#and im trans. this could be how i see her views on trans people but with how shes acting now ? knowing my friend is trans ?

[whilomm]

i think part of the reason why ppl have a kneejerk reaction to others pointing out that marcille is kinda conservative (besides the usual desire to sand down characters edges to make them Less Problematic™) is that theyre thinking "conservative=republican" rather than similar to like, that girl who will swear up and down that she is SO progressive and 100% feminist and everything but when a girl doesnt shave her legs she says "ugh but its just so UNSANITARY" but at the same time if a guy DOES shave their legs she just "thinks its weird!!!", and if you point out the contradiction there ("didnt you say it was UNSANITARY to not shave? doesnt that mean you think ALL guys should shave?") she will BSoD a little bit and uhhhh i mean uhhh its just that–

or you know, someone who if you come out as a trans to her she'll accept it (after a bit of confusion and a few of the usual dumb cis questions) but maybe thinks that the way to ✨validate✨ you is to go all in on gender stereotypes like okay if youre a woman that means MAKEUP and DRESSES and LONG HAIR and ACTING LADYLIKE and PARTICIPATING IN GIRLY ACTIVITIES and NOT BEING TOO LOUD and NOT TAKING UP TOO MUCH SPACE. and if your a man that means dressing MANLY and HAVING SHORT HAIR and ACTING MASCULINE and TOUGH and BEING UNINVITED FROM THE (GIRLY) WEEKLY HANGOUT SESH

or people who like, will never outright say they HATE homeless people, like if you talk about volunteering at the soup kitchen or donating to the food bank shes like yeah!!! but then she also getting weirdly uncomfortable when it comes to actual homeless people who arent like, the model of 'trying but down on my luck', and just thinking the tents are unsightly and worrying about how if you give someone money on the street if they'll just use it for drugs and being anxious about the vague specter of "violence"

(im not necessarily saying "marcille herself would 100% do these things" but just "when people say marcilles a bit conservative they dont mean rightwing republican they mean like this kinda shit which self-proclaimed Progressives do when they dont recognize they still got shit that they picked up from living in a So Sigh Titty to work thru")

like, listen, a big part of marcille's character is that she is very prideful and sure of herself and her opinions. half of marcille's character building parts are "marcille has a preconceived notion! oh, someone challenges the preconceived notion! marcille is RESISTANT to this! oh my GOD this is AWFUL how could you CHALLENGE HER WORLD VIE- oh. oh wait no. okay you might have a point BUT SHE STILL HATES IT!!!".

she changes and she learns things! but shes kicking and screaming the whole way and kinda annoying about it and even after she has one thing challenged shes still got a whole backlog of other things she learned from So Sign Titty shes also gotta work thru even if she doesnt realize it yet. sometimes she gradually realizes these things on her own sometimes someone basically has to hit her over the head with the Very Special Episode about how halffoots arent children and orcs aren't evil and maybe shes treating falin a bit like a dress up doll and infantilizing her and like thats a problem maybe?

like. its an interesting part of her character! let marcille be a bit conservative. she aint perfect. actually theres a lotta little things she kinda sucks about. but its okay bc she can learn and have her tidy little worldview challenged and its interesting to see her go thru it all!

(and i also wonder if part of the resistance to people pointing out how shes a bit conservative in some ways is also like, refusal to admit "hm maybe i also hold some regressive views". like, the general thing of "wanting to believe you are already a perfect progressive and dont hold any shitty views" is extremely realistic, its defo a trap ive fallen into before! most of us probably have! but like, step one is admitting it rather than putting your foot on the ground and saying la la la i cant hear you)

[solardistress]

how the hell am i supposed to come out to you if you think trans peoplle are trans because they take hormones or have to have surgery to be a valid transgender person no please for the love og god please please im trans i domt want surgery i dont want to tale hormones im not female but how am i supposed to explain this to you when now im so scared and uncomfortable and i would teach you but when have you ever truly listened to me im literally asking you to and correcting you to use he/him but every time you ficking go bsck to hsing she her and im going to lose it and cry and please stop talking please please please its so fucking annoying and making me sick please stop its just pronouns

and i shouldnt be makimg such a big deal out of this but i care so fucking much

[comradekatara]

do you have headcanons about the gaang and fire girls’ gender identities and sexualities?

i mean yeah 😭😭 obviously 😭😭 im literally a homosexual on tumblr dot edu. that said, i don’t really care for the term “headcanon” in this context, as i think that reading characters as informed by the text constitutes “interpretation” rather than baseless theorizing and fancy. i do get that the term headcanon is pretty ubiquitous in fandom spaces, but to me there is a big difference between “interpretation” (something you can cite the text to persuasively argue, but which may differ across readers) and “headcanon” (baseless inventions purely for self-indulgent pleasure). when it comes to the characters in atla and their relationships to gender as informed by patriarchy, i think there is more than enough material to suggest my readings, as gender plays a fairly significant role in the worldbuilding and characterization. obviously when it comes to more minor characters, that is when a vibes-based analysis is needed, as takes on less integral players are largely conjecture. i have no evidence that june, for example, is a lesbian, beyond simply vibes. and as much as i trust my own judgment when it comes to sniffing out dykes, there is no real textual evidence that june eats pussy. i simply know in my heart of hearts that she does. HOWEVER, that is not what i am doing when i discuss the principal players of atla, whose relationships to gender are largely crucial to how they function in the narrative and how we read them. so without further ado..

aang is actually the vaguest character for me in terms of how i read his relationship to gender, because it’s very clear that he wasn’t raised in a traditionally patriarchal society and thus has a fairly different view on gender than the rest of the world, especially a world whose borders and categorizations have been more rigidly reified after a century of imperialism and colonialism. i can see the argument for aang being a cis, straight boy, and i can see the argument for aang being a nonbinary bisexual kid, etc etc. the one thing we know about aang is that he likes girls. like, really likes girls. so i’ve always kind of read him as mostly straight, but i don’t think he would rigidly define his own gender and sexuality along those lines, even if functionally he would probably present as a straight guy. but he could also be bi, or trans, or what have you. beyond his love for katara (and that time he rightfully felt humiliated by the fire nation portraying him as a woman, not because he doesn’t “respect women,” but because he correctly located it as a propagandistic tool of disrespect and colonial humiliation on their part) it’s not really crucial to his character either way.

katara, on the other hand, really only makes sense if you read her as a cis straight girl. i know that people have gotten incensed over my saying this in the past, but it’s just the most logical reading of her character. she is confident in her femininity and sexuality. she is a girl who can successfully conform to gender roles (and expects others to, quite frankly) but also recognizes and protests the fundamental inequalities of patriarchy. she has internalized a lot of patriarchal ideas about what is appropriate, but also understands that on a structural level, equality across genders is needed. she’s not a girl who struggles with her own gender identity or sexuality, she’s just a person who’s sick of being dismissed and devalued due to her gender, as if her femininity negates her strength or her capacity for anger. she is feminine, strong, and angry. she likes fashion and boys and ecoterrorism. when i call katara a straight girl, it is not to position her as a less compelling character (the fact that i have to even say this is crazy to me. sometimes characters are straight and that doesn’t make them less compelling??? unless you’re some kind of egomaniac who can only like characters if you relate to them… but she's literally the world's specialest princess). in fact, as someone whose best friends are all incredibly intelligent yet kind of ridiculous straight girls, i say it with the deepest, utmost love.

