#feminine transmascs and masculine transfems and others

[salt216000]

I saw a post today that made me quite upset. Normally I'd just ignore, but I read some of the tags and they upset me quite a bit too.

Username is cropped out because I don't want to make it seem like I'm putting 'em on blast, I just want to give my opinion on this.

Transfem headcanons of Gabriel are absolutely fine. Awesome, even. But not while putting down transmasc headcanons at the same time.

The post makes a really interesting and good point! Transfem Gabriel does work well with his narrative of growth and discovery of his own identity, especially as someone cast out of Heaven for not achieving the ridiculous standards they set. That is a really good notion that, yes, being entirely honest, I don't see as frequently from that angle.

But you do NOT have to say it is a 'failure of the fandom' and pin the blame on more people headcanoning him as transmasc. If you want transfem Gabriel content then you can make it: art, writing, musings, anything, but you don't have to put down other creators for projecting their own ideas and potentially their own experiences onto a character they like and relate to.

I'm going to preface this next part with: I am NOT disparaging against transfem Gabriel headcanons, or giving reasons as to why they shouldn't exist. All I am doing here is clarifying why people tend to headcanon him as transmasc. Francis Xie was hired by Hakita to draw concept art, and he is known for drawing a lot of artwork of Gabriel (some NSFW in nature, as a warning in case you decide to look for yourself), and in said artwork he depicts his headcanon of Gabriel being transmasc. Of course, this is not gospel, it is not officially canon and even if it was people are allowed to headcanon him as whatever they want, I only bring this up to help explain why the headcanon may be so popular.

More personally, I find it really gender affirming to have a character in the ballpark of masculine in frame and voice, but to see him wear more feminine clothing in official artwork without it being degrading. It's very nice to see a depiction of this to help push back against the reinforcement that masculine presenting people must conform to certain standards, and that's why I personally enjoy the headcanon too.

There are also a decent few characters that DO get more transfem rep: Mirage, the mindflayers, mannequins, V2, so I don't understand why it's a problem that it is the minority with Gabriel. I wasn't originally going to post this publically, but these tags pushed me to do so:

Username once again cropped out for the same reason as above. To be clear, these are NOT OP's tags.

I don't care what the original tone OP meant was, if it was joking or playful or whatever else, because the sentiment that that post gathered is absolutely wretched. I don't have much else to say about it without getting deeper into gender stuff that I don't want to extend this post with, but I'll reiterate my main point.

You can be upset that there aren't headcanons that represent a certain idea you prefer, but DO NOT put down others who have contrasting ideas in the same breath. If you want to make a post about Gabriel being transfem being a great narrative, go for it, no one will stop you, but do not fucking wrap in a 'transmasc headcanons are wrong and don't get it, and my headcanon is more correct', and at those tags in particular, do NOT treat transmasc headcanons like this, 'transmasc pandemic' is such an awful way to put it and makes me feel as though a line in the sand is being further drawn between transmascs and others who are not.

[pokegyns]

the way that baeddelism & antitransmasculinity permeates & slips through every corner of the trans community and nobody does anything about it because transfems are this Protected UwU Baby Girls™ is actually so sickening. i’m tired of seeing literal baeddels getting away with saying shit like “men are oppressive. but by men we do not mean just cis males we mean trans men too! they are also men!” like. “validating” my gender identity only to dehumanize me & throw “tme” at me in a demeaning manner is not progressive at all. i am not “privileged” for being transmasc & i am not violent or abusive or powerful or capable of systemically harming trans women. i am not simply oppressed on the basis of being trans, i am quite literally, quite factually oppressed for being a trans man– i am oppressed for being a person of the female sex, and doubly so for being a person of the female sex who misaligns with cisheteropatriarchal ideals & inherently goes against what the cisheteropatriarchy has set upon me. i was punished & shamed for being gnc during my childhood, for being gnc in the way that female people are gnc. i wasn’t seen as a feminine boy, i was seen as a masculine girl, and i lived the childhood of a masculine girl. i went through all the hardships cis girls did, and i also experienced a subset of misogyny that specifically targets masculine & gnc girls– antitransmasculinity. i was punished for not fitting in with the cishet norms, for being autistic & not understanding gender roles, for not liking boys, for being the “strange odd girl”…

when i learned what dysphoria was & began identifying as trans, i did not suddenly gain male privilege overnight. saying that transmascs are a category of marginalized men might seem like a harmless statement, but it is often used for erasure & furthering transmasc invisibility, violent invisibility. it might “gender us properly”, but saying we are a category of marginalized men often fails to fully encompass the factual reality that we aren’t seen as men. we aren’t marginalized just for being trans, we are marginalized for being female & for being transmasc. our oppression more aligns with the way that lesbians, especially gnc ones, are oppressed, than it does with the way that any other category of marginalized men are oppressed.

