#he KNOWS that this person is assigned female at birth at this point!!!!

[variousqueerthings]

[marzipanandminutiae]

I have a question, where would gnc/trans people get their clotges in the days before the selling of premade clothes? I assume some was stealing from relatives, and that soem of them did know how to make clothes, but that doesn't seem at all likely to be the most common method

That is an amazing question!

Unfortunately for a lot of people, we don't really know- many trans folks flew under the radar and as such details of their lives are unclear. Legendary stagecoach driver Charley Parkhurst, for example, left no sort of record as to where he got his clothes (especially since he lived in a cabin in the middle of nowhere for many years of his life). And figures like Mary Jones, a Black trans sex worker from the early 19th century, flit into and out of the pages of history so quickly that there's barely enough info to get their vital statistics, let alone shopping habits.

However, my guesses would be as follows:

Secondhand shops. These have existed for a very long time, and if you already have at least one outfit that makes you read as the correct gender, nobody would question you going through that section of the store/market/whatever.

Sympathetic conventional tailors or dressmakers. This is almost certainly where middle- and upper-class GNC or trans people got their clothing- one can hardly imagine legendary writer George Sand buying her suits secondhand, after all. And since humans have always been human, and Let People Dress How They Please; They Aren't Hurting Anyone is a sentiment I've seen at least as far back as the 19th century, I suspect there were far more of these than many people might think.

Clothing workshops catering to the demimonde- that is, to theatrical companies for costumes, or to sex workers. Certainly this is where drag performers got their stage gear, and one imagines people for whom gender variance crossed the line from performance to identity- like Fanny Park and Stella Boulton -might have turned to their costumers for everyday attire, too. And catering to sex workers probably got all sorts of requests that were seen as outre for the time (in a roleplay capacity- most sex workers dressed conventionally while not actively Doing Sex), but their money was as good as anyone else's.

Friends and relatives. Some families knowingly supported their crossdressing or trans loved ones. Even partners who married the person in question as the binary opposite gender could fall into this category- Lili Elbe (though she lived after premade dresses began to rise in popularity) first experimented with feminine attire in dresses and jewelry loaned by her enthusiastically supportive wife Gerta Gottlieb. In fact, Gottlieb was bisexual, and their marriage was only annulled because Lili was a woman now and same-gender marriage was illegal in Denmark at the time.

Also yes stealing from your relatives was also an option, of course. if they were less than sympathetic

The king of France???? this is the wildcard, and my absolute favorite: the Chevaliere d'Eon, when she transitioned in the 1770s, got the king to not only formally state that she had been assigned female at birth (there had been speculation about her physical sex for years at this point) but to pay for her new wardrobe of gowns. Absolute Queen.

"but didn't her mantua-makers notice Some Physical Things?" she's believed to have had some form of gynecomastia, based on her autopsy, and they'd never have cause to see her in less than her calf-length chemise. if they did see anything, they kept their mouths shut, and rightly so.

[boreal-sea]

So according to you, there is no right and wrong of sex, sexuality and gender? So someone can be a male cisgender woman? A lesbian cis man?

You are talking about two completely different concepts here Anon. What I said was that sex ≠ gender. That means someone's sex is not linked to their gender.

I didn't say anything about sexuality.

Sex ≠ Sexuality - who you are attracted to is not predetermined by your chromosomes. A woman can be attracted to men or women or nonbinary people etc. She isn't limited to only liking "the opposite sex" - that's heteronormativity.

Moving on.

"Cisgender" means "person whose gender matches the sex they were assigned at birth". In this case, "cisgender woman" is a woman who was assigned female at birth, still identifies as being female, and who identifies as a woman. Her gender identity matches her assigned sex. So in most cases, if you see "cis woman", she is female.

The exception to this is interesx folks, who may have their sex misidentified at birth or whose sex is complicated, so in that case you could have a cis woman who was assigned male at birth or at some other point in her life. She could be a male cis woman. Intersex folks are allowed to identify as cis if they want to.

But I mean, if a cis woman who is female wants to identify as male, cool. How she identifies is not your business.

And here we come to one of the queerphobe's favorite boogeymen, the "lesbian cis man". Has anyone actually ever met this man before? And I don't mean the guy sitting in the back of his college 101 class joking he's a "lesbian", or 4chan trolls, or cis men misusing dating apps - I mean, has anyone met a cis man who genuinely feels he is a lesbian? I'd like to meet him, I bet he has some fascinating takes on gender and sexuality.

You know what you sound like when you cry about the hypothetical "lesbian cis man"? You sound like pro-lifers going "WoULd YoU aBoRt a bAbY tWo SeCoNdS bEfOrE BirTh??".

If you're a cis lesbian woman and a guy comes up to you and you don't want him hitting on you, just be a grown up and use your words and say "no". Just like you'd turn down anyone else you weren't interested in. Like. I just don't see how this is hard. If he's openly identifying as a cis man, it's pretty easy to say "No, sorry, I'm not into cis men". Being a lesbian doesn't mean you're obligated to date anyone who identifies as a lesbian, that's not how sexuality works. How HE identifies is irrelevant.

If you're a lesbian, you're not attracted to other people based on their sexuality - "lesbian" is a description of your sexuality. You're attracted to people based on a bunch of things - how they present themselves, what gender they are, what political party they are etc. Someone saying "I'm a lesbian" does not mean you have to entertain their advances. Hell, someone saying "I'm a woman" does not mean you have to entertain her advances, either.

Who you choose to interact with and date is 100% of your choice.

