#and the only one that matters for ‘gender’ assignment is looking at genitalia

[mxtxfanatic]

There’s something to be said about how gender is weaponized in tgcf. Like, the gods can transform between different physical genders, but their powers aren’t divided into “girl weak, boy strong.” Ling Wen is more powerful in her male form because her followers worship her as a male god. The Brocade Immortal forces her into her male form when she wears it not because that affords it more martial skill and power but because it can’t handle being pressed against the female form of the woman it loves. Shi Qingxuan is the opposite: his female form is more powerful because he is worshipped as a female god, and he enjoys that. The gods go between their forms depending on which one brings the most benefit, making gender into a weapon.

Then we have Xie Lian who, though never physically transforming into a female form, repeatedly and successfully uses people’s gender assumptions as a shield. He makes himself into a bride as to not use an innocent civilian as bait to catch a ghost, and he later disguises himself as a mother to hide from the crowd of cultivators. Because his enemies in both cases perceived women as weak and fragile, the ghost bride did not think to see if Xie Lian was a threat, and the cultivators were embarrassed at having barged in on a “defenseless woman” dressing with her “child.” The shield of “woman” allowed Xie Lian to fool his enemies and complete his goals in both cases.

Anyways, just thought this was cool.

[frownyalfred]

have you given any thought to how binary assigned gender works in the coralverse? (like, how would/would somebody be assigned m/f gender at birth) love your fic a lot!!!

I have! Since, going off previous asks I've done here, pre-presentation external genitalia is largely identical in pups, you'd have to go off other indications to assign gender.

Things like a blood test came to mind. Hormonal tests too, maybe. These could also both be done prior to birth hypothetically. Post birth, you could determine gender but likely not dynamic (until closer to the actual presentation).

Differences in gender would be present in similar ways like irl pre-teens, i.e., boys tend to be slightly larger, etc, and these differences would increase post-presentation. For example, a male pup who would later present alpha would look very similar to a male pup who would later present omega. A female pup who would later present alpha might be a little smaller than both of them? But these aren't hard and fast rules.

It's an interesting discussion of gender versus dynamic. Assigned gender as a pup matters far less in the a/b/o universe than dynamic post-presentation does. I wonder if that's largely because the only extreme differences between people are their dynamics.

Also, since being male or female in this universe doesn't impact whether one can reproduce, you have less of an emphasis on gender and more of an emphasis on dynamic. I'm still playing around with the idea of beta presentation and what that entails. I'm desperately trying not to write myself into a corner, as you can probably tell 😅

[silverliing]

why is genderbending bad? /gen

This is kind of a loaded question and I will answer it to the best of my abilities and through my own understanding of genderbending and gender identity politics but if you don’t want to read all that i’ll just leave you with the short answer: It’s complicated. I don’t think “genderbending” is inherently a bad thing (i do it) what i do take an issue with is the actual name of this trend as well as some of the rhetoric and ideas about gender that run rampant along it that have largely been ignored or gone unchallenged.

I also do not think that the bulk of this work has been made with malicious intent, rather just out of ignorance in a cissexist society. so yeah, complicated. I would also like to point out that I am gender non-binary and identify as trans, so these are just my personal thoughts regarding this type of content in fandom spaces and the ways I think it (more often than i’d prefer) plays into the erasure of trans and intersex identities from the conversation and can perpetuate cissexist ideas of gender and gender identity.

Anyways, long answer is long so more after the cut -> -> ->

For starters I think the most egregious thing to me about this whole genderbend thing is the name. now, i absolutely hate the name because genderbending is never just about changing a characters gender is it? what we generally understand as genderbending in fandom is typically the changing or switching of a character’s sex from male to female or from female to male and assigning to them the gender that “matches” their sex. And if this is exactly what you’re trying to do then that’s fine! i don’t want to be the arbitrator of what people can or can’t do in fandom spaces so… just maybe call it what it is? maybe also understand how this trend feeds into the rhetoric that gender is a binary and how it conflates sex and gender as if they were interchangeable or one and the same as well as perpetuating some outdated and ill informed views on sex, gender and sexuality too!(since typically when a character gets genderbent their sexuality changes as well)

There’s a lot of discourse on this very topic and much of it might probably disagree with me on these points so i encourage everyone to seek alternative opinions on the matter, but from my own understanding of gender, gender identity and gender expression, i find that the idea of “genderbending” —in the ways it has been traditionally done by fandoms— can have some cissexist implications:

It implies that there are only two genders which are opposite from each other, and that those are (generally cis) “male” or (generally cis) “female”.

Gender is not a binary and gender is a social construct. this is something that psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, biologists, gender theorists and medical professionals have all agreed upon for decades. The thing that happens in genderbending where a character can only jump from fully mature phenotypical male “man” to a fully mature phenotypical female “woman” (or vice versa) without any wiggle room in between is ill-informed at best. And then there are people who will say “oh well that’s not true because i saw a non-binary intersex genderbend once!” and all i have to say to this is… okay. Yes this kind of NB “genderbend” does exist but it’s is not the norm. For the most part when looking up the genderbend tag will generally bring up a lot of stereotypically female petra parkers and harriet potters, and this is just the truth.

It implies that physical traits and gender are related.

Usually this type of work will have things like a tall, flat chested, muscly “masculine” character switch genders to become short, curvy, large breasted, “feminine” one (usually without any regard to how that character’s personality and lifestyle affect their physical attributes) typically the act of genderbending will come along with changes to a characters genitalia, gender markers, and phenotype, not just their gender. I trust you understand how this idea is inherently cissexist and reinforces the thought that things like the set of genitals you were born with ought to dictate the gender you identify as. This also gets into the territory of intersex erasure. Since our society has yet to come to a consensus of how intersex individuals ought to look like (and how could they!) it is less likely that you will find a genderbend that envisions a character as intersex given that genderbending isn’t just about changing someone’s gender but also making them look the part. Which is a whole other can of worms because what does a woman or a man look like? what does an intersex or a non-binary or an agender person look like? these nuances often get pushed to the side in genderbending. And if you have found genderbent art or fanfic that subverts all of these trends that’s awesome! But again, it’s still not the norm.

I know this one sounds bad, but there are some arguments against it that are very valid to me; namely that although not every trans person’s goal is to appear cis-passing, there are some trans folk whose goal is to look as cis as possible and their visions and fantasies of what their ideal gender presentation ought be reflected in this type of art is imo quite valid.

It implies that someone “changing genders” can be reduced to a thought experiment.

Maybe this isn’t the best wording but it’s when you see genderbend being done as a way to explore how a character would be different if they had just been born in a different body. This one doesn’t sound too bad, it’s just a little thought experiment right? and in a way it is but i still want to bring it up because again, it assumes that being born with a specific set of physical attributes will dictate a persons gender. This also could imply that anyone who identifies with a gender that is different to the one they were assigned at birth does not have an equally as meaningful relation to their own gender as someone who was born with the “right” set of genitals. It is also kind of funny to me that some of these genderbenders who just want to do a thought experiment with their blorbo would want to see said blorbo navigating the “opposite” gender from a cis perspective. Now i don’t have any sources to back me up on this but i’m just going to assume that between a trans person and a cis person, the individual who is most likely to be aware of gender identity politics is probably not going to be the cis person. just make the character trans just make them trans

Why I do it

Literally i had not thought about this topic in over a decade, and i had no genuine interest in seeing characters under this type of lens since i was like 12. However, the idea for lesbyler was born as a response to the critiques toward byler fans that said the ship would not be so popular if they had been two girls instead of two boys. I guess you could say it started as a joke or out of spite but in my personal case (which i know is true for many others in the fandom) it became a way to project my own sapphic youth into a ship that is so special to me. Of course i would love them more if those characters had been written as girls! Byler has such a soft spot in my heart because it’s the story of my first love —its the story of a lot of peoples first love— and so in that vein i thought it was permissible to make it all the more mine. I did not entertain the thought of “making” them girls because girls are the opposite of boys and i thought that was cool, or because i wanted to see lesbian rep instead of gay rep, i entertained the thought of two lesbian best friends navigating first love because it’s the story i would have liked to see in a show like stranger things.

Furthermore, i also do not see my lesbyler characters as inherently cis, I still see them as an offshoot or extension of the original characters, so in my head they’re just inherently trans. Of course that is just me and there is nothing wrong if you prefer to see them as cis as long as you understand the aforementioned discussions of gender at play.

Am I also perpetuating the harmful rhetoric by indulging in this type of trend regardless of my intent? Maybe. It’s so hard to put yourself on blast but I will for a second here. I think the vast majority of this type of content is ill-informed, but i don’t think the bulk of it was made with the intent of harming minorities, so i don’t think making it is inherently bad. I think what can be harmful is to have these ideas go unchallenged in this specific trend where they would have been more widely addressed if it were on any other more publicly available platform, and i think that talking about it and bringing this topic up when i make this type of work is a good opportunity to make others aware how cissexism can be perpetuated even in the ways we interact with fandom.

I don’t believe i am spreading hate or harm when i make this type of work, but maybe i’ll cringe at this and change my opinions for the better in the future who knows. All i’m saying is that i think the best way to approach this trend is through information and awareness and on that regard i do consider myself more well-read on this topic than your average joe 🤷🏻

There’s many people that will disagree with me who will say genderbending is more harmful than i claim it to be or that it is not wrong at all, so i would just like to reiterate that this is all based on my experience, understanding, and knowledge on the topic of both genderbending and gender identity politics.

