#and still not fully accurate to my experience of attraction and gender

[matsaysyes]

hey this might sound weird but im currently writing a story that heavily involves talking about the experience of being aroace. i js wanna be as accurate and inclusive as possible so if you could share some thoughts or experiences you think should be included that would be literally incredible

thanks! <3

I don’t mind at all! I think a big thing in the AroAce community is a feeling of loneliness. Not just because you won’t have a traditional romantic/sexual relationship with someone. It’s also a big feeling of loneliness within alloromantic/allosexual groups and even lgbt+ groups. I think the video by Jaiden Animations does a really good job at showing that. There’s a lot of pushback from people that Aromantic and Asexual aren’t real and that romantic feelings and sexual feelings are the same. Those are a lot of the issues that AroAce people, like myself, have to deal with.

Obviously the experience of being AroAce isn’t just all negatives though. Aromantic and Asexual are both spectrums and there are lots of different specific identities within them. It’s not just black and white. A big misconception about Aromantic and Asexual people is that you don’t want to be in those types of relationships or you have a low libido or you haven’t met the right person yet, etc. This isn’t true. Being aroace means you have little to no sexual and romantic attraction. You can still have sex with people or date people.

Some people of course don’t want those types or relationships but some do. Some people want a type of family unit. Living with someone who will always be with you maybe even have a child. All/most of it being platonic. This is what we call Queer platonic relationships. When you have a relationship with someone that is in between platonic and romantic/sexual. It can vary between different people because aro and ace are spectrums. It can be with someone almost like a life long friend who you live with. It can also be a life long friend who you might kiss and have a kid with (adopted or otherwise) even without the romantic and sexual attraction. Of course with these types of relationships you have to fully communicate what you want and how you feel.

I will now get into the specifics of how I personally feel. This paragraph will of course not be the same for everyone on the aroace spectrum. I personally am repulsed by the idea of sex. On the other hand I’m a hopeless romantic which makes me with I had those feelings towards people. It’s very hard for me to imagine what being attracted in those ways to people would be like. I don’t understand crushes or when people are called hot. Even though I long for a romance once I actually get one I feel absolutely disgusted when people flirt with me or kiss me. I love my friends and family dearly and I hate being called a robot for not wanting to date someone. I hate whenever having a friend you care about (especially one of the same gender) always turns into an investigation from everyone about whether or not you like them. Especially in school.

The biggest thing I want people to take away from this is that if anyone ever try’s to understand or represent a group (especially if you’re not apart of it) you should ask people who are. Multiple people, especially when those groups are spectrums like the Aromantic or Autism spectrums for example. I hope that I could in some way help you with your story. <3

[kelticangel]

Been seeing lots of hopeless romantic aroace posts lately and while I really don't want to co-opt the aroace narrative and momentum, it's made me think about my own experience. So I'm gonna share a bit in hopes of sorting my own thoughts 💜 Please bear with me as this might not be fully coherent

I consider myself a hopeless romantic, and I'm asexual, but I've been vibing (a little uncomfortably) with the idemromantic and panromantic microlabels. And despite all of my recent questioning, I still feel like most of that is accurate about me. Most? Most. I think I've figured out why those microlabels weren't quite sitting right

I think they're a product of purity culture

Let me explain

As a teen, I felt like I wasn't "allowed" to make deep friendships with boys. It wasn't explicitly forbidden or anything (my parents were actually v supportive of me) but I definitely felt the social pressure to only be friends with girls because otherwise someone might think I was romantically interested and "how dare I lead someone on if I'm not wanting to date or beginning to plan for marriage." That was the feel. This was super tough for me because I've always gotten along better with guys than with girls - I just never had much in common with the giggly, makeup wearing, outfit shopping crowd

So I learned to associate all of the close connection I felt with guys with the feel of romance. Playfulness was called flirting. Wanting to spend time with someone was called crushing. Etc, etc, etc. You get the picture. And while I'm genuinely romantically attracted to masculinity, regardless of the person's gender, it so ended up that I never had much practice at being just normal friends with someone masculine

I've always felt like I suck at making good, deep, meaningful friendships. I fall into mom-friend mode with most people who have more stereotypically feminine traits, which limits how much I feel like I can be open with them. And my silly unpracticed skill at being normal around masculinity means I sometimes romanticize relationships when I'm actually trying to just be good friends. And then I scare them off with my weirdness or intensity

So, where've I landed, then?

Ace: No question. I'm not even demisexual or greyace or anything

Romantic: Hopelessly so

Panromantic: Yes ... sort of? Maybe andro-romantic is a better word? Is that even a word?

Idemromantic: Yes, but this is one that I think (for me) is the product of dysfunction and can be fixed. (Please note that I'm not saying idemromantic orientations are problematic in general)

Gonna leave this here 💜 Maybe it resonates with you, maybe not. If it does, know that you're not alone

[freckliedan]

just u mentioned it in one of ur recent ask replies, whats a fagdyke /genq and how is it different to . a dyke (i am also a dyke LMAO)

quite earnestly i have no way of answering this for everyone who IDs as a fagdyke but i can answer for myself! for me (& many others, to my knowledge) it's a gender thing. the very short version is that my gender is both fag and dyke, the way some people's gender is dyke.

i first started both ID'ing as a nonbinary lesbian whose gender was just dyke & using they/them pronouns in 2018 (the same year i made this blog). for me the main part of my identity at that time was the lesbianism? being othered from womanhood was a result of my sexuality.

because like. a lot of cishet womanhood is shaped by being attracted to men and performing gender in a way that's attractive to men. i embodied neither of those things, which automatically disqualified me from many people's definition of womanhood. so i was nonbinary not because i identified away from my assigned gender but because the consensus definition no longer included me.

i embraced dyke as gender, it's something i did very intentionally, but being nonbinary was still a secondary part of my identity. it wasn't until 2019 that i more fully interrogated my gender and started viewing transness as a more central part of my identity?

i started doing that interrogation when i started questioning whether lesbian was the best fit for me. my then-recently-nonbinary-partner was just beginning to explore gender more and i knew that if they someday realized they were a man & felt misgendered by me being a lesbian that lesbian would stop being the right fit for me.

which. that came fully from me? i worry about phrasing this in a way that'd somehow paint my husband in a negative light but it genuinely was just a point at which i started thinking directly about my gender rather than bypassing it by focusing on my sexuality. (and yes, they're my husband now, he's since figured out they're a nonbinary trans guy).

i stopped being nonbinary as an afterthought of lesbianism and started just being nonbinary which was! quite honestly a lot to process because i'd been ignoring it for a long time. but it's been half a decade and i've done my processing?

i realized that what's true for me is that my gender is both fluid and not singular. i label myself as queer and genderqueer when talking to cishet people, maybe as genderfluid/bigender/multigender if getting into the specifics. but that's not how i label myself to me or to my community? (well. queer is).

what i've realized is that like. my attraction is always queer. in a relationship with a woman or dyke aligned nonbinary person, my gender would be more dyke than anything else. in my relationship with my husband my gender is more fag, & the same would be true in a relationship with anyone whose gender is more aligned with man/fag.

