epistemological parity is not merely a matter of "biological fact" or "innate species." species is itself a social construction. while humanity is generally, even by activists with great intentions, used as a proxy for personhood, i find the latter to work way better when it comes to advocating for autonomy + liberation. check out Mel Baggs's (z"l) post on Xing and Johanna Hedva's In Defense of De-Persons to see more of my intellectual genealogy here.

Sylvia Wynter is the preeminent scholar in understanding white supremacist cisheteropatriarchy in the invention & reification of "The Human." In her opus, "Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom," she traces the ongoing history of the category of (hu)Man as metaphysical and biologized concept, and its antiblack design. Alexander G. Weheliye draws on Wynter's and others' theorizations on Blackness and humanity in his book, Habeas Viscus. Sunaura Taylor writes brilliantly on the entanglement of nonhuman animal liberation and disabled human liberation, as does multimedia scholar Olivia Dreisinger. Lots of other stuff out there but this is already too long.

Anyway, if you read this far, ty. no worries if not. but i hope that gave you some insight into my thoughts on alterhumanity, identifying against / without the "human," and the kinds of discourses i'm thinking with when i talk about the project of shared personhood rather than essentialized humanity / the pitfalls of "dehumanization" as our go-to language for depersonhood.

[simcardiac-arrested]

do expand on the allegory

there’s probably better ways this has been phrased or analyzed but. snowgrave is just so Suddenly heteronormative compared to the rest of the game that it’s almost impossible to ignore—deltarune (and by extension undertale) has always been about queerness and gay relationships and the characters’ freedom of choice in terms of that—and as i understand, this sudden Straightwashing, let’s call it that, is to amplify the fact that something is veeery very deeply wrong and that these two characters have no choice or autonomy.

we have kris who is neither a man nor a woman and who isn’t implied to have romantic feelings towards anyone (all we know is that they really like susie, but it’s not clear in which way exactly), and we have noelle who is a lesbian and explicitly shown to have feelings for a character who is not kris, and she would like to just be friends with kris actually. but what happens in snowgrave? they’re suddenly put in a very hetero mold.

despite their genders and sexualities there is not a single queer thing about their snowgrave relationship. kris is shown as the domineering traditionally masculine one: they’re stoic, controlling, they make all the decisions and so on. noelle is shown as the submissive traditionally feminine one: always having to follow what kris says because she is ‘bound’ to them (i.e. married). and speaking of marriage, snowgrave just has a lot of wedding symbolism: noelle in a white dress with angel wings, the ring, the “we’re something else” ??? it all adds onto the inherent Wrongness of it all. and i think it can also be taken several ways. now that kris and noelle have been put in a seemingly straight relationship, they act like the ‘usual’ straight married couple portrayed in media: meaning they’re not actually happy together and want to get away from each other. but on the other hand the whole concept also rings of arranged marriages or forced marriages, of putting a queer person (or people) into a hetero relationship/marriage in hopes of fixing them somehow

umm i’m sure there’s more to be talked about but you probably get the general idea. and like i said in the beginning this whole allegory is used to amplify the central theme of deltarune: control. relationships can and often are used as a form of control over someone’s life, and i think the way toby fox uses that in snowgrave is really interesting. because let’s be honest, it wasn’t Needed: we could’ve just had your typical genocide route where we manipulate someone into murder and etc etc. but the romantic subtext just really hammers it home that This Is Wrong. that this is not what kris or noelle want. that kris has no choice but to follow the player’s commands no matter how uncomfortable it is. and fuck me is it uncomfortable, to shove these two gay kids into what is basically a straight abusive marriage for no real reason other than your own amusement. They dont call it the weird route for nothing i guess

[ianthe-is-a-bitch-and-i-love-her]

So I finished The Faithless a bit ago and I've been putting off writing about it because, to my great disappointment, I didn't like it very much. I don't think it's necessarily bad by it's own merits (mostly), but as a sequel to The Unbroken, it was deeply disappointing. Spoilers to follow.

So there were a couple of things that I didn't love back when I first read the Unbroken. I thought the use of Unremarkable Queerness was a disappointing missed opportunity, that an exploration of the differences in cultural attitudes towards sex and gender would've enriched the book's thesis as well as Touraine's own journey as a queer woman raised under one culture reconnecting with the one she was stolen from. I also thought that, while using magic to represent culture - and specifically to use Luca's hunger for Shal magic as a critique of "well-intentioned" cultural appropriation, and Balladaire's lack of magic to represent the way culture is flattened by Empire - was a strong choice, choosing to make magic the exclusive domain of religion created the implication, deliberate or otherwise, that what was really wrong with Balladaire was that they'd turned their back on their traditional faith, which was not a message I cared for. All that being said, I found these issues pretty easy to ignore, because the book had a much more powerful central idea to explore, and its examination of a stolen, abused, indoctrinated victim of colonialism reconnecting with her homeland, as well as its exploration of the ways even genuinely kind-hearted and well-meaning colonialists inflict monumental atrocities, were extremely compelling. The Unbroken had ideas to share, question to pose and answer, and a message powerful enough to render my critiques inconsequential.

