#but similar to that. is the act of wanting to pass as cis betraying the trans community?

[aceaceace144616]

How am I supposed to be bisexual AND trans?

Someone please give me instructions

[genderkoolaid]

I hate how sometimes as a transmasc guy I feel like I'm betraying the cause kind of. Like I end up feeling awkward about stuff that's supposed to be great for women because it's not for me anymore.

Most recent time came when I stumbled upon some reddit drama over women only parking spaces which are in better lit areas close to the exit. I don't want to side with the "I guess I'll identify as a woman for ten minutes while I park" types but sometimes I feel like I'm forced to shove myself back into the woman box if I want that safety.

Also the many "girls in STEM" opportunities. Like it's good that they're there, but I hate having to either feel really uncomfortable but still get the opportunity or try and navigate that world how a man would while I still look and sound like a cis woman.

Also this one orchestra I'm in, where a while ago we were trying to pick a composer to commission, and the director noted that he decided not to put any white male composers on the recommended shortlist. Again, I get where he's coming from, but then I worry that once I transition I'll be just another white male. Maybe that would net me some opportunities if I pass well, but it hurts a bit knowing that in some people's eyes I'll fade into the boring grey amalgamation of suits and ties oppressing everyone else.

I think this is a pretty common experience.

This is what happens when feminism fails trans men & other gender-oppressed people who are not women. Cisfeminism in general forces trans people to fight over who gets to count as a woman & therefore be deserving of feminist support, because the feminist framework being used was never made for us. The fact that trans people who aren't women- or aren't exclusively women, or are read as cis men- are vulnerable and under-represented goes ignored & we struggle to have our voices heard.

Its also part of the harmful ways trans men are expected to act in order to have our identities respected. We are expected to pass, go stealth (or at least not bring up being trans "too much"), and never talk about how our experiences differ from those of cis men. Nonbinary & genderqueer transmascs are expected to either dissociate themselves from men or never talk about being NB/GQ. We are told we are othering ourselves when we point out that groups in which cis men are heavily represented have never featured trans men to any remotely similar extent. It sucks and its part of "affirming" transmasc erasure: instead of being erased through misgendering, we are erased by having our transness ignored so no one actually has to confront societal & individual bigotry against trans-men.

[gclddvst]

hello  !!  i’m  anna  (  8teen  ,  they  /  them  ,  aest  )  &  i’m  currently  playing  just  the  one  muse  —  asher  lau  ,  the  victor  of  the  70th  hunger  games  ,  from  district  two  ,  who  seems  like  the  softest  victor  ever  because  he  hates  killing  people  but  is  also  a  world  -  class  backstabber  .  think  richard  iii  crossed  with  hamlet  .  i  hate  him  .  for  more  information  ,  read  on  ,  and  hit  the  like  button  or  message  me  on  discord  at  anna#9701  if  you’d  like  to  plot  !

[  MARK  TUAN  ,  CIS  MALE  ,  HE  /  HIM  . ]    introducing  asher  lau  ,  VICTOR  of  the  70th  hunger  games  ,  representing  district  two  .  my  sources  say  that  they  are  twenty  -  six  years  old  ,  &  that  they’re  pretty  handy  with  explosives  &  close  -  range  weapons  . wonder  if  that  did  them  any  good  in  the  arena  ?  anyways  ,  caesar  says  you  can’t  miss  them  ,  because  they  remind  everyone  of  broken  ,  unfinished  statues  with  sharp  edges  ;  the  colour  of  the  horizon  half  an  hour  after  sunset  ;  silent  tears  and  shaking  hands  ;  promises  that  were  never  meant  to  be  kept  .

statistics

name  :  asher  lau

nickname/s  :  ash

age  :  twenty  -  six

gender  :  cis  male

pronouns  :  he  /  him

orientation  :  bi

occupation  :  stonemason

face  claim  :  mark  tuan

persona

asher  is  a  very  …  interesting  person  .  he’s  always  been  a  very  gentle  &  soft  -  seeming  person  ,  even  after  the  games  revealed  what  he  was  capable  of  .  and  he  is  a  fairly  soft  person  ,  for  the  most  part  —  he’s  just  also  a  little  …  machiavellian  .

he  has  an  odd  moral  compass  —  he  hates  violence  ,  but  he  views  things  like  honesty  and  loyalty  as  a  sort  of  foolishness  or  naïveté  and  very  rarely  is  completely  honest  .  lies  make  up  his  entire  life  .

when  he’s  around  others  ,  asher  acts  sure  of  himself  .  he  pretends  that  he’s  proud  of  what  he  did  to  win  ,  that  he  believes  he  deserved  to  win  .  people  have  certain  expectations  of  district  two  victors  ,  and  he  seems  to  fill  them  perfectly  .  if  he  were  a  capitol  resident  ,  he  would  have  been  an  actor  .

some  other  words  that  can  describe  asher  :  pensive  /  withdrawn  ,  clever  /  analytical  ,  unforgiving  ,  deceptive  .

just  for  fun  ,  here  are  his  dark  core  test  results  !  he’s  not  a  great  person  ,  yike  .  (  they’re  not  wholly  accurate  ,  the  egoism  is  way  off  ,  he  has  no  self  -  esteem  )

early life

tw  :  death  ,  minor  child  neglect

asher  lau  was  the  youngest  of  four  children  —  key  word  being  was  .  for  the  first  six  years  of  his  life  ,  everything  was  normal  —  he  stayed  home  with  his  mother  until  he  was  old  enough  for  school  ,  while  his  elder  siblings  were  all  already  at  school  —  and  his  eldest  brother  spent  all  his  free  time  training  to  become  a  peacekeeper  ,  which  their  parents  frowned  upon  ,  because  the  family  had  never  been  one  of  those  district  two  families  ,  far  more  focused  on  their  craft  ,  producing  stunning  statues  and  decorations  for  capitol  buildings  .

his  eldest  sister  ,  the  second  -  eldest  child  in  the  family  ,  was  the  first  to  die  ,  killed  in  a  freak  accident  at  the  quarry  .  a  poorly  -  timed  explosion  ,  a  weak  patch  of  earth  ,  a  rockfall  ,  and  the  number  of  lau  children  went  down  .

his  eldest  brother  ,  the  peacekeeper  -  in  -  training  ,  was  the  second  —  killed  in  one  of  the  hunger  games  when  asher  was  still  young  ,  ten  at  the  oldest  .

then  it  was  just  asher  and  his  other  elder  brother  —  who  passed  away  of  illness  when  asher  was  fifteen  .