One more time I don’t think imagining a character as a different gender is inherently bad but i do think that a lot of the ideas perpetuated by fandom genderbending are some of the same rhetoric and propaganda that has been used to erase and harm trans and intersex individuals.

Last thing and i am saying all of this in good faith, if you ever looked at my lesbyler (or any genderbent art really) art and thought “those characters are cis girls”, or that they had to have been “born” girls because the opposite of boy is girl, i would like you to consider and challenge why you had those thoughts. Maybe even question why little compulsory cissexist thoughts like those are part of our every day lives. I also just want to say that if you want to make genderbend art or fic go for it, but I do strongly urge you to first consider understanding and acknowledging the arguments i’ve made here. Just know what you’re getting into and know that there is more than meets the eye with this topic. aaaand just remember that these arguments feel hidden and compulsory for a reason, cissexism is everywhere, even in fandom spaces.

Also there’s a chance you’ll probably go your entire fandom career without ruffling anyones feathers about it but i would just advise to be careful, be respectful and know when to apologize and move on. And most importantly don’t forget that trans, non-binary, intersex, agender, gender fluid, etc. identities exist so there’s a lot more options and experiences for you to think about if you do decide to play with the gender and identity of a character.

[st5lker]

wild half-thought out rant since at this point im not seeing anyone on tumblr talk about this its more of a tiktok discourse thing but as someone who is gay the whole "genital preference" discourse and the way it comes from people who arent even outwardly transphobic or trans exclusionary is pretty wild to me. i can only talk about this while getting into tmi territory sorry so the rest is under a readmore

its usually transmascs especially younger ones propagating the whole idea that "its not transphobic to have genital preferences i wouldnt be offended if someone didnt want to sleep with me bc im afab" and even ignoring the way that that completely ignores how different this entire situation is for trans women, as a gay person who is very aware of and comfortable in what i am and am not attracted to it just doesnt ever make any sense to me. like i am attracted to men. point blank and period. im attracted to things that register as masculine or a feature of a man in my mind.

but like. i get the idea of where theyre coming from in that attraction is an instinctual reaction or whatever but like, sure im not "attracted" to vaginas in the sense that im not turned on by a picture of one and yes sometimes the idea of getting up close with one turns me off. but believe it or not i am still attracted to trans men and would still have sex with one because i register them as men? and in the same sense like, yeah im usually attracted to an isolated picture of a penis but like that usually comes with the idea in my mind that its attached to a man. looking at a trans woman's penis when im aware its a trans woman gives me the same hormonal reaction that looking at a cis woman's vagina does, in that... its nothing. because my mind registers that as a body part belonging to a woman. a person's genitals are one tiny part of their body and if thats the ONLY thing you can focus on when youre attracted to somebody then i really have to wonder if youre attracted to people or if you just see partners as like... sex toys with extra baggage attached

like i kind of get where theyre coming from, my brain is hardwired towards amab genitalia, but its also hardwired towards a lot of things other things too LMAO. its not like i have any particular inclination to get close and focus on afab genitalia the way i might with others but like... that doesnt mean its impossible to interact sexually with a trans man or even their genitals yknow. there are lots of ways to have sex. and like, is that to say im attracted to every single trans man or every one of them ticks the boxes that make me attracted to someone? no of course not but im far from attracted to every cis man either LOL. there are plenty of cis men who are far less attractive to me than the majority of trans men on testosterone lol and thats not even always about them being 'ugly' as much as it is them not being my type.

there are so many arguments people make about how alll trans peoples bodies are different and how you dont have to interact with trans genials and all that and while all of that is true and i just mentioned some of it i think honestly the core of the matter comes down to this: in most cases we are attracted to gender, not sex, and so we're attracted to the things that our brain pattern recognizes as matching with our orientation. and contrary to what a lot of transphobes believe if you are not actively trying to remind yourself of a trans person's AGAB every time you see them in most cases it is very easy to register them as their identity in your mind. the issue is not that youre not attracted to trans people, the issue is that you refuse to allow yourself to see trans people as anything other than the gender they were assigned at birth, and that conscious perception block is what is keeping your body from reacting to them as you would a member of your preferred gender.

[punalippulaiva]

I've been thinking a lot about my gender recently and I thought I would finally try to put them to words.

I was assigned male at birth, I have the matching genitalia and for almost my entirely life I have grudgingly accepted being a cis male (excepting for brief period in my late teens when I identified as what would be today be labeled non-binary). But it's never felt quite right.

I've never experience any kind of body dysphoria – at least not related to gender, impossible beauty standards are a different matter – and today I'm very comfortable with my quite masculine body. That said, I have never experienced gender euphoria either.

And of course, a lot of what gender is and isn't is about culture. Men are expected to like, enjoy and be interested in certain things – be it cars or beer or military history – and the vast majority of these things are such that I am either indifferent to them or actively dislike them. I have my "acting like a cis guy mongst cis guys" mode that allows me to fake it amongst cis men to a degree, but for the most part I am simply failing in the performance of masculinity.

For official purposes like passports or what my kid calls me yes, but whenever there's a registration form or a quiz asking for my gender I pretty automatically choose the "other" option if there is one. And of course I have also thought about "what if I am actually a trans woman and I haven't realised it yet?" (including taking a bit of time to reflect on that while writing this)... but that feels not-right just as being a cis man feels not-right.

A while back I did a "what your gender identity is?" type of quiz and I scored something like 75% on agender, with cis being the only other notable result and... I guess that has a point... but I don't identify as agender either. And of course, I have looked into things like demiguy as a gender but, again, not me. Every label I encounter feels like it has a bit of truth to it, but none of them feel like the whole truth.

If gender is a performance, then I am a man, albeit one who often fails in the performance of masculinity. But if gender is something you feel inside, I'm a nagging feeling of not knowing what you are. "Top" and "masc" are the only meaningful gender-adjacent labels I feel 100% onboard with.

This has been the nocturnal gender ramble that I needed to get out of my system. I'm not sure if it brought me any closer to understanding myself but... at least it's good to reflect from time to time.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Transphobia

I just ... I don’t get it. I don’t. Why the fuck does other people’s gender matter so much to people in all the wrong ways? What is this obsession with other people’s genitals, and why does this not translate into when people are forcing said genitals upon the unwilling in any form? They talk-talk-talk about how they’re protecting women and children from the unwanted penises of trans women, who they don’t acknowledge as women, but they’re apparently just fine with actual sexual assault by people with penises who identify as men.

I swear, I feel like half the reason I identify as non-binary now is because I am just so sick of it. There’s all these rules that society sets up about what you’re supposed to do and say and think and wear and all that other bullshit when it comes to gender identity, and society just seems to crack down on it harder and harder every year. And I grew up in the fucking 80s, when half the shows pointed at my age group were glorified toy commercials and the age-old standard of marketing people of “gender-focused toys and advertising for same” made it a half-and-half of pink glitter and BIG STRONG MEN. And there was me, with my Barbies and my Matchbox cars and my Strawberry Shortcake dolls and my GI Joes and having Luke Skywalker riding the Cotton Candy My Little Pony into battle and honestly FUCK ALL OF IT.

Gender roles are bullshit and I’ve known that since I was a kid, because there was my mother climbing the corporate ladder in a way that we just can’t do anymore, and there was my dad, way over there after the divorce, sticking with a blue-collar job. I may have grown up learning two languages that give a gender to basically every fucking noun in the world, but maybe that’s another reason I got fed up with it because why the fuck does cheese have a gender? It felt arbitrary. To me, gender is fucking arbitrary. But everyone wants to link it to what’s between people’s legs and it’s just stupid. Cheese has no genitals, but it has gender in French and Spanish and probably other similar languages, so how do genitals have any bearing on your gender? In short, why the fuck am I even bothering?

So here’s me, with an 80s childhood where I looked at the various gender assigned stuff and went, “Hang on - this is bullshit”. I don’t actually fit in anyplace with any of the assigned gender bullshit, so again, why the fuck am I bothering? Well, because half the fucking planet insists that I define myself by my genitalia, that’s why. It’s fucking gross, is what it is. I want people to get their minds out of other people’s pants for, like, ever, unless they’ve had a clear invitation to partake of what’s in there. But no. No, apparently this bunch of gross yahoos feel like they should be the Gender Police, making sure that no one identifies with anything but “penis = man / vulva = woman”. I AM NOT DEFINED BY THE CONTENTS OF MY KNICKERS SO STOP THINKING ABOUT SAID CONTENTS, YOU PERVERTS.

And then they use that to punish people who go against the kinds of stupid-ass rules they apparently learned when their parents gave them the birds-and-bees talk as children. It’s apparently so fucking important that people live according to this bullshit gender identity structure that the ones who don’t have to have their lives made a fucking misery, or just ended. It’s fucking ridiculous. Even if for some dumb-ass reason you believe that trans and nonbinary people are in some way mentally disturbed ... they’re not hurting you. That’s the worst part of this - IT IS NOT HURTING ANYONE. The only people who get hurt when they come out as trans are the trans people, because people hurt them for it. So someone assigned female at birth wants to get some top surgery and go by James and he/him pronouns; so what? How does that actually hurt anyone?