[unb1nding-t-b0y]

Transphobia/ micro aggression idk story cuz I see a lot of posts talking about transandrophobia but not as many stories about experiencing it. (Maybe it's just my Tumblr algorithm but regardless posting will hopefully help that too)

Anyways I'm 21 recently started transitioning and I've been performing at a drag place for a little bit. This elder queen (I don't even remember her name I think she was trans but with drag queens that have spent their lives In Drag it can be difficult to tell even when you hear them talk about themselves because many of these people kinda use male and female names pronouns etc interchangeably etc. I'll use she -her pronouns in the story because I'd rather not accidentally misgender a trans women and ik she doesn't care about being she/hered even if she is a cis gay) Anyways she asks bout me and I tell her my name, pronouns, and identity as one does in queer spaces. Upon hearing I was a trans masc she immediately feels the need to tell me the story of the time she *gasp* almost slept with a trans man. The story goes like this.

Shes at a drag night in some bar and a drag king approaches her and they hit it off. Shes into him and vice versa. They ditch the bar and make out in a car somewhere and when it's getting hot and heavy the dude pulls his strap out and tells her he wants to fuck her. All standard shit. But she goes on and on about how surprised and disgusted she was at both the fact that she's been fooling round with a "woman" and how off-putting it was to even suggest a BOTTOM get fucked with a dildo. She picks up. A. Drag. King. And gets surprised when he's trans. If a lesbian went to a drag night and picked up a trans woman and reacted in the same way people would call her an idiot for not bothering to have the critical thinking skills to consider that maybe that person performing gender up there is performing a different gender than they were assigned at birth. (Side note if you're gonna pick someone up without knowing anything about them you can't be mad about surprises. I swing both ways so a surprise is just fine for me but if you have a severe genital preference maybe fucking ask people before you're making out with them and wanting to fuck. Sorry you hate dildos but you should have checked, and honestly even if it's a cis dude you should at least try to verify that they get tested + use protection etc

Unfortunately the majority of drag kings I've run into have been CIS men. The place I'm in is very supportive and kind to cis men doing bare minimum performances (no choreography, no makeup, usually the dude just takes his shirt off at some point and that alone is enough to be praiseworthy. Or he wears a suit stands around and barely lip-syncs ) whereas drag kings that aren't cis or arent men are more often than not treated as outsiders.

The story also cemented what I was afraid of that ultimately I was viewed as an invader of the space. That for some reason cis queens and cis kings are more acceptable in a space that was pioneered by trans women and drag queens. The trans drag shows Ive gone to haven't had any trans men in them unless they are open call. It's hurtful it's alienating and it's frustrating. I AM STILL TRANS. IF YOUR TRANS INCLUSIVE SPACE ISNT INCLUSIVE OF ME ITS NOT INCLUSIVE. It's frustrating that as a trans man when I enter "trans friendly gay bars" I'm often treated like an annoying presence getting in the way of everyone else's dicks only zone. Sorry I don't have a cock but that shouldn't be a requirement to occupy these spaces and you can't call yourself trans inclusive when you really mean just cis gays and trans girls. At the time I couldn't really articulate how fucked up what she said was so I just kinda said some non offensive topic change and moved on but like most of the other queens ignored or avoided me and that moment I figured out why I always felt like the odd one out. Because I was.

[zeroducks-2]

I have a personal question, feel free to ignore, but how do you think being AFAB makes one relate to Dick Grayson more? I feel this way tbh. Or at least to people who are percieved or were percieved as female at some point in life (even if they aren't).

Dick Grayson is a fictional character and what you were assigned at birth doesn't "make" you relate to him any more or less, because what makes him the beloved character that he is aren't traits and/or experiences that are exclusive to any gender, assigned or perceived.

If you had the impression that more AFAB people relate to Dick and less AMAB people do, log off tumblr, go to a comic book store or a con or anywhere geeks gather, and check how many Dick Grayson fans who relate to him and love him are there. I promise you will notice that it's an even number between the different genders.

But anyway, I was assigned Duck at birth so what do I know?

[obstinatecondolement]

Re: this post about changes made to the text in some editions of Monstrous Regiment, I've just checked and the edition in my room is the 2004 Corgi paperback (I forgot I had hardback and paperback and since my first edition Doubleday hardback is downstairs somewhere, I cba going to look for it when I had another version with the original text to hand to refer to) and, yep, Mal is just "in full uniform" in the last scene, not full "female" uniform. I had vaguely remembered that maybe Mal had been wearing the bustle uniform and was uncomfortable about it, but that was a false memory.

The name Maladicta, as opposed to Mal or Maladict, and she/her pronouns are used in the narration in this scene, but I don't think that's definitively saying Mal has embraced identifying as a woman/is not trans or questioning?

Given that the narration in the scene revealing Jackrum's backstory goes from using he to she and back to he for Jackrum, this could just indicate that Polly going off her last data point, i.e. Mal saying "I'm actually Maladicta. There! I've told someone!" and talking about how the whole underwired nightgowns and bathing in virgin's blood routine, per the vampiric gender roles they were expected to abide by, was not something that was attractive and that you were taken more seriously as a male vampire. It's not "Mal is definitively a woman" it's "I am going off my most recent intel and the best guess I can extrapolate from that about what is respectful and accurately reflects this person's gender identity and how they wish to be referred to."