his  parents  are  still  alive  ,  but  were  never  particularly  close  to  any  of  their  children  ,  always  busy  taking  on  important  commissions  from  capitol  residents  .

so  by  fifteen  ,  asher  was  pretty  much  alone  ,  and  as  such  chose  to  throw  himself  into  things  that  made  him  feel  less  lonely  :  peacekeeper  /  hunger  games  training  and  art  .  despite  being  a  child  ,  he’d  already  attracted  a  following  of  richer  people  who  liked  his  work  —  small  garden  statues  shaped  to  look  like  famous  people  ,  miniature  carvings  of  architecturally  significant  places  such  as  past  arenas  or  capitol buildings  .  his  popularity  only  grew  with  time  .

despite  being  a  mason  ,  and  therefore  spending  most  of  his  time  carving  ,  asher  also  learned  how  to  quarry  stone  ,  becoming  adept  with  explosives  and  learning  where  to  place  them  to  maximise  the  yield  /  avoid  a  rockfall  .

the 70th hunger games

tw  :  death  /  murder  ,  violence  ,  arachnids

when  asher  volunteered  for  the  hunger  games  at  age  twenty  -  two  ,  he  didn’t  quite  realise  what  he  was  getting  himself  into  .  sure  ,  he’d  trained  for  it  like  every  other  kid  in  district  two  ,  but  he  was  never  expecting  to  be  put  into  that  position  —  when  the  poor  18  -  year  -  old  who  very  clearly  didn’t  want  to  be  picked  had  their  name  called  out  ,  and  nobody  else  stepped  forwards  ,  he’d  called  out  on  instinct  .  a  stupid  ,  reckless  thing  to  do  —  he’d  never  excelled  at  combat  ,  and  most  of  his  skills  lay  in  masonry  —  working  with  a  chisel  or  a  hammer  or  ,  occasionally  ,  explosives  .  but  it  was  too  late  to  back  out  .

the  other  tribute  for  district  two  was  a  career  tribute  called  marielle  klippe  ,  barely  nineteen  and  already  as  violent  as  a  peacekeeper  .  she  didn’t  get  along  well  with  asher  —  he  was  far  too  soft  ,  in  her  eyes  ,  and  were  it  not  for  him  befriending  a  number  of  the  other  career  tributes  before  the  games  and  making  himself  an  invaluable  ally  that  way  ,  she’d  probably  have  killed  him  at  the  very  start  of  the  games  .

he  went  into  the  games  with  the  expectation  that  he  wouldn’t  make  it  out  alive  —  after  all  ,  he  was  probably  the  weakest  district  two  tribute  in  years  .  he’d  scored  fairly  low  in  the  training  evaluations  with  an  unimpressive  display  of  his  limited  skills  ,  and  all  he  had  was  a  tentative  alliance  with  the  career  tributes  from  districts  one  ,  two  and  four  ,  a  vague  plan  to  snatch  something  sharp  and  stabby  ,  and  his  pre  -  existing  near  -  encyclopaedic  knowledge  of  how  to  blow  things  up  with  minimal  resources  .

the  70th  hunger  games  arena  was  a  huge  canyon  (  comparable  to  bryce  canyon  in  appearance  )  ,  with  towering  cliffs  hemming  the  tributes  in  and  a  tiny  creek  winding  its  way  through  .  what  little  plantlife  existed  was  sparse  and  scraggly  ,  and  the  cornucopia  and  starting  platforms  were  situated  on  one  of  the  few  relatively  open  spaces  in  the  entire  arena  ,  approximately  in  the  centre  .

this  arena  proved  advantageous  to  asher  ,  who’d  spent  his  entire  life  working  with  rocks  and  so  was  in  his  element  .  he  managed  to  acquire  a  respectably  -  sized  axe  from  the  cornucopia  ,  with  help  from  his  allies  —  they’d  come  to  an  agreement  that  was  something  along  the  lines  of  ‘  let’s  pick  off  all  the  other  tributes  first  and  then  it  can  be  a  free  -  for  -  all  ’  .  while  asher  was  never  fond  of  weapons  ,  he’d  had  enough  experience  in  whacking  things  (  stone  ,  mostly  )  with  hammers  and  the  like  ,  so  an  axe  was  probably  a  good  choice  .

the  games  went  just  about  the  same  as  any  others  initially  ,  with  the  career  tributes  hunting  down  the  less  experienced  ones  .  but  ,  the  gamemakers  being  the  gamemakers  ,  there  were  twists  coming  —  namely  in  the  form  of  mutts  .  huge  spider  /  scorpion  hybrid  creatures  (  similar  to  the  canyon  crawlers  from  atla  ,  but  worse  )  came  scuttling  over  the  edges  of  the  cliffs  on  the  fifth  day  of  the  games  ,  when  there  were  fourteen  tributes  still  alive  .  asher  rigged  an  explosion  on  one  of  the  cliff  faces   ,  using  a  sponsor’s  donation  ,  bringing  down  a  huge  rockfall  that  left  six  tributes  dead  and  crushed  the  vast  majority  of  the  mutts  .  one  of  the  six  was  his  fellow  district  two  tribute  ,  marielle  (  whose  family  were  absolutely  furious  with  asher  when  he  returned  home  )  .

the  next  few  days  were  ,  according  to  viewers  at  home  ,  incredibly  dull  —  the  eight  remaining  tributes  spent  this  time  searching  for  or  establishing  hideouts  ,  hunting  down  the  rest  of  the  mutts  and  generally  taking  their  time  to  recover  from  the  deaths  of  their  friends  and  allies  .

the  vicious  murdering  started  back  up  again  soon  enough  —  the  gamemakers  announced  a  feast  ,  where  there  would  be  four  things  up  for  grabs  :  a  water  purification  kit  ,  because  the  tiny  creek  was  growing  polluted  with  blood  ,  dirt  and  god  -  knows  -  what  ;  a  loaf  of  bread  ,  because  they  were  beginning  to  run  short  on  food  ,  having  been  in  the  arena  for  nine  days  at  this  point  ;  a  first  aid  kit  ,  helpful  for  if  the  gamemakers  unleashed  another  experiment  against  the  tributes  ;  and  a  crossbow  with  a  snarky  note  attached  —  ‘  if  you’re  not  going  to  go  near  each  other  ,  perhaps  you  can  pick  the  rest  off  with  this  ’  .  the  supplies  were  all  perched  atop  a  rocky  spire  close  to  the  centre  of  the  arena  ,  forcing  the  tributes  to  climb  to  the  top  in  order  to  acquire  them  .