telling transmascs that we “need to make sure everyone else around us is comfortable” & that we “should pander to the women around us” literally reeks of this specific type of misogyny that targets us. the way that the trans community tends to treat us as “just queer men” & quite literally erase the fact that we are trans, is rooted in deep misunderstandings of lesbophobia, antitransmasculinity, misogyny & gncphobia. when we are punished for being gnc during our childhoods, we aren’t punished for wearing dresses & liking make-up– we are punished for not doing that. when we are punished for not being opposite-sex attracted (i know not all transmascs are same-sex attracted, it’s just that a lot of trans people in general do tend to be ssa), we aren’t punished for liking boys/men, we are punished for liking girls/women. in what world are regular men punished for liking women? in what world are regular men punished for not being feminine? antitransmasculinity in the trans community either malgenders us & paints us just as capable of perpetrating misogyny as cis men are (even when we aren’t even out, apparently it’s ingrained in us– does that smell of gender essentialism???), or it straight up attacks us on the basis of our observed sex without even trying to hide it– see “afab privilege”, “theyfab”, “tme” (not necessarily inherently bad, but the way in which it is used is bad), “trans guys need to be subservient & quiet”, literal fetish accounts made by transfems who openly misgender us & talk about “detransition kink”… it all goes back to the good ol’ “shut up and let the smart people speak”.

this is not the way that normie men, even normie marginalized men, are treated. the crowd that malgenders us & expects us to be okay with their little “kam includes trans men!”, “all men are bad! including trans men!”, “trans men’s gender identity harms trans women!” comments because they’re “affirming” us… no. shut up. i do not care about being “affirmed” if the way you are “affirming” me is dehumanizing. transmascs do not have the systemic power to oppress neither cis, nor trans women.

the baeddel belief system, that misogyny is born out of transmisogyny (& not the other way around, at the very least), is also so fucking wild and insane. transfems refusing to accept that they’ve generally been male socialized & that they were punished for being gnc in the way that they misaligned with the cisheteropatriarchal ideals for being seen as feminine boys & not for being seen as masculine girls is one thing– dysphoria can take a massive toll on your beliefs, and i get being uncomfortable with the whole gender socialization theory (although it is legitimate, even if some people do use it maliciously), but it is another thing to firmly claim you weren’t under any circumstance ever treated as a boy at one point (then are you denying transphobia exists?? what???), but at the same time, transmascs absolutely were socialized female & we have this nonexistent “afab privilege”, BUT we’re also evil men who hate & oppress women of all sorts. but god forbid we ever enter women’s spaces or connect with women in any way, especially not with lesbians. we have no right to those spaces, and we are “invading” women’s spaces even if we do not pass– but non-passing trans women who are literally hypermasc & would look like the average normie guy if people didn’t know their gender identity (i’m not talking about masc passing transfems, transfems def can both pass as women & be masc) are free to call themselves lesbians & enter women’s spaces, and we are evil and bigoted if we say that’s dumb as fuck. we cannot ever connect with lesbians or, i apologize for the heresy, do the vilest sin humanity has ever seen & even call ourselves lesbians. we are hurting lesbians! we are totally capable of harming cis lesbians, because we totally yield systemic power over them, even if we do not pass at all. the trans woman whose lesbianism is fully dependent on her inner identity is more free to enter lesbian spaces & her lesbianism is more valid than mine, a visibly gnc transmasc butch’s who-is-not-out-as-trans. the trans woman who didn’t even experience transmisogyny growing up & wasn’t ever even gnc at any point in her life, is somehow more valid to call herself a lesbian, than i, a person whose childhood was practically made of antitransmasculinity & lesbophobia, am.

