#fun of trans men as some kind of show of solidarity with trans women

[cliveguy]

I had a cis woman 'friend' send me a huge paragraph and block me out of the blue about a year and a half into my transition. The message was long and had clearly come from the heart but the main gist of it was 'even though we've known each other for a decade, and been great friends for all of that, I can't trust you anymore'. The direct quote, that I remember exactly because of how much it affected me, was "I can't trust you now, because you chose to ally with the enemy."

what a wild thing to say right?? So yeah that sent me on a huge depression spiral where I detransed for a few months before my mental health got so bad I had to be sectioned. In my stay at the hospital pretty much everyone was like "please keep transing your gender I'm begging you" and thanks to them I got back on track and stopped taking so much stock in other people's opinions on me and my transition.

This is longgg ik but your post just reminded me. Last I heard from that 'friend' was from one of our old mutual friends, we had a laugh because she shared that post that said 'transmisandry isn't real but I wish it was' and it's like... Yeah if anyone was gonna get close to it, it's her lol

oh yeah sorry that's absolutely a fucked up thing to say to someone and i'm glad you were able to recover from it. unfortunately in my experience it's a pretty common form of transphobia used by cis women. the narrative of transition as a "betrayal" of womanhood and as a form of misogyny is something i used to only see in terf circles but is just sort of everywhere now.

also cis women coopting the transmisandry debate has been really harmful for discussions surrounding any forms of transphobia... so many of them take "transmisandry isn't real" to mean "trans men aren't oppressed" and because this confirms their internal transphobic biases they're very happy to believe it and just like... dismiss forms of transphobia that all trans people experience when trans men talk about them, which just leads to the belief that support for trans people is conditional to them behaving. it all comes down to not knowing WHY transmisandry isn't real tbh, tme people should have to fill out a form explaining what transmisogyny is before posting about transmisandry online lol

[runthepockets]

It's curious. When you ask a trans woman what she likes about being a woman, she just tells you. Even if she's a tomboy or genderweird with it or whatever, she just tells you. "Learning makeup is fun" "I like looking at my tits in the mirror" "I like feeling like the token girl in a group of guys" "I like the way other women look at me" "I like being a woman in noise/techno/metal/etc" "I like spinning in cute dresses" "I like when my boyfriend bridal carries me cus it makes me feel cute" etc.

When you ask a trans guy what he likes about being a man, there's all this handwringing about avoiding toxic masculinity (which should be talked about, but it shouldn't be the center of every discussion) and whatnot and almost never an actual answer. Like, there's no reason you can't just say "being a dude who plays on a men's soccer team and wears a man's uniform is a hoot" and leave it at that. Being a man in male spaces and enjoying that energy isn't really something to be ashamed of, it's not inherently misogynistic or exclusionary, or whatever. Nothing about being a man really is, cus being a man is morally neutral, just like being a woman is. I think a lot of guys get it stuck in their head that if they say anything nice about being men or liking other men, that people will assume they think the opposite is true of / about women, but that's just a byproduct of binary and patriarchal thinking, and not really our responsibility to take care of when women and womanhood aren't even the subject of the conversation in the first place. Obviously we should call out chauvanistic behavior when we see it, but if someone sees you talking about how cool being a man is and assumes you're some kinda MRA waiting to strike, that's kind of a them problem.

It does ring true that the majority (or at least, the most amplified examples) of trans guy positivity / solidarity online is about paying lip service to patriarchy & answering for the sins of cis dudes more than anything about actually enjoying being a man, let alone a masculine one. Being surrounded by radfem rhetoric and Pop feminism your whole life will, admittedly, leave you with some pretty fucked up ideas about being yourself. So here's some fun and badass things I enjoy about being a dudely dude:

Wearing briefs & boxers

Being "one of the guys", especially in male dominated music subcultures like Metal and Hardcore

Thinking about women seeing me in public and checking me out

Packing in sweatpants specifically so girls have more to look at

Thinking about being a girl's crush

How many things I can buy and put on my wall and ponder just cus they have a woman's ass on them, and how no one really questions it; as much as it sucks to be read as "perpetually horny" and not needing affection by proxy of simply being a man, there are some really nice perks too.

Being a straight dude in general

Having spikey buttrock hair

The way men show affection with one another; I get some people being put off by dapping over hugs or dudes saying "love you homie" or "I miss you man" instead of just saying I love you, cus it reads as ironic masculine detatchment or fear of being read as gay, but idk. I like it. I like low intimacy bonds, sometimes they're a lot more casual and less stressful, and knowing a secret handshake makes me feel cool and included. I've always just read it as men having different ways of showing affection than women do and not much deeper than that.

Singing; everything to smooth, jazzy Baritone to Hard Rock with lots of fry screams to Hardcore and Death Metal growls, nothing is off the table now and I love it.

Wearing suits

Beards (that's the facial hair) & sideburns

Being strong, both emotionally and physically

Being independent

Being blunt

Knowing I have more in common with my heroes and favorite musicians-- Riley Gale, Lil Ugly Mane, Pharrell, Steve-O, ODB, Denzel Curry, etc-- than I ever did before just through identity. Makes me feel fuckin invincible and makes their lyricism and actions hit harder.

People looking at me and assuming I like cars and sports; I know gender roles are hogwash and shouldn't be applied to everyone, but in this case they're right and it feels fucking great.

Revisiting my favorite media as the target demographic rather than as a tomboy; for example, the Naruto episodes where Shikamaru's dad gives him fatherly advice about being a man has always hit pretty hard, but rewatching them now that I can apply a lot of that advice to my own life, it's hit like 20x harder, and has given me a lot more appreciation and respect for the series than I ever thought possible.

That compulsive need I have to compete and show off when a cute girl is around

Being a fighter / advocate / goddamn force of nature; not in terms of randomly hitting people or having a temper, but in context of having a spine, being tough, and generally being pretty resilient, much like the Shonen and Seinen protagonists I admired in my youth.

[frankincenseisnotamonster]

The Defense

EXPECT IT!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

DEETS:  

Today is the day we protect what matters to us. 

“And let the gods know

Like every guitar string digging into my finger

I dig into you

Let the goddesses shine their light

On your codependency issues

May you finish a cycle

And surrender

And may there be silence

Where there was only always noise

So the gods know

All that they burned were demons

Light men to show me my way

May my shadows be my blessings

And may the blessings yield fruit

Fruits of our labor to share with others

Let the goddesses look up at me and see

I have healed

Woman of victory

Graced by the truth

Let me see what is unseen

May you have sight beyond sight

Let my fear, fear me.” 

Stay with the work

No cookie at the end

Guitar battle 2 half way through

The height of loneliness

But I’m gonna heal all the way

Didn’t think I’d be here

A villain in my own right

Seeing clearly and so dearly

 Rider of the night

At last a never ending season of pain has ceased

May every, single, goddess have your back.

Not just walking with your hyena but hugging it with all your might

Let guitar be the promise to self, my attempt at not self sabotaging, not betraying, being kind, and believing in myself.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️��️⭐️⭐️

So finally watched and finished Avatar the Last Air Bender! Arguably one of the most amazing animes or kid shows I have ever seen! The analogies and every aspect of the story are so powerful. And the fire are basically the police or in larger sense the United States is the fire nation, the level of tyranny is unreal. Its a wonderful show so if you haven’t seen it I highly highly recommend. I love the main character’s journey and how powerful the women in the show are. Pretty much everything about its terribly good. 

Aside from Avatar, I’ve been having a lot of fruitful discussions, and fruitful song writing ideas coming from these discussions. Something that I have discussed with other black folks, friends and housemates, is this idea of the speaking truth to power, or getting white people to care. 

I spent a lot of my life trying to tell white people to care, educating people on why sexism matters, or racism matters, or why human life matters. 

I spent a lot of time raising my voice, getting exasperated, getting challenged, getting gaslit, getting ignored. 