The same cannot be said for The Faithless. Based on the framing of the book, I expected to get an exploration of the political relationship between a colonizing nation and it's newly independent ex-colony. I thought we might get some examination of the difficulty of establishing international credibility for a new nation, of arranging favorable partnerships and trade deals in a world where you are seen as not just potentially unstable and with little of value economically, but as literal lesser people. I expected whatever approach it took to this framing device, it would be sharp, incisive, and timely. But it wasn't. Ultimately, the framing device was just a framing device, and the majority of the page count was spent on trying to learn the truth about Balladairen magic and Luca's bid to keep the throne, with the question of economic and political relations hung entirely on whether she or her uncle ended up in charge.

There were some details which gestured at the kind of themes that I'd been looking forward to, but the key words there are "details" and "gestured". Touraine's uncomfortable socializing with Balladairen nobles; cool, we already knew that! How does that discomfort affect her ability as an ambassador to make favorable connections and advance the interests of the people she represents? Don't know, she doesn't really try, beyond reminding Luca occasionally that her interest in getting Luca on the throne isn't altruistic. There's a Balladairen revolutionary movement born of economic disenfranchisement and the fear of free Shalans "stealing" resources. Okay that's interesting! What does their organizational structure look like? How many people can they mobilize? What are their economic and political aims, what's their plan for enacting it? How does Touraine feel about a bunch of people who share many of the same grievances as her people, but that unjustly blame her people for their problems? Don't know, none of that comes up. Their only plot function is to try to kill Luca and make her paranoid about her uncle. There's the Droitist school system that traumatized and conditioned Touraine! They take down one school, but acknowledge that it's a problem that can't be solved on an individual level. What kind of systemic changes need to be made? What obstacles are there? How can they be overcome or subverted? All of that gets pushed firmly onto the "once I'm queen" plate. I could go on. Ultimately, the elements that should have been the core of the story and themes become backdrop to a personal drama between Luca, Nicholas, Touraine, and Sabine. And it's functional enough, but it doesn't have anywhere near the originality or emotional resonance or drive that the plot of the previous book did.

Also, without a strong plot to take center stage, my nitpicks took up more of my attention, and the continuation of the story exacerbated some of the problems I had with them. With regards to unremarkable queerness: the central struggle of this book is over who is going to take over the throne of a hereditary monarchy. Am I supposed to believe that the fact that Luca regularly has sex with different partners, has no interest in getting a consort, and has no blood heir, compared to her uncle, who has a recognized blood heir, is of no consequence in a power struggle over a hereditary monarchy? And if there are cultural values or structure that make that a non issue, I would love to see them explored! I'd be fascinated to know where they come from and how they impact the rest of society! The conflation of magic, culture, and religion didn't end up going the direction I was concerned about, but it also became extremely muddy about what exactly it was trying to say. We learn that Balladairen magic still exists amongst the commons, but we also learn that the large scale type of magic that ensured good harvests was powered by human sacrifice, which is something that no one, including our antagonists, want to resume. So if Balladaire killed its religion for good, justifiable reasons, how does that square with the previous book's presentation as magic being a deeply integral part of culture, with its theft or suppression being an act of near genocide? It muddies the waters, and it ends up feeling like the author wanted to just treat this book as more conventional speculative fantasy fiction rather than a continuation of the themes explored in the first book. Ultimately, I think, that's what I'm really disappointed about. I came to The Faithless excited for a continuation of the deep exploration of colonialism in The Unbroken, and I got a much less grounded piece of speculative fantasy fiction.

[certainwoman]

"In queer film criticism, mainstream cinema has long stood as the culprit in distasteful and harmful depictions of LGBT people. To many critical and scholarly accounts, its history is laden with ruthless Hollywood directors and executives sensationalizing or censoring sexuality and gender variance. Accordingly, Hollywood and other mainstream industries made films littered with the vilified stereotypes of the helpless pansy, the prurient lesbian vampire, the self- loathing and confused closet case, the insatiable bisexual, and the depraved transsexual. And as one might assume, their narrative outcomes were almost always bleak. That is, of course, if the film could even get away with explicitly representing queerness instead of just alluding to or encoding it, as was the case during the Hays Code years. For critics and scholars, these texts reflected an oppressive culture determined to malign queers. The result of these depictions, it has been argued, is to help construct or reinforce harmful ideas and, for queer spectators, to produce feelings of self- disgust and inadequacy. It is in this way that trauma and harm— both self- inflicted and motivating hate in others— get centralized in queer film scholarship that charts non-avant-garde histories pre–New Queer Cinema.

(...)