Similarly, in Jackrum's scene where Polly approaches him about how he joined the army, he talks about becoming a "Chosen Man" i.e. what the Borogravian armies called corporals at the time within three months, and that he'd "smiled at" the terminology with regards himself, which sounds a hell of a lot like "it was a fun coincidence that my rank and how I thought of my gender aligned like that" to me. "Chosen man" does not (again, to me) imply "ersatz man/woman assuming a male persona" nearly as strongly, if it could be said to imply that at all, and that reading feels (TO ME) like the one that should be considered a reach, as opposed the more straightforward interpretation that he chose to be a man.

Thinking about trans people's gender in that way is not necessarily how contemporary trans discourse frames things, because "born this way" and "always a [current identity]" has superceded the idea to push back against the idea that you have to earn a gender identity through transitioning. But a significant minority of trans people do feel that they chose their gender or that they were the gender they were assigned at birth at one point even though they aren't anymore, and that kind of framing would have been more common in the mainstream at the time the book was written.

Jackrum also says to Polly, cagily, that no one would believe her when she approaches him and implies that She Knows and wants to talk about it, presumably because he thinks she means to out or blackmail him, and she replies "You're right. No one would believe me. I'd believe you though" which like? That is not "I'd believe you if you said you were a woman." That's 1000% "I will believe you if you tell me that you are a man, even knowing that you are not a cisgender man. I want to know how you want me to think of you."

Which, as a sentiment, is reinforced when she clocks* her new recruits at the end as AFAB and tells them they can join as men if they want to, but it's their choice and that they are her little lads, or not as the case may be, and she will look after them (emphasis directly from the text). Which, again, that's "I will look after you whoever that is, and I don't get to tell you who you are."

Finally:

"Upon your oath, you are not a dishonest man," said Polly. "Good one, Sarge. You told people every day."

That's not definitively "I see what you did there: you thumbed your nose at them by covertly saying that you're a dishonest woman." It could also be "I see what you did there: you thumbed your nose at them by covertly asserting that your identity as a man was not a lie."

Sergeant Jackrum is not a woman, Mal's gender is not firmly canonised in any particular way, Polly Perks is not a bioessentialist, and I will not stand for this fucking libel of my Blorbos, Harper Collins!

*Like, again, there probably wouldn't be as much clocking and outing people (or, indeed, blackmailing people by threatening to out them) framed in a sympathetic light in a book published now that intended to be trans affirming, but this was written over 20 years ago, and, in terms of fantasy written by cis male authors, it is a lot more trans affirming than most of its contemporaries.

[neonscandal]

jjk having queer-coded villains seems to be an intentional choice. what are your thoughts on this

Anon comin in hot today! I feel like this doesn't really need a spoiler warning though it does detail info about characters yet to be animated so read at your own risk.

To be honest, I wouldn't even say that it's coding, JJK has an assortment of characters with varied identities from our protagonists to our antagonists which includes:

Megumi - a lot of fans interpret his non-gendered answer to what his type is, focusing instead on personality, to mean that he's pansexual.

Mahito - genderless ✨ and/or physically lacking reproductive organs that would typically define gender binary

Tengen - presumably assigned female at birth, has since transcended gender or is more non-binary

Kenjaku - another character who's just.. lived so long that they're just kind of gender fluid? Though, considering their history, intersex may be more appropriate? We know that, as Noritoshi Kamo, he mixed his blood with what would become the cursed womb paintings but she actually consummated with Jin for some extra razzle dazzle

Uraume - canonically they/them

Kirara - assigned male at birth (though I believe canonically referred to as they/them) with an androgynous gender expression

Please note: I don't consider myself an expert on the matter as gender identity, expression and sexual orientation exist on spectrums. Subsequently, if you think any of the above characters belong elsewhere based on canon or headcanon, I get it. If, based on canon, I'm outright incorrect, feel free to drop a comment and I'll edit accordingly.

With the distribution of the above in mind, I don't think it's unilaterally something focused just among the antagonists. Though, ironically, some of my color coding is also debatable at this point, I suppose. I think the more interesting observation is that, with enough time, such labels aren't as binding or lack the need for definition. Like, Tengen has all the time in the world to be whatever they want to be and they simply become. In fact, unrelated but kinda related, you see a similar idea in Hell's Paradise with the mercurial gender fluidity of the Tensens, too. Honestly, that's another show to watch with a curious lens.

All that to say, I think the varied representation is more interesting due to the conversation around the mangaka's own identity. Gege Akutami's anonymity has been shielded by their pen name but, also, I don't believe they have confirmed pronouns. While people argue that they went to an all boys' school previously, they also, during a stint as an assistant on another manga, unveiled themselves with a femme presenting avatar. Seemingly to avoid being defined by visual perception (or to pre-emptively avoid recognition by devastated fans..), they appeared in a video interview dressed as Mechamaru. Couple that with the fact that there is a notable lack of romantic pairings within the story, especially those that would be typical of a shonen story. Arguably, that could leave a lot of Aro and/or Ace characters that I'm too obtuse to have picked up on. In fact, one could interpret Akutami's previous comments about Gojo accordingly.

Subsequently, I don't think the intention is to vilify queerness just because some of the antagonists fit the bill. I think, if anything, there's just representation that isn't necessarily cultivated around "othering" queer characters or using their diversity as a plot line, if that makes any sense? Which isn't just concentrated on the "bad guys". For the most part, these are just subtle realities of the characters... okay, Kenjaku's identity can definitely be charged to the plot though. 👀 Seemingly contrary to what I just said about diversity as a plot device, I'm now having mixed feelings specifically with Kenjaku because their identity does inform the plot but also intrinsically brings nuance to them as a character. The more I think about it, this diversity is actually what humanizes them which, connotatively, still seems like a positive thing. Hm. Maybe I'm a hypocrite? Not sure but I'm curious as to your thoughts so feel free to leave them below 👇🏾

[sylkishagsuperiority]

It’s fascinating how two years after the show so many people still wholeheartedly believe the TVA propaganda of Loki and Sylvie being “the same person” and that Loki “fell in love with himself”.