sokka is not cis to me but sometimes people will "agree" with that sentiment by being like "yeah he's a trans boy" and i'm just like.... what. manhood & masculinity are clearly concepts that are imposed upon him as a role he feels compelled to fulfill within a colonial paradigm. people will also say "sokka's arc is about learning what it means to be a real man" and like. if anything sokka's arc is learning that he does not Have to be a "man." so i guess technically i read sokka as nonbinary, but i also don't think sokka would ever bother to conceptualize his own gender, he'd kind of just reach a point wherein he inwardly feels like his relationship to gender is no longer significant to how he defines himself, and not really communicate that feeling to anyone to except for probably suki. also i think he's bisexual (again, he would never outwardly communicate that, he'd just be like "of course i've experimented, i'm a scientist") but with a strong preference for women. and thank god for that bc his daddy issues are so bad; he should not be dating men.

i do read toph as a baby butch who doesn't quite know how to articulate her own relationship to gender and sexuality yet bc she is still a baby. but i definitely see her as embracing her masculinity down the line, as something that isn't only valuable to her as it is positioned contra femininity, but as a mode of expression in its own right. and i know that long hair =/= femininity necessarily, but i do think toph would cut her hair short as a way of undermining the confucian values of belonging to the family, which i know may seem like its unrelated to gender, but considering the patriarchal role of the nuclear family structure informing toph's quite radical disavowal of it (we don't talk about lok, but she was also a single mom by choice so like that's ...... something, at least) toph's decision to renounce those entrenched values is reflective of her gender identity and refusal to adhere to patriarchal dogmas as they impose femininity as passivity and submission. i do still see her as identifying as a woman though, but in a distinctly butch dyke way that complicates the role of womanhood as it rejects the notion that womanhood is primarily a performance for the male gaze. so i think toph is a masc lesbian, which i suppose is quite an obvious reading of her gender, and i don't think it's the only valid interpretation either. i can accept someone reading toph as transmasc or bisexual or otherwise recognizing that these identities can be unstable and even in flux. for example, acknowledging toph's baby crush on sokka means problematizing the notion of her as a lesbian, or at least it can. but i do think sokka is like the one "man" (see above) that dykes find appealing (suki, ty lee, etc etc.) so it makes perfect sense that he'd be like. her ring of keys moment. if anything toph having a crush on sokka illustrates her latent lesbianism (although nothing will ever come of it, obviously). and her gender is also just Lesbian.

suki's relationship to gender is a lot less complex than toph's or sokka's because she's also just a far less developed character in her own right, so i've always kind of just read her gender as an extension of kyoshi's for thematic reasons. and since kyoshi is canonically bisexual with a preference for women, i also read suki as bisexual with a preference for women. like i definitely think that she was surprised at first by how into sokka she was because she had never experienced liking a "boy" before. and i also think it's fun to read kyoshi as trans (no, not because she's tall and "aggressive," dear god); if you've read the novels you'll probably understand what i mean by that. so i'm partial to trans girl suki as well, but i think her being cis or trans is actually equally likely because she literally grew up on the isle of lesbos. but nowhere else on avatar planet in that particular epoch is this true. except for maybe the swamp idk. anyway she's a bi dyke to me for sure.

zuko is very obviously gay. i'd say that zuko's sexuality is the most obviously entrenched in the entire show. however, i don't think the writers themselves are aware of this (because it was 2005 and gay people weren't invented until december 2014 korrasami handhold) so they clumsily try to get him back together with mai in the finale even though they had actually constructed a near-perfect portrait of two closeted children attempting to perform a functional relationship under political pressure to please their noble families. but so much of zuko's arc is potently reflective of the struggle of a closeted child on the journey to assert himself against an abusive patriarch who imposes his rigid ideals of what kind of masculinity is appropriate for boys to model and what isn't. obviously the political and ideological dimensions to his arc as his consciousness is raised constitutes the primary aspect of his character, but reading him as gay is also just the logical extension of that journey. i could literally go through every single episode scene by scene explaining how every single facet illustrates his latent homosexuality in such and such way. but i'm pretty sure everyone following me also very much knows this, and also i don't actually care enough about zuko to do that (sorry zuzu). oh and yeah he's cis (obviously) but i have seen (sparse) transfem zuko interpretations that were kind of compelling. however, i do just think he's a cis boy who struggles with adhering perfectly to a fascist model of masculinity and has some stereotypically gay/effeminate inclinations. and also the blue spirit is drag and the height of camp. but yeah he's cis probably.

azula is a lesbian (cis, again, there's no way she's ever going to seriously contemplate transing her gender) and i'm not just saying that because she's cunty and mean. her relationship to mai and (especially) ty lee is highly reflective of the experience of teenage (closeted) lesbians in very intense friendships with other girls that precariously toe the line between platonic and romantic. azula's relationships are obviously also complicated by the factor of coercion and the fact that none of them actually have any agency to act on their desires for a myriad of reasons. the only time azula ever displays interest in a boy is when she is attempting to soothe her own ego by proving that she is in fact desirable to the most powerful boy in the room – a space wherein the hierarchy of court is replicated by the hierarchy of high school popularity rankings, and she is no longer at the top of the food chain and must climb her way up the ladder by asserting her ability to "attain" the famous cha(d)n. she also clearly has no idea what to do once she has attained such a boy because her desire is superficial, and she can only actually operate on the logic of domination and conquest that was instilled in her by ozai. however, contrast this with the softness and affection with which she treats ty lee, the jealousy she displays when ty lee is fawned over by boys (which she mistakes for jealousy over the fact that she wants the boys' attention for herself), or the devastation she feels over her betrayal. azula is capable of genuine love and affection, even if she has spent her entire life convincing herself that she isn't, but that affection is reserved for her female friends. [lord farquaad pointing] baby dyke.

ty lee is probably a lesbian but there's also the possibility that she is attracted to men but would simply never in one million years actually date one in any capacity, and thus is functionally a lesbian regardless. but like. she literally joins the dyke warriors as the culmination of her arc which is about how she hides her true face and performs and contorts herself to please others for the sake of her own survival, before asserting that her love for another girl is so strong that she would sacrifice her own life for that love, and then ultimately embracing authenticity. it literally does not get any gayer than that.

mai kind of has trans girl swag actually but also there's literally no circumstance wherein her image-obsessed noble family would permit her to transition (especially since they so clearly favor sons over daughters) so she's probably just a really cool cis girl (those exist, i'm told). and also she's a dyke obviously. i do think she did have a crush on zuko at some point as a child, but if anything it was born of the mutual recognition that they have something in common (gayness) and so she found him to be an appropriate yet also kind of thrilling object of fascination. obviously he's very different once he returns from his banishment, and so that illusion is almost immediately shattered, but she nonetheless tries her damn best to be a good, supportive girlfriend to him, and invests a lot of emotional energy into their (somewhat farcical) relationship. that said, i do think that assuming that her attraction to zuko is genuine beyond the social pressures that facilitated it is just. really sad for her. so i think she is a lesbian.

rapid fire round: iroh straight (duh), jet repressed bicuriosity but functionally straight, yue bisexual (vibes-based assessment), king kuei bisexual as is bosco the bear, kanna lesbian, hama bisexual, herbalist lesbian, piandao gay, haru straight, long feng eunuch.