(i say more in both of those examples because like. my gender still fluctuates for other reasons. i have days where i feel very little internal sense of gender. i have days where i experience both fag as a gender and dyke as a gender at the same time. the list goes on).

my gender is contextual in a lot of ways—the way i experience gender is different in the more rural red state used to live in vs the big city in a blue state i now call home. but the context of relationships is one of the biggest ones, because it's one of the biggest impacts on how other people percieve me.

like, to strangers and aquaintences i am my husband's husband or spouse, because it's most important to me to be understood as queer. but in much more personal circles i also sometimes call myself his wife, because that's sometimes a more accurate reflection of my gender and the people who i'm comfortable calling myself that around already are familiar with how i experience gender & with the fact that our relationship is queer.

i know that a lot of people likely view fag and dyke as two mutually exclusive identities, as an extension of the binary of man and woman. but even when i was just IDing as a nonbinary dyke i had more in common with nonbinary fags than with cis women. and the fact that i am a dyke has not gone away now that i've also realized i am a fag.

in full i'd describe myself as a fairy fagdyke femme. fag goes first because it's how i more often present myself to the world.

i know i'm not the only person with seemingly contradictory identities like this, but it's not something i talk the most about? a LOT of the queer community constantly regurgitates subtly bioessentialist & transphobic ideas that make it like.. uncomfortable (at best) to be present in both lesbian and gay men's spaces as a bigender/multigender person.

so i primarily connect with other trans people, especially genderfreaks like me.

ummm my last note here is. for many other fagdykes or dykefags their definition of the label and personal experience is completely different from mine! it can be the same thing as being a dyke. some dykes are transmasc but still have dyke as their main gender and identity. i'm barely scratching the surface on this.

[an-inkling-of-life]

Entry 05: November 13, 2022

Why the heck not? The flags are listed by order by the way.

Progress Pride

The two versions of the progress flag had been subject to scrutiny due to people thinking that these designs look cluttered. Frankly, I agree, BUT I began to prefer them over the plain rainbow flag due to the type of infighting I have seen in the community.

I've seen so many transphobes and anti-intersex rhetoric even amongst other LGBT+, so I think the progress flags communicate my stance better.

Agender, Neutrois, Abinary, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, Xenogender (specifically Monstergender & Eldrigender), Agirl

I primarily refer to myself as agender/genderless due to this being the most accurate simplified sum of my gender identity; however, beyond the lack, how my genderlessness feels specifically is more complex.

The neutrois identity pretty much describes how I feel neutral towards my lack of gender. Neutrality and nonexistence pretty much blur to me. Being an abinary nonbinary emphasizes how my gender identity isn't strictly male or female and how it isn't within the spectrum between male and female at all. Genderqueer appears to be a much older term that's very similar to nonbinary, but I understand why not everyone may desire to use it, because of having a slur in its name. I personally love reclaiming slurs, so this descriptor is something I fully identify with.

I also consider myself as xenogender and xenic-aligned. In its most metaphorical sense, I experience my genderless identity in a way that makes me feel like my human body is only a vessel or form that's like clothing rather than something innately me. Gender envy manifests as wanting the ability to shapeshift. Gender euphoria comes when I represent myself as a monster. It's everchanging in shape and desired expression, but the sense of gender is continuously absent still. I don't think people will understand what bodily forms I actually want access to and how I view my living body. Basically, the absence of my gender is replaced by a sense of inhumanity (monstergender), and I can never really know why so and maybe fully understanding it is impossible and headache inducing (eldrigender) seeing as how I can relate so many words to a simple sense of nothing.

For now, I have the body of a woman. I don't hate this body. It just feels like one of many forms. I like expressing femininity but still feel heavily disconnected to womanhood but indifferent to it most of the time. Having a perceived manhood makes me feel heavily dysphoric. I suppose this makes me an agirl.

That said, just because I'm an agirl doesn't mean I will tolerate being maliciously misgendered. My indifference comes from disconnect, a laziness to explain my identity in most circumstances, knowing that not everyone I meet knows who I am, and seeing words as gender expression rather than actually gendered depending on the context of use. I am feminine and not a woman. Transphobes better not play dumb, because context can be observed, and I will know if you impose me as the latter rather than as the former.

Femininity and womanhood are not the same. Femboys/Rosboys are still men even when they are feminine. My femininity doesn't stop me from being agender.

Aspec Bisexual/Biflux (Demiromantic Graysexual)

I think the funniest part about my sexual and romantic orientation is that I actually debated with myself, going back and forth with identifying as bisexual and aromantic asexual. It turns out that both are technically correct terms as I'm in the aroace spectrum. 99% of the time, I am aroace, but slightly more so on the aro part. I don't really recall feeling romantic attraction towards someone other than my current boyfriend. He's my first genuine crush and I was 18 by that time. I never felt the same for anyone before or after and I'm 20 now. He's also the only person other than my mother that I feel immense emotional attachment to. As for sexual attraction, I have very rare but insignificantly weak ones where I don't recall the specifics. I guess that makes me demiromantic graysexual. The bisexual/biflux end is that in the very rare occasion that I do feel sexual attraction, my preferences tend to fluctuate.

Ambiamorous

I can feel happy in both monogamous and polyamorous arrangements. Although, I may appear functionally monogamous to some due to my very rare interest in others. I do have to say that I feel a lot more comfortable with dating a polyamorous person. I just saw too many people sucking at monogamy that I'd rather my partner tell me they date multiple people than lie to me about being "the only one" and then cheat on me.

[bappledilk]

My orientation/gender!

Moving on from some of the heavy topics that took place here yesterday… time to fully embrace who I am, and share it with the world!  Here is a full list of my orientations and genders!  I hope it can make someone else as happy as it makes me.

Omniromantic

“Omniromantic is an orientation defined as the romantic attraction to all genders, though gender often still plays a role in one's attraction. Some individuals who identify as omniromantic may have a preference to which gender they feel most attracted to. For others they may be equally attracted to all genders, but they may feel the act of being attracted to one gender feels different than the act of being attracted to another gender. They might also find certain traits only attractive in certain genders.”

I am omniromantic!  It admittedly took me a long time to figure this one out. For a while, I thought I was bisexual, then demisexual/panromantic, now I’ve finally figured out who I really am.  Greyasexual, and omniromantic!  Out of all the multiple-gender-attraction labels… biromantic, panromantic, polyromantic, etc… I truly feel like this one describes me exactly.  I am romantically attracted to all genders, however, I am not gender-blind and gender does play a pretty big role in my attraction.  There are different things I like in each gender!

Greyasexual

“Gray-asexual,[21] also known as graysexual or gray-A,[21][22][23][24] is an asexual identity characterized as being "in between" asexual and allosexual; that is, being asexual while also able to experience, or have experienced previously, sexual attraction.[21] People who identify as gray-asexual may experience sexual attraction that is uncommon for the individual, may only be directed toward specific people,[25] occurs infrequently, at low intensity, or in an ambiguous way.[5][26] The term is often included in the asexual spectrum.[27]”

I am greyasexual!  And it’s not too complicated either, I understand exactly where I fall on the ace spectrum.  I am almost exactly like the demisexual label’s description, however, there are minor differences between me and that label.  Because of those minor differences, I consider myself greyasexual instead.  Sometimes I may introduce myself as “demisexual” to new people, to avoid any confusion, but I never use the demisexual pride flag to represent myself.  This is my flag, this is me!

Non-binary

“Non-binary, sometimes written as nonbinary, is a term referring to individuals whose gender identity does not exclusively fall into the binary gender classification of only "man" or "woman." Those who are non-binary may identify with either masculinity or femininity in some capacity, both, or neither at all.[2] Although it is a gender identity on its own, it can also be used as an umbrella term to refer to many gender identities.[3] While non-binary is included in the transgender umbrella, not all non-binary people identify as transgender.[4]”

I am non-binary!  This is what I introduce myself as to most people, so I don’t confuse the hell out of them with all the specifics, lol.  If I had to put my gender on a “scale”… weighing what percentages I am, I’d say that I’m 30% feminine, 50% agender/xenogender, and 20% fluid.  That may not be exact, of course… but it’s just an estimate of how I feel the vast majority of the time.  Despite the percentages, I still get really dysphoric when someone uses very feminine phrases for me.  As for my AFAB body, I go through phases of loving it, tolerating it, or hating it.  Depends on the day.

Demifaer

“Demifaer is a gender which is partially static and partially fluid. The fluid part of the gender fluctuates between identities which are never fully male, however, they can be masculine, partially male, or male-aligned. The static part of the gender is undefined, and can be anything, so it varies from individual to individual.”