I even did this with myself, my own sense of worth, I see it as a pattern, a pattern I’m trying to interrupt. Its not in everything, but its enough for me to notice. Notice that I sometimes seek out people who don’t see how magical I am, how magical women are, how magical queer people are, how magical black people are. 

I spent a lot of time on the offense, on the outside, the action of attacking someone or something. 

Giving focus to the other, giving focus to whiteness, giving focus to convincing, convincing someone to care, convincing people I’m worthy, causes are worthy of their time, care and attention.  When in reality maybe convincing was never, and will never be the way out. 

I want to walk down a different street. 

And today, and slowly through guitar, through reflection, and through dialogues with others, I want to keep turning to defense. 

I want a strong defense. And here’s what I mean by strong defense: 

I’m protecting my community not asking white people to care. 

I’m creating solutions centering the most marginalized folks trans black people, queer black people, differently abled people, brown people etc. 

I’m focusing on what’s healing for people and communities that I am in and committed to supporting. 

What I’m not doing is tricking myself, exhausting myself into believe the what will make me feel better is outside, what will make things better for my community is outside. White people in power aren’t listening, some people will have to listen on their own time, and in the meantime I wanna be playing guitar, taking back rock’n roll for black people, making music for women. 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’m still focused on smashing the patriarchy and smashing capitalism, its just my tactics have changed, I’m not going to smash them, because I’m not even messing with them, not giving it my focus, not giving it my energy, not giving it my power. My power and my attention, and my practice are on my own inner work, and on the communities I love. The defense is protecting what you find sacred, and I see protecting as also building, building black wealth, black art, building care and structures for communities thats healing,non-exploitative and just. I can do that by imagining, by writing, by creating, by listening, by participating, by practicing. 

I’m so thankful for the work, the dialogues, the battles, the experiences, the challenges. My guitar battles are coming to an end, and they have been so much more enlivening, healing and fruitful than I ever imagined they could be. 

I’ve learned so much from guitar, these times and doing shadow work, from my rivals, and from women! To me women have been this truly shining beacon, the manifest presence of grace in my life. 

And just to be clear, and since I love being contradictory, while I will stay focused on defense, I’m way too silly, quirky and mischievous to pretend that when the time is right, and just for the fun of it,  I won’t launch some whimsical counter attack. 

Expect it. 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

UPDATES

Happy Leo season everyone! I am learning more songs. And plotting and preparing for facing the very person who taught me pretty much everything I know. Stay tuned, for taking chances, making even more mistakes and getting messy! Good luck everyone on the your own battles, on protesting, on holding it down in your own way for the revolution. 

In everlasting grace and solidarity <3

[lmadigan-blog]

The Women White Feminism Doesn’t See

Just last weekend, Ellen Degeneres was seen with none other than former President George W. Bush at a football game, something that got her absolutely dragged through the mud by the true kings, queens, and non-binary sovereigns of Twitter— Gen-X leftists who turn off their auto-capitalization function for the full aesthetic experience. A few days later, Ellen talked about it on her show, where she gave the same little sad talk every rich, white, privileged person gives when they feel bad about themselves— “come on guys, why can’t we all just be friends? when did that become such a bad thing, guys, huh? when did it stop being ok to hang out with people who have different opinions? ” The resulting controversy dragged in various celebrities like Mark Ruffalo and Reese Witherspoon, as well as politicians like Tulsi Gabbard, leading to an assorted collection of big names and verified Twitter accounts drawing lines in the sand and hastily choosing sides.

Now, the ensuing clusterfuck of Twitter discourse did two things: 

1. Allow me, someone too young to remember the Iraq War/Abu Ghraib discourse, to get an up-close, real-time reenactment of all the defenses of George Bush and U.S. imperialism (well, is waterboarding really torture if it doesn’t leave any physical scars?)

2. Reveal a perfect example of how Western feminism centers white womanhood and American identities over the literal lives and human rights of those living beyond our borders.

As much fun as it would be to describe all the mental gymnastics and moral leaps and bounds people took to defend literal war crimes, I’m not here to write about that. What I will say is this— our first concepts of what “feminism” looks like or what a “feminist” looks like is very institutionalized, very capitalist, and very white. The feminist in America’s eye is Hillary Clinton, is Ellen, is a pussy-hat wearing, sign-wielding, white woman. It’s the daring white woman strong enough to be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, it’s the daring white woman brave enough to advocate for her right to serve in active combat overseas, it’s the daring white woman steadfast enough to be a police officer to serve her own community. 

In other words, when we center white women in positions of authority as a model for “feminism”, it shouldn’t be any surprise that mainstream feminist discussions are based around whether women should be allowed to murder people of color overseas just like men are, or whether we should let a white woman join a long line of white men bombing the hell out of whichever poor Middle Eastern or Latin American country decides to think about wanting human rights again. This model of American feminism doesn’t just uplift white women, though— it marginalizes women of color, trans women, queer women, working-class women, and women in the Global South. When specifically looking at women of color and women in the Global South, this form of capitalist, imperialist feminism not only pushes such groups to the margins of society, but also fetishizes them, exotifies them, builds up this elaborate, white supremacist fantasy in which these poor, suppressed, ignorant women need to be liberated from their oppressor, or in other words, their own cultures and communities. This mentality, something scholar and feminist theorist Gayatri Spivak describes as a “very old civilizing logic of white men and white women saving brown women from brown men”, is a logic used to justify war crimes across the globe. Laura Bush called the “War on Terror” a “fight for the dignity and rights of women”. This “fight for the dignity and rights of women” has resulted in 2.4 million deaths. Just a few weeks ago, Condoleezza Rice argued against pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, in the name of not abandoning the “women of Afghanistan”. Yes, in 2019, the year of our Lord, two-thousand and nineteen, after all that has been done in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and other nations in the name of fighting terrorism.

Whether it’s Condoleezza Rice or Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or Justin Trudeau, basically any and all political leaders of the West (who are self-proclaimed feminists) will be practicers of this white feminism, whether it’s through overthrowing the government of Honduras and plunging the country into widespread violence, chaos, and poverty, pushing for mass human rights abuses and state-sponsored violence in the Middle East, dropping over 26,000 bombs in the Middle East in one year, or selling arms to Saudi Arabia and Israel while simultaneously buying a pipeline to override Indigenous voices. Why? Because this very concept of “saving” women of color is rooted in white saviorism, something deeply ingrained in the political and philosophical landscapes of the West. Our very concepts of “women’s issues” are distorted, and as a result, who we designate the heroes of these causes become distorted too. Are issues of drone strikes, concentration camps, and mass bombing not women’s issues too? Or are women’s issues solely limited to representation in film and equal pay for a soccer team, problems that can be easily championed by the performative, pussy-hat activist?

As a result, the question of white perceptions of women of color ultimately becomes a question of how to recalibrate our focus of what’s at stake here. How to understand visceral issues that many women living outside (and within) the borders of the United States grapple with every day, and seeing them from a lens that isn’t confined by white saviorism. And the only way this can be achieved is to center women who are further marginalized beyond just gender, some sort of feminism born from below.

There’s a short story called “The Women Men Don’t See” written by James Tiptree Jr., which basically tells the story of two women, a mother and a daughter, stranded on a mangrove swamp with a white man named Don Fenton, and a Mayan pilot named “Captain Esteban”. The story follows Fenton and his frustration as the two women seem to fail to fit into his preconceived notions of female stereotypes. As the story progresses, it becomes evident that the only time the women are even really noticed by Fenton is when they’re sexualized— hence the title. It ends with a shocking turn of events, as the two women are voluntarily spirited away by aliens from another planet, deciding that any life could be better than the life of a woman on earth. While hailed as a brilliant piece of feminist literature (and in many ways, it is), the piece is also a perfect example of how white, American women are oftentimes centered in these discussions of gender discrimination. Either by design or hilarious irony, the story is set in Quintana Roo, and Ruth Parsons, perhaps the only female character with relevant dialogue, works for the “Foreign Procurement Archives” based in Washington, D.C. Even within this short story, the same American, imperialist form of feminism is found. A white woman who literally works for the State Department and helps manipulate currencies and commodities of countries in the Global South is suddenly swept from all the horror and discrimination by kind-hearted aliens?