asher  ,  who  had  stuck  with  the  two  remaining  career  tributes  (  one  from  district  four  and  one  from  district  one  )  and  gained  popularity  for  his  useful  skill  ,  was  nominated  as  the  one  from  their  group  who  ought  to  go  to  gather  the  supplies  .  despite  being  well  aware  that  they  were  trying  to  get  him  killed  since  he’d  pretty  much  outlived  his  usefulness  ,  he  went  —  but  slowly  .  by  the  time  he  reached  the  spire  ,  there  were  already  three  people  climbing  it  ,  while  two  stood  guard  at  the  bottom  .  rather  than  attempt  to  take  them  all  out  ,  asher  approached  carefully  ,  with  his  weapon  held  low  in  a  gesture  of  peace  ,  intending  to  negotiate  a  new  alliance  or  truce  .  a  brief  duel  ensued  ,  though  it  ended  in  an  agreement  that  he  would  help  the  five  of  them  to  take  out  the  career  tributes  ,  after  which  they  would  all  be  able  to  turn  on  one  another  without  the  danger  posed  by  those  two  .

that  didn’t  go  quite  as  planned  —  they’d  intended  to  sneak  up  on  the  career  tributes  and  ambush  them  ,  but  the  secret  had  gotten  out  .  nobody  was  quite  sure  which  of  them  had  betrayed  the  others  ,  but  the  fact  remained  :  they’d  known  they  were  coming  ,  and  the  ambush  failed  spectacularly  .  within  minutes  ,  eight  became  three  :  a  district  four  tribute  ,  a  district  seven  tribute  ,  and  asher  ,  who  had  stood  back  and  watched  the  battle  unfold  from  a  safe  distance  .

as  the  audience  and  final  non-career  tribute  were  about  to  discover  ,  this  was  because  asher  had  been  the  one  to  sell  them  out  .  his  triple  -  crossing  was  an  impressive  feat  ,  and  people  saw  him  as  a  manipulative  genius  —  although  he  maintains  that  it  was  mostly  luck  that  they  bought  his  act  of  loyalty  .

the  final  three  tributes  were  in  a  standoff  ,  nobody  willing  to  make  the  first  move  —  at  this  point  ,  a  misjudged  blow  could  mean  the  difference  between  death  and  victory  .  and  ,  well  ,  the  longer  you  hold  onto  life  the  less  you  want  to  lose  it  .

it  happened  so  quickly  that  to  this  day  ,  asher  isn’t  entirely  sure  what  really  happened  .  but  it  went  something  like  this  :  the  district  seven  tribute  lunged  at  asher  ,  who  barely  dodged  and  received  a  deep  gash  on  his  shoulder  from  their  knife  ;  then  the  district  four  tribute  decided  to  join  in  by  attacking  the  district  seven  tribute  .  asher  ,  trying  desperately  not  to  think  too  hard  about  what  he  was  going  to  do  ,  grabbed  the  first  weapon  available  to  him  —  the  axe  he’d  acquired  at  the  beginning  of  the  games  and  not  really  used  since  —  and  half  -  swung  ,  half  -  threw  it  at  the  other  two  ,  watching  in  revulsion  as  the  blade  separated  a  head  from  a  body  and  buried  itself  in  the  other’s  skull  .

the  end  of  the  70th  hunger  games  was  considered  by  viewers  to  be  a  somewhat  fitting  one  ,  though  not  the  most  exciting  .

asher’s  final  body  count  was  eight  ,  only  two  of  which  were  direct  ,  and  he  came  out  of  the  arena  with  only  a  shoulder  wound  and  acute  dehydration  .

after the games

the  past  four  years  have  been  rather  eventful  for  asher  .  he’s  mentored  a  number  of  tributes  through  the  games  ,  to  varying  degrees  of  success  (  nero  being  the  only  one  that’s  survived  thus  far  )  .  he  grew  far  more  withdrawn  in  the  months  after  his  games  &  the  victory  tour  ,  retreating  to  his  new  home  in  the  victors’  village  to  carve  stone  in  silence  .

his  garden  slowly  filled  with  statuettes  of  scenes  from  his  nightmares  —  mostly  his  games  ,  but  other  things  as  well  .  it  became  his  way  of  working  through  his  thoughts  —  and  there’s  something  satisfying  about  watching  these  things  that  have  caused  him  so  much  trauma  be  turned  into  perches  for  birds  .

in  the  capitol  ,  he’s  become  something  of  a  celebrity  —  popular  amongst  younger  citizens  for  his  soft  -  spoken  -  ness  and  apparent  gentleness  (  although  he’s  well  aware  that  those  aren’t  the  only  traits  they  find  attractive  …  capitol  people  are  weird  )  .

despite  this  popularity  —  actually  ,  no  ,  because  of  this  popularity  ,  asher  doesn’t  venture  into  the  capitol  particularly  often  .  he  has  never  been  fond  of  crowds  ,  and  even  less  so  when  they’re  actually  paying  attention  to  him  .  even  during  the  lead  up  to  the  games  ,  he  tends  to  keep  to  himself  when  he’s  not  mentoring  tributes  .

congrats  !  you  made  it  to  the  end  of  this  absolute  monstrosity  !  sadly  ,  i  ran  out  of  braincells  ,  so  i  haven’t  included  any  wanted  connections  ,  but  i’m  open  to  anything  .

[rivalsofnycupdates]

“First, we make them look. Then, we make them scared.”

■ ABOUT. ■

name: Remy Stormwind age: twenty-four pronouns: he/him occupation: Assassin gender: cis male sexuality: homosexual