In its affective politics, much scholarly queer film historiography begins to look, as Sedgwick would put it, quite “paranoid.” After all, the narrators of this history meet Sedgwick’s criteria for paranoid readings: to anticipate an object’s harm; to have faith in the ideological exposure, demystification, and decryption of its harm; and to generate others’ analogous participation by way of making paranoia teachable and mimetic. I want to stress that Russo is not the only paranoid reader in this historiography, notwithstanding his resounding influence. Reading queer cinema scholarship through the years reveals that pleasure is too often taken as suspect. The default starting point is frequently homophobia, heteronormativity, and heterosexism, the scholar then positing how these problematically structure viewer desire and identification. Further, from gender studies to film studies courses, the 1995 documentary The Celluloid Closet (Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman) continues to be a mainstay of queer film pedagogy. The film version, like the book, enjoins its readers to adopt a certain kind of interrogative practice that takes representation at face value. This becomes a teachable narrative with a cogent argument and streamlined thesis about queer film history. Epstein and Friedman’s documentary, Heather Love suggests, echoes Russo’s aim to chart what she provisionally calls the “trauma of queer spectatorship.” Love, however, shrewdly observes that something felicitous happens in translation from book to screen. Although it follows the overall structure of the book, the documentary version of The Celluloid Closet (1995) supplements Russo’s narration with a polyphony of voices— ranging from scholarly expertise to personal anecdote— from critics, actors, and directors who all have close relationships to the queer films cited. Love writes, “[T] he use of interviews creates the atmosphere of a group screening, in which knowing subjects speak over and against the images we see on the screen and also drain them of their pathologizing force.” Love here pinpoints how the documentary functions as a (conscious or not) reparative modifier to Russo’s severe approach, lending other viewpoints and positions to a queer spectatorial past. Such voices, I would agree, mitigate the perceived trauma of queer spectatorship by giving necessary voice to negative affects and by restoring the place of pleasure, awkward and shameful as it may be at times. Take, for example, Harvey Fierstein’s bashfully revealing his love for and identification with the stereotype of the sissy; or recall Susie Bright relishing Mrs. Danvers’s fur fetishism in Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940). By including clips from and romantic montages of different queer films, or even films with sparse queer moments, the documentary tacitly sidesteps Russo’s line of argumentation, thereby enacting a form of reparative historicizing that subordinates— in moments— trauma to pleasure. It brings to bear the alternate histories, where structures of multiple feelings are brought to the fore."

Marc Francis, For Shame!: On the History of Programming Queer Bad Objects

[tyrannuspitch]

okay i've used the word homophobia to talk about a specifically bisexual character too many times recently, so let's talk about potential manifestations of specific *biphobia* in asgard.

please note that i have done no extra research on this (yet?), i'm just extrapolating from what i know about historical ergi stigma (and what i've already extrapolated from not very detailed info on that!), so this is firmly historically *inspired* fantasy territory.

i'm going to leave aside the matter of gender-conforming stone top msm for the moment, because while they are a group who Exist, they're pretty distinctly queer by modern western standards and straight by asgardian standards, which is kind of messy and not the central point here. (also, top/bottom/vers is not a question applicable to all possible sex acts, so the exact requirements of your stone top no-homo-ing are unclear; and the question of identity based in action vs identity based in desire is also possibly complicated, imo a lot more complicated than people tend to give it credit for... it's just super messy okay.)

instead, as the closest equivalent to "bisexual men", let us consider men who a) are definitely queer by asgardian standards (feminine and/or interacting with men as a vers or bottom) and b) are interacting romantically/sexually with women.

a number of possibilities for an asgardian opinion on them:

1: modern-style bi erasure. pffft, this relationship is clearly fake. a queer man could never be a REAL partner to a woman, so either she's covering for him out of pity or he's fooled her.

on one hand, i feel like this is slightly less likely than in the modern day, because it does seem to centre attraction as definitive of queerness, and hence the idea that you can only engage with one gender. on the other hand, the idea that queer and straight men are deeply, fundamentally different with no overlap is very affirming to straight men. so perhaps this could still be one manifestation.

1b. bi erasure specifically through inadequacy. it's not that we don't think queer men WANT women, it's just that they'll never be good enough for them. maybe he's got her fooled for now, but she'll realise soon enough.

these two options mostly invite ridicule, but could escalate into violence towards either partner to try and "prove" what a "real man" is.

2. a sense of threat / unfairness. women are only meant to like masculine men, but this feminine man DOES have a female partner. how? why is this feminine man reaping the rewards of masculinity?

2a. in which the fem man is a usurper and a sinister, dishonourable threat who is stealing/corrupting the woman. the woman is assumed to be victim but probably also victim-blamed, like an antieffeminate spin on the "woman hate nice guys" trope.