All of this, from Clinton to Tiptree Jr., from Iraq to the mangrove swamp, isn’t meant to be a critique of white women— I would say, as most people with a moral compass would, that it is a good thing when all women are generally interested in the collective liberation of all underprivileged minorities. What I am saying, however, is that the proper navigation of differences between communities and identities can build solidarity, and through solidarity, true liberation can be achieved. In Audre Lorde’s The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House, she argues that difference has been always presented as either something to be ignored, or something to be used as a wedge to weaken the cause. As she puts it, those who are outside the “acceptable” definition of women— low-income, queer, Black, non-American, have a far better understanding of the fight for survival and victory, know that by “learning how to take our differences and make them strengths”, liberation will be achieved. This is what I mean when I say “feminism from below”. This is not Hillary Clinton’s feminism, this is not Ellen’s feminism, and it certainly isn’t America’s feminism. It’s the feminism of those that white America doesn’t see. Erasure, centering white womanhood, imperialist and American feminism— these are all the master’s tools, and they will never bring about true liberation.

[problemsofabooknerd]

My Favorite Movies/Shows/Webseries with LGBTQIA+ Main Characters

Pride Day 13!

Check out the intro to my Pride project here.

I thought today we would take a break from books - and from personal stories - to talk a bit more about other queer media I enjoy. Sometimes I’m not in the mood to read, but I still want to get the chance to see stories about wonderful LGBTQIA+ humans. So, here we go, a personal recommendations list of movies/tv shows/webseries that I adore that feature LGBTQIA+ main characters. 

Movies

♡ Love, Simon

I mean, this is an obvious one. I adore the book, Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, but I have a little more love for the movie itself. I’m also currently on a high because I just rewatched it on my plane and I will never NOT be emotional. In case you don’t know, Love, Simon is a rom com about a high schooler named Simon who ends up being pen pals with another closeted gay kid at his school. It’s overwhelming, and Jennifer Garner never fails to bring me to sobs. 

♡ The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love

It’s super sad to me that this movie doesn’t get passed around as often on recommendations lists, but I think that is possibly due to the fact that it can be a little harder to find. However! If you are desperately searching for a f/f movie comparable to Love, Simon, this is about as close as I can get you. It’s full of antics (sometimes SUPER over the top), romance (between a super butch white girl and a super femme black girl), and a whole heap of other fabulousness. 

♡ Life Partners

A recently discovered one for me that I think deserves a bit more hype! This is a comedy about two best friends - one lesbian, one straight - as they fall in and out of love, struggle to figure out their careers, and generally navigate adulthood as BFFs. This is one of those movies where I’m honestly super pissed we don’t have more like it - it’s a movie about complex relationships between women that also features a shit ton of lesbian culture. Pride events! Gay bars! How many lesbians can you fit inside a Subaru! It’s all fabulous. 

♡ But I’m a Cheerleader

A true classic. I remember my girlfriend showing me this back when I still insisted I was straight, but lord oh lord did it make an impact. It’s always hard to recommend queer stories set in conversion camps (take one of my favorite books, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, for example), but I think this is one of the few that still manages to be engaging and really fun. Plus, Natasha Lyonne and Clea DuVall are honestly staples of queer media for me.

♡ Battle of the Sexes

‘Sup, super gay Emma Stone -  you truly make my dreams come true. To be honest, the fact that this is a based-on-a-true-story, gay, sports movie is just so perfectly me in terms of movie taste I will never be over it. Everyone does a remarkable job, but this is especially phenomenal in terms of how deeply gay it is and I love it to bits.

♡ The Runaways

Yet again, my deep and abiding love for movies based on true events appears. This is the movie that made me realize that a) Kristen Stewart is seriously a good actress and b) I’m super in love with her. This one is about The Runaways, the all-girl rock band Cherie Currie and Joan Jett were both a part of. It features scenes of KStew and Dakota Fanning making out so prepare your gay heart, lest ye be overwhelmed.

♡ Brokeback Mountain

Of course we end the list of movies here. I spent so much of my life believing the hype surrounding this movie - that it was just that sad cowboy movie and nothing more. And then I watched it and finally had to recognize just how poorly people had been talking about what an incredible film this is. I mean, yes. Sad cowboys! They are there! But the emotional depth and honest passion that is portrayed in this movie breaks my heart every single time. It’s just utterly beautiful. 

Obviously this list isn’t comprehensive and there are so many more on my to-watch list. For example, I somehow haven’t seen Moonlight yet, and that feels like a travesty. I also really need to get to Pariah and Tangerine. 

TV Shows

♡ Black Mirror - San Junipero

In case you don’t already know, Black Mirror is an science fiction anthology show, and every episode can be watched without the context of any of the other episodes. Which makes “San Junipero” just about perfect. It’s one of the only happy episodes of the whole show, and it gives me the most pure, joyful sapphic 80s vibes. I would kill for a full movie based on this episode. I would watch a million hours of sapphic ladies jamming to 80s music. Give it all to me.

♡ Sense8

I recently talked a bit about Sense8 in my post about what Pride means to me, because I think I always tie this show into my feelings on this month. In premise, it’s about 8 strangers around the world who form a psychic connection with one another. More than that, though, it’s about the things that make us different, and how those differences also emphasize our similarity and the power in solidarity. It’s a beautiful story about found family, and it just barely got its finale episode on Netflix that I’m dying to watch but haven’t yet because I’m honestly not feeling emotionally ready enough to handle it. 

♡ Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Wow, this show. Wowww, this show. This is a pretty standard sitcom, about a group of lovable misfits who all work together. It’s set in a police precinct in Brooklyn, and initially feels like it centers on detective Jake Peralta, but the show quickly figured out that it had stars in every member of the cast. Two of my faves are Captain Raymond Holt and Detective Rosa Diaz, both queer POC that blow me away constantly. Holt is a black, gay detective who spent years fighting prejudice to make it through the ranks and be the stern-yet-lovable Captain of the squad. Rosa is a badass, bike riding, keep-your-nose-out-of-my-business bisexual Latina who owns my whole heart. It’s a show that does queer rep right, and a show that constantly reminds me to be happy even when it seems a little impossible for me to do that.

♡ American Horror Story

It’s bizarre to me how a horror anthology show still has some of the most consistent queer rep of any television show I watch. Now, this show absolutely has its problems still. Because it is a horror show, many queer characters get killed off. And my favorite season, Hotel, features a trans woman character who is played by a cis male actor. So, my warning is always to go in knowing the faults in the show. BUT this is still a show that consistently represents a variety of sexualities played by a variety of characters and actors, and I just appreciate it so deeply for normalizing that kind of rep over and over again. And I think I also want to give Ryan Murphy some credit in growing, considering the incredible work he is doing with Pose, hiring so many trans actors, writers, and directors to accurately shape that show.

There are of course other shows doing a good job with LGBTQIA+ rep, even if they don’t feature characters in leading roles. Shows like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Schitt’s Creek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Magicians are all ones I adore that feature queer peeps who own my whole heart. And there are tons more out there I would love to watch like The Bold Type, Black Lightning, One Day at a Time, Wynonna Earp, and Killing Eve!

Webseries

♡ Carmilla

Lesbian vampire! Spooky school! Soft journalist lesbian! Nonbinary side character! Queer kids everywhere dealing with the end of the world and the absurdly bizarre reality of their university! If you haven’t watched Carmilla yet, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s a shame, and you must come and join us all in the better timeline where you’ve seen the show and can also gush with us. 