Neither of those statements is true beyond the most surface-level interpretation, and while it works for the casual audience on some level (since most of them will look at it like “oh how funny, of course Loki would fall for himself”), it’s also been used to justify a hate campaign on a completely harmless ship.

Loki and Sylvie are only considered “the same person” because when HWR isolated the events of the Sacred Timeline (presumably the sequence of events that would lead to his birth and not any of his variants), he needed everything in every enslaved universe to happen the exact same way. That means every universe had to have the exact same people in it, making the exact same choices over and over again. But because every universe is its own reality, it wasn’t possible to make everything perfectly identical, and it only worked as long as the TVA was pruning branches 24/7. The universe wants to break free, after all. People want to make their own choices. But under HWR’s tyrannical rule, everyone was allowed only one singular path, a role to play.

That’s what “a Loki” is, at the end of the day. A role, an archetype, a catalyst to the Avengers. As long as the person assigned that role fulfilled their part, it didn’t matter if they were a white man, a Black man, a woman or an alligator. But at the end of the day, every person saddled with that role was their own individual. They’re not one person in multiple bodies. They’re not clones. They’re all completely separate, autonomous beings that exist independently of each other.

That’s where the accusations of Sylki being “transphobic” fall flat, because Loki and Sylvie are not, and have never been, the same person. Sylvie was never meant to be a fem Tom!Loki. She’s from a separate universe and never met him until they were both adults and probably well over a thousand years old. She led a completely different life and has entirely different memories, experiences and skill sets. People who purposely reduce her to a female version of someone else only do it so they have an “ethical” argument against the ship, but their misogynistic refusal to see Sylvie as her own separate person doesn’t change the fact that she’s exactly that and always has been. At no point in time did she ever exist as Tom!Loki, nor did he ever exist as her.

The TVA propaganda reduced variants to the same person because they only saw them as their assigned role on the Sacred Timeline and nothing else. And a lot of people bought it without giving it even a moment’s thought. But now that the Multiverse is free, the concept of variants doesn’t even exist anymore. Now there are bound to be universes where there is no Loki at all, or where the “God of Mischief” isn’t Asgardian, or where they don’t have powers, or a million different possibilities. And all of those people are only bound together by temporal aura - the only indicator the TVA used to identify variants, since DNA is useless (once again, Loki and Sylvie are not genetically related, which frankly should be obvious given we’ve seen an alligator variant and now also a Skrull Kang variant). Hell, for all we know, the temporal aura thing might not even work anymore either, given that the universe is free to do as it pleases instead of following a single predetermined path.

Tl;dr: Loki and Sylvie are not the same person, it was TVA propaganda meant to justify their 24/7 genocide of realities, and Loki didn’t fall in love with himself; Sylvie being as different from him as it gets is kind of the whole point.

[nogu-d-reamers]

WELCOME TO PLAYTOWN/POPPY PLAYTOWN- CHARACTER REFERENCE #3.

NFORMATION AND DATA.

Name: Bobby Bearhug Jr.

Age: 22

Height: 300 mts/9'8 fts.

Species: Smiling critter creature. Bear (spectacled bear).

Occupation: nurse.

Genre: female (she, they).

Sexuality: pan.

Magical usser type: Shaman.

Birth place: Old uptown (Main city).

Birth day: February 14th.

Personality:

Bobby is the type of person who "falls in love" at first sight with how warm she is; She is cheerful, proactive and a little trusting with the people she meets and is very detailed with those she sees as important and although she is not extremely good at reading people enough to know when someone is wrong and needs to get rid of it; but she's not very good at keeping secrets, which frustrates her with the words "can you keep this a secret?".which means that when she finds out something that is a secret or surprise because she is a shaman, the situation arises that she desperately flees until the situation explodes. In these moments when he explodes, what he says is incomprehensible (she will speak in Spanish)

She is someone who is overly emotional; so much so that sometimes it takes them to the limit, which makes her someone extremely emotional; which the critter crew invented "Bobby's limit" to give news and see how much she could stand while they were photographing her and not cause her discomfort.

however when she is on her shift, the nurse bearhug; specialized in dealing with cursed people, she does not tremble even her pulse, her hand or her nerves to say or do things in order to see an improvement in the most undisciplined patients (so much so that even someone like Catnap fears and respects her in equal measure).

about her work and daily life.

Bobby works full time at the "cutter buttons", a hospital near the old uptown sector of Main City (being the oldest sector of the city and at the time it was an important immigrant sector), where due to his feared character and fame out of fear for the cursed ones, it is common for many of her coworkers not to talk much with her even though she tries to be friendly.

Her only close friend in the workplace is Doctor Daddy Longarms, or as she affectionately calls him "pops"; where they generally work side by side since they started work on the first day, and they are usually assigned together due to their synergy when working; to the point that it is common to see Pops also being a close friend of the critters crew and that there are rumors in the hospital that they are dating.

It is common when she is not on duty to see her near Hoppy having dates or studying at the municipal library.

A recurring joke is that at any moment before something happens she makes a "GASP" without knowing if he should tell the news or not.

"Magic" data (and other skills):

As mentioned above, all of its capabilities are based on medicine; what you can use like=

treatment of a certain degree of wounds.

training in emergency cases.

management to a certain degree of surgical devices.

be Catnap's "family doctor"; And although she is a nurse, it must be understood that she has enough physical strength to stop him on her own.