[weeb-polls-with-pip]

Autistic Anime Boys Prelims - Propaganda Division - Group 2

Propaganda:

Kyouya -

"what's there to say? you know him. you love him. vote kyoya."

Rinnosuke -

"Rinnosuke Morichika lives in an overly-cluttered curio shop, and has a special interest in making magical inventions. Since he doesn’t live in a modern setting— but a pocket dimension slightly disconnected to the outside world— whenever a modern item shows up in his shop via spiriting away, he can obsess over it for extended periods of time. He is quite blunt without realizing it, even to people he cares for. He also has a special ability to generally understand the name and use of any item he touches (though this backfires sometimes, he thought a Gameboy was a doomsday device once)."

Fuuta -

"okay look theres so many fucking signs hes autistic. he cannot tell tone and often doesn't know how to react to stuff which is a major point in his character id say. he was asked if he remembered his victim's name (hes a murderer. oops!) and his response was something along the lines of "Of course I do. I saw it everywhere." because he did not understand that they wanted to know what it was since it wasnt directly stated. im convinced that hoodies are a comfort object of his because i genuinely have not seen him without one except for one time. also hes canonically a chronically online twitter user. also he gets really passionate about his interests. also not really related but everyone in the fandom agrees hes transgender but no one can agree on what way. ive seen every single gender hc for this dude. vote kajiyama fuuta for this sopping wet poor little meow meow of a man."

Hansum -

"He's just a very odd and strange lad, can't remember names well, is an alien (mild spoiler), he's very popular, obsessed with Doritos and becomes their mascot, just refers to everyone as humans which is a mood, and is completely socially oblivious."

Miyuki -

"Relatable neurodivergent-Gifted Child syndromeTM case with all the superiority-inferiority complex that results. A chronic show-off and scheming strategist with a lowkey hopeless romantic dramatic aspect to him, silly cool and pathetic in a very hilarious way. Shirogane has a trademark glare purely thanks to his eyebags as he runs on coffee everyday having to support his family with multiple jobs in addition to class, on top of student council president duties. He's kind and an obsessive perfectionist who fills his entire wall with the weirdest motivational posters. Shirogane is very devoted to his love. He likes penguins (Kaguya and him is peak asd4asd and bi4bi btw)."

Kirito -

"He's autistic and bisexual as hell, and there's a good bit of trans coding in him 🥺

Autism coding: Bro's literally got a sword and swordfighting hyperfixation where, despite playing a game that focuses around guns, he still chooses to use a sword!! We also see him completely missing Asuna's flirting at first (he tells her she could have just checked her friendlist to make sure he was alive, in response to her tracking him down to see him)

Bi coding: Dual wielding swords is literally a euphemism in Japan for bisexuality; and Kirito initially tries to hide the fact he can dual wield out of fear of how the people he's close to will view him (and once he reveals it to them and they accept it, he begins to be more open about it.) Also in the Underworld arc he becomes very close with Eugeo to the point of living with him (and sharing a bed on occasion), and there are several parallels between Eugeo and Asuna, and they're so gay for each other that despite the anime having only a toned down version of it, they're still very affectionate (Also of note is that Eugeo is the only guy in SAO canon to consistently have a 'laying in bed with Kirito' talk CG in the spinoff games) (There's more but it's spoilers and this is a shortened version)

Trans coding: Kirito is very trans coded in the light novel (which shows Kirito's thoughts in much greater detail than the anime) Aincrad arc reveals that Kirito explicitly Does Not Like his real face, and dislikes how feminine it looks (he mentions that its led to him and his cousin being mistaken for sisters) And in Phantom Bullet arc, he's visibly uncomfortable at being mistaken for a girl due to his avatar's appearance, and in response to being misgendered he briefly panics and checks to make sure his chest flat (at least in the anime adaptation) 🏳️‍⚧️"

Shirou -

"Has one goal in life and ignores almost everything in favor of trying to fulfil that goal."

Keith -

"Speaks in a way that is seen as weird and has mannerisms others think is funny. He struggles with not being taken seriously by others because of this and many of the things others say goes over his head. He struggles to connect with other people because of these things. His entire arc in the second film is about him deciding that the people who don't accept him for who he is aren't worth it and that he's going to continue being himself."

Junpei -

"for other fans of this series, I know the more obvious representation here may be Luou, Junpei is So Good. his special interest is ballet and he has so many hangups involving how his family sees him and how other boys his age interpret him to the point that his idea of masculinity is extremely narrow and he enforces social rules on himself to mask and keep people from realizing that he loves something that Isn't Manly. he misinterprets social cues and takes things literally, like assuming that when Miyako asked him to dance with her she meant Right This Minute rather than as a pair in the studio. for some reason the point where he cuts his hair super short to prove his devotion to ballet is also sticking with me, I think maybe it's the combination of the way it's normal for boys/men in Japan to do that, yet Junpei didn't realize that kind of attitude/action didn't suit ballet at all? he wasn't aware that the context was completely different. Junpei also doesn't act or pretend very well, he's gotta put his whole entire ass into his roles, which he then proceeds to get TOO into and cause a lot of trouble, without giving too much away! he's really relatable to me as someone who's socially anxious but very skilled at masking, and seeing him become more comfortable with himself and start to show how he really feels is so inspiring to me."

Kazuma -

"He may be (wildly) misguided but his intentions are good kinda! He’s just the Guy of all time idk how to explain it."

[missmastectomy]

This is a vent post more than anything, but honestly? Despite the lip service I see a lot of gender criticals give to detransitioners, ime the Average Joe is a lot more likely to sympathize with detransitioners and to see us as fully fledged human beings. People who don’t know anything about the trans discourse aren’t ideologically involved and they’re more likely to approach us individuals first.

I’ve noticed a LOT of gender criticals and radfems basically view detrans women as “traitors” and assume the absolute worst about our motivations. I have literally seen radfems say shit like “well, I could never trust a detrans woman because she transitioned because she hates women and secretly wants to dominate me/rape me/enact misogyny on me,” radfems acting like transition ruins a person and that it’s impossible to ever come back from that. As if there aren’t literally women who used to hold all kinds of problematic/misogynistic beliefs who eventually snapped out of it.

For all the talk about how women need only be biologically female to be women, I’m convinced a lot of the most adamant GCs don’t see us as women. They literally just see us as gender freaks. They have this image in their mind of us as this weird in-between female, separate from the real women.