♡ Her Story

This is a super short webseries, but one I would love to have more of. It is an honest, sweet depiction of the lives of two trans women living in Los Angeles, California. They deal with relationship issues, friendship, gatekeeping, loving women, loving men, and more. It’s an excellently done series, and Jen Richards is a remarkable actress and creative force, and I cannot wait to see what else she plans to do.

♡ Chosen Family

A webseries that is not fictional! Tyler Okaley is a name you probably know by now, if you’re part of the queer internet scene. He has been doing work for years in uplifting the LGBTQIA+ community, raising awareness, raising money, and a whole lot more. Chosen Family started last year, and I loved keeping up with it all through Pride, and this year we get even more episodes. Whether he is talking about queer people through history, queer immigrants, the beginnings of Pride, or even just talking to other queer creators, it is a series that celebrates this community in so many different ways and I love the work it does and how uplifted it makes me feel. 

Alright, that’s where I’m going to wrap up this list for now. I thought about also adding queer music videos to this list but it would double in size if I did that soooo perhaps another day. What are some of your favorite movies/shows/webseries that feature LGBTQIA+ main characters? Send me a message and let me know! 

[inhumansforever]

Dazzler X-Song One-Shot Review

spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers

The Dazzler is our guide for this rather interesting, poignant and at times unsettling journey into the New York super-powered punk scene, from the creative team of Writer Magdalene Visaggio, artist Laura Braga and colorist Rachelle Rosenberg.  Quick recap and review following the jump.  

Alison Blaire, thes sound-absorbing, light bending Mutant known as the Dazzler has been many things… pop-star, adventurer, X-Man, agent of Shield…  but her one true love has remained performing music and putting on a good show.  And her new gig as the front person for the punk band, The Lightbringers, has afforded her the chance to return to this… playing shows around the tristate area at venues that cater to those who are all too often unwelcome at clubs and music halls: Mutants, Inhumans, and other meta-humans.  

One of Dazzler’s biggest fans is a young woman named Nora.   Nora is an Inhuman, one of dozens of unsuspecting individuals who were transformed by the mutagenic properties of the Terrigen Cloud back in the Inhumanity Event.  Nora never asked to be Inhuman and has a hard time adjusting to it.  She has been endowed with super powers not entirely dissimilar to those of The Dazzler: the ability to project pulses of vibrant light.  Unfortunately, her capacity to control this power seems connected to her emotions and, of late, she has had a very hard time controlling it.  This led to an alluded to event where she lost hold of her powers and caused some sort of tough scene.  

Nora has just gotten back on her feet and now she and her friend, Zee, are looking forward to heading to the club to see Dazzler and the Lightbrings and have a good time.  Sadly this is not to be.  Most of the concert goers are just there to dance and have fun, but a small few have decided that events such as this should be Mutants only with no Inhumans allowed.  

This animosity between Mutants and Inhumans stems from the terribly deleterious effect the Terrigen Cloud had had on Mutants all over the world.  While the cloud created new Inhumans, it was poisonous to Mutants and many a Mutant died from exposure to the cloud with others being left sterile.   The whole matter culminated in the Inhuman/X-Men War wherein the Terrigen Cloud was ultimately destroyed, saving the Mutants but dooming the future of The Inhumans.  

While the war itself has ended, the angry feelings remain.  Newer Inhumans, like Nora, had nothing to do with the creation of the T-Cloud, yet for some they still represent a matter that brought Mutantkind to the brink of extinction.  And this group of young Mutants have decided to channel their anger into bullying Inhumans and trying to enforce the idea that there should be safe spaces where only Mutants are allowed and Inhumans are unwelcome.  

The Dazzler isn’t about this at all and she intercedes, arguing that her music is for everyone and that all are invited to come in and have a good time.  Her message is all about inclusion and solidarity.  As she sees it, Mutants and Inhumans have a great deal in common and coping with a broader world that fears and hates them would be much easier were they to band together.  

The quasi-militarized group of Mutant don’t see it that way and they continue to plague Inhumans at the various Lightbringer shows all over the New York area.  It comes to a head, when these guys corner Nora and Zee outside a show and it looks like they are going to beat them up.  

Dazzler shows up and encourages Zee and Nora to sign a song.  Dazzler uses the noise the pair is making through their song to fuel her Mutant power and then throttles the menacing young Mutants and sends them packing.  

All the while, Colossus of The X-Men has been showing up to talk to Dazzler, trying to convince her to return to The X-Men.  At first, Alison is resistant to accept the invitation… she feels her superhero days are behind her.  And yet her experiences fending off these intolerant goons has changed her mind and now the prospect of returning to the good fight feels a bit more right.  

And apparently she will indeed accept Colossus offer and rejoin the team in upcoming issues of Astonishing X-Men.  

Wow.  There’s a lot to unpack here in terms of the metaphorical messages entailed in the story.  In the Marvel Universe, both Mutants and Inhumans have been utilized as representational stand-ins for all manner of different real-life groups who are frequently the victims of oppression, marginalization and prejudice.  

In their own individual stories, this metaphor works in a much more straight forward fashion.  The X-Men can be seen as representing Black people, or gay people, or really anyone disenfranchised by the mainstream powers-that-be.  Likewise, Inhumans call also be seen as vehicles representing the plight of immigrants, or transgender people, or again anyone disenfranchised by the mainstream powers-that-be.   When X-Men and Inhumans intersect, however, the metaphorical valance becomes a great deal more nebulous.  Here the premise comes to focus on ‘intersectionality’ …intergroup bigotry, wherein two groups who are both the victims of prejudice end up routing that prejudice toward one another.  

This is an important matter to address and something that the ‘Mutant Metaphor’ in the X-books have sidestepped for far too long; and as much as some X-Men fans despise The Inhumans, they do offer up the opportunity to finally address this matter and ultimately bolster the importance and efficacy of the Mutant Metaphor in the comics.  

It’s an unfortunately truth that being the victim of bigotry does not always inoculate individuals from acting on their own feelings of fear and bigotry toward others.  There are many Jewish people who are racist; many Black people who are homophobic; many Latinos who are sexist… et cetera and et cetera.  It’s a sad, unfortunate irony, but that’s just how it is.  

Possibly the worst part of the inter-group prejudice dynamic is that it can act to further compound various groups’ marginalization and maintain the inequality of the status quo.  If these inter-group bigotries could somehow mitigated or be put aside, if true solidarity and unity could be achieved… the so-called powers that be wouldn’t stand a chance.  Racism and bigotry has been a blight on the United States since the nation’s inception.  Yet it does feel especially bad of late with the current governmental administration and the ways in which fear and hate-mongering has been weaponized to consolidate power.  

There are many ways to interpret the undercurrent metaphorical message of this story.  One such interpretation is to see it as a recapitulation of the frictions that can exist between transgender women and trans-exclusive feminists (AKA ‘terfs’).  Herein, Nora and Zee represent trans-women and the militant gatekeeper Mutants represent terfs.  

Being transgender in the current social climate cannot be easy.  Alienation, fetishization and the threat of violence are a constant, inescapable facets to being transgender in modern times.  Finding themselves unwelcome by groups of women or other members of the LBGTQ community only acts to make matters worse.  

In this regard, I completely agree with the premise of the story at hand. Trans women should be accepted into the feminist movement.  Excluding them is both wrong as well as a matter that undercuts and diminishes the ultimate goal of achieving equality.  

At the same time, I kind of wish the bad guys in the story were handled in a more multi-dimensional fashion.  The idea that these guys were arguing for a safe space for Mutants is somewhat understandable.  And it made me wince a bit when one of the Mutant goons used a term often associated with combating oppression toward Black people.  

I would have liked the other side of the conflict to be portrayed with a greater degree of nuance and compassion rather than just having them be goon that The Dazzler could beat up.   In that the broader message is one of unity and solidarity, it would have been much better had a Sentinel or the Watchdogs were to show up, leading to Dazzler, The Inhumans and The Mutants all needing to team up to defeat a common foe.   I think this would have made the overarching message of the story all the more poignant.  