I think the dumbest part of all of it is that the transphobes of the world do feel like they’re being hurt by this. Their simple worldview gets so unbearably shaken by the existence of people who don’t want to fit in the gender-specific moulds of the society they grew up in, and suddenly they feel under attack, because they can’t understand the world anymore somehow. So instead of putting on their big person undergarments and learning to cope with a changing world, they beat the people who don’t conform back into a corner ... or just to death, whichever seems easier to them at the time. And they call us “delicate snowflakes” when all we’re asking for is to not be belittled, insulted, hated just for existing, or outright killed. Apparently just not wanting to die is being ‘delicate’ when they’re clutching their metaphorical pearls over what we want to call ourselves.

It’s the same with sexuality. I personally do not see how gay people just existing is a problem. What they do with their genitals is their own business unless they’re forcing said genitals on someone else without consent. Few to none of them are doing that (there are always outliers). What people do with their genitals in the privacy of their homes is their own business, and anything public? Look, kissing someone or holding someone’s hand is not that sexual, okay? How some people get more up in arms about a man kissing another man on the cheek and holding his hand than they do about a man French-kissing a woman with his hand halfway up her skirt in terms of “public display of affection” is beyond me. Yet it happens, all the time. As to that whole ‘sexualising children’ bullshit - I’m sorry, it’s mostly the straight people doing that. You get a little boy running around the playground with a little girl and immediately get, “Oh, is that your little girlfriend?” and all that sort of bullshit. Most LGBTQ+ people just want to give kids something that they themselves never had - the freedom to choose what they want and who they are without societal expectations. But that’s wrong while shoving little boys and little girls together with not-really-jokes about them getting married someday is apparently fine.

I know it’s all about control. I know it’s all about shaping the world into what these people want and need it to be. I know that they’re the ones who are the delicate snowflakes who wither and die at the idea that the world is changing and they might have to change with it if they don’t fight it by stamping down the ‘deviants’. Intellectually I know all of this. But in my heart, I rage at all of it. In the end, it’s all down to policing people’s genitals and it’s ridiculous and I need it to stop. Everyone needs it to stop. Even the people who’re making others’ lives miserable over it need it to stop, though they won’t admit it. It must be exhausting, hating on people because of what is or isn’t in their knickers and whether that correlates to the gender by which they identify. Everybody needs it to stop, and it feels like it’s never going to, and I am tired and angry and fed up with all of it.

Dear everyone who’s bigoted in the gender and sexuality spectrums: STOP OBSESSING ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE’S GENITALS AND WHAT THEY DO WITH THEM. It’s gross, and you are the perverts you accuse others of being. You want to beat on someone for what they’re doing with their genitals? Go beat on a rapist instead of excusing their behaviour with “men have urges” and all that other bullshit that’s been used to excuse sexual assault since the dawn of fucking time. But if someone isn’t hurting people? Leave the contents of their pants alone.

[thatlonelycactus]

Look idk how many people keep up with Australian Equestrian politics on this site but I need to rant so yeah sorry.

So recently a trans rider called Haydie Bird was competing and the commentators of the event she was riding at left their microphones on during her round and broadcast their entire conversation about her genitals to the entire fucking audience whilst she was doing her round.

And I doubt I have to explain why that is so fucking sick in any context or any sport but in an equestrian sport? In one of the few sports where people can compete in the same classes no matter their gender or what sex they were assigned at birth? Yes, there are so many things in the equestrian world that are disgusting and we are a really toxic sport but honestly I had the naivety to believe that bigotry and issues surrounding gender were almost nonexistent within this sport. And honestly? Maybe that’s on me. But that’s beside my point.

However, what annoyed me more was some of the commentary I saw on it from an influencer. They were essentially comparing Equestrian Australia’s (EA) treatment of Haydie Bird’s experience to another controversy that occurred at the start of the year (I think) with rider Shane Rose. Essentially, Rose wore a mankini to a fancy-dress class and some people deemed it inappropriate.

This person was basically saying that EA’s treatment of each situation was confusing and hypocritical as they claimed that discussions of genitalia was okay in Shane Rose’s case but unacceptable in Haydie Birds’s.

And? Like? I feel like there’s an obvious difference in the case that Rose made a choice which, whilst not meaning he should be sexualised or was purposely drawing attention to himself, lead to the possibility of certain discussions whilst Bird was just riding her. Fucking. Round. And people thought it was okay to comment on her genitals. Even in Rose’s case his genitalia was never directly discussed or even mentioned, his actions were only deemed inappropriate but the actions of the commentators in Birds case draw on issues within our own society on the treatment and sexualisation of trans people, especially tans women, within the sports community and wider population.

These two controversies should t be in the same question purely on the fact that one rider made a choice which was interpreted badly (which is an issue in itself) and the other was just riding her round like everyone else and yet somehow those comments seemed warranted by the commentators.

[digitalmedia-curation]

Gender and Video Games

Since the start of most video games, where you decide your character, you are typically offered the choice between playing a male or female character. It was just a simple option offered to provide the player with some sense of control and imagination. Though, that’s only if you're not playing as a character essential to the story, but that’s not what the focus here is entirely on. Since video game developers have been adding the function of creating your own character on certain games, the creation stage has gradually gotten more and more complex from the influence of the changing public. At first it was something as simple as skin tone, hair style, hair color, and possibly eye color. Then from there, it has gotten gradually more diverse as certain popular games have decided to add on more physical qualities players can choose to decide for their player. Prime examples can include the body type of the character and even the different voices, for if players have a specific type they think properly suits the character they have in mind. Although some of those micro adjustments might seem unnecessary when playing the game, gamers often find that to be the most interesting part to a thoroughly-made game because it literally brings their idea on paper, per say and allows them some degree of control. Under normal circumstances, some people might think that might be the limit of creating a diverse character, but then certain games and game developers had decided to take it a step even further with the most recent releases of games. It is not surprising how new genders are being identified and acknowledged by the public and how some communities like to exercise their importance when it comes to certain topics, but now some parts of the game community have decided to incorporate those genders into their character creation stages.

 One prime example would be the release of the futuristic sci-fi game Cyberpunk 2077 in 2020. That game was a first person rpg that took place in a cybernetic future, where you get to choose how your character starts and lives their life through a large number of different scenarios. For that game, they had an incredibly specific and diverse character creation system where you were able to make a large number of changes to your character no matter how specific. You could change their body types to make them burly or petite, or even certain bone structures to their face if you have a specific image in mind. Though, the most noticeable characteristic that you could change that had earned the attention of a lot of players is the genitalia. To be more specific, the players could choose to change the genitalia on their character despite what genders they were assigned. So female characters could have male genitals and male characters could have female genitals. Although that does take a large degree of realism out of the game at first glance,  it was made to make sense realistically with how the story of cyber punk is set into the future. In that future, there are people who are able to successfully replace different parts of their body for personal reasons. That being said, it stands to reason that those functions were added to the character creation options to symbolize how society would be in a cybernetic future, with how people would be allowed to effectively physically transition into whatever gender identity they choose. Additionally, there was a game I played personally in the past that allowed the player to change specific facial features and hairstyles in the character creation options to make one gender look exactly like the other from the neck up.The concerning part is that those creation options have no correlation or reason connecting to the game itself. It confused me to a degree, but it posed no real impact or change to the game itself, That being said, the fact that such options were given to games without a relevant reason goes to show how even the gaming community have been getting further influenced with how new genders are being recognized and acknowledged by the people and with people following the idea that we can appear however we wish to.

[andersunmenschlich]

Hey retard!

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/france-s-reverence-for-intellectuals-shielded-michel-foucault-from-scandal/

Tranny ideology was codified by actual child rapist frenchmen 🤮

A woman is an adult human female and you will never change your sex or gender because one of those is fake but based on bio sex which is xy or xx chromosomes in your dna. Which is immutable. Fuckin clown 🤡

I so rarely get asks. This one is a bit of a let-down, isn't it? Non sequiturs aren't typically what I look for in correspondence. Oh well.

The salutation is inaccurate, alas.

The article is interesting, if you're interested in Foucault (who, despite the claim in the following sentence, is only one Frenchman). Personally, I never met Foucault and am not overly fascinated by his life—but to each their own.

I have also never heard of "trans ideology." What is it? What system of ideas and ideals is this, on which all of "not being comfortable with the gender one was assigned" rests?

Strange idea. It sounds rather like claiming that being autistic requires an ideology.

Well, my parents might agree.

I only flinch away from bright lights and loud noises because of "autistic ideology." If I didn't know it was possible and even acceptable to have extra sensitive senses, I would probably... well, suffer without allowing myself to so much as flinch, never mind cry out. Hmm.

One wonders how Elagabalus, Kalonymus ben Kalonymus, Eleanor Rykener and all the rest managed, given that Foucault hadn't been born yet.

Then we have the claim that "woman" only ever always means "adult human female."

Speaking a living language can be so frustrating, can't it? I know I hate it when words change their meanings on me. As a child, I inadvertently insulted a shy and very quiet boy by asking if he was dumb; as an adult I remain incensed by the fact that "literally" now also means "figuratively;" and so on.

It took me a long while to accept that sex and gender are no longer interchangeable. "Woman" does not always imply "female" anymore.

Consider this 2021 article from Yale School of Medicine, for example:

Next, consider the claim that gender is fake. In a sense, yes! It's every bit as fake as money: nothing but a social construct. And yet....

Follow that up with the assertion that sex can't be changed: well, it depends on which part of a person's body you consider most important in determining sex, doesn't it? Genitalia can certainly be changed, and that's all doctors look at when you're born and assigned a sex.

This person insists that chromosomes are what matter.

Now, most people don't even know what chromosomes they have! Some of us have both XX and XY, depending on which part of the body you look at. That's a possibility (believe me, I know). How do you, dear reader, know that you aren't one of these people? You might be.