It’s so incredibly insulting. These people have a caricature of detrans women in their head. I highly doubt most have ever even met a detrans woman irl. It’s so stupid because most detrans women are very clearly female after they’ve been off hormones a few years. I’ve literally known women who were on hormones for years and I had no idea because they sound and look typical. Like, when I first detransitioned a lot of people thought I was male, but now I am gendered female and deal with the same shit as any other woman. And no, not every detrans woman will be able or want to assimilate back into her birth sex, but that still doesn’t take away from her status as a woman.

Detransitioners have literally gone through hell. Where the fuck is all this righteous indignation y’all level at these endos prescribing kids HRT, when you actually talk to someone who went through that? Fuck any GC who treats detransitioners like trash because you lack the basic human empathy to understand that what we went through was abuse. Most detransitioners nowadays started transitioning as children. CHILDREN. Kids who were traumatized, who had already been violated or neglected in some way. We were the ones who got swept up in a massive social experiment and we payed the price for it.

Some of y’all are repulsive. We are human beings, not pawns in your culture war. I see the same crap leveled at detransitioned men, too. Not every detransitioned man was an AGP fetishist that abused women ffs. I also know men who were gay or experienced CSA and ended up pushed into transition as kids. The way people talk to detransitioners and our bodies is disgusting. People calling Jazz Jenning’s SRS shit like a “festering, non-functional fuck hole.” What the fuck is wrong you, that was literally a teenager who was groomed into this is as a 6 year old.

At the end of the day detransitioners cannot rely on other groups, only on individual allies and ourselves. I am thankful for the feminists and GCs who sincerely care about we went through and want justice for people harmed by transition. The rest of you can piss off. Go find another toy to chew on.

[molsno]

hii so im kind of confused about the general inner workings of transmisogyny as an extension of transphobia and was hoping you could clarify. basically, transphobes & terfs in particular say that trans women are men, however they treat trans women differently than men, dehumanizing them on the basis of their gender. i always interpreted this as a form of gender discrimination that aims to define trans women as a lower or subhuman class, a third gender of “not quite men but undeserving of the title of woman”. does this conflict with the concept of bioessentialism, i.e. that trans women are fundamentally men? i see people say that “transphobes see trans women as men” but from experience that’s not quite true. men receive privilege and rewards for being men that trans women don’t. sorry if this is incoherent im just trying to get a better understanding of it

your understanding is pretty good to be honest. trans women are a separate gender class - an underclass to be specific - and transmisogynists are aware of this, even if they claim to see us as men. does this conflict with bioessentialism? not necessarily, but in some ways it does.

the thing is, though, logical consistency doesn't particularly matter to bigots. that's why basically all of the laws designed to oppress trans women, despite all of the fearmongering about how some technicality in how they're worded will result in them targeting cis women and other tme people, are ultimately only going to be enforced to the fullest extent against trans women. for example, tme people would rightfully be furious if a teenage cis girl was subjected to a genital examination due to the suspicion that she's trans and playing in a high school girls' sport. this would unambiguously be sexual assault, after all. but ultimately, she would be allowed to continue playing (not that she'd likely want to after something so traumatizing, but I digress), and she would probably (not certainly though) have some kind of recourse available to her due to the backlash this incident would cause. if this happened to a teenage trans girl, though, would anyone care? would there be outrage about this? she would have gone through the exact same kind of sexual assault, but the law in that scenario would be functioning exactly as intended. no form of recourse would be available to her. sure, you could make the case that a cis girl might not be able to sue the school district due to financial or other barriers, but a trans girl would have no ground to stand on, legally speaking; she would have broken the law, no matter how unjust and discriminatory the law is.

so violence against trans women broadly isn't recognized as violence against women because we aren't viewed as women. but we're not viewed as men, either. for another example, let's work through the lens of sexual assault again. if a tme person of any gender accuses a trans woman of sexual assault, there is little to no doubt that she will be viewed as guilty automatically, both by other tme people and by the law (the trans panic defense is still legally admissible in many places). in the best case, this will lead to her ostracization and isolation, putting her at higher risk for instability and suicide. in the worst case, this will lead to her imprisonment or death - REGARDLESS of if the accusation is actually true or not. the justification for this is that trans women are secretly perverted men who are trying to prey on innocent cishet people, but the basic idea underlying that premise isn't even something tme people truly believe! if they actually viewed trans women as men, then her guilt wouldn't be quite so certain. men can commit sexual assault every day and face no consequences for it, even when brought to trial with clear and damning evidence, because patriarchy ensures that men won't be held accountable for their actions. of course, this isn't always the case, marginalized men often do face intense scrutiny, many times involving violence. but even adjusting this analysis to account for additional factors such as racism, trans women still receive absolutely none of the same solidarity, leniency, or respect that men of the same demographics as them do.

fundamentally, trans women aren't treated like women or men in society. we're treated as a disposable and undesirable underclass of women that everyone else is free to abuse without consequence. any claims by transmisogynists about what gender they see us as is posturing. we are treated in unique ways as a result of our status as transfeminine. that's exactly what we mean when we talk about how transmisogyny is a unique form of oppression. bioessentialism certainly plays a part, but its contradictions are so obvious that it can only be understood as one piece of a much larger puzzle.

[eirian]

yall ready for a gender journey post..

so yall could probably guess i grew up a cis girl. i didnt start questioning my gender until high school after i broke up with my first boyfriend which kind of freed me up to explore my identity as my own person for the first time. around age like 16 was when i first started identifying as trans, and at the time that meant a binary trans guy

after a couple years of getting comfortable exploring my gender i decided hey maybe im actually not a binary trans guy but instead nonbinary. still transmasc and guy leaning but not quite all the way anymore. this became a trend for the next loooong while, getting closer to the androgynous part of the spectrum as time went on

then in recent years (maybe about 5 years ago ish) i started to lean more towards femininity. this is significant for me because growing up i was always opposed to it--i hated wearing dresses, i hated putting on makeup, anything "girly" appalled me and i didnt know why. i ended up thinking its because i WASNT a girl, and thats why i was so uncomfortable with everything to do with being a girl. i rejected it so hard because it just wasnt me.

after living with eden for a while i got even more comfortable exploring the feminine part of myself. i started wearing dresses and skirts and actually ENJOYED it; i started painting my nails and wearing earrings again; i even grew my hair out to my shoulderblades (yeah thats where its at now LOL). ive even started using she/her alongside they/them. and im actually enjoying these things??? it feels like after all these years im finally able to reclaim them because i feel like im finally able to be comfortable with my gender--how my gender feels to ME, not to everyone else.

that was the problem when i was growing up--i was trapped in everyone else's perception of my gender and what it "should" be. i was trapped into a box that was made by everyone else's idea of what i SHOULD look like, what i SHOULD wear, what i SHOULD act like, etc. and it took me until age 26 to fully realize that my gender is what i want it to be, not what everyone else wants.

i dont have to be a guy to want facial hair and a flat chest and a low voice. loving pink and dresses and cute things and makeup and jewelry doesnt inherently mean im a girl. pronouns, features, clothes, even names dont inherently mean youre one gender or another. your gender is defined by you and only you and nobody should be able to put you into a box and define your gender for you.