To pinpoint exactly where I fall on the non-binary spectrum, I’d say “demifaer” describes me the most accurately, out of everything I’ve found!  As I stated before, 30% feminine, 50% agender/xenogender, and 20% fluid.  This label kinda sums that up into a more simple term.  As for percentages between my xenogenders, I feel them all equally and can’t put that on a scale personally.  They’re ordered first identified > last identified.

Ageregender

“Ageregender is an umbrella term for those whose gender either entirely, partially, or temporarily changes when they regress. It can be used regardless of gender modality; however, it is exclusive for age regressors.”

I am ageregender!  This means that my gender partially changes when I age regress!  This is one of the reasons I’m 20% fluid.  When I’m big, I’m more androgynous, but when I’m little, I’m more feminine!  I heavily associate femininity with my childhood, so I think that’s why this happens?  I actually don’t know, that’s just my theory about it for now.

Genderfluff

“Genderfluff, also known as fluffgender, is an aesthetigender that is light, soft and fluffy or related to fluffiness or fluffy things. It can make one feel warm and fuzzy inside. It could also mean having an attachment to pastel femininity, as well as fluffiness. Fluffiness includes fluffy pillows or plushies as well.”

I am genderfluff!  Here’s where things get a little weird, at least for those who aren’t already really familiar with xenogenders.  It’s hard to describe, but whenever I see something fluffy or soft, I’m just immediately like… “This is a part of me.  This is a part of who I am.” and it’s the strangest feeling ever.  It just feels like… it is my gender.  I feel it the most with stuffed animals, but also soft/fluffy animals, blankets, clouds, and more.  Animals include, but are not limited to… kittens, bunnies, puppies, sheep, and cows.

Milkibubblic

“Milkibubblic is an aesthetigender related to childishness, pastel blue and blowing bubbles in milk. It is a soft, sweet, gentle gender.”

I am milkibubblic!  This relates to all kinds of milk, not just cow milk.  Examples include but are not limited to chocolate milk, strawberry milk, vanilla milk, goat milk, sheep milk, coconut milk, cashew milk, almond milk, and oat milk.  Not just that, but the bubbles too?  This is definitely me, ever since I was 2 years old.  My username is bappledilk for a reason, hehehe.

Genderwinged

“Genderwinged is a gender that feels like a pair of wings, always attached to one's body and behind them. This may be affected by phantom wings, but not always. Ways to describe this gender can be light, fluttery, feathered, inhuman and weighted.”

I am genderwinged!  Well, at least I think I am, lol…  Admittedly, I’m not as sure about this one as the others.  I’ve been questioning it for a while, but I’m not necessarily sure?  My wings are definitely a very important part of my identity, but does that include my gender too?  I don’t 100% know yet.  I’m trying this label out to see how I feel about it.  Take this one with a grain of salt.

Genderplated

“Genderplated is a gender related to the scales (also known as plates) of various creatures, mythical or not.  Examples include but are not limited to reptiles, dragons, and fish.  This gender may feel soft, shiny, light, flexible, and strong.  Someone who is genderplated may be otherkin, but it’s not a requirement.”

And finally, we have the gender I coined!  I am genderplated!  I was searching for a gender label related to reptiles, both real/mythical, and I didn’t feel fulfilled by anything I found.  I found some that were almost right, but not exactly.  After my lack of success in finding a label, I coined my own.  Specifically, related to the scales on various creatures, including mythical reptiles such as dragons.  It also includes fish!  This one is probably the weirdest on this list, but it’s definitely me.

Disclaimer:  All labels have wiki pages somewhere, as demonstrated by the various links… except for the last 2!

So, that’s all!  That’s a part of my identity.  I’m really scared to post this, as I’ve kept it a secret from the public for quite a while now… but I think it’s finally time I rip that bandaid off and put it out there, because hiding it for this long is honestly really tiring, haha…  It seemed to work out with my otherkinity, so I’m hoping it will work out with my gender too.  :’)

I hope you found it interesting or learned something that helped you!  Thank you so much if you read all of this and goodbye!

[vitalphenomena]

@bluedprints asked for: gabi gender 9, 5, 2,4

Talk about a key moment in your muse's journey towards becoming their more ideal self.

Coming out to Cain was a big deal. As complicated as her relationship with her father is, his approval and acceptance were still somewhat important to her. Such is the nature of being a child who, ultimately, wants to forgive and keep their parents in their life. 

Cain was, as I’ve mentioned in her bio, immediately accepting and affirming. I think she expected this, to some degree — her homosexual father isn’t also a transphobe; he’s not in that segment of the community — but she didn’t expect just how much effort he put into helping her pay for hormone therapy, a new wardrobe, (expensive) makeup, etc. 

Being trans is fucking hard, in so many ways. I want Gabriela's story to simultaneously embrace struggle and celebration. I want it to ultimately be a positive, uplifting journey for her and for other trans girls.

What was the moment your muse first realised (or began to realise) their gender roles didn't match up with who they were or wanted to be?

I think Gabi was relatively young but not a preteen or pre-pubescent child. I think realizing her gender identity and coming out was part of her puberty experience, which of course made an already chaotic time even more tumultuous. 

Gabi suffered in silence for awhile — anxious and distraught and confused — but not for long. And once she opened up to friends and family, she only experienced positive affirmation. 

How does your muse most enjoy dressing, when they feel at ease to present however they like? Is this different to how they present most of the time?

When I think of Gabriela, I think glamorous. I think looks, every day, all the time. Her FC’s outfits in Gossip Girl – as well as her hair and makeup — feel very accurate. Like, Gabi just strikes me as the type to dress as if she’s going to be on camera. It isn’t an easy reality to live in; nobody actually looks like that all the time, right? Well, Gabi does. Even her more comfortable, laid-back looks are very “clean girl,” with understated jewlery and a dewy, fresh makeup. 

Did your muse's orientation or way of feeling attracted to others shift with their gender identity?

I think bisexuality was another part of Gabriela’s puberty experience. Honestly, I compare it to my own experience. I developed puppy crushes on boys around age ten or eleven, then developed similar feelings for girls I was friends with around the same time. I think Gabi had something similar happen — she came of age and came into herself remarkably quickly, and it was very intense. 

However, as Gabriela came out and fully started transitioning, I think she became more comfortable with her feelings for women and non-men. Being queer became an important, integral part of her identity. 

I think Gabriela has a heavy, heavy, heavy preference for women. She’s bisexual in the way that Spirit is bisexual. 

[waluigis-biggest-fan]

One of my biggest fears is that I’ll end up alone and that’s tied into both a martyr complex I didn’t realize I had but also my introspective gender queries.

When I was first made aware of lesbians (it took until I was 12 to learn about gay people despite living in a progressive household. Good job mom and dad), like a lot of straight guys, I felt like my options were being shrunk -which doesn’t make sense from a logical standpoint because the ratios of orientations and sexuality should remain basically constant through both gay men and gay women. The number of gay men will always be around the same as the number of gay women meaning the pool gets smaller but the ratio of men to women remains the same.

Regardless I still thought this way for a long time and that eventually evolved into a sort of romantic martyr complex where I just said “well if gay people make me lonely then I’d rather be lonely than make them go back in the closet”. Even now that I’m out as semi-bisexual I still find myself having this illogical martyr complex as a comfort for my loneliness. Like, “well I’m lonely but at least it has a purpose,” which isn’t true. There’s no reason for me to be miserable. There’s no silver lining. I’m just miserable.

Of course, all of this is woefully heterocentric. The metaphor I used earlier was a shrinking pond but that assumes that women and men pair up automatically like a chemical reaction. It isn’t like that in real life and attraction is more accurately described as consistent randomness. Every person has their own idea on what they like vs what they don’t like. Preferences are not universal and attraction is so much more than gender and orientation.