2b. in which we do Gender Arithmetic and decide that a fem man could only possibly be partnered with a masc woman. now the woman is the sinister usurper of masc/male power, and the man is the weak/foolish traitor allowing it. in theory, this relationship would be comedic, but actual examples of it would be extremely threatening.

this also raises the most interesting possibility to me - an attitude parallel to modern mononormativity, but instead of claiming that you can only truly be attracted to one gender, it claims that you can only truly play one gendered sexual role. a queer man must ALWAYS be a fem sub bottom, whether his partner is a man or a woman - so a man being queer proves a male partner of his straight, but makes a female partner appear queer too. which from a modern perspective is pretty wild!

anyway. these two options frame the relationship as a more direct threat, and as such, are more likely to result in violence (or to result in it sooner, or worse.) this is especially true if both partners are being interpreted as queer here.

lacking any historical info as pointers, i feel like all of these options are fairly plausible. and all, independently, pretty fucked up.

i'm not sure how to wrap up this post, but in general, when considering ergi stigma, i think it's important to account for the fact that (perceived) gender expression is central, not attraction, so being in an m/f relationship is not necessarily going to do much to protect you. which is also true of modern real-world biphobia to an extent - people can and frequently do experience biphobia in m/f relationships, and i'd be willing to bet there's at least one modern real-world example of every single specific attitude i described here, even if they're not all common. but the irrelevance of relationship status does bear repeating, especially when the central definition of ergi is often euphemised as "passive homosexual". like, yes, but no. it's not just about that act. it's about the gendered implications of that act, which, once acquired, can set you apart forever.

[spectre-does-stuff]

SDV sexuality + pronoun HCs because its 2am and I have somewhere to be in 6 hours but whats important than gay video game characters

I mean... They're all fruity in canon so... For spice I've decided to do this:

Alex: questioning. He never thought he liked boys... Till he met (male) farmer. Suddenly, all the thoughts he'd dismissed as jealousy over looks, appearance, whatever, might have been something a bit more. He doesn't know much about the queer community, but after meeting farmer, he's pretty sure he's a part of it. He/him

Elliott: Pomoromantic; aceflux. I feel like he's too fluid to want to label zer romantic orientation, but rejects the term queer due to an aesthetic preference. They don't experience sexual attraction usually but will on occasion, thus, aceflux. He/they/ze

Harvey: bisexual; receiptosexual. He just doesn't feel any kind of sexual attraction until they know it's reciprocated. He/they

Sam: Panromantic, cassexual. He feels what he feels, usually he just goes shrug emoji to the idea of sex. He/him

Sebastian: Omnisexual. He has a distinct preference for male/masc aligned genders, but still feels attraction to all, just in different ways. He/xe (also i still think xe're transmasc)

Shane: bi, asexual. He doesn't want to fuck, he's never wanted to fuck, he doesn't feel the need to fuck. He/him

Abigail: di-pan. Xeir gender identity as nonbinary is central to their attraction, and thus she experiences it in a diamoric way. They/she/zem

Emily: lesbian and demisexual. I just don't think they like boys, fuck the canon. They/it/zer

Haley: bi and proud of it. She probably has a pride flag somewhere on her room. She/her

Leah: queer and greysexual. Like Elliott, I feel like they're too fluid to label themself but she prefers queer over pomo. They/she/he

Maru: multisexual. She doesn't really know which label under that umbrella term she falls under, so she just says multisexual. She/her

Penny: sapphic. Don't really think she knows how she feels about boys, and she's anxious about mislabeling herself, so she sticks with sapphic. She/her

BONUS!!

Krobus: aro/ace, agender. We got ourselves a triple A-battery! It's commonly accepted that krobus is aro/ace (I think), but I'd like to add another A. Since gender is sort of a human social construct, I don't think krobus would really have one, making him agender. He/they

This is, of course, all lighthearted, and meant in good fun. Much love to my fellow homos <3 love y'all. Also, in the future when I write about them, I'll continue to use the pronouns from canon to avoid confusion, and just for my own ease

[lgbtawarenessproject]

Part 5: Russia and Holy See(the Vatican)

Sometimes my mom gets worried that I don't read enough. Anyone want to point her to my source lists on these?/lh

Anyways, enjoy! Another one should be posted later today/tonight. Also, I hope I figure out some way to make these easier to write.

In 2013 Russia rolled out its first “Gay Propaganda” law, banning distribution of knowledge on gay rights, and equating homosexual and heterosexual relationships to minors. Moments after passing this, the Duma also approved prison sentences of up to three years for “offending religious feelings” in a new law.

The “Gay Propaganda” law remained unchanged until December of 2022, when Putin signed an even worse version passed unanimously by lawmakers. This bill makes it illegal for everyone in Russia to speak positively about homosexual relationships, and disallows same-sex couples from talking about their relationships. This bill also bans “propaganda of pedophilia and sex change” with harsher penalties.

It is important to note that queer people are often called pedophiles just for existing, and as such they may be charged under “propaganda of pedophilia” when posting or talking about queer peoples lives. In addition, while I do not know how this bill translates from Russian, according to the Merriam Webster dictionary, propaganda can be defined as “the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person”, and as such may apply to saying that queer people are not pedophiles. 