..having said all this, im starting to explore my gender further, and im slowly coming to the POSSIBLE conclusion that i might come back around to being cis (albeit gnc). nothing would really change about me except the label tbh. if i do end up coming to that conclusion i will be very bummed about leaving the trans community, but i wont feel any less attached to it, as ive spent literally half my life as part of it. i understand what its like to be trans and to love myself as my most authentic self, and thats why im considering this possiblity!

identifying as a lesbian kind of pushed me in this direction as well--i cant remember the last time i felt truly comfortable and happy with a label regarding my orientation.. like ya damn. maybe i am a girl who likes girls LOL. it just feels right and natural for me personally??? its crazy. i love women. if youre a woman i love you no matter the flavor. i love my wife more than all of you though sorry <3

but god please dont take this as me being like "oh trans people just need to get comfortable with their gender and theyll realize theyre cis" that is a bullshit take and i am not saying that. this is strictly my own experience and journey! i am 100% not speaking for every trans person and you shouldnt either.

but ya. dan cis era???? we'll see. no official statement just yet but i just wanted to let yall know where im at in my ~gender journey~. until i confirm anything please still view me as a nonbinary girlthing! <3

[mamawasatesttube]

Kon-El questions 3, 7 and 16

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character?

hmmm. how do i put this. it's like... the way karl kesel treated him as a self-insert for his own teenage fantasy self or whatever sometimes. obviously this comes out in the way he gets preyed on by adult women and this is played off as cool and chill, but it also comes out in the way a) kesel writes his flirting. sometimes it's very endearing and cringefail, and other times he's kissing women without consent, and that's played off as chill and fine because kesel thinks it should be and the women in question almost always are fine with that, but also b) he writes off concerns about indigenous hawaiians in kon's narrative (like silver sword or ...man i'm forgetting that kid who gets jealous of him and has powers about it for a minute, but that narrative). and like. yeah. white man in the 90s wrote this for SURE. i don't think it's like, written in the absolute poorest taste imaginable, because there's a lot of ways where it seems almost like they were trying to be respectful of native hawaiian culture, but then there's shit that's so far off the mark it's like. dude. and it's very evident that it just reflects karl kesel's own views much more than any character in-narrative.

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

lmaooo that's a toughie!!!! fanon kon at large is just. straight up not my boy. however there's a subset of fandom who leans into him being genderqueer/gnc/trans a lot more than canon ever has and i looove that. trans kon truthers lets go ♥

16. What's your least favorite ship for this character?

LORD. tim/ber/kon is the one that makes me roll my eyes hardest, alongside the rarer but no less irksome ber/kon. it's like... this is 100% not about kon as a character. this is about tim. ber/kon is almost funny in that it's entirely about tim but with tim himself cut out of the picture. but tim/ber/kon is just "let's take tim's most popular two fanon love interests and just shove all of them together!" and i have yet to see Anything even remotely try to convince me why kon and bernard should give a shit about each other. like, MAYBE you could sell it as a loooong slow burn, but i just. i don't see it man. putting the rest under a cut bc i AM gonna ramble about why i dislike it, so if you like tim/ber/kon or tim/ber and don't wanna see that, keep scrolling here👍!!

this is also partly bc i just... man i really wanted to like bernard and tim/ber but there's nothing there. i knew i didn't like rebirth tim characterization going in when i read tdr but i was hoping i'd at least find some crumbs. it's all just ... like there's no substance to it. there's no conflict, no character flaws, no "why do they even like each other???", no particular way they seem to help each other grow. it's just tropey "told, not shown" fluff where megfitz insists they are SO in love and perfect for each other, over and over, without backing that up really at all, and it just holds absolutely no appeal to me. and when it's just tim/ber i'm like yeah ok sure it's not my thing but whatever. but when people start trying to shove kon into there i'm like NO!!!!!! sdjkfhkd like im just SO unconvinced and it feels like such a great steaming heap of Nothing.

the main reason that is is that to me a relationship needs to have an arc. it can't just be stagnant. if there's no conflict, if there's no room for growth, if there's no development, it falls apart in my eyes. it doesn't feel like a real story about actual people. and as far as the tim/ber dynamic established in tdr, there's just. nothing. even the fact that bernard apparently somehow knows that tim is robin, which should be a HUGE source of conflict, is completely glossed over. it never comes up in any way.

like, we know that tim wants to tell people, but holds back out of a sense of duty. in robin '93, he agonizes about this with steph. but when bruce tells her his identity without his consent - which steph tells him bruce did immediately - he flips the fuck out!!!! he panics and runs away and he's furious with them both!!! so you'd ostensibly think that bernard knowing, and then not telling him he knows, would be sowing the seeds for an explosive conflict later down the line. especially because bernard now knows that tim is just. lying to him. all the time. shamelessly and blatantly lying through his teeth. and sure, it's for a good cause. right? but you'd think that in a relationship that's only just been established, just for a few months, that would also be offputting!! you'd think he'd start getting more and more unhappy that tim is just constantly lying to him and he knows it!! because he knows it about the robin secret, but what else might tim be lying to him about??? he knows now that tim has no qualms just lying to his face all the goddamn time, and he's... FINE with that???? there's this giant secret they're both dancing around and it's set up that there's just. N O T H I N G done with that. it drives me up the wall. i found this absolutely infuriating to read. both of them just being so one-dimensionally "oh we're in looooove so nothing else matters" that it erodes not only tim's specific characterization but bernard's ability to react like . idk. a human being? it just feels like running into dead end after dead end.

so yeah adding kon into that mix makes me want to tear my hair out bc it just feels SO surface-level. it's like... how much of him are you gonna shave off to fit him into this soulless, conflictless mold? it's like how i get annoyed when tim/kon fics ignore kon being genuinely really upset tim didn't share his identity with the team in yj98, but worse. because identity shit REALLY matters to kon. kon has never dated anyone who didn't know he was superboy. all of his civilian friends in sb11 know he's superboy. like, he does Not get close to people if he can't share that. it would be!!! a source!!! of conflict!!! but i've never seen Any ship content for tim/ber/kon that isn't just either completely declawed fluff that's just oh hehe tim has two boyfriends, or "kon angsting over tim dating someone else uwu" bullshit, which occasionally leads into completely declawed "tim has two boyfriends" fluff. it just does such a disservice to every character involved imo.