■ HISTORY. ■

The Royals of Purgatory had spread it’s wings from California to five other charters across the country, one of them being in Chicago, Illinois. The first president of the Chicago faction was Rhys Stormwind, who had the challenge of competing with the city’s many rival gangs to claim dominion over all it’s treasure. His strategy was simple, one the Royals were quite known for. Obliterate the competition by any means necessary. Remy’s grandfather began the legacy of not only the Royals, but of the Stormwind name itself. Leading with a combination of respect, fear, and sheer ruthless force, Rhys brought in the money through heavy weaponry manufacturing. Members of the Royals gang walked the streets of Chicago with their heads held high, with no fear towards any cop or rival gang. When he finally retired, he passed the leadership to his son, Remy’s father. Robert Stormwind successfully expanded the business side of of the Royals, using the cover of many successful restaurants across the city to fool the authorities. He also began making deals with some of the city’s most influential politicians, proving the Stormwind name proud for a time. During his reign, he met his wife and they had two sons; his older brother, Rory, and himself. Even at a young age, everyone around Remy compared him to both his infamous grandfather and his precise father. He challenged authority, was unafraid of confrontation, and calculated most of his decisions based on who he was dealing with at the time. His brother showed great potential as well, mainly in his passion and charisma. They grew up with the knowledge that his brother, Rory, would eventually take their father’s place as president and Remy would be his right hand man, dealing with any potential threats they would face. They were treated like true royalty throughout their youth and while his brother was a bit more bashful, Remy soaked it all up to his advantage. He learned how to fight, attended his father’s meetings, and even learned how to fire a weapon by the time he was fourteen. It was very clear to everyone around that Remy planned on being a Royal no matter what. He saw the gang as his family, every single one of them, and that soon it would be him and his brother’s turn to guide them to glory. The Stormwind’s fall from grace was one that could have been prevented. Thanks to his grandfather, Remy’s father reigned in a time with hardly any conflict. When whispers of of a traitor began circulating the gang, no one could handle themselves. His grandfather demanded a ruthless approach, force the truth out and then deal with the traitor in a way that would make anyone with similar thoughts think twice before betraying them. His father thought it was too rash and figured he could handle the situation quietly. He was wrong. Remy was sixteen when the cops raided his home, but they weren’t ordinary cops. Without proof of a warrant, they opened fire on his brother and both his parent while he was away at school. Remy remembers the way his lungs pained from all the screaming he did. His whole world collapsed on him and all because his father did nothing when action needed to be taken. The Royals had to elect a new leader and began focusing on regrouping. His grandfather wasn’t confident that whoever betrayed their family would stop coming for Remy’s life now that his father was dead. Pulling some strings, his well connected father was able to have Remy stay with a Royals member in New York City to finish school. He warned his grandson not to return, but to begin a new life and a new legacy for the Stormwinds. A couple of weeks after he left for New York, his grandfather died in his sleep. Now living in New York, Remy focused on finishing school as fast as he could so he could hurry and join the Royals as one of their assassins. He got along with the other new members well enough over the years and was beginning to think of them all as his new family when they Royals faced another betrayal. Tubb’s double crossing heavily reminded Remy of his family’s fall in Chicago, something he refused to let happen again. Over the next five years Remy managed to take out everyone his president wanted him too.

■ WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON? ■

Despite his dedication to the gang, Remy does know how to let loose. Over the years he’s been known to celebrate anything and everything with his fellow members. He known for his teasing which, for the most part, is harmless and all in good fun. Losing his family has definitely taught him that sometimes it’s nice to live in the moment. Remy is proud to be a Royal and to be a Stormwind. He may not be as big of a visionary as his brother was, but he wanted nothing more than to help The Royals return to their former glory. As an assassin, he’s known for his signature weapons, a pair of claw hammers that bring the pain and fear to anyone who dares to cross his new family. His new targets? Tubbs and these good for nothing posers he calls a gang. The man has a lot of nerve showing his face again, let alone try to claim the city as his own. What he wouldn’t give to be the one to take this man’s life and erase one of the biggest blimps in their history for good.

■ KEEP THIS AWAY FROM YOUR ENEMIES ■

The only way to get rid of the traitor and his devils is to rage war on them, just like his grandfather would before him. The way the Royals have been handling things, with politics and rules, he can’t agree with. There are no rules when it comes to defending your territory. He just can’t seem to get them to see that. So if he can’t get his own gang to start this war, he has to try to get his enemy to start it. It’s as easy as sneaking into their territory (although none of it is theirs in his opinion) marking a prophet of their gang, and then leaving their dead bodies on display for the whole world to see. Then repeat. He doesn’t see this as betraying his gang, despite the fact that they took him in when he had nothing left for him. In fact, that’s exactly why he’s doing this. Only through the blood of their enemies can they rise and enter the golden age of their legacy. That’s what he wants for his new family, and he won’t stop until he can accomplish it.

■ RELATIONSHIPS. ■

■ Malcolm Alcott: Friendly competition is healthy for anyone trying to grow and master their skills and there’s no one else Remy loves to hate than Malcolm Alcott. Granted, he thinks he’s way out of the other’s league in just about everything, but he can admit that the other has proven him wrong…once or twice.

■ Travis Patterson: When he lost his entire family, Travis was the one who took him in. He was the first to show him that he could have a new family and he will never forget his act of kindness. He is forever in his debt.

■ CONNECTIONS. ■

■   Anastasia Jones > Friend

■   Chris Krongold > Friend

Remy Stormwind is an TAKEN character and is portrayed by Gavin Leatherwood who’s FC IS NON-NEGOTIABLE.

[kegareki]

dameamaryllis replied to your post “The video opens to the Five Nights At Freddy’s title screen and a...”

Oh, I love this! May we know more about Jaz, pretty pretty please? (Does Jason still dies? Please say no!)

it’s ME, do you think that i could let jason die if i could help it??

jason has a much larger weakness to mother figures than jaz does. jaz is a lot less willing to extend any amount of trust towards possible bio mom sheila--which is good, considering that if they went along with it with their guard down, they would’ve been lured into a trap and brutally murdered by the joker. no thanks!

as you can imagine, jason is more well-adjusted than in other canons because he was not killed or almost killed by the joker at 16.

jaz and jason are robin at the same time. it was suggested that they have separate codenames, but this was shot down because they both want to be robin.

(”do you want one of us to be batboy?” jason demands. “i’m not gonna be batboy.”

“i don’t wanna be batboy, either,” jaz says. “that’s the name of a reject robin.”

“the name of a shitty bargain-bin robin.”

“technically, i am getting a deal on robins,” bruce says.

“you can be batboy then!”)

because no one has an untimely death, the role of robin does not pass over to tim during a time of desperate need for a stabilizing influence on batman, and therefore jason doesn’t resent bruce for replacing him or tim for being his replacement. tim becomes robin in the same way that everyone else does: bruce sees a tiny child in need, sees that he is in a position to help them, and goes “oh, no.”

jason and jaz respectfully retire from the position of robin and move cities entirely to help dick over in bludhaven.