This law does not protect anyone. It instead pushes hate against humans, and puts them in danger. Russia wasn’t always like this either, in 1993 after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia legalized gay sex. A couple of years later and the age of consent and punishments for sexual assault were equal. In 2008, gay men were able to donate blood. It was legal in 1997 to change your gender on legal documents, and in 2018 it was legal without surgery. The downfall in gay rights during Putin's leadership is disgusting and terrifying.

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

The Holy See, also called the Vatican(even though Vatican City State is its own country), is considered the Catholic church's central government. It, and Vatican City, are run by Pope Francis.

Pope Francis has released several statements concerning homosexuality, both in and out of the church. In one statement, recorded in an interview with Associated Press, Pope Francis makes a statement where he condemns laws criminalizing homosexuality, however he also says that gay sex is a sin. In written clarification, Francis explains that he meant it in the same way that sex outside of marriage is considered a sin. However, in a statement released by the Vatican, and supported by Francis, marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman. Meaning then, that gay sex is always a sin. Pope Francis does support civil unions, but is that enough?

Francis is quoted in an interview with La Nación saying "Gender ideology, today, is one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations." When asked to explain, he said "Because it blurs differences and the value of men and women." Pope Francis also maintains that priesthood is for men.

On the brighter side, Pope Francis has instructed Catholic Bishops to welcome LGBT+ members, and has instructed parents to welcome their gay children in their homes.

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Part 1

Part 4<- ->Part 6

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[my-strange-attraction]

Little update because I think it’s warranted with how hectic my past few posts have been:

I am in fact still very confused. I came out to my friends as lesbian and I said it on here, but it’s been just over a week since I started questioning and even though I have this comprehensive list of reasons why I think I am, I am still very unsure. The title of this blog applies because I, in fact, still have no idea what the hell attraction is anyways. I know I have had fixations on girls who are pretty/cool. I know that if I were to have sex (which I am actually interested in doing at this point in time) it would be with a girl. 

I THINK this adds up to lesbian being part of my identity. I keep flip flopping on that because it feels like wishful thinking in a way, but also it’s literally something I’ve already talked about on this blog in several different posts where I’ve tried to reason out why I have this desire for a relationship even though I grew up pretty sheltered (I’m 100% certain it’s not internalized amatonormativity, my mom really didn’t raise me to value romantic relationships above all and I didn’t like romance plots at all until middle school, it’s just something I want because of myself, not because of society) and the desire for a relationship is always going to be a part of whatever identity I have. This new aspect of my identity is just more like a clarification of what kind of relationship I want. 

That last paragraph was messy, sorry if it was hard to read. Anyways I do want to clarify in this post that me being lesbian is probably almost certainly in addition to whatever aspec identity I still hold. I’m really not sure what still stands at this point or how it interacts with my identity as a whole. I’m toying around with a couple different things, but I’m really unsure at this point. Also because this entire time I’ve been questioning I haven’t been talking to really anyone because things were winding down and now it’s break. I feel like I’m in an alternate universe.

I’m also not sure where this leaves me gender-wise. To be honest, gender is mostly confusing for me because of my neurodivergence and inability to conceptualize gender and pronouns. I am very feminine and very comfortable with being a girl, but I started noticing a few years ago that something about my gender is queer. I use all pronouns and call myself genderqueer now, after much contemplation (people who have been following a while, you know. You remember). However, and I said this in my lesbian master list post, my gender makes a lot more sense in the context where I am lesbian. As in, girl is pretty important and central to me, but there is something just undeniably queer in addition. Ok, when I type it out it sounds like the same thing as before, but it makes more sense in my head, I promise. 

I intended this to be a short explanation post where did that intention go, lol. I hope this all makes sense, I just felt weird leaving it at oh I’m just a lesbian now and have no other context or clarifications. That’s today on: Identity Is Hard. Interactions welcome :)

[bookdepositori]

Hey y'all, haven't been on here in a bit. These past few months, I was working on my senior project and I just graduated with my BFA last week. On top of being busy with that, I had multiple classes that regularly assigned me with readings, so I haven't have much freedom with what I've been reading lately and haven't been posting as a result of that. Just to break the ice with posting again, I'm going to write some quick thoughts about all of the graphic novels I read during Spring, all of which are memoirs coincidentally.

Gabrielle Bell - The Voyeurs

Of everything here, this is the one book that wasn't assigned reading from a professor. Bell has been a long-time inspiration to me and I felt like it was a good idea to dig deeper into her work while I developed my senior project. This is also my first time reading Bell since I got my first published essay by writing about her work.