[our-transmasculine-experience]

im about 99% sure im trans but ive been struggling to do anything about it or come out for a while. admitting something like that to my friends (even though two of them are trans themselves) and asking for something from them feels reallyyyyy revealing in a way ive been struggling to get past because ironically i think them understanding it so well it would make me feel more open. my mom has that middle aged woman mentality of “we hate men” and while i know she doesnt actually hate men she definitely holds some views against them and makes negative comments about testosterone and such, and im worried coming out will not only come with misunderstandings but also her seeing my differently. my sister has always been weird about trans people and while shes queer herself and has trans friends the way she talks about them sometimes makes it feel like she doesnt really see them how they want to be seen (shes also makes half joking remarks about how “am i sure im not nb?” but when the idea of me being a trans man comes up she gets weirdly adverse to it, even if she claims its a joke or not serious). my dad has a lot of concerningly right wing views and has made transphobic remarks before and im worried if he finds out its only gonna cause problems. doing anything at school about it would make me feel like i put a target on my back and i dont think i could handle that. theres also that percentage of doubt thats still there that im not actually trans and will be causing problems for no reason and the idea that ill never be seen how i want or be happy with myself so why even bother. sorry for rambling but i really just wanted to put my concerns down somewhere.

i’m so sorry to hear that. this sounds like a really difficult situation and i really hope things get better for you. if you did come out, i’d come out to your friends first to see how they handle it. i’m sure they’ll support you!

best of luck!

[deeism]

i dont always go for (cis) genderbent art depending on the context and how its pulled off, but always sunny genderbends r honestly very interesting and cool to me regardless of what they look like (whether they make characters cis or trans or whatever). and i think its because all of the characters have very specific interpretations of gender roles and its fun to think about how that might differ or stay the same

per my last reblog i really like the idea of girl!mac's dad hating her because she was supposed to be born a boy and her trying to fit into that role while also navigating what her gender means to her personally..... there is so MUCH to think about there. similarly i see people talk about dennis as being transfem because it makes you look at a lot of her character aspects very differently (e.g. her very deeply internalized misogyny and sexism) idk i could make a whole separate post about the connotations that come w transfem dennis because i do think people dont necessarily think about all of them. but i do like that interpretation and i think its interesting to reexamine those traits through an entirely different lens. i've seen people headcanon frank as a trans man which is honestly real as fuck to me. but the point im getting at here is that Because gender is so relevant in at least some way or another to every member of the gang you can kind of do anything with how you view their gender (whether its cisgender or not) and it still tells you a lot about their character and the way they view the world. im not saying this isnt something that applies to other characters in other shows because gender roles tend to be deeply relevant in a lot of things and turning them on their heads in any way can be fun. there's just something specific about sunny that i enjoy and im glad so many of us think about it lol idk.

[vaniliens]

Trans fairy tail characters go

- Levi. Most nonbinary person to nonbinary.

- being transmasc would fix erza I think. Or maybe just a he/him lesbian. Give erza testosterone she needs it

- as I said gajeel is nonbinary in a masc way. I don't this Metallica gave a single fuck about gender so gajeel didn't know what it was until he showed up in civilization. Uses he/him but could not care less. All pronouns kind of guy.

- Natsu is a similar but because igneel was a guy Natsu wanted to be to, and he wants to be just like his dad

- I feel like Fried (Freed? It's been like 4 years since the fairy tail hyperfixation) is bigender

- speaking of laxus' crew the knight guy with the souls. Agender. His name escapes me.

- gray is transmasc I make the rules. He and Lyon are both transmasc. They saw each other on galuna Island and mutually understood each other through their twisted siblingesque relationship that they were both men now but they all had bigger problems to content with

- I could see laxus as transfem. But so deeply in the closet it would be physically impossible for him to leave or externalize it. Because it's laxus

I hope you have a lovely day

THANK YOU FOR THESE HEAD CANONS I LOVE THESE SM??? TRANSFEM LAXUS WHOS SO DEEP IN THE CLOSET,,,, SO TRUE,,,, Transmasc Gray & Agender/NB Natsu my beloved headcanons too 😭😭‼️‼️ The dragon slayers would not know a thing about gender‼️‼️‼️‼️ And bickslow wouldnt care about gender either!!! Auauagh these are so good your mind is just 🎇🎇🎇

Here's a list of Everyone else i think might be trans too btw;

TRANSFEM/MASC / BIGENDER / NB LESBIAN JUVIA‼️‼️ I feel like she started E a little before Phantom Lord arc started but also, i feel like she could be transmasc but be as deep into the closet as Laxus is because of her heteronormative view 😭 Like her thinking shes definitely a woman because she "loves" Gray for being her savior (Cough. Its not a crush it was just admiration but she didnt know because- Cough. And she thought only women and men can be in love (Probably Bora's fault 🙄🙄🙄 but also she could've just read a lot of cishet love stories)) I imagine she'd only recognize how shes transmasc around the time she starts shipping Gray with Lyon when she thought "Oh gay people are fine actually" (& thus her lesbian / wlw awakening begins & she learns about how everyone else in the guild is queer & some trans) But i have no clue whether she recognizes it almost immediately or later on in her life once she detaches herself from Gray for once!!! SORRY FOR RAMBLING ABOUT THIS I have very complicated thoughts about Juvia & how shes been written & amatonormativity and stuff 😭🫶 shes a silly girl...

As ive mentioned before, Transfem Jellal 😌😌 I kinda only hc it because one of mutuals do too and i thought she was so right for that BUT ALSO!!! I feel like for Jellal he'd be too busy hating himself & trying to atone to realize or like. deal with it properly. "I could be a he/him transfem but im still a sinner so i dont have time to think about that rn" style!! Also maybe a few undertones of toxic masculinity seeping in (He has to be A Man and Man Up to face his punishments and to better himself or whatever)

Also Ultear & Meredy are trans too. but in what way you ask? I dunno,,,, they could be all be bigender and i wouldn't have bat an eye,,,,,,

TRANSFEM. BISCA. I like to think she found out she was transfem like pretty early on back when she was still living in Alvarez but kept herself closeted because she didnt have time to deal with it,,, until she moved to Fiore and went under her "Mulan Rouge" alias to start doing crime 👍 did her own DIY HRT until she joined FT when she finally had a legitimate source of income.

Maybe alzack is trans too that way they could be t4t 🫶

NONBINARY MIDNIGHT. I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL. NO QUESTIONS. THEY REPEATEDLY MAKE THE AUDIENCE QUESTION THEIR GENDER. GOD I WISH I WAS THEM.

T4T Elfever my beloved. Theres just no way they're cishet im sorry. They're too manly and too womanly to be cis. No cis person could ever be as masc 24/7 as elfman and as femme 24/7 as evergreen. Also the way Elfman refers to her as a 'woman' even though he usually calls EVERYONE a 'man'???

Nonbinary / transfem lisanna my beloved <333 im leaning more into agender though because i truly dont think she cares about gender that much especially after she came back to earthland BUT AT THE SAME TIME I know how much she likes her skirts and dresses

Agender Zeref in the "I dont care" and "I dont have time for this" and the "I Hate myself too much" way / style BABEYYYYY!!! This guys too full of issues to care about his pronouns but even if he did he would not give himself the freedom to think about it too much. Cmon hes been living for 400 years and God told him personally that hes not allowed to enjoy life.