Granted, offering up critiques of a story after the fact is a lot easier than crafting the story in the first place.  I remain a big fan of Magdalene Visaggio’s work and I think she has a very bright future as a writer.

Likewise, the art provided by Laura Braga is just stellar.  Dazzler looked great, the action was fluid and dynamic and the facial expressions were spot on.  Rachelle Rosenberg’s coloring paired perfectly with the line-work, especially in illuminating Dazzler’s light-based powers.  Visually, this comic is rather beautiful to behold.

Intersectionality is a difficult subject.  It’s the kind of matter it takes a lot of guts to try and take on… there is really no way to tackle it without taking risks and ruffling feathers.  I very much respect the creative team’s willingness to jump into all this and hope that future stories will continue to explore and unpack this very important issue.  

Definitely recommended.  Four and a half out of five Lockjaws.  

[calzona-ga]

Madam Secretary: Sara Ramirez previews her return to TV | EW

A year-and-a-half hiatus after leaving Grey’s Anatomy, Sara Ramirez will make her triumphant return to TV during Sunday’s episode of Madam Secretary.

The actress will be playing Kat Sandoval, a brilliant political strategist, legendary in D.C. for her talent and for abruptly dropping out of politics until Secretary of State Elizabeth McCord (Téa Leoni) manages to coax her back into the State Department. It’s a character that the openly bisexual Ramirez can relate to, having taken time off to both discover herself and give a voice to the LGBTQ community. So what was it about Madam Secretary that lured Ramirez back to TV? EW turned to the actress to find out:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What was it about Madam Secretary that made you want to return to TV in a series regular role? SARA RAMIREZ: A new position was opening up on Madam Secretary, and it was during a time when I was open to taking a meeting. [Executive producers] Barbara Hall and Lori McCreary were consistent and persistent in their commitment to meeting with me. We wanted to get to know each other to see what was possible. I really appreciate the kind of show that Madam Secretary is; it’s an aspirational and political show, and I found that really attractive as well.

Tell us about Kat Sandoval and what brings her into Elizabeth’s orbit. Something that I can say about Kat is that she is a political strategist. She’s a retired chief of staff to the U.N. ambassador, she’s known well in D.C. for her talents, she’s also know for her sudden departure from politics following an incident. She dropped out for years, and rumors circulate about why. But after Kat consults on a State Department problem, she realizes she has not entirely lost faith in the system, and she’s inspired by Elizabeth McCord, Madam Secretary, and her team — so much so that she proposes to join the State Department. When we first meet Kat, we learn a little bit about her past, and it clues us to the potential challenges she may face due to rumors around an incident that may have led her to leave politics. Her brain is one of her most valuable assets. In this first episode, we’ll see just how valuable it is, here at home and globally. This episode also shows up some vulnerable truths she’s never owned or expressed about herself before.

Will the show explore her sexuality? I just met Kat a few months ago, and I’m really looking forward to getting to know her as these episodes unfold.

Do you share any similarities with the character? One thing that I know that we have in common is we both took a step back from our respective fields for over a year. I understand how important it can be to acknowledge when a break is needed, for whatever reason, especially when the intention is to come home to oneself in ways that couldn’t occur authentically without that time away. So I really respect Kat for knowing and valuing herself enough to make that move in her life.

How is this working experience, both in front of the camera and behind, different from Grey’s? One of the things that I like about Madam Secretary is that, like I said, it’s an aspirational and political show. It takes place one election cycle in the future, which is kind of exciting, so it’s about four to five years down the line. I really love how it dramatizes certain topical world issues and events. It utilizes its projections to normalize inspiring ways to evolve challenging issues in the world through an alternate reality where the current political situation actually doesn’t exist, and with inclusive characters and cast and crew, off-screen as well. It promotes complex, three-dimensional women. Barbara Hall and Lori McCreary are executive producers, five out of the eight writers on the staff are female, the set has inclusive representation on screen and off, more than 70 percent of the show’s directors this season are women or men from diverse backgrounds, the Secretary of State is played by Téa Leoni — this show is in some ways similar, and different in all these ways.

After the results of the election last week, inclusive politics is not necessarily a distant aspiration anymore, but attainable, which is really exciting. We just saw Andrea Jenkins, the first openly bisexual and transgender black woman be elected to public office in the U.S. My intention for Madam Secretary’s Kat Sandoval is to continue normalizing, strengthening, and celebrating these types of inclusive outcomes in the world. As far as the character is concerned, I’m still getting to know her, but so far she’s different in that she spent a good portion of her life in politics before stepping away from it. Kat is very intentional and clear in her approach, because she knows she’s capable. She’s outspoken and unapologetically herself.

Is it fun to change up your style now on-screen and not have to suit up every day in scrubs? It’s been a really wonderful experience. Amy Roth, who is the head of the wardrobe department, has been so gracious, kind, and imaginative. I’m just really grateful to be working with her as well. It’s been really fun.

What have you been up to since leaving Grey’s, and what do you think you’ve learned during that time? It has been a really full year and a half. Taking a step back from the industry has allowed me to take space and get even more clear about things that are important to me. Coming out publicly was an organic decision and one that I spent a lot of energy and time making. It was incremental, not a spur-of-the-moment decision. By the time the Orlando shooting happened, especially in the context of the political climate escalating, I felt an urgency around coming out publicly in ways that I haven’t felt before. This past year and a half has taught me how to embrace myself fully, to never ever be afraid to claim my truth and power in spaces, and that bisexual, pansexual, queer-identified women of color, of all genders, or no genders, deserve to exist fully and equally in any and every space with respect to our visibility, representation, dignity, and various intersecting identities.

It has been a really full year. There were a lot of important events that I got the opportunity to be a part of. There was the ACLU rally in Austin, Texas. Initially, when Gavin Grimm’s case was headed to the Supreme Court, it was really important to me to use my public platform to show up and stand in solidarity with the trans and non-binary community, and when Gavin’s case didn’t make it to the Supreme Court, I got a phone call from the ACLU asking if I was open to participating in a rally in Austin connected to the same hurtful anti-trans legislation. I leapt at the opportunity to not only speak to these important issues, but to also engage local and state legislature. As well as introducing a trans woman of color, I introduced a wonder woman named Ana Andrea Molina, so that was a really important event to be a part of.

Then I was asked to speak at the Equality March in June, and I’m so grateful to the committee of the Equality March in D.C. for giving me the opportunity to speak to issues that are rarely spoken in mainstream LGBTQ advocacy. I was able to speak to the need for a truly intersectional movement, one in which we draw the margins in and center the lives of bisexual, queer, trans, non-binary, disabled, and other communities within our LGBTQ family who lack the access, power, and visibility. So as we move forward the community through the onslaught of anti-LGBTQ legislation and attacks, I think it’s important for us to continue to use these intersectional lines and center these communities, and that Equality March was a really beautiful way to be able to speak to that.

Then there was the LGBT Center in New York, who awarded me with this beautiful Trailblazer Award not that long ago, and that was a really special moment for me. Accepting the Trailblazer Award from the New York LGBT Center was — how else can I describe it? — it was a full-circle moment for me, actually. It was almost a year to the date, actually, from when I publicly came out as bisexual queer at the True Colors Fund event at the L.A. LGBT Center, so that was interesting. Lately, I’m feeling more confident about my purpose and highlighting the issues that are plaguing my community as well as continuing to create solidarity within the LGBT community. You know what else I’m thrilled about? Glenda Testone, who is the executive director of the New York LGBT Center, has expressed her commitment to creating specific bisexual programming, so that was a really wonderful full-circle moment after taking this time.

In hindsight, for everything you’ve done for yourself and the community over the last year, do you feel like it was the right decision to leave Grey’s when you did? Absolutely.