baeddel ideology is inconsistent. they either use radfem talking points but flip them all the way around & turn them upside down, so trans men are now as evil and abusive as cis men & oppressive to both cis & trans women & the entire reality of us being assigned female is erased, or they straight up attack us based on the very fact that we are assigned female & treat us as if we are not Truly Trans. either way, we are never acknowledged as trans. the former sees us as “just guys” (but keep in mind that crowd never uplifts us & babies us in the way they do to cis men, so again we aren’t even really seen as guys), and the latter sees us as “stupid theyfab ftms tmes” “who aren’t really trans”. in simple words, the former sees us as cis guys undeserving of male privilege (but still claiming we somehow have it), and the latter sees us as cis girls undeserving of cis privilege. baeddelism was designed to harm transmascs, and while it can also do harm to cis women (with the whole misogyny part of it), it specifically harms transmascs & even just gnc cis women. it deeply hurts me when i realize that these sort of people are out there dating trans men & transmascs. some of them even actually do the next step & start with physical abuse. it makes me so incredibly sad. i will never shut up about antitransmasculinity, no matter what.

– mod zoroark

[1o1percentmilk]

i think there is a common transphobic argument that's like "oh just be gnc" that falls apart when you realize there are trans people who absolutely have physical dysphoria but are mostly fine with their agab gender role and stuff

[spartalabouche]

sometimes its really obvious how much people dont actually believe presentation=/=gender when they see their nonbinary friend go from extremely masculine to relaxing back into femininity once theyre comfortable with their gender and every time they call it detransitioning with zero indication thats what their friend is calling it. i dont know how to tell you this but sometimes you present a certain way for social reasons and not because thats how you actually feel. sometimes you experience dysphoria about your body that is actually related to how people view you and not how you feel about your body. i really dont think its that uncommon for trans people to swing really hard in one direction for the affirmation and then relax back into a different presentation once they are more comfortable in their gender

[divine-construct]

honestly i dislike the words ‘transmasc’ ‘transfem’ ‘transneutral’ ‘transneumasc’ ‘transneufem’ ‘transfemmasc’ ‘transneumascfem’ and, if there’s more, those too. they imply that you transition to a binary masculinity/feminity/neutrality/mix of those, and many trans people i know don’t.

the male body i want is not inherently masculine. even if i want a male body, i don’t actively want to dress masculine. transmasc and transfem are just new words to reinforce the same male = masculine, female = feminine binary again. my little brother (amab) has long hair and a sidecut, wears ‘masculine’ clothes, and still keeps getting read as a girl because he’s short and has a rather high-pitched voice (because he’s a kid!). not even a masculine presenting amab person is inherently masculine.

in the end, my transness means that i want a male-looking body, but not neccessarily a masculine one. and, apart from that, i as a whole am not and do not wish to be masculine. i am neither only masculine or only feminine—i am both—but if i had to choose just one? then i’d be transfeminine. i enjoy dressing mostly fem, appearing mostly fem, looking mostly fem. in a male-looking body. but i cannot call myself transmasculine for the wish of a male body, if there is no masculinity i am transitioning to.

[dykeogenes]

older butch lesbians, living happily as butch women, who say “if I were a kid now I would have been a trans man instead of a lesbian” are a whole lot closer to being trans— not ‘potentially’ trans, not ‘might have been’ trans, but really, actually, literally, trans, in their present lived experience, she/her and all— than they are to being transphobic. but I don’t think any of you are really ready for that conversation.

[trans-ruffboi]

some of yall NEED to be more normal about trans people's sexuality

[ihavenomouthandimustmouth]

It seems like a lot of the anti-transmasculinity/transandrophobia discourse revolves around the ideas that either this does not occur, does not occur in real life, or is just transmascs viewing criticisms of transmisogynistic transmascs as oppression, so here’s a story.

I live with some other people around my age, and I stopped using my deadname with them earlier this year. it hasn’t been that long, about 3 months, but generally, they use my correct name with an occasional mistake, usually followed up by a correction. one of them, however, just cannot seem to stop deadnaming me, often without correcting afterwards. when they do notice they’ve gotten it wrong, it’s usually followed up by a big thing about how they don’t know why they’re so bad at it or blaming it on being drunk if they’re drunk, but often not an apology.

an additional piece of this—my partner, who is a trans woman, changed the name they use around the same time, but this person almost always gets her name right. this person knows me a bit better/longer than they do her, but not that much better/longer, and generally, when I am around them, my partner is also there. (adding a cut here because this is gonna be long)

I talked with my therapist about this at my last session. I was seeking advice on how to handle it, but I also spent a lot of time just complaining and running through different incidences of this happening. I ended up telling her about some of the weird things this person said to me when I first started socially transitioning, including them saying that they were sad when I came out because they (direct quote) “didn’t want to stop seeing me as a genderless elf” (???!?) (I had previously identified as nonbinary and used any pronouns) and followed that up by saying that they hated men, which they then followed up by saying “not trans men though” (which like okay but then why bring that up in this conversation).