Speaking of gender, I questioned a while back if I was trans and came upon the conclusion that I am not. Not only have I never experienced gender dysphoria but I fundamentally wouldn’t be transitioning for the right reason if I was. The most common form of relationship I see on Tumblr is girl/girl which makes me feel -extremely irrationally- that those are the only relationships that women engage in. So I immediately start thinking, “maybe if I transition I’ll get a girlfriend,” but that’s not why you transition if you are actually trans. You do it to feel more at home in your own body. You do it to find love and acceptance from yourself and not from other people.

So what’s the point of this post? I don’t know. Maybe someone can find an answer to that question and give my endless wait for love an end one day. Maybe just reading about other people’s experiences with gender and love, even its absence in their life, can help people better understand their own self more fully. Maybe I’m just rambling into the void.

I’ve spent a lot of time being introspective and that’s allowed me to see what I need to work on within myself but it’s also led to a sort of impasse. I can self examine my loneliness till I die and maybe one day I’ll figure out why I think I’ll never find love (maybe it has something to do with the fact nobody wanted anything to do with me when I was young) but I can’t fix it through self examination. The only thing that can help is probably just meeting a girl and truly falling in love. Or maybe a therapist can help. I’ve been to 3 of them and none of them have done jack shit besides charge me for the honor of getting told to eat better.

[give-me-your-kidneys]

ok so first actual post that's not intended as a sort of intro type thing.

so anyways I've been kinda struggling with the idea of gender for the past year or so. for the sake of context, I'll try and start from the beginning more or less.

so I was born a man (well, boy if we're being technical, I didn't pop out of my mom a fully grown adult lmao). In middle school I found out that I was bi because I had a crush on a friend of mine and since then I've become very comfortable with my own sexuality. I've been attracted to people regardless of gender and am very confident that I'm bi or at least some other flavor of not entirely straight (maybe there's some other word that is super niche that more accurately describes my own personal feelings, but whatever, that's not important or relevant, nor something I particularly care about). this is all to say that I'm not particularly unfamiliar with being queer.

in the past year or so I've been struggling with my gender. It's not that I don't feel like a man, but it's not something I really have any sort of strong attachment to, it's just how I've been living my life up until now and so it's convenient to continue like that. I definitely don't feel like a woman, and I don't think I'd necessarily be happy if that's how I was perceived either, but it's not something that feels wrong, it feels about the same as being a man, which is to say not like much of anything. but, however, I definitely feel like I'd be happier if I'd be able to present myself more femininely, and definitely not in your typical e-boy femboy uwu kind of way that's become more common in recent years. no shade on the people who like doing that, it's just not what I want to do. it's just a desire to be able to dress femininely and cute while having that be perceived as normal.

and just to be clear, if there was some easy way that I could just get hrt through a doctor (not super comfortable with the idea of diy-ing it as I just don't really trust myself to do that properly) or just really with any sort of professional supervising me that knows their shit so I don't screw anything up, I would, but alas. I also very very very very very much do not want to be seen or look in the mirror and see myself as a man in a dress, or like any sort of male person dressing in a feminine way, as that to me at least, feels like it'd be worse than just living life in the way that I currently am.

to me, specifically in the case of myself and not when it comes to other people, getting on estrogen/all the other various hormones that are part of hrt is what I'd need to really accomplish anything of that sort. it's what I'd need for myself to make it feel real. now, I want to make it extremely clear that this is only a standard that I'd apply to myself as it's a standard I'd only really hold myself to, I'm not some sort of transmed/truscum person. everyone has their own journey and standards that they experience and what I think of myself is just that, only relevant in my case. and in my case, it feels like I'd need that as a way of being able to be more happy with myself, I think.

on an only tangentially related topic, I don't really view myself as nonbinary or trans or anything like that, because for some reason using those terms just feels wrong? not sure why, but the closest thing I could compare it to is like stolen valor or some shit, which I'm aware is a very goofy way of thinking about it lmao. but regardless, it still just doesn't feel right to call myself something along those lines, even though I have spent the last three paragraphs talking about how I view my own gender identity in a way that most people would say at least decently aligns with those terms.

I guess one of the reasons as to why it doesn't feel right is that as someone who has never really been visibly queer, (I just look like some regular joe white dude) despite never really hiding that I was if it ever came up, to me at least, the nonbinary and trans people that I've known in the past were very very open in how they presented themselves and made it very clear to anyone who saw them that they were not cis. it just feels wrong to call myself anything like that when I know people who are that and they are far far braver than I'll ever be for living as who they really are in a world that does not want them to do so.

this ties in to another thing that I've also been thinking about, in that I'm fucking terrified of doing transitioning/getinng/taking hrt[1] for three reasons.

one being that it's a pretty big change. I know that most of its effects are not really permanent if you stop within the first couple of months but still. that's a really big choice to make and I don't want to regret it. this fear of regret is mostly just due to who I am as a person, I know that the vast vast vast majority of people who transition are extremely happy with doing so, and hell that most people who consider it for as long as I have and end up doing so end up being happy with doing so, but still. what if I'm wrong.

the second reason is that, let me be frank, I'm not really starting from the best place when it comes to doing so. this is purely from a physical place as I'm a fairly overweight person who has some physical features that I don't think hrt would necessarily solve (mainly body/facial hair, like holy shit dude there's just too much of it, it never ends). not gonna post a picture because I don't want my face tied to this fairly intimate dump of ideas, even though I highly doubt anyone will ever read this.

the third is that I'm pretty scared of doing so, but for a different reason than in point number one. the world is not very kind to people who transition. luckily, I don't live on terf island, but I do live in the USA, and the college that I attend is in a fairly red state. not super giga red like in the bible belt, but still not great. my family does live in a rather blue state and city, but still, not great. my family would probably be supportive, so I don't think that's a big concern, as would my close friends (especially the ones who I've talked about this with), but everyone outside of that, which is most people I interact with, who the fuck knows? like that shit is scary as fuck.

anyway yeah so definitely still 100% cis lmao.

just kinda wish I was born a girl so that I'd be able to express myself in ways that feel more true to myself

100% cis though.

[1] ok doing a footnote on a tumblr post is goofy as all hell, but what I wanted to write here was too long to do parenthetically. I'm not super happy with wording it like this for two reasons, but I'm keeping it like this with the footnote as I'd rather just keep it as is for the sake of clarity in what I'm saying.

transitioning feels like I'm saying that I'm trans, which I'm not uncomfortable with identifying as that being the endpoint of my own personal journey, but is something I don't feel is truly accurate for aforementioned reasons. still keeping it like that for clarity

conflating starting/getting hrt and transitioning here is for the same reason as stated above, I'm not a truscum person.

[shadowsandstarlight]

Am I aspec? Possibly! Am I gonna go through hours of thought and research to figure it out? Nope! Look. I use genderfluid and pansexual/romantic as my labels because they feel comfortable to me. They’re not accurate, but they’re a decent approximation. I could probably spend days researching and reflecting to find closer labels and still not find anything that fully encompasses myself. And quite frankly I don’t care. At this point, I’ve learned that trying to fit myself into more specific labels is futile. Fluid is the best way to describe my gender, and like a fluid it is not something that you can hold in your hand and mold. I experience some attraction and gender is not a factor, and therefore I use the label pan. Because of my gender, I could also describe myself as homo- or heterosexual/romantic. I’m everything and nothing, and so every attraction I feel  is simultaneously to the same and opposite gender. I contain multitudes, so fairly broad labels are the best choice for me in my opinion. I don’t need labels that are a narrow, perfect fit, because no matter how much they can flex they’d feel restrictive. Fluid and pan are just… there. They give a general idea without being restricting. So anyway yeah we vibing over here. I’m fuckin queer as hell.

[anchoviesinthenightsky]

Fair enough, lesbian meme is goodest meme. Curious though, if you're the ace that wraps in aro with it? Usually I see ace people put that and its kinda referred as no romance/no sexual attraction, while others make it clear they are romantic. Im sorry if its personal, I just like to understand the different types yaknow?

