#feeling like a woman looking like a man

[uncanny-tranny]

Okay, are belly button piercings "trashy," or do you just associate them with femininity, or women, or sex work and strike it down as inherently less worthy? Are 'tramp stamps' "trashy", or do you just associate them with femininity, or women, or sex work and strike it down as inherently less worthy? Is pole dance "trashy", or do you associate it with women, or sex work and strike it down as inherently less worthy?

These are examples, but I find it interesting when people link things with womanhood or femininity or - gasp! - sex work and then immediately condemn, scrutinize, and dehumanize those who even dapple a little in these things, even if it isn't for sex work or to "look trashy." It's funny how the feminine or woman is seen as trashy until proven otherwise, and it's shameful that people still hold the bias that women must prove their humanity by not "being trashy" or "acting like a hooker."

[b4kuch1n]

siren

[ctrl-lupin]

Goemon is terrifying

[fayevalcntine]

Positioning Louis as the "Edwardian wife who becomes trapped by her husband" in a literal sense does no justice to analyzing his actual place and role as a Black man in his society and in his relationship with Lestat. Any interpretation or analysis you do of him when it comes to their relationship cannot be stripped of the racial aspect because it's constantly there. Texts analyzing Edwardian wives (and particularly ones this fandom loves to bring up) typically were white and the dissection of their place in societal rules are always viewed from the aspect of gender that is within these texts only allowed to white women, but never to Black men or even Black women. And gender and race become inseparable when you discuss the latter, no matter how people may view it.

This is why I can't take this approach to analyzing Louis' story seriously because if you don't consider the racial aspect in his relationship even to himself and his sexuality, what's the point? You're still centering the standards that were more placed upon white male/female couples than you're willing to look into the unique structure of Black families, religion, their view of homosexuality and how that sooner heavily influences Louis than the family's "need" for him to be sold off to an Edwardian husband. Even in Louis' own story, him and Claudia being Black is more centered on than any demeaning "housewife" comment he tries to go against from Claudia's perspective. She makes that comment once, whereas we have at least two episodes from Louis' perspective that have very blatant hints and showings of the racism he still suffers from under the Jim Crow era and how it affects his self-worth as well as his relationship with Lestat who doesn't seem to take into consideration how any of the blatant racial aggressions and objections still affect Louis and what he considers to be important to achieve in his own life.

Then there's also the pointed topic of Louis' position as a Black man who is a pimp to the Black women he has as sex workers, as well as how his position as a Black father affects Claudia, another Black girl. If you insist on Louis being centered as this "Edwardian white wife" who is confined by his implicit gender in his marriage, where does that leave Claudia and the blatant misogyny and disrespect she gets from both him and Lestat? Lestat who is her white father abuses her. Positioning Louis within the strict confines of "being her mother" doesn't do her any favors because he didn't hesitate to choke her when he was deeply emotionally distressed, nor does it make him look any better when he's fine with chopping up her diaries and then delivering them on a silver platter so that Daniel, another white man, can read and dissect. Even if he does this under the sole pretense of "doing right by her", how does it in any way help when he also can't face up to his failures towards her?

[kaymarie-bell]

[dollypopup]

sorry, just had to get this off my chest but like

colin, a young and attractive guy, supposedly having a threesome and watching a sex show performed by professionals whom he pays for their service when he is single and exploring what he does and doesn't like is bad for penelope, somehow

but debling a 30+ year old man feeling all up on her waist in public when she is a teenager and he has power and privilege over her and has known her for a grand total of like a week and a half is good, somehow

like this fandom has legit called Colin, a 22 year old man with like. . .2 UNCONFIRMED sexual interactions in the past a groomer for getting with Penelope and maybe introducing her to his interests (after spending YEARS listening to her and cherishing her and thinking she's fantastic) but will root on the actual 30+ year old man with an enormous power imbalance over her via his money and title to have his way with her in a backroom somewhere after knowing her for like a month

make it make sense please

[thedreadvampy]

unwarranted Cis Opinion but I'm getting really uncomfortable w people responding to bathroom bills by posting pictures of trans men like DO YOU WANT THEM IN WOMEN'S BATHROOMS

bc like. no they're men. they should be in men's bathrooms unless that feels unsafe. but. it really feels like it's not helpful to lean into the idea that seeing someone presenting masc or being read as a man in a women's bathroom means You're In Danger.