So many people just assume that all their chromosomes "match" their external genitalia. Have you made that assumption? You could be wrong.

And, finally....

The sign off is accurate.

[mostly-mundane-atla]

i apologize if you've already answered something like this before, but i've seen a lot of fanfics with nonbinary sokka, and i was thinking of writing sokka into an atla au of a book as a character who is two-spirit. its my understanding that two-spirit isn't the same thing as nonbinary, transgender, or any other LGBT identity, and that it has a lot more to do with a spiritual connection, but i might be wrong about that. what i do know is this particular character in this book is winkte, which is Lakota, which isn't an inspiration for the water tribes as far as i'm aware.

i thought that two-spirit was established as a pan-indian term to replace all the different similar terms in the many different languages spoken by indigenous people across the united states and canada (or maybe just canada?), but i'm not sure if that would be what sokka, or any other Inupiaq-based character, would use to describe their identity. is there any term specific to Inupiat similar/equivalent to this that would be more appropriate to use?

You're in luck as being not only Inupiaq but also nonbinary and figuring out what that means culturally, I have a lot of personal experience on the matter!

So first: two-spirit is a pan-indigenous term, chosen by Native folks because the official term used by white academics (before two-spirit was coined) was an old french word that referred to male sex workers and everyone wanted something a little less blatantly disrespectful. It's used as an umbrella term for genders, gender expressions, and even variations on biological sex experienced in many indigenous cultures that don't neatly fit into the male/female binary that many European cultures believe in and uphold today. It's not necessarily a catch-all term for one specific concept found in all these cultures, but rather for a bunch of concepts classified together because they don't fit into the gender binary colonizers understood. You may have seen people saying you shouldn't refer to two-spirit genders as nonbinary and this is why. These genders are the result of cultures that didn't have a gender binary. The binary was a later addition imposed upon them by land hungry imperialists and missionaries who threatened nonbelievers with hellfire.

As for Inupiaq two-spirit identities, I know there is one term used by the Inuit, sipiniq, but i've only ever found it in Canadian sources so I don't know how widespread it is or if it was there in Alaska before they split and went east way back in the day. I do know it was used to refer to intersex people and the only concern with intersex genitalia seemed to be over the urinary tract being blocked. I've read from some interviews with elders where they said it was usually girls, or people who would have otherwise been considered typical girls, who were sipiniq, and that sometimes you couldn't tell until the child was older and their behavior changed from what you would expect (suggesting there may have been an aspect of gender and gender expression to it as well). I've also read elsewhere that being a sipiniq was more an addition than an entire stand alone identity, and they usually lived as their assigned gender at birth. Keep in mind that all this info is pretty scattered and difficult to cross reference, so i'd take this with a grain of salt.

Okay, onto Inupiaq specific stuff i've learned from family and reconnecting!

So, what does queerness look like in Inupiaq culture? Well, we don't entirely know, for a few reasons. Not much energy went into understanding our cultures as, say, the ancient Greeks and Egyptians for example until we had been pretty thoroughly assimilated. It's not talked about much, but romance in general isn't talked about much either, while a marriage was first and foremost for the purpose of having kids and dividing survival work into what can be done with a baby on your back and what can be done without. Polyandrous marriages were definitely a thing, and considering a lot of environmental and cultural factors, were often more viable than polygynous marriages, but also aren't mentioned much these days. The lack of queerness talked about in cultural circles could be the influence of the church, or maybe the idea that frivolities like chasing love weren't as important as starting your own family and caring for your aging parents is deeply ingrained into the culture. Maybe it's somewhere between.

Either way, I think just about every queer person has eventually figured out that just because it isn't mentioned or isn't considered the norm, doesn't mean it never happens. This is also a culture where people had to maintain deep friendships with others of the same sex and around the same age for allies in survival against the elements and human enemies. These friendships are always described as having a certain intimacy that allows trust and a degree of tenderness. Not to mention a man could have more than one wife or a woman could have more than one husband, and the nature of their contributions to the household meant they would spend a lot of time away from the shared spouse and with each other. This brings me to another aspect that doesn't exactly help figuring out cultural norms for feelings or relationships. We didn't have a written language until, about, the 1940s and it wasn't standardized until the 1980s. That means no private diary entries dripping with yearning or love letters of smouldering passion, which are the typical go-to evidence for relationships and attraction in cultures that do have a written language. Whether a man wished he could marry this man he was friends with since childhood more than the most desired woman in the village, or what goings-on two co-wives found themselves in between chores, we may never know.

So when it comes to something as personal as gender, which arguably involves way fewer people than sexual or romantic orientation, it can be a little difficult to figure out how many people felt that their bodies got something wrong or didn't fit their understanding of themselves. That doesn't mean it didn't happen, just that we very literally don't have a record of it.

So, what does gender look like in Inupiaq culture?

I've often said that the Inupiat leaned pratriarchal rather than stating that they were patriarchal. While patriarchy isn't an inaccurate term, people rarely hear it and imagine cultures where women could have multiple husbands, could divorce their husbands and be welcomed back to their parents' homes, could be the ones to decide whether their sons were ready to marry, etc. Men were by default considered head of the household, but only an idiot would deny the value of a woman with all her skills. The kind of skills men and women were expected to have weren't as strictly divided as one may think. Men were expected to have some proficiency in sewing and cooking, and women were expected to be able to fish, trap, and hunt small game, even if these weren't specialties. In general, gender roles were less about who dominated than we are used to thinking, and more about interdependence and reciprocity.

One thing I think might get to the meat of Inupiaq beliefs about gender as its own concept divorced from biological sex is the belief in reincarnation through renaming. Souls are attached to names, and in giving a baby the name of a dead loved one (i don't think they have to be blood related but often are) as is tradition, the soul lives on through the baby. People refer to that kid as if they were the one they were named after and it's said that the kid would remember things from this past life. But here's the thing: you didn't have to be named after someone of the same assigned gender at birth as you. You could be assigned male at birth, six feet tall, the luckiest at hunting bears, with ivory labrets and hair that was never braided, and that won't stop you from someone your parents' age calling you grandma if you were named after their grandmother. In our current assimilated and Christianized version of the culture, this has become the practice of Eskimo names, which are separate from one's official name on their birth certificate.

If this aforementioned assigned male person found that being called grandma was a source of comfort that made them feel more at ease, if one thing they remembered from being this woman was a feeling that they should be with the women, would that not be comparable to a trans woman's experience? To reiterate an earlier point, we don't have letters or diary entries from these pre-assimilation times. We may never know how many people felt this way. Combine that with the idea that names are inherent to who you are and the fact pronouns are entirely ungendered in all Inupiaq dialects, and I think the trans experience would look and feel very different within this culture. I can't definitively say it would be easier to live and be perceived as a man but feel as a woman, or vice versa, in this culture but I don't think it would be the same as in the current Euro-American cultures we're used to.

When I think about my identity and what it means, i find something very affirming in how my Eskimo name would have been given to boys and girls. By traditional cultural belief, that would mean I lived so many lives as so many different people, male and female, masculine and feminine. I could have been a warrior, a housewife, a keen-eyed berrypicker, an umialik maybe, I could have carved beautiful ivory pieces, been the best dancer, worn down my teeth chewing skins for sewing, and maybe, sometime in the 1960s, gasped at the scandalous implications of red nail polish.

So, in truth, I don't know if a nonbinary Inupiaq Sokka would understand themself as any gender specific Inupiaq culture, but I think they might have a unique relationship to the concept of gender from knowing the beliefs of the culture. That the masculine and the feminine need and support each other, that most people will have a little bit of both within them, that the Inupiat didn't even have separate words for "he" and "she" and the singular they. I know it's helped me understand and accept myself as a nonbinary Inupiaq.

[nothorses]

Are there transmasc horses?

This sounds like a shitpost ask, and I guess it sorta is, but I keep think about that Lioness who actually acts like a Lion and appears like a Lion, and I thought, oh I wonder if there's horses like that and if it would be noticeable to us humans!

I did some poking around, and this is the closest thing I could find to a decent source on the question:

Horses haven’t been studied to the extent that, say, chimpanzees have, and we complicate matters by gelding most of the males. But there’s anecdotal evidence of stallions and geldings who seemed to prefer each other to members of the opposite gender, and mares likewise. Some mares seem very stallion-y in their manners and priorities; some stallions seem to be less aggressive than usual. Observation points toward a spectrum of personalities and apparent gender characteristics in horses. Could a horse be transgender? Gender dysphoria in humans isn’t well understood, and we can’t ask a horse if she feels more like a stallion than a mare. But I actually have a mare here whose hormones and plumbing are normal, who actively resisted being bred even when in heat (when mares as a rule just Want That Boy Now), and whom in general I handle as if she were an intact male. Slacking off on that gets me physically hurt. I have no way of telling if she’s gender-dysphoric, but she certainly isn’t in the normal mare spectrum when it comes to her responses. She gets along well with other mares, shows no sexual interest in them. When turned out with the stallion, she got along with him, too—but she wouldn’t let him breed her. She goes into and out of estrus on a regular schedule. Maybe she’s asexual or aromantic? Again I can’t ask, but also again, she’s definitely on a different spectrum. I’ve met male horses, too, who seemed not to function well with hormones. When they matured from babies into adolescents, they seemed anxious and confused. Once gelded, they settled down with what looked remarkably like relief.