(”WHAT IS A GOTHAM GOLDEN CHILD DOING IN BLUDHAVEN,” someone tweets in distress. accompanying their tweet is a photo of jaz, who is sitting on the other side of their classroom.

someone else responds with: “grayson went to bludhaven around the time bruce wayne picked up the todds & bruce wayne is apparently in the process of adopting another kid rn. bludhaven might just b where gotham kids go to escape their adopted sibs”

the original poster replies to this, shaken, “are you telling me that gothamites view bludhaven as a vacation spot? this is the most terrifying thing anyone has ever said to me”)

more under the cut because this answer is getting Very Long

jaz’s vigilante name is nightingale, which immediately pegs them as a double-act with nightwing, but i wanted a bird name and if leliana could use the name nightingale, so can i

they’ve got the same sort of blue stripe that nightwing’s got going on, as well as the domino mask, but their outfit as a whole is more reminiscent of red hood’s--suit beneath a jacket and trousers, belt, boots, etc. they use escrima sticks like nightwing does, but they transition comfortably between impact and edged weapons, with the same sort of “if they don’t go down when beaten, they’ll go down when bleeding” mindset that jason has

jaz, dick, and bruce are all similar in that they all go where the need is. sometimes you have to make a choice on what thing or person needs you more, because you can’t take care of everyone and everything at the same time. you can’t. something will always be your priority.

in ‘verses where it’s just dick who’s trying to meet people’s needs, he gets so strained, because he can’t give all of himself to everyone who needs something from him. jaz helps, though. they can go where he can’t. like--between damian and tim, dick’s gonna go after damian. damian’s a kid and dick’s responsible for him. and jaz can go after tim in his stead

in one of my aus, where jaz lands in an alternate universe where there’s no native jaz and therefore everything went predictably to shit:

"Dick is the only Robin who made it to eighteen," Jaz says. "Have you thought about what you'll be after?"

Tim pauses, expression shifting. "Not really," he admits. "I haven't needed to. Until now, I guess."

Jaz puts a hand on his shoulder. "Hey. Even if Damian does become Robin, that doesn't mean you're being kicked out. Damian is a ten-year-old who's been trained by the League of Assassins. He needs to be supervised, and you don't anymore. And besides," they add, "you're not the only one whose partner is being stolen. We could team up."

He smiles hesitantly. "I haven't patrolled with you yet. Let's start there."

(i gave up on understanding the dc timeline so the ages i go by are “if damian is 10, tim is 18, jason is 22, and dick is 25″ since i think that dick is 28ish when damian is 13?)

dick, jason, and jaz are all pretty tight-knit with each other, but their next favorite batkids are all different? dick is close with babs and damian, jason is close with cass, jaz is close with tim...

ALSO if it was not obvious, jaz/dick is a thing. generally i do not write romantic relationships involving si/ocs, because i am aromantic, but i make an exception for dick grayson. (”you are my only exception” by paramore plays in the distance) they’re very cute together and playful and fun and sweet. i have a soulbond au where they’re soulmates. i almost never write soulmate aus. that is how much i love them

more things i want to say but that i’ve run out of steam for paragraphs about:

jaz adopts a black cat and names him catman. they take snaps of him zooming around their apartment with the caption “nya nya nya nya catman”

they are the singular robin whose favorite hero/vigilante is batman. however it should be noted that bruce wayne is not their favorite; batman is. the absurdity of a growling man of the night accompanied by a brightly-colored acrobatic child is so utterly charming

in jazverse canon, jaz is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns and tim is trans and uses he/him pronouns. bruce wayne has not messed up their pronouns Once and, when other people misgender his kids, he always makes sure to say The Correct Pronouns Or Terminology in his response. #BruceWayneSaysTransRights is a real hashtag

jason and jaz are protective of each other. i’m not saying that jaz would’ve decked sheila in the face, but i’m also not saying that they wouldn’t

the imagery of jason and jaz attending gotham academy is so funny. like. they’re from fuckin crime alley and then they get adopted by bruce wayne and now they go to the Elite Private Academy of gotham where everyone is rich and snobby. they read the lord of the flies for english class and agree that the events of the novel are made possible only by virtue of being populated entirely by rich white cis boys. their discussion immediately goes to “so if that happened with our class, who would die first” because, to quote jason todd, “even if no one tried asserting dominance, these kids have the survival instincts of a toddler”

jaz’s full name is jasmine and their nicknames are jaz and jazzy. dick calls them hummingbird sometimes because they’re short and have adhd. also because they looked Utterly Betrayed by dick and jason both having -bird nicknames but not them

[fairymascot]

Some of you were kind enough to enable me, and so, here it is. Almost 2,600 words of everything wrong with Makoto Shinkai's 'Your Name', because gosh diddly dang it am I tired of seeing it heaped with baseless praise. This analysis contains spoilers for the whole movie, so read at your own risk! Stashing it under cut for length. Everything Wrong with 'Your Name': A Really Long Chunk of Media Analysis

'Your Name' is a top-grossing, critically acclaimed anime feature by Makoto Shinkai. It is, in short, about a teen girl from a small south-of-nowhere town and a teen guy from Tokyo, who mysteriously find themselves spending entire days in each other's bodies. They fall in love, as every guy and girl are meant to do, and it is then revealed that (1) the boy lives three years in the future, (2) the girl's town is to be unexpectedly destroyed by a stray chunk of comet, and so the guy goes back in time through her body to save her and the people of her town. They meet like a decade later and presumably get married and live happily ever after, the end.

This movie, with its gorgeous animation, artistic directing and beautiful original soundtrack by popular band Radwimps, was quick to achieve immense commercial and critical success. So just what is it that's wrong with it? Boy. Where do I begin.

It's phenomenally lazy in its writing.

The movie opens with intersecting inner monologues by the two main characters, in which they very melodramatically narrate the gaping void in their hearts without each other, and establish the fact that they are soulmates. Yes, five seconds in we are told are plainly told by the characters that they are soulmates, without knowing who they are or what kind of dynamic they have. This is a very convenient move: instead of having to go through the effort of selling us on their romance through the story, the writer just tells us from the get-go we have to be invested in it.

Unsurprisingly, at no point does the movie back this up with actual development.

By the nature of this story, the main pairing cannot interact. It's very on the nose with its star-crossed lovers thing. Their only way of getting to know each other is through memos they leave on each other's phones while in their bodies, and through how their surroundings treat them. Since they spend a couple days in each other's bodies per week, and only leave one memo a day -- usually a summary of what they did while in each other's bodies, to provide a reference for when they change back -- there is no real back-and-forth interaction even over text.

What I'm saying is this story is selling us an epic romance between two people who have never spoken once in their lives. It does this exclusively through cheap, external narrative stunts: first the monologues in the beginning, and then, around a third of the way in, through a supporting character telling the main boy that he's acting like he's in love with someone, which of course instantly opens his eyes to his feelings that the writer spent absolutely no time trying to actually develop. Oldest trick in the book.