I think thats all for now 😭 I think the entire FT guild is queer in some way like c'mon the themes in the story and everything just kinda makes that obvious in a way whether or not Mashima intended it 😭😭😭 ANYWAYS, AGAIN!! THANK YOU FOR THE ASK!!!

[saintmelangell]

(Ssorry 2 reference ur main 🙏) you recommended a few authors at one point that that included mary daly, and you mentioned that her views are outdated. i do plan to read her but until then, could i ask in what way her views are outdated? i keep seeing mentions of her name too in non theological feminist circles and something about dalyites?

(sorry for replying to this late i was in another country and didn't have my laptop lol) most people on this website would call mary daly a terf, although the term did not exist during the days of daly's scholarship. daly was trans-exclusionary and often viciously so. she was unable to modernize her thought to engage with evolving feminisms and thus she was unable to engage critically or helpfully with transgender rights. katherine o'donnell from university college dublin has written a paper on this topic that i highly recommend: daly was so focused on refuting aquinas and the oppressive patriarchal underpinnings of theology that she was unable to imagine a non-polarized approach to masculine/feminine binaries, and furthermore also unable to engage with critical race theory in a way that was helpful or progressive. to that end she was actually "called out" in a letter by audre lorde for her racial ignorance. for instance, daly compared a woman asking for equality in the church to a black person asking for equality in the klu klux klan. i get her point, but its an absolutely horrible analogy. i think daly allowed her frustration with religion to turn inward so much it made her myopic and her work often ineffective, but not without value.

daly eventually stopped doing theology work because she thought it was "hopelessly" patriarchal and shifted to philosophical feminism. prior to this shift she began incorporating wicca into her work, although she did not consider herself wiccan. i am also on the verge of giving up on theology because i agree with it being hopelessly patriarchal, but i do not consider wicca a viable alternative and i think philosophy is similarly, though not as intrinsically, as patriarchal as religion.

although i am not a terf and my work is focused on the rights of marginalized genders and sexualities, not exclusively women, i work with daly in my research. im mentioning this in an effort to combat the mentality that seems to be extremely prevalent these days where we completely reject certain thinkers (mainly women) for their problematic thought. scholarship is not a vacuum. no scholarship is presented as or should be taken as watertight, because we build on past scholarship in what? a hope that we can get closer to a truth. a scholar who presents their view unequivocally as the only correct one is a fascist and should not be paid attention to because by definition they cannot be engaged with effectively. this is not what daly was, although she was very misguided and lacked an effective cultural framework to understand the issue of trans rights and accept the invaluable role which trans people play in feminism and the rights of women and marginalized identities.

i would not call daly an influence on me, but because of my research her ideas- which were not original, are shared by grace jantzen, and come mainly from the work of erich fromm- about the patriarchy as necrophiliac are extremely important to me. i am using this idea to develop a better understanding of how patriarchy, including terfs, oppress the marginalized, especially woc and trans women. i do scholarship in awareness of daly's transphobia, and i take what is useful to modern feminism from her work because christian feminist theology would not be what it is today without daly. but the majority of scholarship i work with comes from queer and woc theologians: marcella althaus-reid, for instance, was a working class latina. audre lorde and bell hooks are much more important influences on me than daly will ever be. but i would not be a good scholar if i couldn't engage with problematic work and be able to derive what is both useful and not useful from it. if i simply ignored daly's scholarship, that would leave a gap in modern scholarship where terfs in theology could exploit that weakness and utilize daly against trans inclusion. by working with daly and, in a sense, using her work against itself (which one must do when working with theology because daly is right: it is hopelessly patriarchal), i am stopping up the gaps where bad scholarship could get through. i am exploiting the faults in daly's thought by drawing what is useful and using it in a new context that it was not intended for, but i am not dismissing daly because i couldn't do the thinking i am doing now without the work she did. she has created a foundation of both anti-patriarchy and anti-transness from which i can build my own anti-patriarchy, trans-inclusionary theology.

we come from contexts oppression. everything does. if we wipe out all of oppressive thought from our contemporary thinking and scholarship, we lose contexts, we lose the ability to combat the impression that is inevitable. how can i combat terfs now if i don't understand where they are getting their ideas from? how can i effectively show that trans exclusion is useless, anti-christian, anti-feminist and ideologically deadly if i haven't worked with the same scholarship terfs use for their ideas? i am more interested in showing how oppressions simply do not make logical sense than i am in keeping my scholarship "clean." i would rather wade into the mire to find the bottom of the pit than pretend the pit doesn't exist. i dont have to like daly, and i don't. i do have to be able make ideologies look stupid. and you. (not you specifically, anon, but anyone reading this who is under the idea that we shouldn't read problematic authors or scholars because their ideas are outdated and bad.) you should too.

[mycochaotix]

My “real”nonbinary friends and fam, please read this and tell me your thoughts!!! —r/nonbinary user commented:

“I feel that Blair White and others like her are calling out bad behavior and demanding personal accountability. We all can live our lives as we see fit, but demanding nullification of sexual orientation in relation to one's gender or having a melt down over misgender pronouns without self realization about how we present ourselves is narcissistic and provides our detectors against the lgbt+ community with reason to vilify us.

Non-binary people are not the problem, to be clear. It's people who believe being non-binary qualifies them for special victimhood status and who go on public forums to decry society's ills for not recognizing their non-binary lifestyle on sight that creates this negativity.

If you know you are emotionally mature enough to get through your day and live your truth without being angry someone isn't into you or that the days your presentation may lean one way or the other on the gender spectrum and gracefully correct and move on, you know you aren't the problem.”

- they were downvoted many times when I saw rhe comment, so I asked chatgpt why and replied to them:

“Asked ChatGPT why your comment is being downvoted, it said: “This comment appears to express a negative view towards individuals, particularly non-binary people, who assert their gender identity and seek recognition. The use of terms like "meltdown" and the implication that asserting ‘one's gender identity is narcissistic’ may be perceived as dismissive or transphobic by some. “ 🤷🏽”

- they responded to my comment with:

“I mean, if you like feel that someone crying over a stranger at a fast food restaurant calling them "Ma'am" while taking their order on Tik Tok is good representation, we're at an impasse. That's not real life and it doesn't represent real non-binary people.

Edit: More importantly, if we ourselves do not call out bad behavior in our own community and ensure that negative representation isn't the only viewable commodity, we're practically committing self harm.”

- i replied with:

“Up until this comment, I havent made a personal belief claim about your comments. Just saw you being downvoted and wanted to understand why :) hence why I asked chatgpt.

Honestly, your comment reflects that you seem to be trying to police or gatekeep what anyone gets offended by. Why does that matter. Most non binary people i know are too concerned about being hate crimed to actually get offended at a mcdonalds worker incorrectly assuming their gender… much less asserting their correct pronouns when being misgendered.

Your use of “real non binary people” is quite problematic tbh. I think you may have an insulated understanding of Queer people thats influencing your perspective in an unhelpful way. Im a real non binary person and I disagree with your perspective and characterization of non binary people. Your edit is something im not comfortable addressing specifically tbh, I process it as problematic and not worth pursuing as you seem set in your beliefs.

