#cisnormativity

[intersexcat-tboy]

Unpacking the Ethics of “Tboy Strap”: Challenging the Language of Delegitimization

[PT: Unpacking the Ethics of “Tboy Strap”: Challenging the Language of Delegitimization]

Hearing about trans men or transmascs topping and instantly thinking "strap" perpetuates transphobia and contributes to antitransmasculinity specifically.

While not an exact parallel, defaulting to the assumption that trans men topping involves a “strap” is similar to defaulting to the assumption that trans women's breasts involve breast forms. Both assumptions overlook how these can be achieved through HRT or surgical means, while also distracting from their true (desired, or) transitioned bodies, reinforcing the unnecessary, often dysphoria-inducing misconception that their gender affirming adaptations are not legitimate aspects of themselves.

Many trans people use language intentionally to reduce dysphoria, but being externally subjected to such framing can reinforce the disconnection from their bodies and identities. It's different when someone uses this language to describe themselves personally, as it reflects their individual relationship. Nevertheless, when this language is applied generally to others, we must think critically about the broader concepts it promotes.

Strap-ons are primarily marketed to those without penises and have strong historical ties to the lesbian community. They are not generally called “strap-ons” when used by cis men who don’t have or cannot use their penis for penetration. Instead, they are simply referred to as hollow dildos or recognized as prosthetics—designed to restore or improve functionality of a body part. It serves to replace a valued, personally integral aspect of their body that is necessary for their quality of life, rather than merely an optional add-on.

In some cases, when used alongside an existing penis for double penetration, it would be more aptly called a strap-on. However, this usage typically doesn’t apply to trans men, as they usually don't use their natal penis for penetration alongside; if involved, it is either stimulated, enhanced, or extended, rather than acting as a secondary penis.

Additionally, in certain dynamics (e.g. orgasm denial, men in chastity, or sissification) the term “strap” is often used to emphasize a rejection of the integration with their identity as men, meant to deny them recognition of their “true” manhood by highlighting their perceived failure to embody masculinity by not using what “truly” makes them a man.

Within chastity, sometimes referred to in kink communities as “reverse pegging,” the humiliation often stems from the implication that because the “strap” is superior to his own flesh—more effective, more satisfying, larger, and thus more aligned with what a “real” man should be able to provide—he is being denied recognition of his “true” manhood. His failure to satisfy with his own flesh renders him lesser; his use of an external object for penetration is framed as proof of his shortcomings in masculinity—a mark of failure to measure up to the patriarchal ideal.

The deliberate focus on performance, emasculation, and delegitimization seeks to humiliate and degender the cis man, framing penetration not as a natural extension of his body, but as an artificial external act performed for someone else’s pleasure.

This concept is similar to how some trans women, or others with dysphoria related to having more erectile tissue than desired, refer to theirs as a “built-in strap” to create distance from their anatomy to alleviate dysphoria. While both can be used roughly to mean “this isn't my real penis, so I'm not really a man”, trans women’s use of the term contrasts with these kink dynamics where "strap" is used to question the legitimacy of the man's manhood, disempower or humiliate him. Instead, trans women commonly use it as a coping mechanism for dysphoria management and as a term of endearment, turning it into a source of empowerment rather than an insult.

In certain contexts, the way “strap” is used in reference to transmascs risks reducing their gender expression to a fetishized, sexual, or kink-based act, framing their sexuality as a performance or role-play rather than an authentic and true expression of who they are. This positions it as something /on/ their bodies rather than /part/ of them.

When "tboy" and "strap" are used together in a mocking or belittling manner, it often carries an underlying implication of infantilization. The combination can evoke images that reduce the experience of trans men to something less serious—like that of children playing dress-up with toys.

For transmascs, these framings reduce their penises to costumes that are put on and taken off for sex, rather than as an extension of their body and identity. They either draw on historical and cultural contexts to position trans men as women, or impose kink dynamics, such as humiliation and sissification, onto trans men's bodies, regardless of whether that reflects their experiences or desires. Both are dehumanizing and deny trans men the same recognition and respect afforded to cis men in similar contexts. Either way, the issue lies in how “strap” frames it as a temporary addition for sexual purposes, suggesting that it isn’t an intrinsic part or expression of their body or identity.

When the tools that help trans people live as our true selves are treated as something “on” our bodies or worn to perform, it reinforces the harmful idea that our gender expression is temporary, artificial, or an act.

Through this objectification, it becomes a decorative, extra addition, or accessory, rather than something inherent to themselves or a necessary function for their quality of life.

If this idea persists—the framing of penetration with an extension of oneself, rather than flesh and blood, as a performative or artificial expression of body/sexuality—it suggests that their experiences are somehow invalid or less authentic. This forces them to navigate the harmful narrative that their bodies, sexuality, and experiences are only legitimate or recognized as real if they conform to external standards. From this continuous confrontation with language that invalidates their bodies or sexuality, internalized shame can cultivate and fester.