The two of them interact for a single, two-minute scene, fifteen minutes or so before the movie ends. When the girl's town is about to be destroyed by the comet, through the magic of love and God-knows-what, their timelines briefly manage to intersect and allow them to interact. This hugely crucial moment in is written in the shallowest, most unsatisfying manner imaginable: in the story's biggest and only chance to sell the viewers on the depth of their supposed love, it offers us a stock guy-on-girl anime interaction, stuffed so full of stereotypes you could fill a bingo card with it: the girl cries emotionally at the sight of him, she blushes and huffily calls him a pervert and an idiot, she bashfully asks him if she looks pretty and then gets huffy, again, over his unenthusiastic response. The guy, like every main character in a romance anime, offers nothing but lukewarm, inane reactions, despite the fact he just spent half the movie scrambling to save this girl's life and finally gets to meet her against all odds. Not a word of real substance or emotional value is spoken between them, but the scene is framed oh so very prettily, with the sunset fading in the background accompanied by swelling violin music. So of course, we're supposed to be deeply touched.

Yeah, no.

It's so mind-numbingly stereotypical in its handling of gender and romance, you'd think it was written fifty years ago.

Instead of giving the characters actually unique and compelling personalities, the guy and girl's personalities can be aptly summed up as 'guy' and 'girl'. The guy is rough around the edges, quick to anger, loud and brash, physically strong, likes sports, incapable of doing anything too intricate or gentle with his hands. The girl is sensitive, emotional and highly concerned with others' view of her, gets self-conscious easily, good at sewing, and dreams of living a stylish life in Tokyo where she can go to cute cafes. There is not one, single aspect to these characters that betrays the generic societal expectations of what 'a guy' and 'a girl' are like.

Aha! But make no mistake. It's necessary for them to have these exact personalities, because 90% of the humor in this movie hinges on gender essentialist jokes. The whole first half of the film, where it's still light-hearted before gearing into melodrama mode, carries the punchline: 'Look! A girl acting like a boy! A boy acting like a girl! How wild is this, you guys?!' To name some of the fresh and inventive jokes it provides us with: the boy, when in the girl's body, cannot put her hair in the right hairdo; he sits open-legged; he gets into fights; he makes her suddenly excellent at sports, which earns her a long list of female admirers, much to her dismay. The girl, when in the boy's body, initially refers to herself in an inappropriately feminine manner; she acts timid and delicate; one of the guy's friends comments 'don't you think he's kind of cute today' while blushing, which of course gets him a weird look from his other friend, because what the hell dude, that’s, like, gay.

There's a lot that can be done with body-swapping narratives, especially when the swap is with a member of the opposite sex. It can be used as a tool for some incredibly interesting psychological exploration, as well as delving into potentially queer themes. The female protagonist herself even declares at the beginning of the movie that she wishes she could be a guy, but you know, not in a weird way, or anything. The movie isn't interested in that, of course, because it's very important for it to be about a boy and a girl who are very cis and straight and who fall in love in the most banal way possible. Which is fine, I mean, that's the standard, but couldn't it be a little less offensive about it?

The thing about this movie is that while it attempts to pass itself off as a dual protagonist movie, that's really not the case. Once the plot gets rolling and there's a comet to be stopped, the female character is taken completely out of the picture for maybe a third of the movie, now in the role of a helpless damsel for the guy to rescue. She is not active in any way; she does not contribute to the plot, despite it revolving around saving her hometown. The guy searches, researches, travels physically as well as metaphysically, plans, warns, blows shit up, evacuates, She only does one, single thing, at the very end, which is speak to the town's mayor -- her father -- to convince him of the coming danger. And that's not even shown on-screen.

Oh, yes, and a running gag throughout the movie is: every single time the boy wakes up in the girl's body, he spends a good fifteen minutes fondling her breasts. He even comments, at some point, that 'doing this is bad for her', before happily continuing on. The girl finds out about it -- through her sister commenting on it, of course, not like they guy would come clean -- and confronts him about it during their single shared scene (where she blushes and calls him a pervert), at which he lies and states that it was only the one time, and she forgives him and lets it go. Because that's how you treat the love of your life, folks!

Nothing about the plot makes any goddamn fucking sense.

The ultimate reveal of the film is that the guy and the girl began swapping bodies for the purpose of saving the town from the comet. It's revealed, in addition, that the girl's mother and grandmother went through similar body-swapping experiences in their youth -- except they never led to anything, and were written off as 'dreams'.

Let's go over this again. Some cosmic force of the universe wanted to save the townspeople from death by a meteor crash, and its way of doing so was... to have a certain family of women swap bodies with random big-city men from the not-distant future, over the course of fifty-odd years?

What?

Why?

Let's start with the time discrepancy. Why is it there? Oh, the answer is simple: so you can have the motif of 'love that crosses time and space' reappear in the movie over and over again, lest the audience forgets how epic this romance is. But otherwise? Absolutely no reason. Because, you see, while you could say that the boy could use his knowledge from the future to save the town in time... he doesn't. It's only until after the girl's timeline in the past reaches the point where she and her entire town are killed that the guy discovers it in his timeline, and to save her, he has to go back in time -- not just by his definition of time, but by her definition of time as well. So if the guy was going to find out about the destruction after the fact and go back in time anyway... what narrative purpose does the time gap even possess? None. None at all.

Continuing: why did they choose to mention this has been a thing for generations? It raises more questions than it answers. It didn't take long for the main characters to realize the body swapping isn't just some weird dream, seeing as it left a very real imprint on their real lives and was acknowledged repeatedly by everyone around them. How in the world would the generations before them somehow manage to overlook this? And what would even be the point of warning the town of an up and coming comet fifty years in advance, when there's no way to prove it or any chance anyone would believe it? Yet even so-- if that's truly the method the universe has its eyes set on, why did it just give up on the girl's grandmother and mother, content to bring them closer to annihilation while waiting for the next generation to be born? What are the logistics of any of this?

Then, of course, you have the biggest question of all: How is a seventeen year old Tokyo boy with no special skills equipped to deal with a meteor strike? If we're really meant to accept he was chosen for a higher purpose, wouldn't it make sense to have him be fit to fulfill said purpose? Had the movie waved it all off as some grand cosmic joke or whatever, then sure, it would've still been a total disaster, but at least we would've had one less point to critically analyze it from. But if we're to consider that the whole crux of the story, supposedly, is to keep the comet from wiping out the town, the whole thing completely falls apart.