Your feelings, and mine, and whatever queer scapegoat you are bringing up from tiktok, all matter and are valid. You dont know the trauma history of the person who is offended at being misgendered. To be misgendered is uncomfortable, especially for trans folkx and especially for those who are aware of the insane, incessant gender norms, mores and expectations on us at all times.

Calling out bad behavior is fine, but looking at situations empathetically, and from as many perspectives as you can, is going to aid you on identifying behavior thats could be a meaningful change to call out , and behavior that you just dont like and want to stop someone from doing because of your discomfort.”

—

Queer, and specifically: Transfam, please tell me if im far off here … or what yall think!

-mcx

———

update:

[pariskim]

oh also mrs katie jay "the joycer" pariskim. idk if i ever asked

id love to know your thoughts on dennis' whole deal with gender and his expression of it + also any thoughts on how you believe he views his gender and identity internally. i dont think ive ever heard you talk about it all

i know ive got my own thoughts on the situation and believe me theyre Complicated, so dont feel like u have to worry about being coherent or anything :o)

here is taako with her widdol teefs as payment for a non-joyce ias ask

OH BELOVED TAAKO<3 thank you for this gift... And omg ofc hehe

dennis as a character is so. i dont even think repressed is the right word for him he's something much more sinister. i think if anyone suggested he wasnt cis hed get offended, not because he has issue with trans people but its like an insult to his masculinity? he's tried Very hard to get people to see him as this figure, and adding something else on top of that topples his plans over in a way. like its Easier to just be A Man and thats how hes gotten away with a lot of things he does. I don't think hes transfem at all. I really do not. I think he could really benefit from gender conformity and drag and even using different pronouns but i dont think he would change himself in many ways at all if he "transitioned". i think he really struggles in general with his sense of self as a human being and could almost be jealous of joyce figuring herself out on mostly her own and being able to say it out loud. hes someone who'll deny something happened or is true if it keeps the waters calm and him at the top of the metaphorical pyramid. idk is this very rambly im sorry LMAOO. tldr i think he needs to get into drag and unpack his internalized toxic masculinity but he wont ever do that so ill just read adrians fic again LOLL

[vouam]

i feel like i dont see women in this position talked about often on radblr so here goes. feel free to ignore this ask if you dont want to answer it. but i just wanted to say that, damn, its really hard to be a woman in a long term, happy and loving relationship with someone who comes out as a trans woman years into the relationship. i was a die hard tra and now im... not. i have so much guilt all the time and nobody to discuss things with. i never thought in a million years i would be agreeing with 'terfs' and yet here i am. and yet i love my partner and am so happy with them. and yet i also cannot delude myself into believing gender ideology anymore. i feel like no matter what road i take i wont be being true to myself. i dont want to leave but it feels wrong to stay, like i'm tricking them into thinking i believe it when i don't, but i dont want to ignore my own thoughts and feelings and just go along with it either. every time a male pronoun comes into my head when i think of them i feel guilty. guilty of thoughtcrime! the only people they have come out to is their friends/our mutual friends, so i cannot speak to anyone about how i feel. every day i wish i could go to my mom and just tell her how i feel. i wish i could speak to other women about this, especially women in heterosexual relationships. but i cant. my partner doesnt understand how isolating it is when they have lots of friends (incl. trans women friends) to speak to and i have no one in my life who knows except the mutual friends. the few times i've brought it up ive just been met with 'but what would you want to talk to them about' as if idk.. im not supposed to have thoughts or feelings on my long term partner changing so much about themselves? i honestly think much more women would 'peak' if they actually sought out trans communities. going on r/mtf to learn how to support my partner was very... enlightening.

Oh wow, I don’t even know where to start with this one. This sounds like a really difficult and confusing thing to go through so firstly I really hope you’re okay.

You fall in love with people so of course it’s understandable that part of you wants to stay and that you have strong feelings for them. But also it’s important that you can’t keep pretending to be someone you’re not and lie about being accepting of gender ideology. That must be exhausting to keep up that lie, especially when you have no one to talk to about it.

Even regardless of your views, so many people leave their trans-partners despite being trans accepting. It’s confusing to watch someone change drastically, when you fell in love with a version of them that they aim to distance from. And the fact that they are being dismissive of the fact you want to talk to people about it is a red flag.

Obviously I don’t know you, I don’t know your partner or the full details of your situation. But if I were your friend in real life, I would ask you if you could see yourself living like this in the long run. It’s tough because feelings of love get in the way of logic, and people tend to reminisce about their partners old self. But definitely keep your mind focused on the present and future and what is best for you long-term.

Wishing you the best, you can chat here any time, it’s definitely something that should be talked about more on here 🫂💖

[doberbutts]

i get *why* a lot of people think men dont face oppression for being men, cause i only just started learning about it myself but the insistence that trans men's oppression is not affected by us being men is so???? its confusing to me. also i started talking to my cis man friends about emotions lately and its like, my god how could people NOT know men have issues that r related to them being men? i know im telling you nothing new im just, very baffled and dont have anyone to express this to irl

Oh I was just talking to a friend about this.

I think what honestly happened is that a lot of trans mascs are and were feminists prior to transitioning. I think a lot of them continued to believe that male privilege meant that you had no problems caused by being men until, one day... they were viewed as men. And then suddenly they went 'hey... this sucks actually'.

Extreme isolation? Oh cis men have huge amounts of lonliness and touch starvation and isolation problems. Not being allowed to discuss their problems? Yeah because otherwise you're weak, feminine, female, not man enough. Not allowed to show their emotions? Everyone knows men are only allowed two emotions: horny and angry. Hideous body dysmorphia? Multiple, multiple studies have said that the majority of gym bros have serious untreated eating disorders.

There's more but what's weird is that there are still versions of feminism talking about this. Feminists who understood that the emotional abandonment of young boys and allowing patriarcal society to sink its claws into them is what creates the problem of men who behave abysmally. It was very important in some feminist circles to teach their sons it was okay to cry, it was okay to want to be touched and held, it was okay to struggle, it was okay to like pink and dolls and dresses and makeup and it didn't make you lesser just for not aligning yourself with the patriarchy.

I'm just kind of wondering... where that went. We did at some point recognize that men do experience a gendered suffering of their own, and that raising young boys to break free of this ritualized suffering would only aid the cause of having women seen as equals to men.

Why did we stop doing that? Why did we veer into what we are now? This hurts cis people of all genders. This hurts trans people of all genders. Did no one read that op-ed about how that trans woman refuses to come out of the closet specifically because of the way she has been spoken to and about, to her face, because she's being read as a man??? Does no one realize that this is hurting people??? The people they're claiming to want to protect???

Maybe I see it so much because I'm gay, so I occupy cis gay male spaces a *lot*, and I see these men suffering in ways they can't share with anyone else. Maybe I see it because I hang out with my black male relatives all the time, and I see them experience things and hurt and not be able to talk about it.