In talking my therapist, I circled back to the deadnaming issue and said that I thought this person was doing this to me and not my partner because my partner is more feminine than I am masculine (in social behavior and the way we look as two people that have not started medically transitioning). my therapist pushed back on this and said that, based on all the things I said, it seemed more like this person just didn’t want to see me as a man.

this blew my mind a little because I, a transmasculine person who spends way too much time on trans and transmasc internet, did not put the situation in this context while my therapist, a cis woman who is supportive but not super aware of the trans experience, did. it made a lot of sense though, and fit into the context of my other experiences and interactions with this person.

this person is a nonbinary person who has never identified as or been seen as a man. they are supportive of trans people generally and of their rights. they are also someone who believes that woman are inherently better than men. this generally doesn’t have much of an impact on the cis men we live with—for them, this more comes as being around for jokes that might make them a little uncomfortable, but doesn’t stop them from being seen as men. for me, this means I have to deal with the fact that this person doesn’t want to see me as a man and deadnames me accordingly, seemingly because they see me transitioning as a loss.

my point here is that when transmasculine people say that there are issues they face specifically related to them being transmasculine, that’s not a lie or a hypothetical. there is a stark contrast between the way this person treats my transfem partner and myself (and, after talking with someone who’s lived here with this person for longer, other transmasculine people who have lived in the house). they are supportive of trans people as a group, but not of transmasculinity, and I have to deal with the consequences.

[melonsharks]

MORE TRANSFEM DIPPER!!! SHE IS MY LIFEBLOOD 😭😭😭😭😭

(ur art style is so nice btw)

dipper pines and the art of repression

notes below the cut for funsies haha.

its kind of interesting to me to watch gravity falls with the lens of transfem dipper because when you watch it like that, its like. shes trying SO hard to push it down. it kind of reads like shes trying to convince not just everybody else, but HERSELF that shes a boy. like the idea that anybody could even think shes a girl is terrifying to her (this kid really does read as trans in any direction LMFAO i love dipper) but like. why transfem? right… full hc territory here, please be nice to me.

-she doesn’t like her deadname (its traditionally a masculine name, as far as i know 😭) so she goes by the nickname that as given to her because of her birthmark…

-she gets made fun of OFTEN for not being manly enough even throughout the show and so she associates femininity with Bad Thing To Be. so she CANT be a girl because being a girl would be a BAD THING FOR HER TO BE. shes 12 years old yk so like. this deep, deeeep repression sets in.

and so:

-she overcompensates. shes not just going to be manly, but shes going to be SO manly that nobody is going to make fun of her for it again. sometimes to the point where she feels like she cant even really be herself.

i feel like she doesn’t even really realize it in canon,,, its probably post-canon. but the realization would hit her SO hard. like a truck. and it would be so scary at first but then its not, then she feels Right and it feels GOOD and shes so happy and her family would love her and accept her so much and whatever WHATEVERRRR.

anyways, i was just rewatching gf and this was really making the rounds in my head the more i watched, because its kind of how i experienced being trans myself (and im transmasc so LOL) like. just repressing the thing i thought was bad and overcompensating like crazy, until i realized… that its not a bad thing to be. other people making you feel bad about it doesnt MEAN its bad. and then that realization that your identity not being what you thought it was doesn’t mean you change as a person. you’ve always just been you. but it feels better. it feels real.

[uncanny-tranny]

The weirdest thing I see cis people do is misunderstanding how trans labels work so for any cis person who may need this...

Trans man, trans male, transmasc, or other variations of transmasculinity refers most typically to a person who is transitioning towards masculinity in identity, not away from it. A trans man would be a person who is transitioning towards manhood, for example (such as a person who is FTM).

Trans woman, trans female, transfem, or other variations of transfemininity refers most typically to a person who is moving towards femininity in identity, not away from it. A trans woman is transitioning towards womanhood.