All of these ultimately diminish their ability to fully express their gender and sexuality in, and on, their own terms.

[textk4kira]

I've noticed a trend behind the use of the label "transsexual" vs. "transgender".

Oftentimes transmedicalists use transsexual to differentiate themselves from the rest of the trans community.

It's disheartening and quick frankly, appaling.

You will not achieve acceptance in a cisheteronormative society by distancing yourselves from the "bad" or "confusing" trans folks.

Transsexual is a wonderful label, and we cannot allow transmedicalists to take ownership of it.

[angelfacemjj]

Would it be wrong for me to say that all trans people are gender non comformin/transgenderness is inherently non comformin?

If you observe gender roles, you'll end up noticin that gender roles are inherently cisgender/cisnormative. But like, I'm afraid sayin this will exclude trans people who don' consider themselves or don' identity as gender non comformin. So, I wanna hear a third part opinion or open up a civil discussion to get in a conclusion.

Please do not start another queer discourse/queer infightin.

[love-me-love-my-weirdness]

I was repulsed by the idea of marriage until I realised I wanted to marry a woman.

I felt suffocated by the idea of only having the option of romantic and sexual committed relationships until I learned about qprs.

I felt wrong when I got excited about my partner having a crush or when I thought about being so tightly bound to one person until I found out about polyamory.

I felt empty searching for what made me feel like my agab until I discovered I was agender.

These standards and pressures exist even when we don’t know what they are. Pushing a hetero/allo/monogamous/cis agenda onto kids hurts them even if they aren’t in an actively intolerant area. Ignorance does the most damage. Nobody deserves to feel broken.

[raedonpoisoning]

mfs be like, “all nonbinary people are valid!” until an afab and/or remotely fem nonbinary person who’s nblm reclaims the f slur and then suddenly it’s “you’re not nonbinary/queer enough to say that word!” or “you’re basically a straight woman!” some of you queer folks have such a weirdly cisnormative and heteronormative view of the world… like you have become the very thing you fought to destroy and it’s ACTUALLY annoying listening to you drop such awful takes.

[seahorse-dad-in-training]

Cisheteronormativity

I think it's one of the hardest things I've had to deal with as a queer trans parent. No matter what you do, it's unavoidable. No matter what you do, it's going to influence your child in some way at one point or another.

Kids shows and media, children's songs, school, family, and public places in general.. They're all filled with it. I truly think the best thing you can do is provide representation and education as young as possible. And I don't just mean books and such about diverse families, gender, and sexuality. I mean also dismantling cisheteronormativity in other areas too. I mean advocating for your kid and yourself when possible.

(Keep in mind this is just my thoughts/strategies, this is not me saying that anyone HAS to do these things or that they're inherently bad for doing things differently)

When teaching age appropriate sex Ed at various stages of their life, don't frame it in a binary or straight way. When teaching the proper names for genitalia don't say "girls have this, boys have this". Don't talk about puberty in that way either. For example "people born with vulvas typically experience a menstrual cycle aka periods". When going into the realm of relationships at whatever age you feel appropriate, don't address sex as just a reproductive thing or man x woman. Don't talk about the importance of protection from just a standpoint of preventing pregnancy.

Don't talk about sex as just PIV (or even just PIV and anal). From personal experience, this can really warp your view of what's "real sex". This lead to me not seeing it as sex, and being a lot more risky than I should have been. After all, nobody stressed the importance of being safe with people who don't have penises.

If people do the gross "do you have a little girlfriend/boyfriend?' depending on your kid's AGAB, shut it down. You could just generally say that's not appropriate or be blunt and say "we won't know what kind of partner they'll have in the future if any".

Something I like to do when it comes children's music is change the lyrics of some songs when singing them to accommodate our family. Kiddo calls my partner both mom and dad or "momdad" so when songs say mommy/Mom, I change that lyric to "momdad" (momdad shark, momdad finger)

And just be willing to gently correct your kid when they say things because of external influence. It's okay to correct a small kid when they use the wrong parental title "haha I'm daddy silly!". It's okay to have to gently remind them that Barbies aren't "for girls". It's okay to be honest and say that a lot of families are stuck in really outdated/old mindsets when it comes to these things.

You can't avoid the unfortunate hell that is cisheteronormativity, but you can do your best to be that safe place where they learn inclusivity, openness, and love.

[dailyanarchistposts]

The institutionalized invention of transsexuality

For quite some time there has been a tendency in the Social Sciences to be driven by knowledge that does not accept alternative, popular and dissident concepts as legitimate; a tendency that aims to keep hegemonic knowledge in its place of hegemony and “subaltern” knowledge in “its place” of subalternity. It is a monoculture of knowledge (SANTOS, 2014), in the sense that the cultivation of certain beliefs and ideologies nullifies the possibility of other ways of thinking being validated. The monoculture of knowledge produces epistemicide, “the murder of knowledge” (SANTOS, 2014, p. 149). The academically legitimized studies on transsexuality are based on the same premise: the monoculture of knowledge, which offers certain [cisgender] figures institutional protection so that they can determine what it means to be trans.