Speaking of her abilities as a Shaman, she can use her magic in 3 different ways =

-oracle card: if Bobby places one of his cards on his forehead; Her divination abilities advance by a maximum of 12 hours and the accuracy of what he sees is 99%.

-shaman card (combat): if Bobby places one of his cards in the area of his ribcage, his brute strength increases abruptly and his physical resistance and reflexes become even higher; In crisis situations his prediction ability is shortened to a maximum of 20 minutes but his accuracy is maintained.

-healer's card: if Bobby places one of his cards in his abdominal area, he loses the ability to divine instead of accelerating the healing and scarring of wounds.

Side note: the use of cards is not necessary; but not using them can wear it out more quickly.

other random data:

favorite food: arepas with salmon paté and hot chocolate with cheese «strange combinations, but tastes inherited from my mom».

Favorite dessert: honey and apple pie «Bless Picky for that family pie! but now I have to stay on a diet if I want to eat them often…».

hated food: liquors «HOW IS SOMETHING THAT TASTES SO HORRIBLE SO POPULAR AND ADDICTIVE?!I'm tired of seeing people injured or killed by too much liquor!».

smell: roses.

strength: empaty,moral support, confidence.

weakness: obstinacy, too much emotional.

favorite physical appearance: smile with fangs «Sometimes a nice smile can brighten someone's day. A pair of fangs, far from being scary, show that they can be more adorable~».

hated physical appearance:grumpy face «I really hate how scary I can look when I get angry, do you know how hard it is to keep calm features when you get angry just so you don't scare?».

person you respect most: Daddy Longarms «Only I know this longman's history; and with all the bad things that happened it is still a LONG cinnamon-roll!!!»

person you don’t want as an enemy: Bubba «Bubba is a monster if his tax date is close... I have reported about 7 cases of acute "I-won't-face-the-pachyderm-in-fiscal-season."».

hobby: dance salsa, Wrestling and read the horoscope.

Some crush?: … «I've been dating Hoppy for about 4 years, 6 moths and 15 days… and if at the end of this year she doesn't dare to ask me to marry her, I swear I'll do it myself!!».

[warvariations]

after i posted asking abt massage parlors on ig apparently all of my partner's sisters texted him asking if we were ok which was done with good intentions bc everyone knows i had quit sex work but it also felt patronizing. like omg it has to be really bad for you to consider doing That. Again. and then my partner started saying shit like that he felt like he wasn't the right person for me cause i have too much baggage and he's unequipped to support me. he didn't use the words 'too much baggage' but he totally said that. i have anxiety and ocd but i'm literally the most normal guy... a literal perfect housewife. i cook and clean and wake up early have no friends and want a family this is literally what assigned female at birth stands for but i feel like someone's pointing at me like You! you used to do drugs And You are a Hooker! don't expect us to act like yre just a regular guy

[houseboywife]

On Gwyndolin's gender

This has probably been talked about a loooot but I felt like talking about it too so the voices in my head stop because I think Gwyndolin is a very cool character and I think there's a lot of nuance to them.

So I'm gonna start off by saying that all headcanons on their gender are cool and valid (unless they're cringe) and that's not really what I wanted to focus about but more of a thing where I've seen a lot of people say that Gwyndolin was "born male" (for the lack of a better term) but forcefully raised as a girl by their dad. And again I think it's potentially more interesting and nuanced than that. Maybe that was the intended reading all along but I invoke death of the author so shush.

So the things that can be inferred about Gwyndolin's gender strictly through the text presented in the game are:

a) The only description to directly talk about their gender says: "The power of the moon was strong in Gwyndolin, and thus he was raised as a daughter." Imo this is interesting because it doesn't imply their biological sex at all. Like first off they're not even a human, they're a god and some kind of half snake fella to begin with. Maybe for gods gender is just assigned based on astrology and it works this way for everyone. Like Gwyn is an ultrabro and he's kinda the lord of the sun. Or maybe not, who knows. But the main thing is that Gwyndolin isn't necessarily said to have been "born male".

b) They associate with both the sun (their chosen title is Dark Sun Gwyndolin) and the moon (their personal order is the Blades of the Darkmoon). Presumably the Sun, representing Gwyn and being sorta the opposite of the moon, is masculine, while the moon has been established to be feminine. Plus they present themselves with both traditionally masculine and feminine trait, and not really fully one way or the other.

c) The ds1 Gwyndolin model has visible breasts while the ds3 one doesn't. Top surgery??? Chest padding???? Just the developers reusing the body model of a different character????? Who knows.

d) They're referred in the description with he/him pronouns, although this is only by other characters so I think it doesn't mean too much imo and I'm using they/them just to be safe.

In my humble personal headcanon I consider Gwyndolin to be transmasc/nonbinary, assigned female at birth by Gwyn (again regardless of whatever biological sex they had because who cares honestly) and later on established their whole identity more clearly as this ambigously gendered figure. So idk I think it's cool I really vibe with it. But also it could literally be anything else and it would be a vibe as well, I just wanna point out that assuming their birth circumstances is pretty limiting. Also their lower half is snakes they don't have a dicky or a vayjayjay they're just fucking snakes dude

[wolfnanaki]

Greetings. During my various interactions with the fandoms of GVH and Snoot Game, a common anti-trans argument I frequently saw was that trans people don't need to change their gender to have expressions incongruent with their assigned gender at birth. i.e. Someone can do traditionally male-oriented things without actually being a man. Therefore, they say being trans is pointless because there is never a reason to change one's gender as anyone of any gender can do anything. Personally I can't really come up with a good retort for this without sounding like I support gender stereotypes, so I want to ask, if it's okay with you: What do you usually say in response to people who say that sort of thing?