This might have been a bit of a downer read while finalizing my degree in sequential art. Much of this book focuses on Bell's struggles with monetizing her work despite how much respect she has earned in the industry. What's worse is that many of her criticisms of the comic industry are ones I deeply agree with. I sort of felt like I was in an echo chamber of my own pessimism while reading sections of this book, lol.

Though this book really struck me with its visual storytelling. The opening sequence could have been a really great 3-page short story thanks to how it presents you with such a striking concept and image as soon as you open the book. Then all throughout the book, despite the visual simplicity and static page compositions, Bell consistently creates active environments and character that fully take advantage of the comics form.

This isn't a new observation, but I'm always so captured by how introspective Bell's writing is. I especially love all of the scenes in which the subject of Bell's autobiography work is brought up. The book presents you with a lot to think about concerning the nature of the autobiography. Questions that are very interesting to think about when paired with Bell's brutal honesty regarding her more negative personality traits, lol.

Lynda Barry - What It Is

Despite my long-held interest in her work, this is my first time actually reading a full Lynda Barry book. I absolutely plan on looking deeper into her bibliography in the near future. This is a book that I think was really important to read while in the last semester of my art education.

This book is very abstract in nature and its lack of consistent narrative makes it stand out against other graphic memoirs. The one central subject of this book is the concept of images. What is an image? How do images work? Why do images make us feel?

This was an incredibly unique and engaging read that made me ask a lot of questions that were very important for this moment in my life. I just wish this wasn't and assigned reading so I could've read it at a more relaxed pace. This is definitely one to re-read.

Maia Kobabe - Gender Queer

I whole-heartedly believe it was really important to read this book as well as other books that are currently being challenged on a large scale in this country. Though, unfortunately, as a narrative, I was left a little unsatisfied with this book.

I think it's really great that this book exists. I think its really good for young queer people to be able to recognize themselves in media as that is something that has been historically denied from them. I also really respect how honest Kobabe is about eir sexuality and eir sexual development, I could never be this intimate with my readers. Though, as a narrative, I feel like this book wasn't as introspective as it could have been. While I do think it's good to have representations of transition like this, I feel like this is probably a book that won't hold as much relevance in a future where more trans narratives are readily available.

After reading this book, I felt like I didn't know much about Kobabe other then eir relationship with sexuality and gender (and trashy fan fiction, which I actually do appreciate). Which is fine, this is literally a book called "Gender Queer", though the discussions of sexuality and gender within the book are simply just personal experiences without much in the way on introspection or interrogation. That's also fine though, I don't feel like I have a very nuanced perspective on my own sexuality in full honesty, though as a narrative I felt like this was lacking both as a discussion about queerness and as a gateway to conversing with Kobabe. I think this book maybe could have benefitted from Kobabe reflecting on these experiences for a couple more years and developing a deeper perspective on them.

Junji Ito - Cat Diary: Yon & Mu

This was the one re-read of this selection of books. This was something I first came across during my teenage binge of all of the Junji Ito books I could find (thanks Alfredo).

Reading this now, I admittedly didn't get too much out of it. I do still really appreciate this book and it's my go-to example for how much visual expression can influence a reading experience. There's undoubtedly a mountain of web comics you can read that feature very similar subject matter to this book, but this one stands out for *how* it communicates that subject matter to the reader. Visual storytelling is the ultimate factor in comics. One story can be told an infinite numbers of ways through variations in visual storytelling and this book is a testament to that.

[shardsofswords]

Getting quite tired of the whole 'attraction to men is an unfortunate affliction that we've been cursed with' shtick going around in progressive queer spaces. The constant 'bi means attracted to all women and like 5 men' performance and the pervasive idea that- especially for women- wanting to be with men is this bad decision you should try to resist.

Also getting quite tired of some of the other responses I've seen to this that are rightfully annoyed but act like this comes from some sort of misandry or man-hating when that shit is primaeval patriarchy, we've just carried over because on the surface it looks a little like man-hating and we mistook that for being transgressive.

To be clear: heteronormative misogynist society is VERY comfortable treating attraction to and sex with men like something that is harmful and actively lessens your worth as a human being. It assumes the only people that can be attracted to men are (cishet) women and I really hope I don't need to remind y'all of just how atrociously it treats women wanting to have sex. "A key that opens many locks is a good key but a lock that opens to many keys is a bad lock" jokes, the pathalogic obsession with virginity, the myths about hymens, the fucking "pair-bonding' pseudoscientific bullshit that has taken over redpill circles that claims that women actively lose their capacity to feel love if they sleep with too many people.

The idea that atraction to women is great and freeing and having sex with them is wonderful and life changing and can literally fix your soul is central to patriarchal ideas about attraction where cishet men's attraction to cis women is the ONLY acceptable version of desire and it also underpins the entire 'single male loneliness' moral panic from the right.