like I know several butch women and NB ppl who are really scared around being on T or getting top surgery bc they're not men and they don't want to be in the men's bathroom, and in that circumstance stuff like growing facial hair or reading more androgynously can be really fucking scary when people are being primed by propaganda to be on edge and hyperreactive to anyone who doesn't look like their idea of a Cis Woman.

and I'm not laying that at the feet of the people saying "hey uhhhh trans men are men and don't belong in women's bathrooms" bc it is not their fault. it's the fault of a concerted effort to make it difficult and dangerous to be trans or substantively gender nonconforming in public.

but at the same time idk I guess it just worries me cause sometimes it feels like "you fools! you are worried about this group of trans people bc you think they're the Lurking Danger of Men In Bathrooms? WRONG! the Men Making You Feel Afraid In Bathrooms are actually THESE trans people!" when in fact neither of those groups using the fucking bathroom is a problem. just piss and mind your business. people need to go where they need to go.

anyway this country is a hot fucking trash fire that somehow accelerates its descent into open fascism more every day so it's all super good and normal. so don't take this too seriously tbh cause it's somewhere near #2535654476457899009765 on the list of priorities for Queer Discourse right now when the fucking human rights commission is actively rescinding protections from trans people. Please ignore my gibberish.

[bonefall]

longtime dc fan and i think a lot of people are angry because alex is obviously one of the most culturally relevant instances of misogyny in media. that being said being more culturally relevant doesn’t mean it’s the worst instance of misogyny and i think bumble definitely experiences more profound misogyny in the way the actual content is presented, if that makes sense

I get you, and that's a charitable way of looking at it.

I think what's rustling my jimmies is that like, there was a couple of WC fans being mildly dismissive of Alex in that note minefield, after dozens of comments of "fuck you how could you let the fridge woman lose" and "Bumble didn't deserve to win ANY rounds" and "how could A CAT experience misogyny." But then WE get blamed for the toxicity because THEY were butthurt that the Funny Cat People have the 'audacity' to win something they feel entitled to.

Like, we've gotta be endlessly charitable as we get openly insulted because they're upset about Alex losing, a very well-known and culturally relevant character with a legacy so massive we have a whole term named after her. But condemnations of "She's just a cat, letting WC into this poll was a mistake, Bumble can't even be a victim of misogyny" only started coming around once I started talking about it.

as if it's OUR fault people got passive-aggressive or even OPENLY aggressive towards us, and that we're "just as bad" for retaliating

But like you said, it's not a "Most Culturally Relevant Misogyny" tournament, it's a "Canon Misogyny Victims" tournament. And you're not even supposed to give a shit that Bumble died. The fat, woman abuse victim is beaten to death by a dictator, and your takeaway is meant to be, "It's so sad that Clear Sky is being blamed for murdering her, now they're all preparing for self-defense against a homicidal maniac, oh nooo :("

And I think that DOES make her deserve the win here! Alex is a MARTYR. Everyone with a brain agrees what happens to her is bad. It happened in her canon because it was bad. We talk about her and keep her memory alive. Bumble gets dismissed entirely out of hand because she's "just a cat in a kid's book" as if that doesn't make it worse, and as if the kid's book didn't treat a domestic abuse survivor like a moron for even asking for help.

Anyway, just to reiterate, I love DC fans. It's not all of you guys. Alex was done dirty and deserves justice-- and it's even kind of a shame that all she became is "The Fridge Woman." I haven't even heard people talk about how she was a wary, responsible person who was still ready to rock with Kyle's new weird glowstick powers, or that she was a journalist, or that she just got brought back in another edition as a Green Lantern only to be revealed as an illusion and re-absorbed back into Kyle's mind. Nope. Even her fans just remember her as The Fridge Woman.

[skunkes]

i very rarely feel like a character Should've Been a Girl but i do think mickbell dungeon meshi shouldve been a girl

[chrollohearttags]

rule #1: never take ashwagandha and get wine drunk 🧍🏾‍♀️

[uncanny-tranny]

Passing as a trans man is a nuanced and complex topic, but one thing I have been noticing as somebody who is a cis-passing (white) trans man is the way I'm treated when there is conflict.

I've noticed that in conflict, people are almost meek around me, willing for me to try working with them up until a woman is involved. When a woman (or, really, anybody who the other party assumes is one) is part of the conflict, they direct all their anger and rage to them. It's fucking insane the way a woman is treated when there is conflict, even if it isn't her fucking fault. These people are fundamental cowards for seeing my manhood as the only reason they can't be openly hostile to me, but it reveals a lot about how a misogynist thinks on an almost primal level.