Yeah it's the best!

And it is a bit personal, but I don't mind answering it (especially since you acknowledged that it can be a personal question 🥰)

Um, hm. how to answer this. the truth is that it's kind of complicated, so i might end up over explaining things.

Essentially what you're referring to is the Split Attraction Model where sexual attraction and romantic attraction are separately identified and labeled. A lot of asexual people use SAM, because they find it useful to label both aspects of their identity

There's also Tertiary Attraction which is a different way of describing how a person experiences attraction without using SAM, though I don't understand this model as much. (and that's also not even getting into repulsion descriptors which is a whole other way that some a/arospec people use to describe themselves)

And then there are people who just like to use Ace as an umbrella, in a similar way that people use Nonbinary, Trans, or Queer as umbrellas. Where they can refer to the gist of their experience, without having to be specific about it, explain their identity, and/or because they have some uncertainty to it.

And that last one is what I do. The short reason why is because I'm old, and I'm tired of trying to find the the exact descriptor for myself.

The longer reason is that, while I think that SAM is a really useful model, I personally find it difficult to pin down my romantic orientation. I used biromantic for a long time, but I'm not sure that's exactly it. I'm also not sure if aromantic, demiromantic, grayromantic, homoromantic, or sticking with biromantic feel right either (and if you're thinking "that's a very big range. how can you not tell the difference between not feeling romantic attraction at all to being romantically attracted to everyone" ... yeah lol. that's why it's so confusing!).

which is all to say, referring to myself using SAM just doesn't feel comfy /shrug

I like to use Ace, because it's a big enough blanket that it allows me the room to be uncertain about some things, while still accurately describing how I experience attraction and how that impacts the way I interact with the world around me.

I can't speak for other people who use just Ace to describe themselves, but that's how it is for me/ why I do it that way!

[osmiabee]

The day this website realises that labels should simply be a way to describe an overarching theme of a persons lived reality rather than shoehorning every microscopic detail of a persons life into a different pseudoscientific term as a way to seek ~validity~ from strangers online is the day I'll know peace

[nothorses]

Interview With An Ex-Radfem

exradfem is an anonymous Tumblr user who identifies as transmasculine, and previously spent time in radical feminist communities. They have offered their insight into those communities using their own experiences and memories as a firsthand resource.

Background

I was raised in an incredibly fundamentalist religion, and so was predisposed to falling for cult rhetoric. Naturally, I was kicked out for being a lesbian. I was taken in by the queer community, particularly the trans community, and I got back on my feet- somehow. I had a large group of queer friends, and loved it. I fully went in on being the Best Trans Ally Possible, and constantly tried to be a part of activism and discourse.

Unfortunately, I was undersocialized, undereducated, and overenthusiastic. I didn't fully understand queer or gender theory. In my world, when my parents told me my sexuality was a choice and I wasn't born that way, they were absolutely being homophobic. I understood that no one should care if it's a choice or not, but it was still incredibly, vitally important to me that I was born that way.

On top of that, I already had an intense distrust of men bred by a lot of trauma. That distrust bred a lot of gender essentialism that I couldn't pull out of the gender binary. I felt like it was fundamentally true that men were the problem, and that women were inherently more trustworthy. And I really didn't know where nonbinary people fit in.

Then I got sucked down the ace exclusionist pipeline; the way the arguments were framed made sense to my really surface-level, liberal view of politics. This had me primed to exclude people –– to feel like only those that had been oppressed exactly like me were my community.

Then I realized I was attracted to my nonbinary friend. I immediately felt super guilty that I was seeing them as a woman. I started doing some googling (helped along by ace exclusionists on Tumblr) and found the lesfem community, which is basically radfem “lite”: lesbians who are "only same sex attracted". This made sense to me, and it made me feel so much less guilty for being attracted to my friend; it was packaged as "this is just our inherent, biological desire that is completely uncontrollable". It didn't challenge my status quo, it made me feel less guilty about being a lesbian, and it allowed me to have a "biological" reason for rejecting men.

I don't know how much dysphoria was playing into this, and it's something I will probably never know; all of this is just piecing together jumbled memories and trying to connect dots. I know at the time I couldn't connect to this trans narrative of "feeling like a woman". I couldn't understand what trans women were feeling. This briefly made me question whether I was nonbinary, but radfem ideas had already started seeping into my head and I'm sure I was using them to repress that dysphoria. That's all I can remember.

The lesfem community seeded gender critical ideas and larger radfem princples, including gender socialization, gender as completely meaningless, oppression as based on sex, and lesbian separatism. It made so much innate sense to me, and I didn't realize that was because I was conditioned by the far right from the moment of my birth. Of course women were just a biological class obligated to raise children: that is how I always saw myself, and I always wanted to escape it.

I tried to stay in the realms of TIRF (Trans-Inclusive Radical Feminist) and "gender critical" spaces, because I couldn't take the vitriol on so many TERF blogs. It took so long for me to get to the point where I began seeing open and unveiled transphobia, and I had already read so much and bought into so much of it that I thought that I could just ignore those parts.

In that sense, it was absolutely a pipeline for me. I thought I could find a "middle ground", where I could "center women" without being transphobic.

Slowly, I realized that the transphobia was just more and more disgustingly pervasive. Some of the trans men and butch women I looked up to left the groups, and it was mostly just a bunch of nasty people left. So I left.

After two years offline, I started to recognize I was never going to be a healthy person without dealing with my dysphoria, and I made my way back onto Tumblr over the pandemic. I have realized I'm trans, and so much of this makes so much more sense now. I now see how I was basically using gender essentialism to repress my identity and keep myself in the closet, how it was genuinely weaponized by TERFs to keep me there, and how the ace exclusionist movement primed me into accepting lesbian separatism- and, finally, radical feminism.

The Interview

You mentioned the lesfem community, gender criticals, and TIRFs, which I haven't heard about before- would you mind elaborating on what those are, and what kinds of beliefs they hold?

I think the lesfem community is recruitment for lesbians into the TERF community. Everything is very sanitized and "reasonable", and there's an effort not to say anything bad about trans women. The main focus was that lesbian = homosexual female, and you can't be attracted to gender, because you can't know someone's gender before knowing them; only their sex.

It seemed logical at the time, thinking about sex as something impermeable and gender as internal identity. The most talk about trans women I saw initially was just in reference to the cotton ceiling, how sexual orientation is a permanent and unchangeable reality. Otherwise, the focus was homophobia. This appealed to me, as I was really clinging to the "born this way" narrative.

This ended up being a gateway to two split camps - TIRFs and gender crits.

I definitely liked to read TIRF stuff, mostly because I didn't like the idea of radical feminism having to be transphobic. But TIRFs think that misogyny is all down to hatred of femininity, and they use that as a basis to be able to say trans women are "just as" oppressed.

Gender criticals really fought out against this, and pushed the idea that gender is fake, and misogyny is just sex-based oppression based on reproductive issues. They believe that the source of misogyny is the "male need to control the source of reproduction"- which is what finally made me think I had found the "source" of my confusion. That's why I ended up in gender critical circles instead of TIRF circles.

I'm glad, honestly, because the mask-off transphobia is what made me finally see the light. I wouldn't have seen that in TIRF communities.

I believed this in-between idea, that misogyny was "sex-based oppression" and that transphobia was also real and horrible, but only based on transition, and therefore a completely different thing. I felt that this was the "nuanced" position to take.

The lesfem community also used the fact that a lot of lesbians have partners who transition, still stay with their lesbian partners, and see themselves as lesbian- and that a lot of trans men still see themselves as lesbians. That idea is very taboo and talked down in liberal queer spaces, and I had some vague feelings about it that made me angry, too. I really appreciated the frank talk of what I felt were my own taboo experiences.