There are a hundred more effective ways they could've gone about this narrative. First of all: there's no reason for the boy to even be involved. I mean-- again, yes, for the star-crossed romance drama. But from a practical storytelling point? The only advantage he has over the girl is the knowledge of the comet's arrival. That's it. So thinking about it logically, this could've been a movie about her and her alone, if she were just granted visions of the future. It sure would've saved a whole lot of mess, confusion, and needless bumbling around.

But since it needs to be about the both of them, for the romance and all, why not make it.... actually about the both of them? Why not make it about the both of them working together to save the town, instead of the girl being completely absent from such a large and critical chunk of the movie dedicated to her own life and home? Or better yet, why not have each one of them work to save the other's timeline? As things are, there's no reason for the girl to even get channeled into the boy's body in the first place. His timeline doesn't need her intervention, and does not benefit from it -- in fact, the central plot would not have suffered in any way if all scenes featuring the girl in the guy's body were cut clean off. Wouldn't this have been a much more compelling, logical story if it were about two individuals who were specifically chosen to intervene with each other's lives due to their individual skillsets and personalities? If they could do something for each other that they couldn't do for themselves, and learn from each other in the process? Wouldn't that have made a lovely movie?

Well, that's not Your Name. Instead, Your Name is a pretentious, overly-budgeted nonsense salad where the head writer seems to have produced the central motifs out of a hat filled with random things he finds cool. No element of the story can be backed up by the plot's actual demands, and a lot of them clash and override each other. The movie tries to incorporate the theme of past lives and reincarnation by alluding to it in dialogues and in the soundtrack's lyrics, for the sole purpose that it sounds epic and full of pathos, even when the body swapping has nothing to actually do with it. It incorporates the theme of star-crossed lovers traveling through time and space, even when, as mentioned, there's no reason for the time gap to be there in the first place. And most prominent and embarrassing of all -- the central motif of names is horribly, laughably forced at every junction. It's as though the idea of 'they fall in love without knowing each other's names' was the original basis for the story, but as it developed the writer realized it makes no sense for them to spend entire days in each other's bodies without finding out their names -- and stubbornly refused to let the motif go, because the feels, you guys. So the two protagonists, having found out each other's names, go on to forget them, recall them, forget them, recall them, and forget them again all in the span of about twenty-five minutes, with no rhyme or reason to it beyond 'this is what would make this particular moment especially dramatic'. It really encapsulates the whole movie's approach to writing: transparently manipulative with no logical backbone, dressed up in as many frills, ribbons and pretty words as possible to tug at the viewers' heartstrings, in the hopes of making them overlook the fact there's absolutely nothing of value underneath.

Well, what can I say. It clearly succeeded. Good on you, Makoto Shinkai.

[nandinisniche]

What Sarees Can Teach Cis Feminists About Trans* Solidarity

(This article was originally published on Medium on June 11, 2015.)

Stop Saying Caitlyn Jenner Is Doing Femininity Wrong

In the midst of America’s earnest “trans moment”, a strong call for opposition is making itself heard even in progressive — and feminist — media.

It’s coming from inside the house

Trans* acceptance was never going to be a slam dunk, not even with the stupendous combined charm of Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner, nor with the help of that old reliable — airbrushed sex appeal — thrust at us from magazine covers to proclaim their inauguration into True American Womanhood™. Nothing about upending gender expectations is ever that easy.

So this is where we are. The more we publicly the celebrate transgender acceptance, the more anti-trans worms continue to crawl out of the patriarchal woodwork. This is no surprise. To do my bit as a cis ally to trans people, I was ready to write to, reason with, and educate the haters. What is surprising is that so many of the haters are fellow feminists.

Meet the TERFs

Like many Tumblr-toting Roxane-Gay-quoting internet feminists, I had been under the impression that the old guard Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists — TERFs — were a dying breed. The internet circles I lurk in are trans-friendly spaces, at least in name. My Twitter feed was full of trans-positive articles even before Laverne Cox hit the front pages of American media. My favorite reddit communities ban on sight anyone who suggests that trans men aren’t really men, or that it would be dangerous to allow trans women into ladies’ toilets.

But about a week ago, I began to see some startlingly transphobic articles being shared on my carefully culled Facebook feed. Several feminists that I admired were openly disparaging the manner and style and details of Caitlyn Jenner’s public transition.

Some of them went the unabashedly bigoted route, linking to articles like Matt Walsh’s screed, “Calling Bruce Jenner A Woman Is An insult To Women”. Such hatefulness and incoherence is easy to refute (though not defeat). It’s difficult for progressives to take a christian conservative cis white man seriously when he says Caitlyn Jenner is “Disgusting, frankly.” Chalk it up to yet another thing Matt Walsh is wrong about today, and move on.

Other feminists have taken the more subtly transphobic path, criticizing Ms Jenner for playing up stereotypes about femininity. Today an NYT op-ed by Elinor Burkett, for example, is outraged at Chelsea Manning for saying she feels more emotionally sensitive since transitioning, and takes Ms Jenner to task for looking forward to wearing nail polish openly in public after her transition. These attacks are so much harder to deal with because they grow from a germ of truth. Most women alive today grew up battling these stereotypical, insulting assumptions about femininity by the world at large: that women are “too emotional”, that women are obsessed with superficialities like make-up and nail polish, that women are biologically hardwired this way and therefore calling women silly or superficial is not sexism!When we see these insults being given new life by the statements of transgender women in the public eye, we wince.

Yes, I admit it. I winced too.

But then I remembered the sarees.

The story of the sarees

This is where I tell you a little about my roots. I am from India. I grew up in Bengaluru in the ‘80s and ‘90s, back when it was still Bangalore and quite a lot more socially conservative than it is today, though much more liberal than many other parts of India. 

One of the fiercest battles I waged then was against the dress code imposed on me: traditionalism first, modesty a close second, to hell with my personal choice, and don’t even dare breathe the word ‘fashion’ for fear of being branded whorish[1]. Even after my family moved overseas, this dress code persisted, made me choke, made me seethe. My parents and I had screaming fights over my tight jeans. My underwear was scrutinized for possible covert sluttiness[2]. I wasn’t allowed to wear spaghetti strap tops even in my 20s.

I became quite the expert in the art of secret outfit changes when away at school and college. I also grew to hate the traditional Indian clothes that were constantly held up to me as markers of good virtue. Enforced modesty taught me to see every saree as a symbol of oppression[3].