There will always be exceptions to these guidelines, however, I find that cis people often mistakenly apply incorrect labels because they are trying to communicate what they think a trans person's assigned gender/sex is. The trans community will focus on the current identity one holds to communicate who we are. I am a trans male because I am bother trans and male and because it is my current identity, if it helps you understand.

[wizard-miss]

Theres this fun tendency tme people have whenever they're asked to consider whether a character could possibly be transfem to bravely proclaim "But what if they're not?"

Initially, when told you view a character as transfem, they ask what the reasoning behind the reading is. (which, to be clear, is a perfectly reasonable thing to ask.) The problem arises when they are presented with that evidence. Because no amount of evidence will be enough. There's always another explanation. Always some reason to think the character isn't transfem.

"What if this character whose entire arc was about rejecting the masculine role forced upon them was transmasc? Men can struggle with masculinity too."

"What if this character who loves to dress up in feminine attire and pretend to be a girl in public is just a femboy? Men can be feminine too."

"What if this character who feels dissatisfied after fulfilling the role of man and staunchly refuses to look inwards for fear of what they might see is just cis? Men can hate being men too"

They need the evidence to be ironclad, for no other explanation to possibly be able to exist, to even consider that a character could be transfem. Every piece of evidence that will simply be dismissed as not being relevant. And it becomes pretty clear that in actuality they just don't want to imagine a character could be transfem.

This same thing happens with real people too. The whole "egg culture" discourse that happened here recently functioned very similarly. It was always "Men can be gnc, and by saying a man could be transfem, you're enforcing gender roles" and shit like that. The underlying logic is always "Let men be men"

[trans-androgyne]

I think the weirdest accusation of transmisogyny I saw was years back, when I reblogged a cute anecdote from a trans guy who would meow back and forth with his cat, and his cat lowered the pitch of their meow to match the guy's new voice and the guy thought it was really cute

Apparently this anecdote was transmisogynistic? Not sure how and I can't check because unfortunately I was much younger and had accidentally fallen into a tirf group whilst trying to avoid NB-phobic and aphobic trans people, so I deleted the reblog

Wild. One of the ones I’ve seen lately is that transmascs making jokes about how their parents misgender them no matter how far into their transition they are is transmisogynistic. As in “mothers will tell you about their beautiful daughter but then he looks like this <insert picture of House M.D. or something>” jokes. Because apparently it implies that people with those traits should Always be gendered as men (it doesn’t). But apparently it’s fine when transfems do it like in this beloved post:

I think some transfems get dysphoric whenever they’re reminded that people perceive certain traits they may have as masculine. So transmascs celebrating things like deep voices and facial hair as masculine makes them uncomfortable, and they have to come up with a reason why it’s wrong. That’s not just a transfem issue, transmascs can get dysphoric about others celebrating feminine traits too, but you can see it a lot in the way transmascs can’t talk about enjoying masculinity without being called toxic or transmisogynistic, while enjoying femininity is considered just good feminism. No traits are inherently masculine or feminine, but their perceived masculinity or femininity can be extremely important to trans people, and it isn’t transphobic to experience gender euphoria.

[genderkoolaid]

do you have any thoughts on why there's such a huge disparity in the number of trans feminine headcanons for canon guys, as opposed to the trans masculine headcanons for canon girls?

i'm not trying to start anything, just kinda looking for a opinion from someone who's usually got pretty good insight and takes on stuff like this.

My thoughts rn are that its a combo of

There seem to be more femboy characters that are extremely feminine out there than there are butch women characters that are extremely masculine (or even really that butch...)

Femininity is seen as more interesting in the "oooh shiny!" sense than masculinity. Turning a man into a beautiful woman has a sense of allure because the end product is Pretty Thing, while turning a woman into a man, even a handsome man, is in the eyes of misogyny just ruining the Pretty Thing

In leftist spaces, turning a male character into a woman tends to create less conflict than the reverse? This isn't black and white obviously, there's been whole discourses about transfems "stealing rep" from feminine cis men. But from a cisfeminist perspective, making a male character transfem means you take an otherwise privileged character and use them to create rep for women, specifically marginalized women. The reverse, however, means taking female representation and making them male, which creates a lot of complex questions around marginalization and how transmascs fit into the schema. And generally when transmascs make people have complicated confusing feelings they don't react well.