It's a silly argument that anti-trans people make, because here's an important question: why are these activities being grouped with genders? Why do certain things need to be forced into binary gender roles?

The "trad" crowd would have you believe that things like sports, breadwinning, fighting, etc. are all things that define masculinity, while femininity is all about being a homemaker, servitude, baking, cleaning, stuff like that. But we know that's all bunk because we see people doing the opposite all the damn time. Women who love boxing and chopping down trees. Men who feel at home at bakeries and teaching.

None of these activities have any bearing on your gender because, despite what conservatives will tell you, they aren't gender-exclusive. The way this gets framed by transphobes is insisting trans men are forcing themselves to do more traditionally manly things to prove their masculinity, and the opposite for trans women.

In this framing, they see transness as a performance. As in, they see it as a fake act done by delusional people trying to be something they're not. It is part of what informs their whole worldview about trans and nonbinary people.

Here's my point, short and sweet. Your activities aren't your gender. Your gender, how you find it, how you come to express it, is all you. You define you for your own self. Sometimes that leads you to changing the way you dress, or taking medications, or changing your pronouns, or other things. But it's your gender and your body. No fucker on the internet has any right to tell you what you are or aren't. And they sure as fuck have no right to tell you what hobbies you should/shouldn't have.

On the topic of Goodbye Volcano High, we can actually talk about a character that fits perfectly into this discussion. Sage is a trans man (assigned female at birth). When he was young and living as a girl, his parents pressured him into acting, presenting, and performing traditionally feminine roles, and he couldn't stand it. But after coming out as a trans man and beginning his social transition, he came to enjoy looking and presenting in a feminine way, now that it was a choice he could make instead of an obligation. And like Fang, he doesn't want to have to perform more "masculine" to prove his gender; he's happy as he is.

Sage does not make sense in the rhetorical world espoused by transphobes. And there are many trans and nonbinary people like Sage too; trans men who like being girly, trans women who like being manly, and nonbinary and genderfluid people who can have a whole variety of gender presentation preferences.

There are as many ways to express gender as there are people in the world.

Anyway, shorter version: gender is a much deeper and personal thing that just the hobbies you do. I hope this helps. 🏳️‍⚧️

Sorry if this ended up being longer than what you're looking for, I just find stuff like gender and gender expression fun to think about!

[sunspira]

Im laying my bets now. the entire idea that autism (and adhd) is more common in men and boys is pure myth created by poor science, backwards statistics and faulty parameters of the condition itself. in another 50 years we will understand it was never a gendered condition. just a highly gendered and biased measurement system. i'm absurdly confident on that

the rates of autism in girls is "rising" exponentially. it is rising even more exponentially in girls than in boys. not because girls are becoming more autistic. but because the "science" is just getting better at measuring and accurately acknowledging autism in girls.

autism often does present differently in girls, due to how girls are raised or personality differences. the literature and criteria was based on boy sample groups. the entire research data was done on white men as if that is a standard default person and control group.

not only that, doctors and teachers and parents literally were not looking for it in girls under the false widely propagated belief it was rare in women in girls. it is a self fulfilling prophecy. that's not science.

we will soon have to reckon with the lost generations of autistic girls and women and children assigned female at birth* who never got diagnosis and early intervention. we should be forcing the world to reckon with it right now. a great deal of autistic millennial women are brilliant minds who dropped out of STEM and the workforce due to their untreated and misidentified disability overtaking their life. the impact of never Knowing you or your child is autistic or adhd is difficult to comprehend for autistic and adhd people who did get diagnosed as children. even when the awareness and interventions were unhelpful or harmful. the harm of not knowing means the child trying even harder to become neurotypical and a level of autistic burnout few others on the spectrum can comprehend, often taking place after the woman is a legal adult, and there are no legal protections in place for this disabled person.

the unmitigated stress of being developmentally delayed and never knowing it, simply hating and blaming yourself and fighting day in and out past your limits to become neurotypical, limits your don't know you should have because you have never been so much as briefed on what adhd or autism can feel like. you don't know the distres and tiredness you're feeling is "dysregulation". this is why we see women in nervous breakdowns. psychiatric wards. treatment resistant depression. electric shock therapy. hard drug addiction. cutting. homelessness. personality disorders. dissociation. psychosis. early death by accident or suicide. (obviously people who are not autistic or adhd have these illnesses but my point is untold and disproportionate numbers of them are undiagnosed neurodivergent with unprocessed trauma. i'm telling you. more than you think).

it's why we see young people on tiktok not faking DID per say, but describing a dissociated experiences and fractured sense of self and escapist alternate personalities, a mental illness that has much less in common with traditional DID, but has much in common with struggling and under-treated autistic people. DID is a very rare condition. autism is very common. autism can create out of body experiences and self protective blurring of reality and fantasy so extreme, no person can be expected to understand it is autism if they never been advised about their own disability and the knowledge that should he available to them. it's no wonder we have people with mislabeled rare disorders like DID who are clearly very sick but instead of showing real DID signs, are sick with all the signs of severe unassisted autism they have been completely barred from understanding or coping with in any other way. for those lucky enough, we see unemployed young women with severe chronic pain in their 20s and 30s who look and feel like they're elderly and gave up their dreams when they hit 21 or 25 and their brains stopped working and their bodies shut down. now they mostly scroll tumblr and tiktok and try to remember to open the blinds. they have a roof but people scorn them for entitled laziness and worst of all derided for "self diagnosing".