I think gender critical ideology also really exploited my own dysphoria. There was a lot of talk about how "almost all butches have dysphoria and just don't talk about it", and that made me feel so much less alone and was, genuinely, a big relief to me that I "didn't have to be trans".

Lesfeminism is essentially lesbian separatism dressed up as sex education. Lesfems believe that genitals exist in two separate categories, and that not being attracted to penises is what defines lesbians. This is used to tell cis lesbians, "dont feel bad as a lesbian if you're attracted to trans men", and that they shouldn’t feel "guilty" for not being attracted to trans women. They believe that lesbianism is not defined as being attracted to women, it is defined as not being attracted to men; which is a root idea in lesbian separatism as well.

Lesfems also believe that attraction to anything other than explicit genitals is a fetish: if you're attracted to flat chests, facial hair, low voices, etc., but don't care if that person has a penis or not, you're bisexual with a fetish for masculine attributes. Essentially, they believe the “-sexual” suffix refers to the “sex” that you are assigned at birth, rather than your attraction: “homosexual” refers to two people of the same sex, etc. This was part of their pushback to the ace community, too.

I think they exploited the issues of trans men and actively ignored trans women intentionally, as a way of avoiding the “TERF” label. Pronouns were respected, and they espoused a constant stream of "trans women are women, trans men are men (but biology still exists and dictates sexual orientation)" to maintain face.

They would only be openly transmisogynistic in more private, radfem-only spaces.

For a while, I didn’t think that TERFs were real. I had read and agreed with the ideology of these "reasonable" people who others labeled as TERFs, so I felt like maybe it really was a strawman that didn't exist. I think that really helped suck me in.

It sounds from what you said like radical feminism works as a kind of funnel system, with "lesfem" being one gateway leading in, and "TIRF" and "gender crit" being branches that lesfem specifically funnels into- with TERFs at the end of the funnel. Does that sound accurate?

I think that's a great description actually!

When I was growing up, I had to go to meetings to learn how to "best spread the word of god". It was brainwashing 101: start off by building a relationship, find a common ground. Do not tell them what you really believe. Use confusing language and cute innuendos to "draw them in". Prey on their emotions by having long exhausting sermons, using music and peer pressure to manipulate them into making a commitment to the church, then BAM- hit them with the weird shit.

Obviously I am paraphrasing, but this was framed as a necessary evil to not "freak out" the outsiders.

I started to see that same talk in gender critical circles: I remember seeing something to the effect of, "lesfem and gender crit spaces exist to cleanse you of the gender ideology so you can later understand the 'real' danger of it", which really freaked me out; I realized I was in a cult again.

I definitely think it's intentional. I think they got these ideas from evangelical Christianity, and they actively use it to spread it online and target young lesbians and transmascs. And I think gender critical butch spaces are there to draw in young transmascs who hate everything about femininity and womanhood, and lesfem spaces are there to spread the idea that trans women exist as a threat to lesbianism.

Do you know if they view TIRFs a similar way- as essentially prepping people for TERF indoctrination?

Yes and no.

I've seen lots of in-fighting about TIRFs; most TERFs see them as a detriment, worse than the "TRAs" themselves. I've also definitely seen it posed as "baby's first radfeminism". A lot of TIRFs are trans women, at least from what I've seen on Tumblr, and therefore are not accepted or liked by radfems. To be completely honest, I don't think they're liked by anyone. They just hate men.

TIRFs are almost another breed altogether; I don't know if they have ties to lesfems at all, but I do think they might've spearheaded the online ace exclusionist discourse. I think a lot of them also swallowed radfem ideology without knowing what it was, and parrot it without thinking too hard about how it contradicts with other ideas they have.

The difference is TIRFs exist. They're real people with a bizarre, contradictory ideology. The lesfem community, on the other hand, is a completely manufactured "community" of crypto-terfs designed specifically to indoctrinate people into TERF ideology.

Part of my interest in TIRFs here is that they seem to have a heavy hand in the way transmascs are treated by the trans community, and if you're right that they were a big part of ace exclusionism too they've had a huge impact on queer discourse as a whole for some time. It seems likely that Baeddels came out of that movement too.

Yes, there’s a lot of overlap. The more digging I did, the more I found that it's a smaller circle running the show than it seems. TIRFs really do a lot of legwork in peddling the ideology to outer queer community, who tend to see it as generic feminism.

TERFs joke a lot about how non-radfems will repost or reblog from TERFs, adding "op is a TERF”. They're very gleeful when people accept their ideology with the mask on. They think it means these people are close to fully learning the "truth", and they see it as further evidence they have the truth the world is hiding. I think it's important to speak out against radical feminism in general, because they’re right; their ideology does seep out into the queer community.

Do you think there's any "good" radical feminism?

No. It sees women as the ultimate victim, rather than seeing gender as a tool to oppress different people differently. Radical feminism will always see men as the problem, and it is always going to do harm to men of color, gay men, trans men, disabled men, etc.

Women aren't a coherent class, and radfems are very panicked about that fact; they think it's going to be the end of us all. But what's wrong with that? That's like freaking out that white isn't a coherent group. It reveals more about you.

It's kind of the root of all exclusionism, the more I think about it, isn't it? Just freaking out that some group isn't going to be exclusive anymore.

Radical feminists believe that women are inherently better than men.

For TIRFs, it's gender essentialism. For TERFs, its bio essentialism. Both systems are fundamentally broken, and will always hurt the groups most at risk. Centering women and misogyny above all else erases the root causes of bigotry and oppression, and it erases the intersections of race and class. The idea that women are always fundamentally less threatening is very white and privileged.

It also ignores how cis women benefit from gender norms just as cis men do, and how cis men suffer from gender roles as well. It’s a system of control where gender non-conformity is a punishable offense.

[luckgods]

Why all the white guys in whump?

I got Inspired by a post asking that question, and here we are. Warning: long post ahead.

I think it’s due to a combination of factors, as things frequently are.

The preference for / prevalence of white male characters in fandom is well-known and has been examined pretty thoroughly by people already.

What’s worth noting for discussing this tendency in whump in particular is that the ‘whump fandom’ itself is not a ‘fandom’ in the traditional sense of being made of fans of one single source narrative (or source setting, like a particular comics fandom, or the Star Wars extended universe) with pre-existing characters. Although subsets of traditional fandoms certainly exist within the larger whump fandom, a lot of whump is based on original, ‘fan’-created characters.

So, given the tendency of ‘traditional’ fandoms to create stories disproportionately centered on white male characters due to the source material itself being centered on white male characters (and giving more narrative weight to them, characterizing them better, etc), if we say hypothetically that the whump fandom is split say 50/50 between ‘traditional’ fandom works and original whump works, you’d expect to see a higher number of works focused on white men than the demographics of the ‘traditional’ fandom’s source work would predict, but not as extreme of a divergence between the source material & the fanworks as the one you’d see if whump fandom were 100% based on popular media.

However, that doesn’t quite seem to be the case. Whump stories and art remain focused on overwhelmingly male and frequently white characters, which means that the tendency of the fandom to create stories disproportionately centered on white male characters cannot be ONLY explained by the source material itself being centered on white male characters (and giving more narrative weight to them, characterizing them better, etc).

And, having established the fact that whump writers & artists presumably have MORE control over the design of their characters than writers & artists in ‘traditional’ fandoms, we have to wonder why the proportions remain biased towards men, & white men in particular.

—

The race thing is pretty simple in my opinion. Mostly, it’s just another extension of the fanbase’s tendency to reflect the (predominantly US-American, on tumblr) culture it exists in, which means that, in a white-centric culture, people make artworks featuring white people.

There’s also the issue of artists being hesitant to write works that dwell heavily on violence towards people of color due to the (US-American) history of people of color being violently mistreated. I’ve actually seen a couple of posts arguing that white people SHOULDN’T write whump of nonwhite characters (particularly Black characters) because of the history of actual violence against Black bodies being used as entertainment, which means that fictional violence against Black people, written by white people, for a (presumed) white audience, still feels exploitative and demeaning.