You voiced displeasure with ABC over the Real O’Neals bisexuality joke, which many Grey’s fans took as a sign you probably wouldn’t return to the show. Would you ever consider returning to Grey’s Anatomy? First I’ll speak to the Real O’Neals portion, and then I’ll speak to the other portion. I was really disappointed that a show on a network that I worked on for over 10 years, playing a bisexual character, would get the greenlight for such a hurtful and destructive comment about our community. The bigger disappointment was that this particular episode was set up to succeed in every way by having PFLAG involved, with a gay actor playing a gay character, in all these ways where all of our community would be protected in every way. However, I appreciate how PFLAG acknowledged the issue and owned their mistake, and so far that is the only party involved taking genuine accountability. To the other point, when Shonda [Rhimes] and I last spoke, we agreed to keep the conversations going, and she knows I’m open to keeping those conversations going.

[sararamirezfans]

Madam Secretary: Sara Ramirez previews her return to TV

After a year-and-a-half hiatus since exiting Grey’s Anatomy, Sara Ramirez will make her triumphant return to TV during Sunday’s episode of Madam Secretary.

The actress will be playing Kat Sandoval, a brilliant political strategist, legendary in D.C. for her talent and for abruptly dropping out of politics until Secretary of State Elizabeth McCord (Téa Leoni) manages to coax her back into the State Department. It’s a character that the openly bisexual Ramirez can relate to, having taken time off to both discover herself and give a voice to the LGBTQ community. So what was it about Madam Secretary that lured Ramirez back to TV? EW turned to the actress to find out:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What was it about Madam Secretary that made you want to return to TV in a series regular role? SARA RAMIREZ: A new position was opening up on Madam Secretary, and it was during a time when I was open to taking a meeting. [Executive producers] Barbara Hall and Lori McCreary were consistent and persistent in their commitment to meeting with me. We wanted to get to know each other to see what was possible. I really appreciate the kind of show that Madam Secretary is; it’s an aspirational and political show, and I found that really attractive as well.

Tell us about Kat Sandoval and what brings her into Elizabeth’s orbit. SARA RAMIREZ: Something that I can say about Kat is that she is a political strategist. She’s a retired chief of staff to the U.N. ambassador, she’s known well in D.C. for her talents, she’s also know for her sudden departure from politics following an incident. She dropped out for years, and rumors circulate about why. But after Kat consults on a State Department problem, she realizes she has not entirely lost faith in the system, and she’s inspired by Elizabeth McCord, Madam Secretary, and her team — so much so that she proposes to join the State Department. When we first meet Kat, we learn a little bit about her past, and it clues us to the potential challenges she may face due to rumors around an incident that may have led her to leave politics. Her brain is one of her most valuable assets. In this first episode, we’ll see just how valuable it is, here at home and globally. This episode also shows up some vulnerable truths she’s never owned or expressed about herself before.

Will the show explore her sexuality? SARA RAMIREZ: I just met Kat a few months ago, and I’m really looking forward to getting to know her as these episodes unfold.

Do you share any similarities with the character? SARA RAMIREZ: One thing that I know that we have in common is we both took a step back from our respective fields for over a year. I understand how important it can be to acknowledge when a break is needed, for whatever reason, especially when the intention is to come home to oneself in ways that couldn’t occur authentically without that time away. So I really respect Kat for knowing and valuing herself enough to make that move in her life.

How is this working experience, both in front of the camera and behind, different from Grey’s? SARA RAMIREZ: One of the things that I like about Madam Secretary is that, like I said, it’s an aspirational and political show. It takes place one election cycle in the future, which is kind of exciting, so it’s about four to five years down the line. I really love how it dramatizes certain topical world issues and events. It utilizes its projections to normalize inspiring ways to evolve challenging issues in the world through an alternate reality where the current political situation actually doesn’t exist, and with inclusive characters and cast and crew, off-screen as well. It promotes complex, three-dimensional women. Barbara Hall and Lori McCreary are executive producers, five out of the eight writers on the staff are female, the set has inclusive representation on screen and off, more than 70 percent of the show’s directors this season are women or men from diverse backgrounds, the Secretary of State is played by Téa Leoni — this show is in some ways similar, and different in all these ways.

After the results of the election last week, inclusive politics is not necessarily a distant aspiration anymore, but attainable, which is really exciting. We just saw Andrea Jenkins, the first openly bisexual and transgender black woman be elected to public office in the U.S. My intention for Madam Secretary’s Kat Sandoval is to continue normalizing, strengthening, and celebrating these types of inclusive outcomes in the world. As far as the character is concerned, I’m still getting to know her, but so far she’s different in that she spent a good portion of her life in politics before stepping away from it. Kat is very intentional and clear in her approach, because she knows she’s capable. She’s outspoken and unapologetically herself.

Is it fun to change up your style now on-screen and not have to suit up every day in scrubs? SARA RAMIREZ: It’s been a really wonderful experience. Amy Roth, who is the head of the wardrobe department, has been so gracious, kind, and imaginative. I’m just really grateful to be working with her as well. It’s been really fun.

What have you been up to since leaving Grey’s, and what do you think you’ve learned during that time? SARA RAMIREZ: It has been a really full year and a half. Taking a step back from the industry has allowed me to take space and get even more clear about things that are important to me. Coming out publicly was an organic decision and one that I spent a lot of energy and time making. It was incremental, not a spur-of-the-moment decision. By the time the Orlando shooting happened, especially in the context of the political climate escalating, I felt an urgency around coming out publicly in ways that I haven’t felt before. This past year and a half has taught me how to embrace myself fully, to never ever be afraid to claim my truth and power in spaces, and that bisexual, pansexual, queer-identified women of color, of all genders, or no genders, deserve to exist fully and equally in any and every space with respect to our visibility, representation, dignity, and various intersecting identities.

It has been a really full year. There were a lot of important events that I got the opportunity to be a part of. There was the ACLU rally in Austin, Texas. Initially, when Gavin Grimm’s case was headed to the Supreme Court, it was really important to me to use my public platform to show up and stand in solidarity with the trans and non-binary community, and when Gavin’s case didn’t make it to the Supreme Court, I got a phone call from the ACLU asking if I was open to participating in a rally in Austin connected to the same hurtful anti-trans legislation. I leapt at the opportunity to not only speak to these important issues, but to also engage local and state legislature. As well as introducing a trans woman of color, I introduced a wonder woman named Ana Andrea Molina, so that was a really important event to be a part of.

Then I was asked to speak at the Equality March in June, and I’m so grateful to the committee of the Equality March in D.C. for giving me the opportunity to speak to issues that are rarely spoken in mainstream LGBTQ advocacy. I was able to speak to the need for a truly intersectional movement, one in which we draw the margins in and center the lives of bisexual, queer, trans, non-binary, disabled, and other communities within our LGBTQ family who lack the access, power, and visibility. So as we move forward the community through the onslaught of anti-LGBTQ legislation and attacks, I think it’s important for us to continue to use these intersectional lines and center these communities, and that Equality March was a really beautiful way to be able to speak to that.

Then there was the LGBT Center in New York, who awarded me with this beautiful Trailblazer Award not that long ago, and that was a really special moment for me. Accepting the Trailblazer Award from the New York LGBT Center was — how else can I describe it? — it was a full-circle moment for me, actually. It was almost a year to the date, actually, from when I publicly came out as bisexual queer at the True Colors Fund event at the L.A. LGBT Center, so that was interesting. Lately, I’m feeling more confident about my purpose and highlighting the issues that are plaguing my community as well as continuing to create solidarity within the LGBT community. You know what else I’m thrilled about? Glenda Testone, who is the executive director of the New York LGBT Center, has expressed her commitment to creating specific bisexual programming, so that was a really wonderful full-circle moment after taking this time.