In relation to transsexuality, its emergence as a sociological category occurred as a pathology, a disorder that could be diagnosed. The pathologization of trans individuals takes place through the eyes of cisgender physicians, holders of epistemic privilege (GROSFOGUEL, 2016), never considering the self-determination of the individuals referred to as “patients”. The antagonism of epistemic privilege is epistemic inferiority, epistemic racism/sexism. Grosfoguel (2016, p. 30) defines epistemic racism/sexism as “the inferiority of all knowledge coming from human beings classified as non-western, non-male or non-heterosexual”, and to this we add non-cisgender, dissenters from the cis and heterosexual norm. The “transsexual” category was formulated within North American and European universities, by the hands of “intellectuals” and whose scientific production did not encounter any barriers to being disseminated, as it was already embedded in the institutional apparatus responsible for legitimizing it as scientific. This invention was responsible not only for the current way in which physicians approach transsexuality, but furthermore for the way in which other institutions — legal, educational, academic etc. — exclude, historically erase and violate trans people. Therefore, in order to better understand this process and its consequences, a brief historical review of the institutionalized invention of transsexuality is in order.

Reiterating Grosfoguel’s assertion that the predominant knowledge in our global system, in our schools, universities, hospitals and clinics, derives from five countries — France, Germany, England, the United States and Italy -, the hegemonic understanding of transsexuality comes especially from the United States and Europe. The first mentions of “transsexuality” date back to the beginning of the 20th century: in 1919, the term “transsexualism” was used by the german physician Magnus Hirschfeld; in 1949, the american sexologist David O. Cauldwell used it again in the paper Psychopatia Transexuallis, in which he analyzed the life of a transfeminine person. But the earliest medical records concerning transsexuality — and which underpinned the way gender is currently diagnosed — emerged in the 1950s in the United States, based on the studies of endocrinologist Harry Benjamin (BENTO & PELÚCIO, 2012), one of the forerunners in the establishment of a cisgendered trans subjectivity. According to this logic, the only possible ‘treatment’ for ‘real transsexuals’ would be transgenital surgery. No therapy could reverse the transsexuality of a ‘true transsexual’.

In contrast to Benjamin, the north-american psychiatrist Robert Stoller, professor at the University of California, refuted the practice of surgery or any procedures that could be considered ‘social transitions’. For him, trans people should be convinced that in fact they needed psychiatric treatment (BENTO & PELÚCIO, 2012). Another important personality was the north-american physician John Money, from Johns Hopkins Hospital. For him, children would already have their sexual identity defined by the age of 3, which encouraged him to advocate transgender surgeries. In 1966, the Johns Hopkins Hospital opened the Gender Identity Clinic, one of the first to cater for transgender people.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Benjamin’s efforts influenced the performance of surgical procedures relating to the medical veracity of transsexuality. In 1973, John Money coined the term ‘gender dysphoria’ to designate a symptom determining transsexuality and, in 1977, the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association was founded, an institution responsible for publishing and updating the Standards of Care (SOC) and legitimized as a world reference for the care of trans people (BENTO, 2006). Along with the SOC, the International Code of Diseases (ICD) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) constitute the main documents that pathologize transsexuality.

In 1980, transsexuality was included in the ICD. During this period, Leslie Lothstein, a professor at Yale University, contributed to structuring the diagnosis of transsexuality by carrying out a study with ten adult trans people. In 1994, the DSM-IV replaced the diagnosis of ‘Transsexualism’ with ‘Gender Identity Disorder’, breaking down the diagnoses by age and creating yet another category, ‘Gender Identity Disorder Not Otherwise Specified’, aimed at people who did not meet the requirements of the previous diagnoses.

There are constitutive differences regarding ‘trans identity’ in the three documents — SOC, ICD and DSM — and with each new edition the diagnostic definitions are reviewed. For example, the DSM-IV focuses on identifying the traits of the ‘disorder’ in childhood, briefly addressing the issue of surgery. In its fourth version, gender, sexuality and sex are used arbitrarily in the qualifications of the ‘disorder’. Sex and gender would be synonymous. In the tenth version of the ICD, transsexuality was included in the section entitled “Personality Disorders of Sexual Identity”, characterized by the “desire to live and be accepted as a person of the opposite sex”, and this ‘sexual identity’ could only be validated if the patient had presented it for at least two years. Although these concepts have been updated over the years and have differed from one another, SOC, DSM and ICD perpetuate the same pathologizing perspective in the academic and medical fields.