Transmasculine erasure means that people just straight up do not think about transmasculinity and that covers a range of sins.

But that's what I've thought could be behind the disparity. I think its probably largely subconscious too, and there could be a whole ton of other things influencing that data so don't take this too seriously.

[officialspec]

can you pleeeeease post your dm sexuality/gender hcs on here.... 🥺 i don't have a twitter but i wanna know. it's like a pandora's box to me now i'm like scratching at the door. let me in

heres the link 2 the thread (mild spoilers btw) ill post a transcript under the cut for ppl who dont have twitter

first off i think laios relationship to sex is super removed for like 50 reasons without even getting into his actual sexuality

he grew up in a place with very repressed ideas about sex and has a lot of fear about asserting his presence in situations

his special interest takes precedent over any social interactions he has and the level of closeness he feels towards people

he has a hard time figuring out his feelings towards other people both bc hes autistic and bc he has freaky deviantart fetishes that make sex in his mind a very abstract concept <- this one is me projecting mostly

that aside, i feel like gender-wise hes attracted to ppl so infrequently it may as well be entirely case-by-case

the idea of him being gay appeals to me from the 'raised with traditional values he Does Not fit into/hasnt begun to question it yet' perspective, i lauve characters who put a lot of stock into performing a role thats expected of them and fail miserably for unknown (gay) reasons

from his perspective tho i dont think he would ever really label himself anything. hes going to pride parades in the shirt+shorts Ally Fit to clap for his friends

hes also 'cis by indifference' imo... i love tmasc laios hcs it just doesnt mesh w his personal history to me. i do think hes got some kind of therian gender thing going on (not trans or nb but a secret third thing) but i cant see him changing anything abt his appearance/pronouns to accommodate that post-canon. hes just doin his thang

falin is in a similar boat for gender. i LOOVE tfem falin but the village repression thing has been bugging at me so i dont think i subscribe to it anymore (canon purist sorry) BUT if u hold that hc i am clapping and cheering regardless

instead i was propagandised to a while back and i LOVEEE the idea that being fused w a male dragon and the residual traits she has after being revived have given her a type of gender euphoria she didnt realise she was missing. a little boygirl swagger if u will

sexuality-wise i also dont think she would care to label herself, shes a lesbian by virtue of only being interested in One woman and zero other people. without marcille i do think shes still exclusively attracted to women, and i like to imagine she might experiment around a bit during her travels post-canon (pre-relationship). hearing abt it might put marcille on the news though

marcille is very simple That is a transfem lesbian. she cant get pregnant, shes obsessed w being femme and all that combined w her half-tallman struggles to be seen as 'properly feminine' by elf standards reads very transfeminine to Me. also her bookboy crush REEKS of comphet its not subtle

i think a more comfortable marcy might have the space to experiment w being elf butch like her manga boys but thats mainly self indulgence for me. utena could have saved her

senshi is gay his whole thing is abt not being able to perform dwarven masculinity to a proper standard (soft hearted, not as strong or rugged as his peers) which is like gaycoding 101. also hes a bear. homosexuality be damned by boy can work a grill

adding onto this i rly think senshi got some type of euphoria from being an elf in the changeling chapters. he was feeling himself so much i think he was using it as an outlet to have fun being a little fem and fruity without needing to justify it. do u understand

i dont have any particular opinions abt him gender-wise beyond that. his bulge is an essential part of his character design but i also saw a transmasc senshi a couple days ago that made me nod my head thoughtfully so i could go either way

chilchuck is cis and bisexual this is just canon. not even just his old man crush on senshi altho i do think thats very funny but they put his ass on a cover themed like hes in a dating sim with all the men and women in the cast and then slapped it in front of a chapter called "bicorn". i simply cant pass up that kind of overt signaling. its so fucking funny what else is there to say truly

izu to ME is a transmasc aroace lesbian (this one has the least basis in canon i just know it to be true) shes a little genderfluid with it nd uses he/she i think. i like to imagine she consistently uses masculine personal pronouns to refer to herself either way tho (boku, ore)

i think izutsumis gender/sexuality is entirely secondary in priorities to her body dysphoria. she has a lot of learning and acceptance 2 do before that kind of self discovery is on the docket and in my mind eschewing gender on some level is part of that. get sillay

shuro is cishet but at least he feels bad about it. next listen listen to me i dont think he would ever actually examine this but i need u to put on ur tin foil hat with me for one second. i think estrogen could have saved her. i have more thoughts on this but im not gonna propagandise too much on this post just know that im right

kabru is a transmasc bisexual this is also practically text. his whole thing of being treated like a doll by milsiril to put in pretty dresses, plus i think it would be pretty easy for him to stealth in the west since tallmen are seen as inherently more masculine than elves