In hindsight, for everything you’ve done for yourself and the community over the last year, do you feel like it was the right decision to leave Grey’s when you did? SARA RAMIREZ: Absolutely.

You voiced displeasure with ABC over the Real O’Neals bisexuality joke, which many Grey’s fans took as a sign you probably wouldn’t return to the show. Would you ever consider returning to Grey’s Anatomy? SARA RAMIREZ: First I’ll speak to the Real O’Neals portion, and then I’ll speak to the other portion. I was really disappointed that a show on a network that I worked on for over 10 years, playing a bisexual character, would get the greenlight for such a hurtful and destructive comment about our community. The bigger disappointment was that this particular episode was set up to succeed in every way by having PFLAG involved, with a gay actor playing a gay character, in all these ways where all of our community would be protected in every way. However, I appreciate how PFLAG acknowledged the issue and owned their mistake, and so far that is the only party involved taking genuine accountability. To the other point, when Shonda [Rhimes] and I last spoke, we agreed to keep the conversations going, and she knows I’m open to keeping those conversations going.

Madam Secretary airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on CBS.

Source: Entertainment Weekly

[rapierdagger]

I just saw colette and I have thoughts:

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

real thoughts:

there are people of colour in this film which is nice! granted none of them are major characters, but it was still nice to see it acknowledged that there were poc in late 1800s/early 1900s france at all I guess, and I think they were kind of doing what they could considering that the major characters are real historical figures who were irl white?

polaire was so cool! the actress brought so much life into such a small part, and I was expecting her to have a much more important role bc she just made such a strong impression

also her haircut/the claudine haircut is Amazing. I already have a bob but honestly I’m so tempted to get my hair cut like that now. someone stop me

kiera knightly in a suit is incredible. kiera knightly in a suit is exactly how I want to look and I can’t express how amazing it was to like, see my very specific lesbian needs pandered to like that?

honestly “my very specific lesbian needs pandered to” just describes this entire film tbh

also I want to be clear, this is not a horny response, this is a “mood/kin/faint sounds of ring of keys from fun home playing in the background” response

that moment when gabrielle/colette tucks a wisp of Georgie’s hair back into place?? GAY. also I might have had an especially strong response to that bc a few months ago I did. the exact same thing to a girl I had a crush on. only it wasn’t intentional flirting, it was just me failing to hide my crush bc I’m a useless lesbian, and then they asked me on a date, so um. gay feelings basically!

god willy is such a scumbag

I was so hyped up for the lesbian shenanigans in this film, I kind of wish someone had warned me that so much of it focuses on her relationship w a shitty shitty man

but for real, I’m kind of glad, bc I think what the film is conveying about how men use women, idolise women, shape them in the image that suits them, but ultimately have no respect for them and are only trying to drain them dry, and how women have been erased from history bc our work is taken from us by men and also our autonomy and lives and just.... oof. I’m too tired to put it into words properly but yknow

I also wish someone had warned me abt (semi spoiler?) the fact that Willy only permits Colette to sleep w other women bc he can masturbate to it??? fucking gross shitty man I Hate Him

and ofc, the reason he doesn’t like Missy is simply bc he can’t jerk off to him

on the topic of Missy, don’t discourse w me on this but I v much read him as a he/him butch lesbian w possibly some gender stuff going on, but not a trans man. you’re valid if you headcanon him as a trans man tho! solidarity! you’re just not valid if you turn this into dumb discourse, regardless of your opinion. like, it was another time, ppl conceived of gender differently then, I have no idea how the irl Missy identified but I do think the film was leaning towards the idea of him as a butch lesbian

reasons for that:

he says something abt how it’s easier for him than for women w less money but he wanted to show it can be done, which kind of implies he considers himself a woman too?

when he talks abt discovering his preference for masculine clothing by trying on his brother’s school uniform - it’s v much in terms of clothes, not discomfort w the idea of being a girl. which doesn’t rule out him being a trans man, but I do think that a film made today, even one set a hundred years ago, would frame it in terms of gender itself more than gender presentation if they wanted us to read him as a trans man. also also also? I related to that whole thing (except it was a tuxedo for my prom, not a school uniform, our school uniforms were p gender neutral and even tho I preferred trousers for some reason I always wore skirts, idk why)

this is v subjective but just, the vibe he gave off seemed v butch to me? something abt that kind of... steadiness, he’s always there for colette, he sees her as the author of claudine when nobody else does, he’s just kind and reliable and offers to support her financially but respects her when she declines, he’s the only person colette dates/sleeps with who genuinely seems to treat her well and respect her and idk... not that men can’t do those things but... when I think abt myself as being kinda probably a butch lesbian, that’s exactly what I aspire to be, and I don’t know quite how to put it into words again but “steadiness” is the closest I can come

more spoilery thoughts below the cut, and slightly spoilery trigger warnings

thank GOD she leaves willy and it’s the climax of the film and her narrative arc and presented as the right thing to do bc he’s a narcissist (not as in npd, as in the colloquial use of the word which predates the personality disorder) who was only sucking her dry. thank god the film doesn’t try and present him as being right all along

there’s a lot abt infidelity in this film but I especially found the bit where she’s mad at him for sleeping w Georgie really telling - this is why you can’t just agree to an open relationship w someone who’s cheated on you! bc someone who is shitty and deceitful and doesn’t care abt your feelings will find a way to hurt you even if the act of sleeping w other people itself is now considered okay. and when he praised her for not getting as angry at him as she did the first time.... yikes!!!!! I hate m*n!!

polaire was one of the few people to applaud instead of boo at the dreams of egypt performance and it was really nice

trigger warnings for this film: lots of cheating, lots of misogyny and men being creepy abt queer women’s sexuality, some (fairly violent) homophobia, uhh I don’t remember much else? the dog doesn’t die but one human does

[biofunmy]

How The 2010s Crystalized Women’s Anger

Amanda Edwards / FilmMagic

NEW DELHI, India — As a woman in my twenties who grew up in India — a country where abuse of women has been described as the biggest human rights violation on Earth — the SlutWalks of 2011 were, frankly, bewildering.

Every day of our lives, women like me were taught to go over a mental checklist of ways to avoid getting raped. The list had become second nature, so deeply, seamlessly internalized that the doorbell only had to ring, and my mother and I, hanging out in our home, watching TV, or maybe making dinner, would first reach for a scarf to throw over our bodies before we answered the door. At my high school, where uniforms were mandatory, girls were asked to kneel on the ground, so the teachers could check if our skirts were long enough. If they didn’t touch the ground, they were too short, and a particularly terrifying teacher would rip open the hem of our skirts, those frayed edges marking us for the rest of the school day. There were a million ways to dress like a slut if you were a girl (there were no such codes for boys) — our white shirts could be “too transparent” if the cotton had worn thin from frequent washing or if we wore colored bras inside instead of white or “skin”-colored ones.

When I was a 25-year-old reporter, I went to ask a group of young girls who lived in a slum in Govandi, Mumbai, what their checklist looked like. What did paranoia look like in a place where thin corrugated sheets of steel were all that stood between the girls and their neighbors, adult men, leering boys?

Fourteen-year-old Nafisa told me she made sure she texted her friend Neelu before she left home. Neelu carried red chili powder with her everywhere she went in case she needed to throw it in the eyes of a potential attacker. Annu made sure her water bottle was always full so that she had something heavy to hit a potential molester with. Pinki had stopped wearing glass bangles once she turned 11 — because her mother told her that if someone grabbed her wrists, they would break and injure her, slowing her down as she ran from her attackers. Neena had stopped wearing her hair down because it attracted too much attention. At 15, most of them avoided going outdoors unless it was absolutely necessary, and when they did, they were usually accompanied by an older male from the family. A lot of the older girls carried small knives in their bags but were unsure if they’d be able to use them when the time came.

Some girls who wore hijabs said they did not feel any safer: “They want to find out what is underneath,” Nafisa said.