The ICD-11 no longer conceives of transsexuality as a “gender identity disorder”, as the ICD-10 had previously proposed, and places it in the “conditions related to sexual health”, as “a marked and persistent incongruence and persistent incongruence between the gender experienced by the individual and their assigned sex”. The DSM-V, in turn, defines gender dysphoria as a “marked incongruence between a person’s experienced/expressed gender and their assigned gender, lasting for at least six months”, and argues that the best diagnostic method is the observation of child behavior, the child’s preference for ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ toys, the desire of ‘boys’ to wear ‘feminine clothing’ and ‘girls’ to wear ‘masculine clothing’. It does not fail to mention the importance of identifying, as a diagnostic trait, a “strong dislike of one’s own sexual anatomy”.

The influence of Stoller on the DSM, with its psychoanalytic discourse, and that of Benjamin on the SOC, with its endocrinological and physiological roots, can be found. As endocrinology seeks to discover the biological origins of transsexuality and is responsible for delivering the final decision on transgenital surgery, the psychological sciences (psychology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis) attempt to understand one’s desire to undergo the surgical procedure, as the demand for surgical interventions is perceived as an essential requirement for a ‘true transsexual’. The commonly asked questions by physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists and psychoanalysts take the trans person’s word almost as a lie: do you really want to do this? Are you sure you want to make such drastic changes? Will you not regret it? For someone to be ‘truly’ trans, they would have to prove that they are not compulsively lying. The decision is never made by the trans patient, but by the holders of epistemic privilege, of the power to legitimize or delegitimize the patient’s narrative. Despite the theoretical differences, both fields — endocrinology and psychiatry/psychoanalysis/psychology — fear the same situation: being deceived by ‘lying transsexuals’. Health services for trans people in Brazil, for instance, promote ‘gender asepsis’, a categorization of trans people into those who are ‘truly trans’ and those who are ‘untruthfully trans’ (BENTO, 2006).

The most significant feature of the aforementioned documents lies not in their differences, but in their similarities. Whether from the perspective of Benjamin or Stoller, Bento & Pelúcio understand that the elaboration of the concept of transsexuality by medicine occurred in such a way that trans people were “conceived as having a set of common indicators that position them as disordered, regardless of historical, cultural, social and economic variables” (BENTO & PELÚCIO, 2012, p. 572). The ‘truth’ of transsexuality is to be found in discourses about rejecting one’s own body, in dysphoric suffering, in necessarily conflicting family relationships, in a traumatic childhood. Any life experience that doesn’t fit in with these dictates immediately casts doubt on the legitimacy of the person’s own transsexuality and prevents them from accessing the health services they need. After reviewing the various pathologizing documents and movements regarding transsexuality, Bento (2011, p. 96) reveals her surprise at realizing that “so little so-called scientific knowledge has generated so much power”.

The common assertion of axiological neutrality, which psychiatry uses to justify its diagnoses, aims to annul its social position, to neutralize the perspective of the subject who produces knowledge, as if it were possible to assume a position of total neutrality. Neutrality becomes a farce when we consider precisely which beings hold and have held the places where knowledge is produced and which have never been able to enter a university as students or professors. Not only does it apply to a gender perspective, but also to race and class. The holders of epistemic privilege, who devised the diagnostic category of “transsexuality”, relied on a cisheteronormative perspective to list, name, categorize, subordinate and humiliate the trans people who came to them in search of assistance, but who found — and still find — an environment of control, tutelage and humiliation: if one wishes to access health devices, from routine care to surgical procedures, one must be evaluated according to the symptoms set out in the ICD, DSM or SOC. These documents, drawn up by North American and European institutions, are considered valid regardless of where they are operated on. A cisnormative and eurocentric scientific paradigm is imposed, one that does not dialogue with the self-determination of trans subjectivities or with gender identities from non-Westernized cultures — which, by the standards of this science, are furthermore considered pathologies.

The pathologization of trans identities is far from granting access to health institutions, on the contrary. Jaqueline Gomes de Jesus (2016, p. 198) perceives a generalization of the medical care given to trans people by health professionals, who end up “disregarding their particularities, or considering, ubiquitously, that all their health demands are restricted to the process”. Only if we replicate medical discourses about what it means to be trans, if we report suffering from dysphoria since childhood, and express our anguish over being born in the ‘wrong body’, are we legitimized as ‘real’ trans people, and especially if we urgently expose our repulsion towards our genitals and the need to have transgenital surgery.

As trans people’s autonomy over their own identities is scrutinized; as bureaucracies are created so that we can access trans clinics, hormonization processes and surgeries, the situation for intersex people is, in a way, the opposite. Surgeries on their bodies are encouraged, even if against their will. Investigating the records from 1990 to 2003 of a brazilian pediatric surgery clinic for intersex children, Machado (2005, p. 62) noted the repetition of “expressions such as “genitalia with a good aesthetic or cosmetic aspect””. The doctor’s “gaze” would be decisive in judging the “good aspect” of a genitalia, which would decide whether the child should undergo genital modification surgery, according to the sex assigned to them by the medical team. Heteronorm is present even in the details of surgical procedures.