And the idea that being attracted to men is risky and harmful and just functions as blanket consent for men to do whatever they want to you also comes from this model of attraction that inherently sees women as objects of desire and men as subjects of desire. Putting it into a queer space where the genders aren't so rigidly defined doesn't change that origin. If you see wlw relationships inherently "purer" than anything that involves a man, it comes from this. It's not new, or feminist, or progressive. It's just the same old shit wrapped in a new shiny coat.

[hotdiggitydog-billy]

Actually you know what... rant time.

As someone who grew up female, I always felt so alienated by almost every portrayal of a woman ever. Part of it is for sure the queerness and genderfuckery, but the thing that always got to me, is that for a large chunk of female characters that I was seeing in the media I consumed, being a woman was central to their character in ways that it just wasn't for me. Femaleness also tended to be baked into the characters in a way that maleness wasn't baked into male characters. I don't know how to articulate this, but so many male characters feel like they are allowed to exist outside of there maleness and I think that that is in large part because they are treated as the default. If man is the default, then woman is a character trait that distinguishes from that default. This is super exacerbated by the fact that a lot of stuff I was seeing growing up had a very narrow idea of womanhood (i.e. straight, white, cis, traditionally feminine). A lot of my struggles w gender identity boils down to the fact that I was seeing people on screen whose experiences I couldn't identify with and told that I was supposed to because they were "like me" and it has been really hard to parse whether I'm trans or not because I don't fully know if my reluctance to identify as a woman is because I wish I was a man, or something else? Or if it's because I've spent my entire life alienated from womanhood. Although I guess feeling alienated from womanhood can, in and of itself, be a sign that I might be something else. I don't think I'm explaining right exactly. It also doesn't help that I don't experience serious gender dysphoria like a lot of trans people I know and even though I'm almost positive that I would be happier as a man, I feel like being a woman, or at least being perceived as one, isn't the worst thing in the world. It may be uncomfortable but it's safe and it's easy. I really didn't mean to ramble but I don't get the chance to talk about this often and sometimes I need to just get it out there.

[bloodngvts]

Lorenz Love Exchange 2023 Dear Creator Letter

Dear Creator,

Thank you so much for participating in this exchange with me! I’m looking forward to seeing what you create. I’m not super picky, and I can pretty much guarantee that I’ll love whatever you decide to do. These are nothing but a brief look at my interests for certain things like tropes and ships.

For prompts, I’ve been obsessed with political intrigue and general aristocratic behavior and settings lately. Any excuse to get Lorenz into fancy attire. I like tea parties and ballroom dancing. I would prefer to keep to the main setting, but if you have a unique idea for an AU I’m down with it! I would also like to put an emphasis on Lorenz’s magical and physical combat prowess.

Storywise, I adore plot and flowery prose; in fact, the longer and more detailed, the more I like it. I’m big on writing with a strong sense of setting too. I want to be immersed, feel what the characters are feeling and sense what they are sensing. Whether the characters are rooted or adrift, where they are matters to me, and I always crave those details as a reader. That said, I also love small, bite sized one-shots. Short, succinct, and sweet! Experimental writing or poetry is always welcome.

I’m down for any combo of ships and any work that features transgender, genderfluid, and non-binary headcanons. I would enjoy narratives that explore queerness and queer sexuality in general too. This can encompass so much besides a coming out narrative. Maybe they’re on a journey of self-discovery? Maybe they already know themselves very, very well. Maybe they’re coming to terms with their gender identity or suppressing it (Lorenz is a perfect character to use to toy with these ideas).

While I’m interested in a story that–as the exchange itself centers on–is about a romantic and/or sexual relationship between the characters in the pairing, I’ll be happy with a story anywhere on the spectrum that ranges from mild to explicit sexual activity. I do enjoy erotica as much as the next person, but I also appreciate writing without it. Pure fluff or romantic buildup that ends with a kiss works for me just as well. In fact, I enjoy it more, because sometimes the chase is better than the catch (if you know what I mean).

I like mutual pining or minor miscommunications, since those are really common tropes within lighter tropes. I would only like unrequited love if it’s someone who’s in love with Lorenz, not the other way around. Romantic or sexual tension is great! Friendship and loyalty are preferred themes as well.

I am good with light to heavy angst, the latter being of the death and major injury variety, as opposed to non-con. Fight scenes and body horror are good too. Hurt and comfort is a go-to, though if the piece features a woman or non-binary person, I would prefer them to not be the one being injured. I’ve listed my general DNW below. I think that’s about it but feel free to reach out to me if anything needs clarification or if you want to know something specific. You can reach me on here, Twitter, or AO3.

Do Not Wants

Pregnancy/Childbirth/Kids. I'd also rather not receive a work that has pregnancy/childbirth/kids as the central concept(s), unless used in a horror theme kind of way. There’s an exception when it deals with the complications of a trans individual dealing with pregnancy and possible fears or anxiety around it. In general though, I don’t like family-kid fics and that’s mainly what I’m concerned about. This includes mpreg or anything that involves A/B/O.