I think if we understand gender as being a combination of biological (physical), biological (mental), social, and cultural, it tracks that any animal could feasibly be a gender other than the one assigned to them based on their genitalia.

They may not have culture around their gender, or any real awareness of or relationship to one if they do, but they may still just Be a different gender; and we have no way of understanding whether they experience dysphoria, but perhaps some of them would be happier with a different body than the one they have.

That's all speculation, but I can personally attest to seeing a lot of the same personalities described in the quote above. What it means is up for debate, though, and whether it could be interpreted the way we interpret human gender is even more uncertain.

Sexual dimorphism in horses is pretty minor, generally speaking; the only real physical difference, generally speaking, is strictly genital configuration. There are behavioral patterns across genders, but no one singular rule. Personalities will differ in a herd environment vs. alone or with humans, and we don't always know what to ascribe personality traits to anyway (Pain/sickness? Training? Upbringing? There are a lot of external factors to consider before we take biological factors into consideration).

So idk! I think there are probably horses we'd interpret as trans out there, but I don't think we could determine that any singular horse is Definitely Trans in one specific way.

[a-room-of-my-own]

A while before the latest hoo-ha about Judith Butler, I had just been reading her again. Though she claims her critics have not read her, this simply isn’t the case. I read Gender Trouble when it first came out and it was important at the time . That time was long,long ago. She was just one of the many ‘post-structuralist’ thinkers I was into. I would trip off to see  Luce Irigaray or Derrida whenever they appeared.

I got an interview  with Baudrillard and tried to sell it to The Guardian but they  didn’t know who he was so its fair to say I was fairly immersed in that world of theory.  For a while, I had a part time lecturing job so I had to keep on top of it. Though Butler’s idea of gender as performance was not new , it was interesting.  RuPaul said it so much more clearly in a  quote nicked from  someone else “Honey ,we are born naked, the rest is drag”

What I was looking for again , I guess is not any clarity – her writing is famously and deliberately difficult-  but whether there was ever any sense of the material body. She wrote herself in 2004 “I confess however I am not a very good materialist. Every time I try to write about the body, the writing ends up being about language” . 

Butler from on high ,cannot really think about the body at all which is why they (Butler’s chosen pronoun) are now the high priestess of a particular kind of trans ideology.  The men who worship Butler are not versed in high theory. The fox botherer had a “brain swoon” at some very ordinary things Butler said. Mr Right Side of history nodded along in an interview. Clearly neither of these men are versed in any of this philosophy and would be better off sticking to tax law and the decline of the Labour Party. Butler is simply a totem for them.

Butler said in the Guardian interview for instance  “Gender is an assignment that does not just happen once: it is ongoing. We are assigned a sex at birth and then a slew of expectations follow which continue to “assign” gender to us.”

So yeah? That’s a fairly basic view of the social construction of gender though I take issue with the assigned at birth thing ,which I will come back to and why I started reading her again in the first place.

This phrase “Assigned sex at birth” is now common parlance but simply does not make sense  to me. I am living with someone who is pregnant. I have given birth three times and been a birthing  partner. I know where babies come from. There is a deep disconnect here between language and reality which no amount of academic jargon can obliterate. 

Babies  come from bodies. Not any bodies but bodies that have a uterus. They grew inside a woman’s body until they  get pushed out or dragged out into the world. 

The facts of life that we are now to be liberated from in the form of denial. Only one sex can have babies but we must now somehow not say that. The pregnant “people” of Texas will now be forced into giving birth to children they don’t want because they are simply “host bodies”. The language of patriarchal supremacy and that of some of the trans ideologues is remarkably close, as is their biological ignorance.

There is no foetal heatbeat at six weeks for instance. When a baby is born , doctors and midwives do not randomly assign a sex, they observe it and they do it though genitalia. 

There is a question over a tiny percentage of babies ,less that one percent with DSDs but even then they are sexed with doctors having  difficult conversations with parents about what may happen later.

Somehow, though when I read the way in which this is now all discussed it is clear to me that the people talking have never been pregnant, never had a foetal scan, never been near a birth , never miscarried, do not understand that even with a still birth babies are still sexed and often named. 

If you want to know the sex of your baby you can pay privately and know at 7 weeks ((*49-56 days from the first day of the mother’s last menstrual cycle). A 12 week scan will show it. That is why so many female foetuses are aborted . I have reported on this. 

Talking to paediatricians about this is interesting because they do indeed have to think through these things that we are being told are not real eg. that sex is just a by-product of colonialism for instance.  Sometimes pre-conception , geneticists will be looking at chromosomes because certain diseases are more likely in men or women. Males have a higher risk of haemophilia for instance.  

One doctor told me “When babies are premature, the survival advantage of females over males is well known throughout neonatology. This is sometimes something we talk about with parents when there is threatened premature labour around 23 weeks' gestation and options to discuss about resuscitation and medical interventions. In fertility treatment (or counselling around fertility in the context of medical treatments) it is pretty inherent to know whether we need to plan around sperm, or ova + pregnancy.”

She also said that if she involved in a birth that “assigning” isn’t the word she world use. “Observed genitals a highly reliable observation, just like measuring weight or head circumference which is also done at this time. “ Another doctor said that anyone involved with a trans man giving birth  would be doing the best for the patient in front  of them. 

Sex then is biological fact. A female baby will have all the eggs she will ever have when she is first born which is kind of amazing. It is not bio-essentialist to say that our sexed bodies are different nor is it transphobic to recognise it.

Except of course in my old newspaper ,The Guardian who are now so hamstrung by their  own ideology they have got their knickers in such a twist they can barely walk.  They completely misreported the WiSpa incident , basically ignored the Sonia  Appleby  judgement at the Tavistock. Appleby was a whistle blower ,a respected professional concerned with safe guarding. She won her case. The cherry on the cake this week was an interview with Butler, themselves (?) in which they went on about Terfs being fascists and needing to extend the category of women.

Does anyone EVER stop to think that most gender critical women are of the left, supporters of gay rights, often lesbian and that this is not America? We are not in bed with the far right. This is bollocks. Just another way to dismiss us.  

As we watch Afghanistan and Texas ,to say Butler’s words were tone deaf is to say the least. But they didn’t even have the guts to keep the most offensive stuff in the piece and overnight edited it out without really explaining why : the bits where Butler described gender critical people as fascist. Perhaps because the person their “reporters” had  defended against  transphobia at WiSpa turned out to be a known sex offender,  perhaps because someone pointed out that Butler was throwing around the word fascist rather like Rik Mayall used to do in the Young Ones. 

All of this is rather desperate and readers deserve better. When I left that newspaper I said that I thought and expected editors to stand up for their writers in public. Instead they go into some catatonic paralysis. I may have not liked this interview but it should never have been cut. Stand by what you publish or your credibility is shot.

But this is about more than Judith Butler and their refusal to support women . Butler is not really any kind of feminist at all. What this is about is the large edifice of trans ideology  crumbling when any real analysis is applied. Yes, I have read Shon Faye’s book and there are some interesting points in it and I totally agree that the lives of trans people should be easier and health care better . I have never said anything but that.

What Faye does in the book is say that there can be no trans liberation under capitalism so there will be a bit of a wait I suspect. 

Yet surely it is the other way round and what we are seeing is that trans ideology (not trans people – I am making a distinction here ) represent the apex of capitalism .

For it means that the individual decides their own gendered essence and then spends a fortune on surgery and a lifetime on medication to achieve the appearance of it. Of course lots of people spend a lifetime  on medication but not out of choice.  Marx understood very well that the abolition of our system of production would free up women.

Now it is all about freeing up men. Who say they are women. Quelle surprise.  

 Nussbaum’s famous take down of Butler is premised exactly on the sense of individual versus collective struggle “ The great tragedy in the new feminist theory in America is the loss of a sense of public commitment. In this sense, Butler’s self-involved feminism is extremely American, and it is not surprising that it has caught on here, where successful middle-class people prefer to focus on cultivating the self rather than thinking in a way that helps the material condition of others. “

Such thinking now dominates academia. There is simply an unquestioning  rehearsal of something most of know not to be true thus Amia Srinivasan writes in The Right to Sex  “At birth, bodies are sorted as ‘male’ or ‘female’, though many bodies must be mutilated to fit one category or the other, and many bodies will later protest against the decision that was made. This originary division determines what social purpose a body will be assigned.”

What does ‘sorted’ mean here? A tiny number of intersex babies are born. A tiny number of people are trans and decide to change their bodies. The feminist demand to challenge gender norms without mutilating any one’s body no longer matters. What matters now is this retrograde return  to some gendered soul. This is not something any decent Marxist would have any truck with . Of course one may change over a lifetime and of course gender is never ‘settled.’ We are complex people who inhabit bodies that often don’t work or appear as we want them to.

But not only is there a denial of basic Marxism going on here , what becomes ever more apparent is  that there is a denial of motherhood. Butler said “Yet gender is also what is made along the way – we can take over the power of assignment, make it into self-assignment, which can include sex reassignment at a legal and medical level.”

Self-assignment is key . One may birth oneself. No longer of woman born but self -made. This is a theoretical leap but it also one that has profound implications for women as a sex class. We are really then, just the  host bodies to a new breed of people who self-assign.

Maybe that is the future although look around the word and there isn’t a lot of self-assignment going on. There are simply women shot and beaten in the street, choked to death or having  their rights taken  away. There is no identifying out of this , there is no fluidity here . This is not discourse. It is brutality and do we not have some responsibility to other women to confront male violence ?