This contradiction between how trans and intersex people are treated in medicine conveys a message: what matters to the “health” institution is not really the well-being of those people, but the reproduction of a norm that must be kept operative. Why are trans people systematically denied hormone therapies, surgeries, cosmetic procedures, civil registration changes, access to public restrooms, schools and spaces of empowerment? For what ends there are, for intersex people, pediatric surgery clinics — that is, surgeries on children — that encourage physical genital changes in infants, without them even being able to decide for themselves about their own identity? Why are physicians responsible for determining the sex of the child, and why are the surgeries performed with a heterosexual and cisgender bias?

Trans people are constantly put to the test. Our behavior, the way we speak and the way we dress are analyzed and questioned: in the case of a transmasculine person, for example, sitting cross-legged can lead to doubts on the part of the medical team: “Are you really trans? If you wanted to be a man, you’d act like a man”. These conflicts are referred to by Bento as an ‘invisible protocol’, present in the strange looks from the medical team, the insults, the whispers and all the attitudes that remind the trans person of their deviant place. The relationship between the medical team and the patients continues through the “essentialization of relations of power [...] by which the medical know-how doesn’t leave alternatives to the patients” (BENTO, 2006, p. 61).

This essentialization is not limited to relations of power, but extends to the standardization of a trans identity through the correlation of certain symptoms, in order to diagnose gender dysphoria, gender identity disorder, gender nonconformity or any other term that points to one’s incompatibility with cisgender norms. As anarchism includes in its fundamentals the defense of self-determination, then the control regime over trans people, erected by pathologization, is contrary to any and all principle that follows the anarchist logic of emancipation, because in pathologization there is no possibility of self-determination. By annulling the self-determination of trans people, the colonialist and institutional way of annihilating non-normative cultures and subjectivities is reproduced. Decolonial and anarchist ideas take a stand against this process.

If the legitimization of our identities by government institutions depends on the deepest submission to cisgender normativities, from the detailed elaboration of our narratives to the affirmation of our desires, then, in this and other contexts, the State constitutes itself as the ultimate denial of the freedom of its governed. This denial worsens as the individual distances themself from the colonial epistemological standard. For this reason, from an anarchist perspective, we defend the impossibility of any State to perform a favorable role for trans people, as well as for black, indigenous and insubmissive beings. Anarchist political theory is not static; it undergoes changes and adaptations according to the context in which it is inserted (WOODCOCK, 1998), but anarchist principles should not be abandoned, as they advocate the need for constant change.

In its transformations, anarchist philosophy consistently rejects any kind of authority, which means, politically, denying any form of government and, economically, denying any form of exploitation; and we can infer, in a medical sense and, more broadly, in any institutional sense, the denial of any authority figure that has the power to control a body, to impose rules upon it, to subject it to humiliation and behavioral protocols, to regulate its desire and its identity.

Thinking of “transsexuality” as a category created in a place of power, immersed in the concept — still not widely accepted by cisgender academics — of cisnormativity, we can see how, from Harry Benjamin’s studies to the present day, the defense of self-determination is something poignant among trans movements and remains necessary in the defense of every marginalized group. In general terms, even if we say we are trans and elaborate a narrative of self-hate, of ‘I was born in the wrong body’, the truth about who we are will be in the hands of a medical authority. Even if we remain in a transsexualization program for two years, with psychiatric and endocrinological monitoring, the medical team’s opinion may be negative. In other words, they may decide that we are not trans and that we cannot undergo physical modifications in relation to gender self-affirmation. The truth of gender and sex is in institutionalized hands.

[violetemerald]

Happy (belated) Ace Week, Gilmore Girls fans! 💜🖤🤍

So I started headcanoning Luke as heteroromantic asexual but of course he has no idea he’s asexual or what asexuality means. I also headcanon Rory as demisexual (hetero-demisexual) too. I can explain why… but it would be more fun maybe to explain in fic form. To analyze them from the characters’ own perspective instead of my perspective kind of a thing.

I genuinely would love to write a fic exploring either or both of these things! However… um…

*Sigh* so it’s hard to know how to broach this when Gilmore Girls was so queer-unfriendly of a show, even with a gay main character (Michel) who was in all 8 seasons (8 if you count the revival). The show avoided directly acknowledging his being gay for most of the show, while indirectly acknowledging it every chance they could and making his whole characterization one of mostly comic relief and the butt of all sorts of types of jokes. They very rarely took him seriously as a character. And he was sidelined; not a member of the town in any real way.

But I’m a queer person who has adored Gilmore Girls for nearly 20 years. I still adore so much about it. Started watching it when I was 14 years old and season 4 was wrapping up airing, and I’m 33 years old now. I didn’t know at the time that I was queer, or that my type of queer identity was even an option—I’m a sex-averse asexual but I’m also gray-panromantic, interested in dating people of all genders, and as a woman I have dated other women and a nonbinary person, and I have a lot of queer friends and acquaintances that span nearly every LGBTQ+ identity. This week during Ace Week 2023 marks the 10 year anniversary for me of coming out to myself as asexual. It’s hard to still be so attached to a show that is so cisnormative and heteronormative—and that’s not even mentioning all the queerphobia they wrote into the show via jokes.