If adulthood was the steady accumulation of survival skills — a realization of one’s own power and its limitations — womanhood, for as long as I’d known it, appeared to be about developing a sixth sense that warned you when you were in a specific kind of danger from a man. But the news we read every day, of women abducted, burnt, raped, killed, appeared to be filled with women whose sixth sense had let them down.

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A SlutWalk in Kolkata in 2012.

The comment that sparked the first SlutWalk, leading to gatherings across 200 cities and 40 countries, didn’t even seem particularly surprising to me. A police officer in Toronto had said to a group of students: “I’ve been told I’m not supposed to say this, however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.” It was the kind of thing that ministers, judges, police officers, holy men, and celebrities constantly repeated across the world.

But as the protests began to go viral, we dissected the SlutWalks avidly, over Facebook posts and IRL, in quiet, thrilled tones with other women. When Indian women held their own version of the SlutWalk — the Besharmi Morcha, or the March of Shamelessness — we cheered them on. But privately, I wondered if the entire project of reclaiming a pejorative word was counterintuitive. Did we really need to normalize the word “slut,” or the behavior associated with it, when there was so much else at stake — especially in a country where women struggled for basic rights?

And then there was the question of inclusivity, posed in the open letter from black women to SlutWalk organizers: Who can afford to reclaim the word “slut”? Who are the women whose bodies are always already considered sexualized and without agency by the patriarchy, and did the marches have space for sex workers? Trans women? Dalit women? Were the SlutWalks about provocation or about language? Were they only for the rights of privileged white women? Could we ever change the power imbalance that routinely blamed women for inviting sexual assault just by walking down a street?

In 2012, the conversation turned dark and urgent in India, when the gang rape and murder of a young woman in New Delhi sent tens of thousands of women marching on the streets. Overnight, our fear had birthed an inchoate rage — against the culture of shame, against the constant policing of our bodies and clothes and words and movement. We wanted more than just the right to be safe, we wanted the right to roam the streets and hang out in public and take risks and have fun like any man, without fear of assault. We demanded justice; we also demanded joy. And for a moment, it seemed as though something might really change.

The next year, the world changed so much that it became unrecognizable to me. I was sexually assaulted, not by a stranger on a dark street corner, but by a person I had known and trusted for many years. I testified in court against him and felt as though I had set my entire life on fire. I lost my job, moved cities, moved back in with my mother. Scores of people and professional opportunities disappeared from my life. (The accused denies any wrongdoing.)

From the depths of my nightmare, SlutWalk, even with its problems, represented a spectacle of sex-positivity. It felt like a world of color and hope that I would never inhabit again. People from a range of genders and ages were still gathering in Spain, South Africa, India, and Pakistan, marching in the streets wearing school uniforms, office clothes, lace and leather, nuns’ habits, fishnets, and denim — flashing skin, drumming, dancing, holding babies and signs, and sharing stories of rape and assault and trauma and songs and jokes.

Meanwhile, I was called a slut all the time, by people close to the man who abused me, his lawyers, others who had never met me but were convinced I had lied — by strangers on the internet. I became less interested in reclaiming words and dissecting them. I was tired and suicidal, and I wanted to focus on being something more than, other than, separate from what happened to me and my body. The SlutWalks were described as the most successful feminist action of the last two decades. What good was any of it going to do?

It wasn’t until 2017, when women first began to speak publicly and loudly about Harvey Weinstein and the things they said he had done, that the fog of the past few years started to clear: For some of us, the SlutWalks had been our first moment of articulating collective rage.

For women, particularly those who were in our twenties or younger when this decade began, our only point of reference for women’s rage had been photographs from the anti-rape movements of the ’60s and ’70s, or marches called “Take Back the Night” — women occupying city streets at hours when decent women were supposed to be safe at home. Some of us knew about feminist theory, the first wave and the second and the third, still more of us knew that no matter where we were, our rights were precarious. Many of us now had opportunities our grandmothers could only dream of, but we were marching for the same old shit. Our bodies were still our first battlegrounds.

The next billion people — including women — who are learning about the power of collective action on the internet are from places like India, China, South Africa, Brazil, and the Middle East. These women have grown up in worlds where public spaces are fraught with danger and private spaces are frequently regarded with shame. As a teenage girl in Pakistan learns a new language of sexual freedom and identity online, she is also learning to navigate the murky waters of digital abuse that a woman lawmaker in the US is punished for. The cautionary tales of trolling, doxing, being targeted with rape threats, having intimate photographs posted online for all to gawk at, being morphed onto naked bodies on a random porn site all exist. But so do the possibilities of forming solidarities, joining protests beyond geographical confines, allowing more women than ever before to have a voice — and to listen in. The measure of successful feminist action, I learned this decade, has never been only about changing laws, governments, or workplace policies. Anger itself is clarifying, because it changes us, the people who participate in it, by giving us ways of seeing: seeing ourselves as part of a collective, seeing through patterns of abuse, seeing as in witnessing each other’s lives and stories.

In this decade, we have seen women’s rage move front and center — it is the subject of books and films and television shows. Beyoncé feels it, so does Greta Thunberg — a 16-year-old climate activist who only recently was told by the president of the US to seek anger management.

But, in workplaces, in courtrooms, at universities, on red carpets and during election campaigns, women are still expected to articulate that anger in the most bloodless way possible, in order to seem rational, likable, electable, and believable.

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Students protest in Mumbai on Dec. 3, 2019.

Carefully contained anger has a role to play in history. Over the years, we’ve watched Anita Hill testifying against Clarence Thomas to an all-male, all-white jury that dismissed her account of being harassed at work. We read the letter that Chanel Miller read out to Brock Turner — a man who sexually assaulted her, but served only three months in prison. We witnessed Christine Blasey Ford’s restrained terror when she was forced to face the man who she said sexually assaulted her. We listened to Nadia Murad, as she described with every shred of dignity she could muster the ethnic cleansing, genocide, and rape of Yazidis — and then again, when Yazidi women were made to confront their rapists on the news.

It is telling that the backlash against the #MeToo movement, in the form of defamation and libel and aggressive defense lawyers, has sought to drag women back to the courtroom: a space they did not trust with the trauma of their abuse in the first place, a place where they are treated as though they cannot be credible witnesses to their own truths.

Yet women’s rage is still unruly: It frustrates all attempts to contain it, shocks, confuses, and provokes. And its unruliness is productive. What else can explain the fact that women are still gathering and marching together across the world? That a day after Donald Trump — a man who was recorded on tape bragging about sexually assaulting women — was confirmed as president of the USA, women held the largest protest in American history? This year, women declared a feminist emergency across 250 cities and towns in Spain, after years of gang rape acquittals, domestic violence, and murders, despite being called “psychopathic feminazis.” In Argentina, the murder of teenage girls, abortion rights, and widespread harassment sparked #NiUnaMenos (Not One Less Woman, Not One More Death) — mass strikes in 2015 which spread across Peru, Bolivia, Uruguay, and El Salvador, and most recently Chile, where this year, a street protest has turned into a feminist anthem performed across Istanbul and Latin America. In South Korea, over 40,000 women protested an epidemic of spy cameras in dressing rooms, unleashing the largest women-only strike in the country’s history. And in India, women came together to form a 385-mile-long human wall against hundreds of years of patriarchy that illegally restricts their entry into a Hindu temple.

It’s 2019, and everything is both terrible and fine. If you feel tired, inhale, exhale, drink some water, and take a break. But remember, even this form of self-care is a luxury for 785 million people on this planet who lack access to clean water, and hours spent looking for water locks women across the world in a cycle of poverty and abuse. In China, polluted air is being linked to an increased risk of miscarriages; in India, Pakistan, Sydney, and California, a deep breath can be hazardous.

Meanwhile, that thing we all need more of — time — is marching on, and so must we. ●

Sahred From Source link World News

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