Instead the hatred is aided and abetted by so called philosophers describing  other women as Terfs. It is utterly depressing.

The sexed body. The pregnant body. The dying body. The body is in trouble when we can’t talk about it . I thought of Margaret Mary O’Hara’s  beautiful and  strange lyrics and what they might mean. I await my child’s return from the hospital as hers is a difficult pregnancy and thank god they are on the case. The sex of the child she carries does not matter to me at all .

It simply exists. Not in language but within a body. 

Why is that so difficult to acknowledge? 

[mayah-bay-bee]

The age of a new legacy-Light Yagami x Reader

WARNING: This work contains 18+ Content so MINORS DO NOT INTERACT. It also contains breeding kink/pregnancy kink and I made light like stealing underwear so don’t @ me lmao. The reader has female genitalia like a boobs and vagina but is using gender neutral pronouns (it wasn’t specified). Perhaps a little cuss word here and there but nothing too graphic. THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS TO THE ANIME N STUFF!!!

This was requested by: @miriowned thank you so much for the requests!! my box is empty lmao.

After Light’s father died, Light distracted himself in other ways. One of which being you.

You were a new recruit to the Police unit in Japan and that’s where you were assigned the Kira case. This is the time in which Light found a liking to you.

You both decided it’d be best to live together to work on the Kira case 24/7 , you didn’t think much of it until you noticed your bras and panties going missing around laundry day. You thought maybe I just miss placed them? but oh were you wrong.

————

Before your missing undergarments situation, you noticed that Light broke up with Misa Misa. You didn’t wanna be a snoop or anything but you had to find out with Light was the one stealing your underwear.

That’s how you two started dating.

After you two started dating you found out that he was Kira, it took a lot of trust but he loved you so it didn’t really matter. That’s when you started noticing his search history on his home laptop.

You were snooping, clicking the mouse repeatedly to find…. pregnant women? Out of all the kinks in the world, your boyfriend is interested in pregnant women.

You were so confused that you didn’t hear the door click, signifying your boyfriend was home.

“What are you doing?” A stern voice asked from behind you.

You slammed the laptop shut and turned around to face your boyfriend who had just came home from work. “I needed to look something up.”

Light chuckled. “You’re hilarious, well I guess you know all my secrets now.” He rubbed his neck.

You swallowed hard. “Light, I’m sorry, but you like pregnant women?”

Light nodded and grabbed your wrists, pushing you up against the wall. “Indeed I do, but it pains me to look at other people when I can look at you.” He placed a hand over your stomach and smiled.

“What the hell are you saying?” You mumbled as you started to melt at his touch.

Your boyfriend continued to speak. “We need someone to carry on the legacy, when I die I need someone to be Kira and I want that person to be our baby.” He brought his head down to your neck and suckled hickies into your neck, bringing his right hand down to slip it into your underwear.

You gasped, breaking one hand free to help Light’s hand finger-fuck you. You moaned at the feeling of your boyfriend pleasuring you and only you.

Before you knew it you were thrown on the bed, every piece of clothing you were wearing had either been torn or thrown across the room. Light had one thing on his mind and that was to breed, breed, breed.

You closed your eyes and felt something hard poke at your entrance, you didn’t have time to comprehend anything and you soon felt a delightful stretch followed by slow thrusts from your boyfriend.

“Do you like when I fuck you, Y/N?” Light groaned as his thrusts got harder.

You nodded your head and moaned loudly at his words, reaching your hands up to pull at his chocolate locks. “Light-“ You whined, “Faster, I want your babies,” You gasped as your boyfriend thrusted faster and faster.

Sooner or later you were reaching your orgasm with your boyfriend, feeling him fill you with his cum made your orgasm even better than before.

Light looked down to see a slide bump in your pelvic area, he pushed down and saw how some cum leaked out. He held your hips up and groaned, you looked at him confused.

“I’m not letting any of our possible babies get out.”

[khali-shabd]

Gender Theory

Readers, let us begin with a simple question- what is gender?

The Biological Theory Of Gender, and a majority of society, would say that gender is defined by biological sex, namely hormones and chromosomes. If you release estrogen and have XX chromosomes, you are female, and if you release testosterone and have XY chromosomes, you are male. However, this is an extremely flawed vision of gender for two reasons: one, that whatever proof of hormones altering gendered behaviour has been found only in lab rats1, which possibly will not exhibit the same extreme change in behaviour if the hormones were administered to them naturally in their own environment- and rats are not human- we have far too many differences as species for this study to be considered valid for homosapiens as well. And two, chromosomes are not strictly XX or XY- around 1 percent of the world population is intersex (and a similar percentage is redheaded, so its not inherently ‘anomalous’ or ‘unnatural’) , which means that they can have chromosomal variations such as XXY, X, XXXY etc, all of whom develop differently as compared to people with the traditional chromosome combinations. 

Further, there are far more things that define ‘biological sex’, namely:

chromosomes

gonads

sex hormones

internal reproductive anatomy (such as the uterus)

external genitalia.

Out of these, in humans, genitalia and internal reproductive anatomy can be changed without there being a significant change in gendered behavior. Sex hormones, when administered to bodies change secondary sex characteristics more than any sort of behavior; with the exception of testosterone increasing sex drive and sometimes increasing ‘ego’. Every single part of this definition of binary biological sex is challenged by the existence of intersex people, henceforth proving that sex is not binary and never has been, unfounding the existence of a sex-based gender binary in itself. Further, transgender individuals have a completely different gender identity as compared to their biological sex, and it has been scientifically proved that this is because their brains develop in the same way the brains of the children of the gender they identify with do. That essentially means that the brain of a transgender woman develops similarly to the brain of a cisgender woman, and the brain of a transgender man develops in the same way the brain of a cisgender man develops. All in all, there are far too many differences in the experience of biological sex to confine it to a binary, hence unfounding the theory that gender is based on biological sex.

Then how do we define gender?

There are a number of theories, but the most logical one at the moment would be Judith Butler’s Theory of Gender Performativity. Butler says that gender, as an abstract concept in itself, is nothing more than a performance. We ‘perform’ our gender by carrying out actions that we associate with it. They further say that this does not mean that it’s something we can stop altogether, rather something we’ve ingrained so deeply within us that it becomes a part of our identity, and it's the part of it we call gender identity. Gender, hence, is created by its own performance. Butler also implies that we do not base gender on sex, rather we define sex along the lines of established lines of binary gener, i.e. male and female- despite the fact that more than 10% of the population does not fall into this binary sex, and has some variation in their biological sex that does not ‘fit’ into either category. Gender in itself is so culturally constructed by western society that anyone who does not perform their assigned gender ‘correctly’ is punished- this applies to not only queer individuals but even men who do not ascribe to or criticise predefined ideals of masculinity. They are made social pariahs and excluded as outcasts, leaving them to find and create their own communities and safe spaces. This is shown in the way society ostracises queer-presenting individuals, makes fun of ‘soft’ men, and forcefully tries to ‘fix’ intersex children whose variations in biological sex cause no harm to them. I quote:

“Because there is neither an ‘essence’ that gender expresses or externalizes nor an objective ideal to which gender aspires; because gender is not a fact, the various acts of gender create the idea of gender, and without those acts, there would be no gender at all. Gender is, thus, a construction that regularly conceals its genesis. The tacit collective agreement to perform, produce, and sustain discrete and polar genders as cultural fictions is obscured by the credibility of its own production. The authors of gender become entranced by their own fictions whereby the construction compels one’s belief in its necessity and naturalness.”

One of the criticisms of Butler’s theories is that it does not seem to apply to transgender individuals, whose innate gender identity is not the one that they have been assigned to perform at birth; whose brains develop the same way that their cisgender counterparts’ brains do from birth. Butler themselves have responded to this, saying:

“I do know that some people believe that I see gender as a “choice” rather than as an essential and firmly fixed sense of self. My view is actually not that. No matter whether one feels one’s gendered and sexed reality to be firmly fixed or less so, every person should have the right to determine the legal and linguistic terms of their embodied lives. So whether one wants to be free to live out a “hard-wired” sense of sex or a more fluid sense of gender, is less important than the right to be free to live it out, without discrimination, harassment, injury, pathologization or criminalization – and with full institutional and community support.”

Later on, Butler goes on to say that the main point of their theory is that identity is constructed, which means that it allows us to change how we view it as a concept. It leaves room for us to subvert gender roles, challenging the status quo on what it means to identify as someone of a particular gender, and re-structuring society such that we rally for change not along gender lines, rather on the basis of what’s right.

Further, if we combine the work of the psychologist Sigmund Freud with Butler’s theories, the latter does actually apply to transgender individuals. Freudian theory states that we internalize concepts of gender based on our parental figures at birth. That is, if you are born female, you begin to look towards the person who closest resembles your gender identity; which in this case would be your mother, to be your role model for your behavior as to how women are meant to act. Your mother would be your guide to how you perform your gender. If she crosses her legs, you cross your legs. If she dresses in a particular way, you would too, until you were exposed to the exterior world and allowed to develop your own sense of style. As such, you create your own gender identity within your mind, and perform that identity the way you have been taught to by your maternal figure. When you are transgender, you view yourself as innately as the gender you identify with, hence you base your gender identity off the parental figure of that particular gender. This means, if you are female to male trans, you would base your gender identity on your father, and accordingly perform your gender in that way.

Now the question arises: How do we create gender identity outside of gender roles? How do we identify anywhere on the gender spectrum while abandoning the performance that comes with that identity? Why is it important?