During my most recent rewatch of the entire series around December 2020 into February 2021, when I got to somewhere in season 4 I decided to start taking notes of every time queerness is at all referenced, every transphobic and homophobic joke, etc. 

Part of me wants to find a way to salvage that Lorelai joked about liking women herself because actually she was bisexual, like this fits in as a headcanon that the reason she joked so often about it was because it was on her mind for other reasons. I don’t even know if she joked about it that often but fairly often. A lot of the queerphobic jokes generally came from her? But certainly not all. But her jokes sometimes include herself as into women and it just makes you think “What if she really was? All this time?”. Lorelai also teases many other characters, especially Luke quite often, but sometimes people like Sookie or Rory, and implies they are gay or queer in some other way. 

Rory seemed to be much less canonically homophobic and transphobic. She cut her mother off once when her mother was teasing her homophobically and calls the jokes “inappropriate” even and part of this is just Rory didn’t have the same kind of sense of humor as most of the other characters. She seemed less amused by life, by even their jokes, but especially her characterization was just being a person less likely to crack a joke herself. She did tease Paris in ways that evoked referencing queer things or lesbians but I’m not sure Rory’s humor crossed the line of being actually anti-being queer in any way. Some of this humor is more chuckling at double entendres in English rather than chuckling at the existence of queer people? Like Paris saying she’s sleeping with a girl and Rory bringing up The L Word in reaction.

Actually, though, looking back through my notes for season 4-ish till the end, a lot of characters don’t come up much, or the way they come up is in a different context. Jess actually… I don’t think he ever once cracked a queerphobic joke nor laughed at one. He was the butt of two in season 4 (both from TJ). I hadn’t been taking these type of notes in seasons 2 or 3. I have memorized most of Jess’ scenes and I just don’t recall the early seasons having him being queerphobic. I could be wrong though.

I wasn’t taking notes when Dean or Christopher were on the show much so idk if these men had any such moments. And as far as my notes show, Sookie is just the recipient of Lorelai’s teasing at moments, not queerphobic herself. Kirk is not gonna joke about that stuff, just seriously defend himself against being perceived as gay at moments. And the show frames certain things he obliviously says as a gay joke but he’s not purposefully making any. Maybe really the most homophobic characters are Lorelai and even Luke, and at a few times Emily & Richard. 

Logan’s style of homophobic jokes seem more playful and somehow less offensive to me. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say that but there are ways to tease that aren’t based in as problematic of a starting place. It’s like he’s not afraid to include himself in it the most, so he’s not distancing himself from the queerness? Idk I’d have to rewatch to see if I still have that same impression. He’s also just… more worldly than some of the characters feel like to me. He’s experienced bigger city life more or travel and broadened horizons? He sorta seems like he has more friends than a lot of the characters is maybe part of it. But I’d have to rewatch those moments to see how I really feel about Logan’s gay jokes and if this headcanon of him being less homophobic really is valid.

Anyway, here we are…

I basically feel like in order to write a fanfic that feels genuine and actually includes asexuality/the word "asexual" without feeling forced, awkward, etc, it can’t jump to including it. These characters were SO far away from being able to talk about or process that term. These characters needed to grow and change in various ways before it would fit in the worldbuilding and characterization?

I think the only way to make this work is gradually, slowly. The only way is to showcase that these characters actually do have experiences that shape them into being more and more ready for asexuality to exist in their world. The only way I can make it believable is if I can figure out the missing steps on the bridge between where the show was, and where I want the fic to go. I think it’s not just one missing step. It’s not that simple.

I think Lane and Jess were never small towners. Jess came from NYC, then later as an adult moved to live in Philadelphia, both cities. They are the most likely to meet openly queer people and broaden the worlds of people like Lorelai and Luke as they themselves learn and grow. I think it isn’t a stretch to think of Lane and Jess as very much LGBTQ+ allies, and Jess isn’t likely to become the most vocal ally but he… in his own quiet way could very much be one. And he is very closely connected to Luke’s story, even more than Lane, although both of them are. Lane worked for him in the diner and knows him well. Jess and Lane are both extremely connected to Rory’s story. So for either the Luke asexual headcanon or the Rory demisexual one, Jess or Lane could be a key piece of their stories. Anyway I was saying Jess could sneak up on you quietly with his allyship. His would be maybe more casual and incidental perhaps. 