I'm watching the women and people around me I care about being torn apart by people, and that's unacceptable. I can't sit around to watch it, and I don't want to do that. I need other people to perhaps read this and remember to not stand by if there is something that you can tangibly do to help, even if it's to lend a listening ear or let the person vent.

[blood-choke]

hiiii… i wanted to ask more about this particular val scene where mc and her talk about that portrait and mc is a bit stuck on the word husband and wants val to know theyre not a man. can i ask what inspired that type of convo? i wanted to know if it’s something you’ll touch up on again? is this underlying feelings mc had before their entombment… worried that val sees them as a man just because mc is masc? cause i know that’s kind of broader discussion in the lesbian community iirc….. was that why you wanted to incorporate it? this ask has so many questions LOL but basically i wanted to say i was intrigued and it did made me think more on those type of dynamics (thinking back to those resources you rb’d a while ago that go more into depth about diff things in the lesbian community)

oh boy get ready for another long-winded answer from me!

a lot of the feelings mc has about their gender are inspired by Leslie Feinberg's work (mainly Stone Butch Blues)

Feinberg was someone who lived & passed as a man for years of hir life, and wrote a lot about the complexities of hir gender and what it was like being a "gender outlaw."

there was actually a scene in particular from sbb that kinda put the kernel of an idea in my mind that led to this narrative of the mc feeling overshadowed by Standard and anxious about being perceived as a man. it's towards the end of the book when Jess (sbb's protagonist) meets Ruth (a trans woman that Jess falls in love with)

Jess offers to help Ruth carry groceries up to her apartment, and Ruth takes this the wrong way & is offended, partly because she thinks Jess is a man.

One Saturday afternoon I found her clutching two huge bags of groceries and fumbling with the downstairs front-door lock. I pulled out my key.

“Here, let me.” She didn’t say thank you. She hurried ahead of me on the stairs.

“Can I help you carry those?” I offered.

“Do I look weak to you?” she asked.

I stopped on the stairs. “No. Where I come from it’s just a sign of respect, that’s all.”

She continued up the stairs. “Well, where I come from,” she called out, “men don’t reward women for pretending to be helpless.” Once I heard her apartment door close I kicked the stair in anger and frustration.

later, after they get to know each other better, they have this interaction:

I laughed and picked at my salad. “Do you know if I’m a man or a woman?”

“No,” Ruth said. “That’s why I know so much about you.”

I sighed. “Did you think I was a man when you first met me?" She nodded. "Yes. At first I thought you were a straight man. Then I thought you were gay. It’s been a shock for me to realize that even I make assumptions about sex and gender that aren’t true. I thought I was liberated from all of that.”

I smiled. “I didn’t want you to think I was a man. I wanted you to see how much more complicated I am. I wanted you to like what you saw.”

i think the inspiration here is quite obvious, hahaha. i figure anyone that's read sbb can sense the similar through-line here in my work. though the conversation between mc and Valentina has a much different tone.

there's another scene later as well after something happens to Jess and she has to have her jaw wired shut. she's working at a new job and is unable to speak, and she's also passing as a man at this job. she overhears some of her female coworkers talking about her and they refer to her as a "creep" and speculate that she's always watching one of them. Jess overhears all of this and then walks out of the job, goes home and pulls the wires out of her mouth herself:

After I was sure I’d gotten the last piece of wire out of my gums, I rinsed my mouth with whiskey and then drank the rest of it so I could sleep without remembering how Marija’s words had stripped me of my humanity.

butches & gnc women still face this kind of dehumanization; compared or likened to men in a derogatory way, accused of being "heteropatriarchal," the predatory stereotype of the fat ugly lesbian, and on the other side they're also hypersexualized, especially online and in queer spaces. butchphobia is a specific kind of misogyny that hits from all sides, even from the people that are supposed to be a part of your community. and this attitude especially effects trans women and women of color, who are already experiencing all of these things due to transmisogyny and racism.

i also really wanted to use this to touch on the kind of gender essentialism that we see in a lot of these cis feminist discussions - to these women at this job, Jess had committed no real crime other than being quiet and being the “wrong” kind of man. something about this scene has always stuck with me and really bothered me, but it's hard to put into words; on one hand i can admit i have probably been one of those women who made some kind of similar remark about a man i barely knew, but i've also been someone on the receiving end, too, because of the way i look. the mc in blood choke is put into this box, but they can't fit in, as someone who has been on both sides and doesn't really understand where they belong because of it; how can she stand beside Valentina or Hana or Clear when they might see her as a perpetrator, someone who can't be trusted? how does this mindset harm both the women and the men of the council and everyone in between? how can we break this cycle?