Well, the answer isn’t simple. For its importance, I allude, once again, to gender performativity theory- Butler even uses some evolutionary stances to support her views, saying that gender performance stems from gender roles which stem from the fundamental differences between the prominent male and female sex at the very beginning of evolution. Now that 'evolutionary' behaviors don't matter at this stage of societal, cultural, and psychological development, it renders gender roles and hence the performance of gender redundant. However, we still perpetuate these ideas regardless of their importance, or rather their lack of such. And in this process, we end up defining and segregating far too much on the basis of gender- from small things like friendships to even the feminist movement, which is majorly perpetuated and held up by people who identify as female. Other groups like men end up purposely excluding themselves from a movement that can benefit them as well(through deconstructing and eradicating ideas of toxic masculinity) just because of how strongly it is divided on the basis of gender lines. And as for how we create gender identity outside of gender roles; it takes a lot of work, at first, to unlearn all the biases you have internalized about what it means to be a certain gender. You have to actively work towards deconstructing what gender and gender identity means to you, and how much of it comes from societally misguided stances about the ‘role’ of a gender is. It may mean ridding yourselves of the school of thought that women belong in the kitchen and men belong in workplaces or even identifying and removing hidden biases such as those of toxic masculinity and/or toxic femininity. Lastly, it takes an understanding that often, gender expression is not the same as gender identity; and also that most gender expression is how people show how they feel the most comfortable viewing themselves. Once you’ve managed to deconstruct your biases, it’s just a matter of how you feel comfortable viewing and expressing yourself; and what label, among the myriad, you identify with the most. That would be your unique self-expression and identity.

[residentofthedisc]

An Open Letter From an Autistic Transgender Man to J.K. Rowling

Dear Ms. Rowling.

This is a response to your comment made on the 10th of June 2020 on your blog about autistic transgender men being victims of manipulation by transgender activists and misogynistic beliefs. My name for this scenario is Unsigned. I am a twenty-one-year-old autistic transgender man and I feel compelled to write this open letter addressing your statement. As in any essay, academic or otherwise, the introduction must serve to provide the reader with the basics of the essay’s intentions.

I believe that I can sum up the heart of my argument in three simple sentences.

1.     I am not your tragedy.

2.     I am not your prop.

3.     I am certainly not your weapon.

Firstly, before I go into this properly, as you can imagine, I was disgusted and grieved to wake up that morning and find that my existence had been filed into a weapon to harm and discredit those within my own community. I was especially sickened by your decision to release said statement – and your earlier one about an article describing menstruation with gender neutral terminology – during Pride Month, and amidst a historical and important Black Lives Matter movement. This seems to be an underhanded and inflammatory choice, of which, I must say, I do not approve.

Now, statement number one. Autistic people have long been mischaracterised as being – for lack of a better word – infantile. We are treated, regardless of our support needs (which is hardly an indicator of age), as eternal children. Our existence is spoken of in hushed tones, people deny their own children lifesaving medicine in fear of them becoming us, and we are spoken over and silenced by those around us. Being on the spectrum does not mean that we are something lesser. It does not mean that we are sick or broken. It does not even mean that we are something other. We simply are what we are.

We have been needlessly abused, mistreated, and not believed. If you, Ms. Rowling, wish to assist autistic people in the advancements of our rights and human dignity, you would turn your immense influence towards providing a more accurate understanding of autism, amplifying autistic voices (non, semi, and fully verbal and every gender and race), and supporting autistic-lead organisations such as the National Autistic Society. You do not help us, Ms. Rowling, by attacking and belittling members of our community who are already disadvantaged by transphobic attitudes. Our existence is not a tragedy, Ms. Rowling, we are simply human beings with differing needs and worldly understandings, and we do not need you to defend us against imaginary evil when there is real evil being done to us.

Statement number two. Autistic people are not props to be moved around the theatre of your performative prejudice. As difficult as it may be to believe, we are people with the capabilities to make up our own minds and make our own decisions. We are capable of understanding who we are. That is our decision to make. Not yours.

Your statement that autistic transgender men has increased is… true. But only to a point. We have not increased in number because of people pushing us down this path. We have increased because now we have access to the vocabulary to name what we are feeling, there is increased understanding and acceptance, and autistic assigned-female-at-birth people are now having their voices heard and being officially diagnosed. We are not being manipulated. We are coming to conclusions based on new information, which is how you grow as a person and understand more about the world. You change your opinions. You grow. That is what these autistic transgender men have done. It takes an extortionate amount of time and courage to gather help and have your feelings believed by doctors and parents. We are not running off and slicing off our breasts and genitals on a whim. We fight for our right to transition. It takes years and the negotiation of a circus-full of hoops. It is not a spur of the moment decision. We are not doing to look cool or fit in. We have realised something monumental about ourselves and we are acting on it. And if it appears that we change our minds again? Good. We are learning more and more about ourselves. You are not part of that process.

Lastly, I am not a weapon. My autism is not a weapon. It has been used as such, many times. It means I struggle with high levels of sensory input. I struggle with social situations and social cues. I have special interests and obsessions over little things. But I am not stupid. I am not alone. I have different views of the world. I am not something for you to hone against your transphobic whetstone. Let me explain myself.

I believe that gender and sex are two different things. Sex is to do with your genitals, your chromosomes. It has nothing to do with your brain. Gender is how you present yourself – it is a construct which you form about your own personality and likes. My genitals have nothing to do with how I present myself. And I feel male so that is what I am. This is not a moral statement, but a factual one. I am male. Gender is a social idea – our views on what makes someone male or female or intersex or non-binary have changed with the times and seasons. A man today would not be an ideal man back in ancient Greece.

Funny thing about autistic people? We tend not to pick up or agree with social ideas. Our autism does affect how we view the world and – personally – gender just seems to be a bit… simple. I have no idea why my genitalia should dictate which pronouns I use because someone else decided that that was fine. Or the idea that having a penis or a vagina or any combination of the above changes my personality.  Rather like someone deciding that electroshock therapy for gay people was fine. It feels disingenuous to try and stuff a massive spectrum of personal enlightenment into two little boxes which we cannot move from. I knew I was transgender long, long before I knew I was autistic. There were no sinister transgender women creeping into my room when I was seven and whispering insidious transgender messages into my little ear. I was not even aware of what transgender was until I was around twelve. I did not have an accurate understanding of autism until I was fourteen. And not knowing the words did not change what I was. I was merely given the lexicon of my struggles and a voice with which to speak the language.

Additionally, if it is sex-based problems you say transgender people get in the way of, then why not speak purely on sex? ‘Menstruators’ or ‘people who menstruate’ gets to the intended audience far more accurately than ‘women’. Some cis women do not have wombs. And the first wave of feminism was about separating women’s rights from their biology. Why circle back around to that?

So, trans men are men because they feel male. Transgender women are women for the same reasons. And believe me, there are a negligible amount of predatory men (because that is who you are truly angry with, transgender women are your scapegoats), if any, who would subject themselves to the dangers transgender women face to circumnavigate an obstacle such as a door which says women only. They can just open the door and get inside to do their evil without this ridiculous rigmarole which you suggest they do. Really. And autistic transgender men are men. We are not confused.

Unlike you, Ms. Rowling, I do not pretend to speak for all autistic people. But I can speak for those within my own community. We do not want to speak these lines you’ve forced down our throats. I stand with my transgender siblings, especially my sisters, and I will not be used against my friends. Not by you and not by anyone.

[pridebooks]

It’s Trans Day of Visibility, so have some books!!

Full list of books (with synopses) under the cut.

First picture: Books by trans authors (most also have trans characters)

Memoirs of a Man’s Maiden Years by N. O. Body - "I was born a boy, raised as a girl. . . . One may raise a healthy boy in as womanish a manner as one wishes, and a female creature in as mannish; never will this cause their senses to remain forever reversed." So writes the pseudonymous N. O. Body, born in 1884 with ambiguous genitalia and assigned a female identity in early infancy. Brought up as a girl, "she" nevertheless asserted stereotypical male behavior from early on. In the end, it was a passionate love affair with a married woman that brought matters to a head. Desperately confused, suicidally depressed, and in consultation with Magnus Hirschfeld, one of the most eminent and controversial sexologists of the day, "she" decided to become "he." N. O. Body was identified as Karl M. Baer (he/him).

Spy Stuff by Matthew J. Metzger - Anton never thought anyone would ever want to date him. Everyone knows nobody wants a transgender boyfriend, right? So he's as shocked as anyone when seemingly-straight Jude Kalinowski asks him out, and doesn't appear to be joking.The only problem is ... well, Jude doesn't actually know.Anton can see how this will play out: Jude is a nice guy, and nice guys finish last. And Anton is transgender, and transgender people don't get happy endings. If he tells Jude, it might destroy everything.And if Jude tells anyone else ... it will. Matthew J. Metzger (he/him) is a queer trans man.

I Wish You All The Best by Mason Deaver - When Ben De Backer comes out to their parents as nonbinary, they're thrown out of their house and forced to move in with their estranged older sister, Hannah, and her husband, Thomas, whom Ben has never even met. Struggling with an anxiety disorder compounded by their parents' rejection, they come out only to Hannah, Thomas, and their therapist and try to keep a low profile in a new school.But Ben's attempts to survive the last half of senior year unnoticed are thwarted when Nathan Allan, a funny and charismatic student, decides to take Ben under his wing. As Ben and Nathan's friendship grows, their feelings for each other begin to change, and what started as a disastrous turn of events looks like it might just be a chance to start a happier new life.At turns heartbreaking and joyous, I Wish You All the Best is both a celebration of life, friendship, and love, and a shining example of hope in the face of adversity Mason Deaver (they/them) is nonbinary.