Lane though. Lane is loud. Lane is bold. Lane is the kind of girl the show could have easily chosen to write as queer herself in any number of ways. But the show didn’t. The show wrote her as very much straight. But she’d… RELATE to the queer experience deeply. She’d be drawn to become a vociferous ally, appreciating the LGBT plight because her upbringing made her feel like she wasn’t allowed to be herself, like she knows what it’s like to be disowned by her mother, for her parents to not approve of who she wants to date/who she loves—in her case because they aren’t Korean or aren’t Christian enough. And yes Lorelai lived a very parallel life in some ways to Lane, they are supposed to be mirrors in some ways, but there are key differences.

I feel like Lane, also in part because she’s younger, is easier to imagine as this kind of ally. A big difference between Lane and Lorelai is that Lane started in the small conservative mostly white town as an outsider racially, too. And she leaves to go on tour, to broaden her horizons and was never destined to stay in that small town forever. (I say screw the revival’s mistreatment of Lane.) Lorelai wasn’t raised in that small town, and instead Lorelai chose it for her adult self and feels at home in it. That’s a very different story.

Lorelai, however, has an interesting additional point for the start of some change or growth. Lorelai has Michel. She has been bearing witness to his life for basically decades as a close friend, theoretically. Michel could call her out on her bullshit at some point. He could tell her something she is saying is offensive, is crossing a line that isn’t hers to cross. 

Also if my headcanon about Luke is to come to fruition, then Lorelai is dealing with being in a long-term romantic relationship with a man who isn’t super into their sex life. The way I interpret his asexuality is that he’s… not really into sex. He’s having sex pretty much only because she wants to. His sex drive is low. He’s very romantic, but he’s not very sexual. She’s always initiating. Her sexual flirting is making him uncomfortable. And he’s just… idk. I have a lot to explore specific to this headcanon once I figure out the fic I’m writing. I just think Lorelai will be somewhat primed to believe in and accept the existence of asexuality since she’s been living with a complicated truth that neither her nor her partner understood—that Luke’s potential weirdness around sex/their sex life could be explained by asexuality. I’m not saying they never have sex. But it could explain why when the revival started something had held them back from actually getting married all those years. It could explain some of the issues between them. And it definitely works well alongside the fact that Luke spent so many years single.

I think in order to write this fic, I need to outline a plot that establishes a relatively gradual shift in these characters’ appreciation for the fact that not everyone is straight in the world. That there are more possibilities, make sexual orientation generally something that could comfortably be discussed in a Gilmore Girls style way, with tasteful humor sprinkled in but no longer punching down or ridiculing people who are gay or gender-nonconforming. 

I think I could do it. I just need to find or make the time for it. 

So. I was gonna write a short ace fic for Ace Week while it was still #AceWeek2023 and instead I wrote this meta essay adjacent thing and posted it slightly late. But I hope someone can appreciate this insight into my thought process. I hope it was interesting or fun for at least one of you. :) Thanks!

[clarinettispaghetti]

It’s really frustrating that almost everything is made for cis people.

I was listening to a psych lecture about sex and gender yesterday, but it was only about sex and gender for cis people. How hormones affect cis people, what behaviors cis men and women have, what cis people answered on surveys. Trans and intersex people were mentioned but only as a couple lines of definition. It felt like an afterthought.

In most media and education trans and intersex are not treated like viewers and readers. At best we are an other that might get taught about, at worst we are completely excluded.

[daybringersol]

I'm pissed off by conservatives but I don't think that makes them (inherently) queer

it wasnt meant literally, sorry that it wasn’t clear. what i meant is that queerness is an anarchist political mouvement in itself (by the literal definition of anarchism), not just a collection of identities. queerness is in itself a search to destroy unnecessary hierarchies (like heteronormativity, cisnormativity, amatonormativity, exorsexism, ect.) around sex, sexuality, romance and gender, and thus, conservatism is its natural opposite (since, by definition, it seeks to conserve these hierarchies). in short, if conservatives (as in, the whole ideology, not just like your uncle) are pissed off at you for existing (because your existence in itself puts into question these hierarchies), youre doing queerness right, no matter what your identity is.

the reason LGB without the T and other exclusitionist mouvements like that exists is because the LGBTQ+ community has become just a community of people with marginalized identities and not a political mouvement like it was at the start. when people ask “why are trans people (or aces, or aros, or intersex people, ect.) in the same community as gay people, their experiences are so different”, that is a direct result of this. the LGBTQ+ community was formed originally to take down together these deeply intertwined hierarchies of power, not only to soothe ourselves by being around people who love us for who we are.

in my books, a fully cisgender heterosexual allosexual alloromantic perisex person can absolutely be queer, if what they do with their free will, and thus their existence, puts into question these aforementioned hierarchies (for exemple, if they crossdress, if they do drag, if they choose to live their life in celibacy, if theyre polyamorous, if theyre detrans, if they transition, ect.). i do understand that is a controversial opinion tho, and we can agree to disagree on that one lmao. less controversial, but still, i also think some LGBTQ+ people are absolutely not queer, and usually, those people themselves agree.