(i also think changing genders is just more common for elves. theyre androgynous enough that it wouldnt be hard and like who in their right miiiiind would be the same gender for 500 years. dwarves too)

i think he started presenting as male socially in the west but didnt need to consider medical transition until he moved to a more mixed culture where other races might see him as a woman

i dont have to explain the bisexual part. have u seen him

namari is a butch bisexual this is just canon straight up. shes not transmasc but i think the default settings for dwarven women is like 4 years of T regardless. shes a hit at all the local cruising spots despite her renfaire nerdisms i know this

and just bc im thinking abt em kiki and kaka are identical and kiki is tfem :} theyre both attracted to women but kaka is a sub so i forgive him

THATS ALL 4 NOW theres a lot of characters so i cant have thoughts abt all of them at once but i hope this was good. im right about everything forever as per usual

[shaylogic]

Queer Experience Watching Barbie - AFAB Masculinity

I started to go into this in tags on another post but I wanted to type this up separately and try to develop my thoughts a little more. . .

Ryan!Ken’s arc in Barbie (2023) has been buzzing in my head for days.

I got fixated on it for a couple of major reasons:

1) We rarely have seen a feminist movie take time to address men with compassion in how patriarchy harms them too.

2) As a trans masc person, I think it hits a specific part of my identity that I don’t consciously let myself think about for too long. Something about being raised in a female world with sisterhood and community. Then being isolated in adult manhood without the tools to prepare you for that. Conscientious of respecting women and being unbothered by feminimity around you, but not knowing your place in the world.

How do I put it?

I know it’s not the direct intention of the film itself, but I’ve seen other trans folks (especially transmasc), reacting similarly to the feeling we get from it.

Ken’s arc feels pretty reminicent of the struggle afab lgbt folks go through when considering masculinity in their identity (butch lesbians, afab nbs, trans men, etc.)

How to make peace with masculine aspects of yourself without losing the women in your life? (One can argue Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie has aspects of this as well.)

Of course, then Ken goes off on the adopting patriarchy ride, which IS the point of the movie, and may skew a bit from the transmasc read on it--though I have known a trans guy here and there who avoids being misgendered so hard that they can become somewhat sexist. To which I say: “You don’t need to have a dick to be a man, and you don’t need to BE a dick to be a man.” But I digress.

Something about Ken being comfortable in a woman’s world but not understanding why he’s being shut out from socially bonding with them (in any sense! Romantic, Familial, Platonic Friendship. . .)

The overall theme of the movie for both Barbie and Ken--in an allegory of heavy gender roles harming all--leading them each to have to figure out who they are in themselves, regardless of others. . . 

Trans masc folx can relate to both Barbie and Ken’s arcs.

I don’t want to detract from Barbie’s arc being the main point of the movie.

I think the reason why we get hung up on Ryan!Ken’s character is because. . . we’ve related to the Barbie plot in other movies and shows before, thinking back to our “girlhoods” as children.

I have never seen the arc Ken has in this in any other story!!!!

There are some Man Movies that have attempted to discuss the struggle of Being a Man--but they often come off as too dismissive of feminine experiences, and are therefore as offputting to transmasc people as women.

Because of the nature of the two worlds exhibited in this movie, and Ken’s backround in his setting, personality, and purpose in relation to the Barbies, he’s a Man living with Female Socialization, in a Woman’s World; he’s a male character that inherently admires and respects women in his nature (until the real world influence distorts it).

This isn’t a perfect example of a transmasc experience either, but it’s a lot closer than most of us generally get to see! That’s why so many of us are getting caught up in this.

Please, other trans folx (transfems, too!), I really need us to have a discussion about this. What were your experiences and thoughts around this movie?

P.S. Yeah, we kinda get that nonbinary allegory from Allan (not a Ken, not a Barbie, siding with Feminism in the Gender War), but he wasn’t in significant focus of the plot the way Ryan!Ken was. If I try to read into Allan, I don’t have much to work with.