again i'm asking why CFS chronic fatigue syndrome is so responsive to adderall. i'm asking why professionals are reluctant to test women for adhd if she does well in school because she is very bookish and why experts in the field are openly amused and doubtful to test a woman for autism if she has a long term boyfriend. why is ability to mask or function a disqualification. why is inability to function in women, who later turn out to be autistic or adhd, so aggressively mischaracterized as BPD, bipolar, depression, OCD, schizophrenia. why is autism and adhd clinically diagnosed and defined by distress and dysfunction and not by intrinsic traits and qualities that present while still functional for preventative care. why are all people, men and women forced to wait until their lives and minds are deteriorating and they have experienced some irreversible disasters and pain before they can be diagnosed. why must girls and boys wait until their daily life as children have become unbearable hell for them before their disability can be treated and acknowledged. and if these policies are changing now, why are doctors and psychiatrists not eagerly and urgently reaching out to find the vulnerable adults they missed during more archaic screening methods. we aren't rising in adhd diagnosis because of tiktok you assholes. adult onset adhd and autism don't exist. those people were always adhd. adult onset skill regression and increase in severity due to stress DOES happen in adulthood. modern day stresses like loss of structure during the pandemic and social media is advancing to become more attention span draining. everyone is feeling the effects but these are causing adhd and autistic people to cope less and mask less effectively so they are running into significant problems, their loved ones are noticing, they are getting referrals and suddenly forced to google their rapidly worsening mental issues for the first time and seeing they line up with a known neurological condition . this is obvious. doctors blaming it on some sort of trend are being willfully clueless

*because autism especially is screened identified diagnosed and first intervened ages 2-5, before a child has an internal concept of self or gender and above all before they can express their gender, diagnostic practices and criteria are based on how adults perceive a child via birth assignments. and the studies are overwhelmingly beholden to data only on children assigned male at birth, rarely accounting for their actual future gender either. as part of the warped science insisting that autism is as if somehow linked to the y chromosome and not a universally likely human quality, you see amab kids laser focused on as candidates and afab kids fucked over most of all. all children assigned female have the worst chances of their developmental disability being identified and acknowledged in a timely manner and disproportionately experience late diagnosis in later adolescence or adulthood. tho i wouldn't be surprised if trans womens rates of accurate diagnosis is lower than cis men. as trans girls may present autism differently and characteristic of girls autism, even while still in the closet or before she knows she is trans. regardless adults are very vigilant for signs of autism, even atypical ones, in any child they perceive as a boy. so any millennial or gen z child identified female at birth had significantly worse chance at receiving autistic support compared to peers

in particular women assigned male at birth might have a better chance at being identified for types of autism that are often labeled "high functioning", involves high masking, and often receives few services. these more invisible types of autism often need to be diagnosed before age 5 in order to qualify under the criteria at all. and so in the days where autism was believed to be 20x more common in the genetics of xy children, any chance of being considered and diagnosed would come down to almost purely birth assignment dependent. with the less outwardly visible types of autism, a person who misses this window will remain autistic all their life but once they learn a certain level of skills and masking, no matter how late they learn these, the person will no longer qualify for diagnosis, either not until they have a nervous breakdown or possibly not ever qualify. it's this type of more hidden autism we see struggling across the board as undiagnosed adults including both trans and cis women especially, tho we are seeing it disproportionately even more so in undiagnosed afabs of any gender. who are dropping out of schooling and work and succumbing to severe mental illnesses during what should be the prime of their lives. overall tho birth assignment is not everything this is an issue that disproportionately impacts cis women. trans women. trans men. non-binary people. likely doubling for those that are afab. and then tripling and quadrupling for children who are not white.

bit of an understatement in that last part there. gender likely isn't even the biggest barrier to proper diagnosis and treatment. probably race is even more so. but since gender is such a big disparity in itself across race and one i relate to and can speak on from experience ive focused on it here. a more in-depth look is needed on the neglect of adhd and autistic children of color especially black native and latino kids. but for now do keep in mind the points i'm making increase exponentially for kids who aren't white across all genders including cis boys

[juszt-a-liddol-guy]

my take on the silly hedgies………

once again i throw a lazy sketch at yall!! oops!

….anyways i guess i should write abt my headcanons here or smth (that would make sense)

in general,

hedgehogs assigned female at birth grow less fur. their tummies/chests are typically bare as well as their arms, but there’s still a thin layer of velvety fur that blends into the thicker fur around the shoulders and the rest of the body. for beauty reasons, some cis afab hedgies will choose to shave the thin fur so it appears neatly styled. afab hedgies also have naturally occurring downwards-pointed quills that are typically shorter than their amab counterparts, ending around the shoulders or upper back. these can be easily styled into upwards-pointed quills should they choose to.

amab hedgehogs grow more fur and have puffy white chests. their arms and tummies are covered in the same type of fur as the rest of their bodies. as for their quills, they are naturally pointed up and are usually long. if styled downwards, their quills can reach the amab hedgie’s lower back or behind.

taking testosterone can make thicker fur grow on the arms and tummy/chest, among many other side effects. similarly, taking estrogen can thin out coarse fur.

moving on!!

for sonic:

-early to mid 20’s

-goes by he/it pronouns, afab, takes testosterone & has had top surgery

-has autism+adhd, and thanks to trauma from years of fighting — probably riddled with depression or ptsd

-he’s a bit of a clown! sonic likes to make its friends smile, and is really good at cheering others up through humor

-honestly, personality wise, i think of him as being the more mature version we see in the IDW comics or in sonic frontiers. super confident in itself, even if it’s almost guaranteed to be defeated. it will just keep pushing through. this trait can come off as reckless and self-endangering however, and he definitely sits through lectures about this behavior from his loved ones. he is a super high-masking person, and once the mask is on for the day, he finds it very hard to take it back off.