Can you imagine my state of mind when I saw my peers both in real life and in the media embrace sarees as liberating fashion statements? I saw many South Asian women ‘reclaiming’ the saree as sensual, religious, feminine, traditional, and kickass all at once (and I doubt they had ever collectively lost their claim to begin with). Many desi girls and women overseas embraced sarees as defiant, joyous expressions of their minority cultural identity. I saw my school friends wear their sarees happily and stylishly, and I got thoroughly pissed off at them.

I thought they were stupid for welcoming their own oppression. I thought they were betraying me, betraying all the battles that I and every other Indian feminist had fought to escape our compulsory-desi-outfit shackles. I raged at them for giving ammunition to all the people who pressured me to dress traditionally: now they were able to point to all these other girls and say, See? See how happy they are in traditional clothes? Why can’t you be like that?

But most diasporan desi girls and women never fought the battles I fought, and don’t have the same associations with sarees that I do. Their life experiences allowed them to take a pleasure in sarees that will probably always be alien to me. For some of them, donning a saree was even something of a defiance. 

I had a dance instructor in junior college who was called to the Bar in London, and at one of the formal ceremonies that followed, instead of wearing the expected black robes, she wore a lace-edged black saree. She said she was telling the British to stuff it. I was stunned. I believe that was the first time I allowed that maybe, just maybe, sarees are not oppression for everyone all the time.

Not just sarees

No doubt other ethnic and religious groups have experienced a similar dissnoance. I have an Iranian friend who chafes under the laws that impose headscarves on her whenever she goes back home, and her journey has been toward understanding why American hijabis exist: to understand that for some American muslimahs, wearing the hijab is as radical an act as it is for my Iranian friend to take hers off.[4]

The moral of the story

What the saree can teach cis feminists is this: context matters. Our life experiences matter. The symbols and methods we choose for self-expression have particular meanings for ourselves, and we should not insist that our meaning is THE universal meaning.

For some women, nail polish is a symbol of all the dreary, expensive, time-consuming hoops women are expected to jump through to adequately perform our femininity. For other women, especially those who have spent their entire lives longing for and being forcibly denied any expression of femininity, nail polish may be a powerful and triumphant symbol of self expression.

How can the former among us take offence at the latter? It is well within our rights to interrogate the patriarchal rules surrounding nail polish from a critical perspective, but how can we justify interrogating trans women like that?

Can we even imagine how it must feel to be ‘officially’ allowed to wear nail polish after 65 years of being denied it? I want to throw Caitlyn Jenner the glitteriest mani-pedi party when I think about it, and I’m the kind of person that’s owned exactly four bottles of nail polish ever in all my life. (So… I guess we will be hiring professional manicurists for the party because I would paint her knuckles as likely as nails.)

Beyond the cis perspective

So far I’ve only considered trans women’s choices from a resolutely cis lens. But what if we tried looking at the performance of femininity from the perspective of trans women themselves? Would we see merely choice and triumph? Or would we see something more nuanced, and decidedly darker?

Consider: violence against transgender women is an epidemic. Even though trans women are only 10% of all LGBTQ people who report incidents of hate directed at them, they are 45% of murder victims in the same group. Passing as female can be a matter of life or death for trans women. In light of this, is there any way to see cis feminists’ criticism of trans women for “trying to hard” to be feminine as anything other than terrifying, hateful, or at least deeply misguided? I don’t think so.

Consider: trans people are more deeply and thoroughly scrutinized for their performance of gender than cis people like myself can ever fathom. The pressure on trans people to surgically feminize their appearance in order to “pass”, or in order to be more acceptable as romantic partners, is extremely strong even when they personally would rather not get surgery. (Yes, that’s right, not all trans people want surgery.) This pressure and scrutiny has extremely damaging effects on trans people — for example, over 40% of transgender people attempt suicide, compared to 4.6% in the general population and around 15% among LGB people. Should cis feminists really be piling on trans people for supposedly “over”performing gender, thus adding to the toxic culture of overscrutinizing trans people? I definitely don’t think so.

A better way to fight

Here’s what I think cis feminists should be doing instead:

#1 (for the Meets Minimum Standards of Human Decency badge) Unequivocally support and encourage trans people’s chosen manner of gender expression. It’s a battle they have fought long and hard for, and feminists of all people should not be in the business of yelling them for somehow “doing it wrong”. They are doing it right, because they get to decide what’s right for them. Period.

#2 (for the Feminist 101 badge) Support the efforts of trans activists who want to build a safer and more equal world for transgender people. This means reading trans feminist writing (good places to start include Laverne Cox, Zinnia Jones, Model View Culture, and if you’re feeling academic, Radical TransFeminist). This means educating ourselves on the specific obstacles to equality faced by the trans community: safety, access to healthcare, equal opportunity in employment, equal access to public toilets, etc.

#3 (for the Intersectional Feminist badge) Recognize that if there is a reason why media portrayals of famous trans people is problematic, it is because of the way this affects THE TRANS COMMUNITY, not cis women! The inimitable Laverne Cox says:

A year ago when my Time magazine cover came out I saw posts from many trans folks saying that I am “drop dead gorgeous” and that that doesn’t represent most trans people. (It was news to be that I am drop dead gorgeous but I’ll certainly take it). But what I think they meant is that in certain lighting, at certain angles I am able to embody certain cisnormative beauty standards. Now, there are many trans folks because of genetics and/or lack of material access who will never be able to embody these standards. More importantly many trans folks don’t want to embody them and we shouldn’t have to to be seen as ourselves and respected as ourselves . It is important to note that these standards are also infomed by race, class and ability among other intersections.

In the spirit of #3, I highly recommend browsing the amazing Twitter hashtag, #MyVanityFairCover, where ordinary non-celebrity transgender people are creating their own “Call Me Caitlyn” style cover shots.

And finally, every time we feel anger or outrage stirring in response to something a trans woman says or does about her femininity, we need to remember the story of the sarees.

[1] & [2]: These were the terms used at me, and yes, they are extremely disparaging to sex workers.

[3]: Make no mistake: for hundreds of thousands of Indian girls and women, these clothes are indeed an oppression. Traditional dress codes are commonly imposed on Indian women to this day. I personally know far too many married women living in urban, upper class, highly educated joint families who do not have ‘permission’ from their in-laws to wear jeans.

[4]: Note that I am not suggesting that any choice whatsoever is feminist/radical just because it is a choice. Choice feminism is deeply flawed. What I am saying is, any symbol or act can be radical or oppressive depending upon personal and social context.