one of the films i mentioned recently when talking about the character designs was The Same Difference, which is specifically about the Black lesbian community and the discrimination within that community based upon gender roles (though this is not something limited to just the Black lesbian community)

a lot of the women in that doc talk about the boxes they're put in as AG or stud lesbians - they can't have their hair long, they can't wear makeup, they can't do this or that, they have to be aggressive and hard or else they're not real studs. they discuss stud on stud (or butch4butch) and how other lesbians look down on those types of lesbians, as well as the disdain for bisexual women for "betraying" the community. it explores the way misogyny and the patriarchy still oppress these women and forces them into this restrictive gender role despite their refusal to adhere to the other role originally assigned to them, and the way racism specifically intersects and exacerbates it for Black lesbians. there's a stud that's an exotic dancer and wears a weave, and a lot of other studs have a problem with this because a weave is "a female thing." another section follows a pregnant stud, and how the community shuns her for that, because she "dresses like a man and acts like a man" so why is she getting pregnant when she should be "the man"?

mc doesn't remember how they felt before entombment, but waking up they feel this need to prove themselves - both in that they are hard and aggressive like a butch should be, but also in that they want to be this person for Valentina or Clear or Hana (or all of them) that is safe and comforting. but they aren't sure how to do that when the world perceives them as this one specific thing - as a husband, as Standard, as a man, specifically this man who hurt Valentina.

of course we've already seen this to not be true of the companions with the last chapter as the mc learns more and spends more time with everyone. but this is kind of the foundation of where this whole idea came from. it started with my novel & i chose vampires for that story & this one because there is a long history of lesbian vampirism (and also because it's sexy) but there's this "curse" that both Hana & Valerie talk about in their respective stories, the first one being the racism she's had to face, the transphobia, along with this alienation and perception of lesbians as predatory and conniving and aggressive, as vampires, which i just think really lends itself to expanding upon these issues lesbians & trans women face both in general and within the community.

anyways if you want to read more i suggest Stone Butch Blues, which you can get for free on Leslie Feinberg's website, as well as S/he, by Minnie Bruce Pratt, available on the internet archive, Gender Failure by Ivan E. Coyote & Rae Spoon also on the internet archive, and you can rent The Same Difference for $10 on vimeo.

[dolls-self-ships]

the awkward moment when you’re in the middle of an x reader fic and start crying out of nowhere bc you want someone to treat you/desire you that way irl but every time you try and be with someone the aromantic feelings TM start happening again and you have to go through the slow painful realization that you only like these scenarios in fiction so you will forever be consumed by this eternal feeling of heart wrenching longing and desire for something that disgusts and churns your stomach in reality.

[elv-arts]

Redraw time! Nearly a decade between these.

The first one is the first art I posted on the internet, as soon as my parents let me make a deviantart account. I was thirteen and used to draw this kind of thing a lot.

The second I drew last night at 2am because I wanted to make 13yr old me happy and also i got possessed by the sleepy art demon.

[ID: Image 1 - a coloured pencil drawing of an "anime style" girl taking a selfie with takanuva from bionicle. The girl has pale freckled skin, long brown hair in a low ponytail, and a slim green vest top. One arm holds up the camera, and the girl and takanuva each have one arm around the other's back. They're smiling with their eyes closed and the background is a sunny view of the sea and a beach with a sand castle. There's some sun glare in the corner of the picture, wispy clouds, and the sea has sparkles on it.

Image 2 - a digital drawing of a person taking a selfie with takanuva. The person has pale freckled skin, an underbite, long brown hair with growing out buzzed sides tied in a ponytail, and a black tshirt with the sleeves cut off. They have chipped black nails, an ear cuff and a couple bracelets including a rainbow one. They are grinning and are making a peace sign. Takanuva's eyes are making a happy expression and he is also making a peace sign (or perhaps failed bunny ears) behind the person. The background is a blue sky with wispy clouds and a beach. End ID]

My art has changed a lot, and I've grown so much, but some things have certainly stayed the same lol

[hadesoftheladies]

hate going for christian weddings sometimes because i always see the prettiest women with the ugliest men, the sermon is always some shit about wives being slaves (but not like bad slavery, mutual slavery except the husband is a benevolent master which makes it okay) and making babies for their husband, the music is always lame, the mc is always weird and obnoxious, and older women keep fucking asking me when it's gonna be my turn and never take no for an answer.