I'm not going to get into all my thoughts on this discussion here but suffice to say that there's probably an impact on the demographics of whump works from authors of color who simply... don't want to see violence against people of color, even non-explicitly-racialized violence, and then another impact from white authors who choose not to write non-white characters either due to the reasons stated above, or simply due to their personal discomfort with how to go about writing non-white characters in a genre that is heavily focused on interpersonal violence.

Interestingly enough, there’s also a decent proportion of Japanese manga & anime being used as source material for whump, and manga-styled original works being created. The particular relationship between US-American and Japanese pop culture could take up a whole essay just by itself so I’ll just say, there’s a long history of US-Japanese cultural exchange which means that this tendency is also not all that surprising.

—

GENDER though. If someone had the time and the energy they could make a fucking CAREER out of examining gender in whump, gender dynamics in whump, and why there seems to be a fandom-wide preference for male whumpees that cannot be fully explained by the emphasis on male characters in the source text.

I have several different theories about factors which impact gender preference in whump, and anyone who has other theories (or disagrees with mine) is free to jump in and add on.

THEORY 1: AUTHOR GENDER AND PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.
 Fandom in general is predominantly female, although these days it might be more accurate to say that fandom is predominantly composed of cis women and trans people of all genders. However, pretty much everyone who isn't a cis man has had to contend with the specter of gendered violence in their real personal life. Thus, if we posit whump (and fandom more generally) as a sort of escapist setup, it's not hard to see why whump authors & artists might willfully eschew writing female whumpees (especially in the case of inflicted whump), because (as in the discussion of people of color in whump above), even violence towards women that is explicitly non-gender-based may still hit too close to home for people whose lives have been saturated with the awareness of gender-based violence.

THEORY 2: SICK OF SEXY SUFFERING.
 Something of an addendum to theory 1, it's worth noting that depictions of female suffering in popular media are extremely gendered (in that they specifically reflect real-life gender-based violence, and that said real-life violence is almost exclusively referenced in relation to female characters) and frequently sexualized as well. There's only so many times you can see female characters having their clothes Strategically Ripped while they're held captive, being sexually menaced (overtly or implicitly) to demonstrate How Evil the villain is, or just getting outright sexually assaulted for the Drama of it all before it gets exhausting, especially when the narratives typically either brush any consequences under the rug, or dwell on them in a way that feels more voyeuristic and gratuitous than realistic and meaningful. All this may result in authors who, given the chance to write their own depictions of suffering, may decide simply to remove the possibility of gendered violence by removing the female gender.

THEORY 3: AUTHOR ATTRACTION. 
I'll admit that this one is more a matter of conjecture, as I haven't seen any good demographic breakdowns of attraction in general fandom or whump fandom. That said, my own experience talking to fellow whump fans does indicate that attraction to the characters (whether whumpers, or whumpees) is part of the draw of whump for some people. This one partially ties into theory 1 as well, in that people who are attracted to multiple genders may not derive the same enjoyment out of seeing a female character in a whumpy situation as they might seeing a male character in that situation, simply because of the experience of gendered violence in their lives.

THEORY 4: ACCEPTABLE TARGETS.
 The female history of fandom means that there's been a lot more discussion of the impacts of depicting pain & suffering (especially female suffering) for personal amusement. Thus, in some ways, you could say that there is a mild taboo on putting female characters through suffering if you can't "justify" it as meaningful to the narrative, not just titillating, which whump fandom rarely tries or requires anyone to do. This fan-cultural 'rule' may impact whump writers' and artists' decisions in choosing the gender of their characters.

THEORY 5: AN ALTERNATIVE TO MAINSTREAM MASCULINITY.
 Whump fandom may like whumping men because by and large, mainstream/pop culture doesn't let men be vulnerable, doesn't let them cry, doesn't let them have long-term health issues due to constantly getting beat up even when they really SHOULD, doesn't let them have mental health issues period. Female characters, as discussed in theory 2, get to ("get to") go through suffering and be affected by it (however poorly written those effects are), but typically, male characters' suffering is treated as a temporary problem, minimized, and sublimated into anger if at all possible. (For an example, see: every scene in a movie where something terrible happens and the male lead character screams instead of crying). So, as nature abhors a vacuum, whump fandom "over-produces" whump of men so as to fill in that gap in content.

THEORY 6: AMPLIFIED BIAS.
 While it's true that whump fandom doesn't have a source text, it's also true that whump fans frequently find their way into the fandom via other 'traditional' fandoms, and continue participating in 'traditional' fandoms as part of their whump fandom activity. Bias begets bias; fandom as a whole has a massive problem with focusing on white male characters, and fans who are used to the bias towards certain types of characters in derivative works absolutely reproduce that bias in their own original whump works.

—

I honestly think that there is greater bias in the whump fandom than anyone would like to admit. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems as though whump fans avoid introspection and discussion of the issue by bringing up the points I talked about in my previous theories, particularly discomfort with depictions of female suffering for amusement.

However, I think that, as artists, we owe it to ourselves and one another to engage in at least a small amount of self-interrogation over our preferences, and see what unconscious or unacknowledged biases we possess. It's a little absurd to argue that depictions of women as whumpees are universally too distressing to even discuss when a male character in the exact same position would be fine and even gratifying to the person making that argument; while obviously, people have a right to their own boundaries, those boundaries should not be used to shut down discussion of any topics, even sensitive ones.

Furthermore, engaging in personal reflection allows artists to make more deliberate (and meaningful) art. For people whose goal is simply to have fun, that may not seem all that appealing, but having greater understanding of one's own preferences can be very helpful towards deciding what works to create, what to focus on when creating, and what works to seek out.

—

GENDER ADDENDUM: NONBINARY CHARACTERS, NONBINARY AUTHORS. 
Of course, this whole discussion so far has been exclusively based on a male-female binary, which is reductive. (I will note, though, that many binary people do effectively sort all nonbinary people they know of into 'female-aligned' and 'male-aligned' categories and then proceed to treat the nonbinary people and characters they have categorized a 'female-aligned' the same way as they treat people & characters who are actually female, and ditto for 'male-aligned'. That tendency is very frustrating for me, as a nonbinary person whose gender has NOTHING to do with any part of the binary, and reveals that even 'progressive' fandom culture has quite a ways to go in its understanding of gender.)

Anyways, nonbinary characters in whump are still VERY rare and typically written by nonbinary authors. (I have no clue whether nonbinary whump fans have, as a demographic group, different gender preferences than binary fans, but I'd be interested in seeing that data.)

As noted above with female characters, it's similarly difficult to have a discussion about representation and treatment of nonbinary characters in whump fandom, and frankly in fandom in general. Frequently, people regard attempts to open discussions on difficult topics as a call for conflict. This defensive stance once again reveals the distaste for requests of meaningful self-examination that is so frequent in fandom spaces, and online more generally.

—

TL;DR: Whump is not immune to the same gender & racial biases that are prevalent in fandom and (US-American) culture. If you enjoy whump: ask yourself why you dislike the things you dislike— the answer may surprise you. If you create whump: ask yourself whose stories you tell, and what stories you refuse to tell— then ask yourself why.

[vacuously-true]

I've gotten a variety of (both good and bad faith) inquiries and accusations regarding my queer identity lately. I've avoided discussing some of this very publicly because I didn't want to get exclusionist nonsense hurled at me, but actually, I'm confident enough in my identity that they can't hurt me. So here we go. As complete an analysis of my current understanding of my queer identity as I can muster at the moment.

I have always been asexual. I am still asexual. I have never experienced sexual attraction. I knew I was asexual in high school, it was my first queer known queer identity and the first thing that bound me to the queer community. This is the queer identity that's most important to me, aside from queer itself.