George by Alex Gino -When people look at George, they think they see a boy. But she knows she's not a boy. She knows she's a girl.George thinks she'll have to keep this a secret forever. Then her teacher announces that their class play is going to be Charlotte's Web. George really, really, REALLY wants to play Charlotte. But the teacher says she can't even try out for the part . . . because she's a boy.With the help of her best friend, Kelly, George comes up with a plan. Not just so she can be Charlotte -- but so everyone can know who she is, once and for all. Alex Gino (they/them) is genderqueer.

Starglass by Phoebe North -  Terra has never known anything but life aboard the Asherah, a city-within-a-spaceship that left Earth five hundred years ago in search of refuge. At sixteen, working a job that doesn't interest her, and living with a grieving father who only notices her when he's yelling, Terra is sure that there has to be more to life than what she's got. But when she inadvertently witnesses the captain's guard murdering an innocent man, Terra is suddenly thrust into the dark world beneath her ship's idyllic surface. As she's drawn into a secret rebellion determined to restore power to the people, Terra discovers that her choices may determine life or death for the people she cares most about. With mere months to go before landing on the long-promised planet, Terra has to make the decision of a lifetime--one that will determine the fate of her people. Phoebe North (they/them) is genderqueer.

Power Surge by Sara Codair - Erin has just realized that for the entirety of their life, their family has lied to them. Their Sight has been masked for years, so Erin thought the Pixies and Mermaids were hallucinations. Not only are the supernatural creatures they see daily real, but their grandmother is an Elf, meaning Erin isn’t fully human. On top of that, the dreams Erin thought were nightmares are actually prophecies.While dealing with the anger they have over all of the lies, they are getting used to their new boyfriend, their boyfriend's bullying ex, and the fact that they come from a family of Demon Hunters. As Erin struggles through everything weighing on them, they uncover a Demon plot to take over the world.Erin just wants some time to work through it all on their own terms, but that's going to have to wait until after they help save the world. Sara Codair (they/she) is nonbinary.

Out of Salem by Hal Schrieve - When genderqueer fourteen-year-old Z Chilworth wakes from death after a car crash that killed their parents and sisters, they have to adjust quickly to their new status as a zombie. Always a talented witch, Z can now barely perform magic and is rapidly decaying. Faced with rejection from their remaining family members and old friends, Z moves in with Mrs. Dunnigan, an elderly witch, and befriends Aysel, a loud would-be-goth classmate who is, like Z, a loner. As Z struggles to find a way to repair the broken magical seal holding their body together, Aysel fears that her classmates will discover her status as an unregistered werewolf. When a local psychiatrist is murdered in an apparent werewolf attack, the town of Salem, Oregon, becomes even more hostile to monsters, and Z and Aysel are driven together in an attempt to survive a place where most people wish that neither of them existed. Hal Schrieve (xie/hir) is a genderfluid trans man.

This is Kind of an Epic Love Story by Kacen Callender - Nathan Bird doesn’t believe in happy endings. Although he’s the ultimate film buff and an aspiring screenwriter, Nate’s seen the demise of too many relationships to believe that happy endings exist in real life.Playing it safe to avoid a broken heart has been his MO ever since his father died and left his mom to unravel—but this strategy is not without fault. His best-friend-turned-girlfriend-turned-best-friend-again, Florence, is set on making sure Nate finds someone else. And in a twist that is rom-com-worthy, someone does come along: Oliver James Hernández, his childhood best friend.After a painful mix-up when they were little, Nate finally has the chance to tell Ollie the truth about his feelings. But can Nate find the courage to pursue his own happily ever after?  Kacen Callender (they/them) is a demiboy.

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee - Captain Kel Cheris of the hexarchate is disgraced for using unconventional methods in a battle against heretics. Kel Command gives her the opportunity to redeem herself by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles, a star fortress that has recently been captured by heretics. Cheris’s career isn’t the only thing at stake. If the fortress falls, the hexarchate itself might be next.Cheris’s best hope is to ally with the undead tactician Shuos Jedao. The good news is that Jedao has never lost a battle, and he may be the only one who can figure out how to successfully besiege the fortress.The bad news is that Jedao went mad in his first life and massacred two armies, one of them his own. As the siege wears on, Cheris must decide how far she can trust Jedao–because she might be his next victim. Yoon Ha Lee (he/him) is a trans man.

Second pic: Books with trans characters

Gracefully Grayson by Ami Polonsky -  Alone at home, twelve-year-old Grayson Sender glows, immersed in beautiful thoughts and dreams. But at school, Grayson grasps at shadows, determined to fly under the radar. Because Grayson has been holding onto a secret for what seems like forever: “he” is a girl on the inside, stuck in the wrong gender’s body.The weight of this secret is crushing, but leaving it behind would mean facing ridicule, scorn, and rejection. Despite these dangers, Grayson’s true self itches to break free. Strengthened by an unexpected friendship and a caring teacher who gives her a chance to step into the spotlight, Grayson might finally have the tools to let her inner light shine.

Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kirstin Cronn-Mills - "This is Beautiful Music for Ugly Children, on community radio 90.3, KZUK. I'm Gabe. Welcome to my show."My birth name is Elizabeth, but I'm a guy. Gabe. My parents think I've gone crazy and the rest of the world is happy to agree with them, but I know I'm right. I've been a boy my whole life.When you think about it, I'm like a record. Elizabeth is my A side, the song everybody knows, and Gabe is my B side--not heard as often, but just as good.It's time to let my B side play.

Symptoms of Being Human by Jeff Garvin - The first thing you’re going to want to know about me is: Am I a boy, or am I a girl?Riley Cavanaugh is many things: Punk rock. Snarky. Rebellious. And gender fluid. Some days Riley identifies as a boy, and others as a girl. The thing is…Riley isn’t exactly out yet. And between starting a new school and having a congressman father running for reelection in uber-conservative Orange County, the pressure—media and otherwise—is building up in Riley’s so-called “normal” life.On the advice of a therapist, Riley starts an anonymous blog to vent those pent-up feelings and tell the truth of what it’s REALLY like to be a gender fluid teenager. But just as Riley’s starting to settle in at school—even developing feelings for a mysterious outcast—the blog goes viral, and an unnamed commenter discovers Riley’s real identity, threatening exposure. Riley must make a choice: walk away from what the blog has created—a lifeline, new friends, a cause to believe in—or stand up, come out, and risk everything.

The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson - David Piper has always been an outsider. His parents think he's gay. The school bully thinks he’s a freak. Only his two best friends know the real truth: David wants to be a girl.On the first day at his new school Leo Denton has one goal: to be invisible. Attracting the attention of the most beautiful girl in his class is definitely not part of that plan. When Leo stands up for David in a fight, an unlikely friendship forms. But things are about to get messy. Because at Eden Park School secrets have a funny habit of not staying secret for long…

Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller - Sallot Leon is a thief, and a good one at that. But gender fluid Sal wants nothing more than to escape the drudgery of life as a highway robber and get closer to the upper-class—and the nobles who destroyed their home.When Sal steals a flyer for an audition to become a member of The Left Hand—the Queen’s personal assassins, named after the rings she wears—Sal jumps at the chance to infiltrate the court and get revenge.But the audition is a fight to the death filled with clever circus acrobats, lethal apothecaries, and vicious ex-soldiers. A childhood as a common criminal hardly prepared Sal for the trials. And as Sal succeeds in the competition, and wins the heart of Elise, an intriguing scribe at court, they start to dream of a new life and a different future, but one that Sal can have only if they survive.

The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried by Shaun David Hutchinson - A good friend will bury your body, a best friend will dig you back up.Dino doesn’t mind spending time with the dead. His parents own a funeral home, and death is literally the family business. He’s just not used to them talking back. Until Dino’s ex-best friend July dies suddenly—and then comes back to life. Except not exactly. Somehow July is not quite alive, and not quite dead.As Dino and July attempt to figure out what’s happening, they must also confront why and how their friendship ended so badly, and what they have left to understand about themselves, each other, and all those grand mysteries of life.

I Was Born For This by Alice Oseman -  For Angel Rahimi, life is only about one thing: The Ark – a pop-rock trio of teenage boys who are currently taking the world by storm. Being part of The Ark’s fandom has given her everything – her friendships, her dreams, her place in the world. Jimmy Kaga-Ricci owes everything to The Ark too. He’s their frontman – and playing in a band is all he’s ever dreamed of doing. It’s just a shame that recently everything in his life seems to have turned into a bit of a nightmare. Because that’s the problem with dreaming – eventually, inevitably, real life arrives with a wake-up call. And when Angel and Jimmy are unexpectedly thrust together, they will discover just how strange and surprising facing up to reality can be.

The Pants Project by Cat Clarke - Whoever wrote the uniform policy decided (whyyy?) that girls had to wear skirts, while boys were allowed to wear pants. Sexist. Dumb. Unfair. “Girls must wear a black, pleated, knee-length skirt.” I bet I read those words a hundred times during summer vacation. The problem wasn’t the last word in that sentence. Skirt wasn’t really the issue, not for me. The issue was the first word. Girls. Here’s the thing: I may seem like a girl, but on the inside, I’m a boy.