the queer community, in itself, is a community of marginalised people who are inherently more defiant against those hierarchies, because the successful reclamation of the word queer itself puts into questions these hierarchies. if being queer is inherently worse than being “normal”, than why would so many people ever want to call themselves that /s ? is there some hidden value in queerness /rhe ? of course, we know there is, but anti-queer rhetoric works on the basis that queerness is inherently inferior to cisheteroamatonormativity. obviously, im not saying the LGBTQ+ community and the queer community are separate communities, since the overlap is so big, more that the queer community is an anarchist subset of the LGBTQ+ community.

ill probably talk about this later, but im exhausted rn ahah. just wanted to clear up the confusion.

original (admittedly unclear) post [link]

[draconicrose]

Great video by Sarah Z about how queerbaiting is misused nowadays, how it hurts everyone, and why we shouldn't be policing real people's gender expressions.

[intersexfairy]

the whole "ahah this person sees me as a guy so well they forgot i can't get people pregnant" thing is funny and affirming on the surface but it's still cisnormative because it assumes that men have dicks (and vice versa, that women have vaginas/etc).

[transexualpirate]

anyways if you hear transfem and imagine an amab and hear transmasc and imagine an afab i hate to tell you but you've just reinvented cisnormativity

[dailyanarchistposts]

Conclusion

Medical institutions are a reflection of the cisnorm — and not only because ambulatory clinics demand that our performances conform to cisgender molds, but also because all spaces that are not specifically designated for trans people are veiled as being designated for cis people, with racial, class and various bodily segregations. Trans clinics are not exempt from this. The people who apply for the transsexualization processes and usually undergo the various stages of evaluation, as Bento has shown, are those who, to some extent, fit into a cisgender social reading, or — truthfully or not — claim to desire it. Medical authorities do not give up their place as authorities. The institutional walls continue to protect the determinations of what is or is not ‘being trans’, of how we should or should not be treated, of what access we can or cannot have. The annihilation of trans subjectivities falls under the concept of epistemicide, insofar as any possibility of self-determination and knowledge production about transsexuality by trans people is annulled.

Since the early 2000s, with the insurgence of trans social movements in Brazil — such as the National Association of Travestis and Transsexuals (ANTRA) or the Brazilian Institute of Transmasculinities (IBRAT) -, popular pressure on pathologization has been strong, but only achieved results by the end of the first decade. The ICD-11 and DSM-V have modified its sections on transsexuality. However, they continue to catalog trans identities as something-not-quite-right, whereas cisgenderity remains unnamed. We still depend on medical approval to access surgery and hormone therapy. The authority of “scientific opinion” remains, even after changes to the ICD and DSM. This shows us how institutions operate: not without authority, not without hierarchy, not without a clear dynamic of subjection.

The government-regulated trans clinics express the materialization of cisgender norm. The means by which we can access health care are the same ones that force us into a violent normativity. And these are the same forces that compel us to introject cisnormative trans subjectivities, based on the dynamics of culpability and segregation (GUATTARI; ROLNIK, 1996). In general terms, there is no possibility of social emancipation that passes through institutional hands, whether it be the government’s so-called ‘assistance’ of dissident people, affirmative policies aimed at marginalized groups, or the provision of minimal services that seek to protect trans people from violence. The monoculture of knowledge (SANTOS, 2014) is a constant that underpins different institutionalized spaces. Even though these ambulatory policies and institutional initiatives of “care” can be fruitful, it cannot be denied that every institutional apparatus, once it represents the arms of the State, operates to maintain segregation. The “care” provided by trans clinics translates into epistemic violence, the erasure of subjectivities and the imposition of the cisnorm. The name change protocols offered by registry offices and the judicial system cause embarrassment, inaccessibility and vexatious situations.

One cannot fight for freedom except from it and using it as the main instrument (BAKUNIN, 2021); one cannot defend the emancipation of dissident bodies through institutions, as this would be the same as striving for freedom by means of the very same instruments that produce imprisonment. Only through libertarian means — that stand against the authoritarianism of institutionalized scientific knowledge — can we glimpse emancipation.

[yukirandom]

It's disgusting voices are labeled as "masculine" and "feminine" when they made such a good work in not gendering bodies, makeup and hair. Specially as Erika is non binary.

[m3l4nch0ly-h1ll]

People call way too many things 'woke.'

Such as people being offended by the term cisgender being used. It's the opposite of transgender. And people don't realize how stupid they look using the term 'biological' in replacement of cisgender. A biological woman is very different from a cis woman.

You're including anyone born as one sex no matter their identity if you say 'biological.' And you are referring specifically to someone whose gender identity aligns with society's views based off their sex, if you use the term cisgender.

And the people that use the term 'normal' in replacement of 'cisgender' are more than likely to be referring to trans people as abnormal, and putting cis people on a pedestal in the process. They're so scared of using accurate terms and call them 'woke terms' as a way of trying to put shame on them.