I used to be aromantic. I'm still gray/demiromantic. I didn't experience romantic attraction until I was in my 20's and it has always been weak and uncommon. I say I used to be purely aromantic but no longer am because I think something changed about me, not just about my knowledge of myself. I still describe myself as aromantic and aroace because demi/grayromantic is a part of the aromantic spectrum.

The orientation of my occasional romantic feelings is hard to pin down, since they're uncommon so I don't have a lot of data. All the romantic attraction I have been certain of has been for women and femme nonbinary people. The only romantic/sexual relationships I've ever had have been with women and femme nonbinary people. I might be able to experience attraction for people of other genders, but I'm not sure. I definitely feel comfortable calling myself sapphic, and I also identify with bi, pan, and lesbian. It doesn't feel like there's any one word that best describes my orientation. That's okay, I don't feel like I need a single word for it.

As for my gender, I feel two distinct Gender Feelings. One of them is woman, the other is a mix of man and something androgynous. The second one is slightly weaker than the first. They are both always present, not in flux or trading off with each other. I would describe myself as bi/polygender, genderqueer, nonbinary (a subset of trans), and a woman, although not solely a woman. Any pronouns are accurate for me but I prefer she/her because they fit best with the version of myself I choose to present to the world.

With regard to my sex, I am afab and I have a hormone condition called PCOS, which can be considered intersex and I do consider it intersex for myself. PCOS presents differently in different people, but for me it means I have very high testosterone levels compared to most afab people, I have some secondary sex characteristics generally associated with men, and I likely could not have biological children. There are a variety of types of intersex conditions, depending on whether the chromosomes, reproductive organs, genitals, or hormones present in a way not typically associated with males or females. Some people think hormones should be left off of that list, and those people would say PCOS is not an intersex condition. I've studied the ideas about PCOS both in and outside the intersex and medical communities before coming to the conclusion that I am intersex. The natural state of my body is not fully or exclusively male or female but it isn't wrong, it's intersex. There's no wrong way to have a body. I do not believe my body needs to be manipulated into one of those boxes by my doctors, although they sure would like to try.

This is all complicated. I don't expect people to keep track of every piece of my identity, I think about the complexity of my experience and identity as a way to better understand myself. The identities that are especially important to me are ace and queer. Those and my preferred pronouns (she/her) are the things I primarily want people to remember about me. But people have been curious so here is a rather complete explanation. This is what a complete queer identity can look like. This is one way to be a queer person. The relationship between sex, gender, orientation, attraction, and presentation, is complicated, and I am proud of the work I've done to recognize, understand, and nurture those relationships in myself. I am confident and proud. I know who I am. I know my place. I'm here. I'm queer. Get used to it.

[bi-lesbian]

having a confusing relationship with attraction can make it hard to label yourself within just a couple "main" labels.

having a confusing relationship with gender can make it hard to label yourself within just a couple "main" labels.

having such rare attraction can make you unsure what one identity youd really fall under and feel accurate with.

being unsure if youre arospec and/or acespec can make it hard to know what your attraction is, if you have any at all- or makes it hard to figure out your less common form of attraction, since it doesnt match up with a whole ton of other peoples kinds of attractions.

having split attraction can make it hard to define your identity in just one label.

having such rare attraction to just certain genders can make you question if you still do like that gender, or having just one or a couple exceptions of liking people of a certain gender makes you unsure if you feel right or accurate with a monosexual label, but you know at least saying you -like people of that gender, in general- isnt really an accurate statement.

when some people have weird, confusing, add/or uncommon identities, they choose to go unlabeled, create new ones, use a combination of existing labels, or otherwise. experiences with personal identities are extremely vast, so limited language to define those identities doesnt help that many people. for those with unconventional identities, they tend to find home in unconventional labels. these are some big reasons why a lot of mspec lesbians and mspec gays feel comfortable and best identifying in those terms.

im fully ace, but when it comes to romantic attraction its rare and confusing for me. im some sort of arospec at least, i think most of my attraction may be aesthetic, i like the idea of dating but i dont desire to date people that often, and i know for sure i like women and that most of my rare attraction and desire to date tends to be for them. thats the gist what i know! and while i have fun being introspective on my identity, i dont particularly care to fully figure out every lil specifics of myself and pin myself down to something very certain and static. i like leaving my identity open to be fluid and contain exceptions and rarities, and having my label expressly reflect that, bc i dont feel like ill ever be fully sure on one specific label and i dont care to be. so i find my home in bi lesbianism.

[kingwuko]

I just heard someone say Wuko is only shipped by straight ppl. And then they went on to say korrasami is only shipped by the gays as if the majority of Wuko shippers don’t actively enjoy korrasami too. Like first of all I’ve seen a lot of queer ppl (including myself) ship wuko. Secondly they act like wuko shippers won’t touch korrasami with a ten foot pole. When it’s the complete opposite. There are so many fics/ fan art that have both pairings in it. It’s like if you dislike the ship just say so and move on instead of covering a chunk of the fandom in a cishet blanket. Sorry for ranting I just have to get this off my chest bc holy moly this is bothering tf out of me

Ok. So at first I was going to answer this quick and simple, but then my brain started thinking about the history and context and it made me wonder if it goes deeper than people not liking the ship and wanting to dunk on it for being "for the straights". Is there more to it than that?

I agree with you. Wuko is not just a ship for straight people. And Korrasami is not just for queer people. And many people ship Wuko as a companion to Korrasami or vice versa, so it's really not accurate to say one is for straight people while the other is for gay people. There's a lot of crossover, regardless of one's gender and sexuality. And it’s kind of exhausting to be told something is “for straight people” and then feel like you have to ‘prove’ you are ‘queer enough’.

All that being said; I wonder if the person/people making this claim has to do with the history of straight women fetishizing gay men, in real life (like the cliche trope of the “gay best friend”), and in anime/manga fandoms (are "yaoi fangirls" still a big thing?).

It's a complicated topic that I don't have a full handle on, so I’m not here to give anyone a lesson on it. I just do my best to listen to the experiences of gay men and avoid behaviors that fetishize or infantalize them. Maybe if we look at it from the perspective of someone has been directly harmed by the fetishization of gay men, I wonder if it could be a defense mechanism to write it off as a ship as being for straight people?

In the real world, there isn't a lot of solid representation of popular, original content depicting gay men in a positive way. Much of the mlm fanwork out there is made by women, for women. Not all, just a lot. A lot of those women are attracted to men- either straight or bi. You can see how hard it may be for a gay man trying to find content that represents his own, lived experiences when much of it made by women who, consciously or unconsciously, create content that is made for other women who are attracted to men.

So, maybe it's just someone who doesn't like the ship, or feels Korrasami is a superior ship. Or maybe it's coming from a place of valid cynicism from the history of straight women fetishising gay men in online fandom spaces. Lesbians and bisexual women have been harmed by exploitive pornographic content made for and by straight men, so I can fully empathize with gay and bisexual men feeling similarly harmed by fandom content.

For the record, I ship Wuko and Korrasami. I am queer. And I identify as a woman. (Maybe. I might be nonbinary but my questioning my gender is not a topic for my Wuko sideblog 🤣). So lots of people, of all genders and sexualities, ship Wuko. I think the important thing is to enjoy the ship and all the fanworks while paying attention to the way we portray them-are we enjoying them as fully developed characters, with realistic flaws and strengths and interactions? Or are we turning them into caricatures of what we imagine gay and bisexual men to be and exploiting the ship for little more than its sexual appeal?

Thank you for reading as I got way off track from the original topic of your ask! You are queer, and you ship Wuko. Someone else implying that you're not queer enough because you ship a pairing that's allegedly for straight people isn't ok, and your queerness and place in the LGBTQ+ community is valid. I have a feeling lots of the followers of this blog also identify as LGBTQ+. Thanks for coming here to get that off your chest. I hope you are able to move on from that comment and be at peace with it! Now go read some fanfic with Wuko and Korrasami!