Infidelity. Any story in which a character is cheating or is being cheated on is not for me. A miscommunication that involves somebody mistaking an action for cheating is fine, as long as it is resolved at the end. If a triangle is resolved with polyamory, that works just as well.

A/B/O dynamics.

Non-con.

Amnesia. It’s a tired trope. Unless there’s something special or there’s a unique situation to how it’s used, I don’t want it.

Bodyswap.

Genderbending to make a pairing straight.

1st Person POV

[grison-in-space]

In general, understanding radical feminism for what it is and why it appeals to many people requires an understanding that the greatest strength of radical feminism as a tool for understanding misogyny and sexism is also its greatest faultline.

See, radical feminism is a second wave position in feminist thought and development. It is a reaction to what we sometimes call first wave feminism, which was so focused on specific legal freedoms that we usually refer to the activists who focused on it as suffragists or suffragettes: that is, first wave feminists were thinking about explicit laws that said "women cannot do this thing, and if they try, the law of the state and of other powerful institutions will forcibly evict them." Women of that era were very focused on explicit and obvious barriers to full participation in public and civil life, because there were a lot of them: you could not vote, you could not access education, you could not be trained in certain crucial professions, you could not earn your own pay even if you decided you wanted to.

The second wave of feminism, then, is what happened when the daughters of this first wave--and their opponents--looked around and said to themselves: hold on, the explicit barriers are gone. The laws that treat us as a different and lesser class of people are gone. Why doesn't it feel like I have full access to freedoms that I see the men around me enjoying? What are the unspoken laws that keep us here?

And so these activists began to try to dig into the implicit beliefs and cultural structures that served to trap women asking designated paths, even if they did wish to do other things. Why is it that woman are pressured not to go into certain high prestige fields, even if in theory no one is stopping them? How do our ideas and attitudes about sex and gender create assumptions and patterns and constrictions that leave us trapped even when the explicit chains have been removed?

And so these activists focused on the implicit ideas that create behavioral outcomes. They looked inward to interrogate both their own beliefs and the beliefs of other people around them. They discovered many things that were real and illuminated barriers that people hadn't thought of, especially around sexual violence and rape and trauma and harassment. In particular, these activists became known for exercises like consciousness-raising, in which everyday people were encouraged to sit down and consider the ways in which their own unspoken, implicit beliefs contributed to general societal problems of sexism and misogyny.

Introspection can be so intoxicating, though, because it allows us to place ourselves at the center of the social problems that we see around us. We are all naturally a little self centered, after all. When your work is so directly tied to digging up implications and resonances from unspoken beliefs, you start getting really into drawing lines of connection from your own point of interest to other related marginalizations--and for this generation of thinkers, often people who only experienced one major marginalization got the center of attention. Compounding this is the reality that it is easier to see the impacts of marginalization when they apply directly to you, and things that apply to you seem more important.

So some of this generation of thinkers thought to themselves, hang on. Hang on. Misogyny has its fingers in so many pies that we don't see, and I can see misogyny echoing through so many other marginalizations too--homophobia especially but also racism and ableism and classism. These echoes must be because there is one central oppression that underlies all the others, and while theoretically you could have a society with no class distinctions and no race distinctions, just biologically you always have sex and gender distinctions, right? So: perhaps misogyny is the original sin of culture, the well from which all the rest of it springs. Perhaps there's really no differences in gender, only in sex, and perhaps we can reach equality if only we can figure out how to eradicate gender entirely. Perhaps misogyny is the root from which all other oppressions stem: and this group of feminists called themselves radical feminists, after that root, because radix is the Latin word for root.

Very few of this generation of thinkers, you may be unsurprised to note, actually lived under a second marginalization that was not directly entangled with sexism and gender; queerness was pretty common, but queerness is also so very hard to distinguish from gender politics anyway. It's perhaps not surprising that at this time several Black women who were interested in gender oppression became openly annoyed and frustrated by the notion that if only we can fix gender oppression, we can fix everything: they understood racism much more clearly, they were used to considering and interrogating racism and thinking deeply about it, and they thought that collapsing racism into just a facet of misogyny cheapened both things and failed to let you understand either very well. These thinkers said: no, actually, there isn't one original sin that corrupted us all, there are a host of sins humans are prone to, and hey, isn't the concept of original sin just a little bit Christianocentric anyway?

And from these thinkers we see intersectional feminists appearing. These are the third wave, and from this point much mainstream feminist throughout moves to asking: okay, so how do the intersections of misogyny make it appear differently in all these different marginalized contexts? What does misogyny do in response to racial oppression? What does it look like against this background, or that one?

But the radical feminists remained, because seeing your own problems and your own thought processes as the center of the entire world and the answer to the entire problem of justice is very seductive indeed. And they felt left behind and got quite angry about this, and cast about for ways to feel relevant without having to decenter themselves. And, well, trans women were right there, and they made such a convenient target...

That's what a TERF is.

Now you know.