-while it is afraid of being in deeper water, it’s fine taking baths or being in showers and even enjoys reading about fictional creatures that originate from the ocean such as mermaids and sea monsters

-chocolate is just too sweet for him most of the time, but he enjoys a nice pastry or cheesecake

-loves jazzy pop music, alternative rock, 80s music, gentle melodies, and super upbeat EDM. wakes up everyday with a song already playing in its head and thinks of its brain like a radio station that can flip between channels

for shadow,

-older than sonic by a year and a half (not counting the 50 year coma lmao)

-goes by he/they pronouns, afab, used to take T (recently stopped, feels like he doesn’t need it anymore) & has had top surgery

-has autism, dyslexia, generalized anxiety & depression.

-left-handed

-very closed-off individual who finds it very difficult to make new friends. he appears as being very intimidating to people who aren’t familiar with him, especially on days when the flat affect is strong. they’re a pretty serious and literal guy most of the time, but they have their silly goofy moments when around people they really trust and when they’re in the mood for it. they don’t remember much from their past besides the big important parts, and he overthinks about the future a lot, to the point that he can start to cry (in private).

-shadow’s friend group is extremely tight— only sonic, rouge, and omega have been allowed to see underneath the barriers. even despite this, he has trouble opening up to them because he’s afraid of pushing them away or thinks the content he enjoys is too embarrassing to share (even though sonic would go ballistic and enjoy it too, and he knows this, but shadow’s first reaction is still to hide it).

-absolutely adores coffee and sweet things. they have a lot of sensory issues when it comes to vegetables, and normally stick with a diet of primarily pasta, chicken, beef, or rice.

-loves hard rock music, metal, alternative rap, EDM, j- & k-pop / rock, & music that emo teens back in the 2000’s really enjoyed (lol)

[clownrecess]

I want to talk about my identity as a queer person, because it is a lot more complex than what I usually present it as.

On a base level, I am a gay trans man. When people in person ask my pronouns I typically give them the answer of Xe/He/They.

However, my identity is so much more complex than that, so I wanted to take the time to talk about it.

Sexuality: I am gay, which in a basic form means that I am a non-woman, who is attracted to other non-women. I identify as a boy, and I am attracted to people who also identify that way, as well as masc leaning nonbinary people. Along with being gay, I am also greysexual, which is an identity on the asexual spectrum.

Gender: I am trans (FTM). This means I was assigned female at birth but am actually a boy. Whilst my gender CAN be dumbed down to just "boy", it is a lot more than that. Imagine a square, and what is inside that square is boy. My gender fully takes up that space, it is fully boy, but then a small bit of my gender overflows out of the square. Typically, this would fall into demiboy, however, I am not a demiboy. The part of my gender that falls outside of boy is so so little, that I don't feel comfortable using the label of demiboy to describe myself. So why is my gender complex then? I am a person that very much believes that gender as most people think of it is a human made concept, and that "true gender" is only experienced by the one experiencing it. My gender, as a boy, feels like a boy in the way that animal bones feel like a boy. My gender, as a boy, feels like a boy in the way that the concept of being dead feels like a boy. My gender, as a boy, feels like a boy in the way that frogs feel like a boy. My gender, as a boy, feels like a boy in the way that You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison by MCR feels like a boy. And more! My gender being a boy has absolutely nothing to do with what society deems a boy. My gender being a boy is ONLY a boy because for me, all of those things feel like a boy, and all of those things feel like me and my gender. I am also autistic, and my autism also wildly changes the way that I experience myself, and of course, part of myself is my gender. Due to this, I also identify as autigender.

But, that still isn't super complex. What I just described is an autistic boy who uses xenogenders, and that IS what I am! However, it is messier than that, because I am in a system (which typically isn't something I talk very much about online, but it is important for this post) and we all experience gender differently. Some of us are nonbinary, some of us are girls, some of us ONLY use xenogenders, and some of us identify in a way that I didn't list off. Some of us use she/her pronouns, some of us use auti/autis pronouns, some of us use he/him pronouns, some of us use they/them pronouns, some of us xe/xem pronouns, some of us use frog/frogself pronouns, some of us use fae/faeself pronouns, etc. Point is, we all have unique, complex genders, sexualities, and identities.

So why do we not say we are genderfluid and pansexual, as a way to make all of us feel represented and truthful in our identity? Because being a xenogender using, gay, complex identity boy is what describes us as a whole the best. Yes, we are absolutely separate people, but as a whole, this is who we are. We also label ourselves as a multipluralic boy, which is another way to show that we have different Identities whilst still having one whole identity as a system.

All of these aspects of my identity as a queer person intersect and influence each other in complex ways. It's not always easy to navigate, but it's also incredibly rewarding to be able to explore and express myself in a way that feels true to who I am.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

forgive me if I sent this before sdfg But I sorta have this headcanon about the Gerudo? Gender is fucking weird to me anyways, so my brain looks at "they only have a man every 100 years and he's destined to be king" and i'm like 'but why tho'. I like to think their view of gender just doesn't translate well into Hyrulian/a language with gender binary. There are technically trans* people born into the Gerudo (*everyone is assigned 'female' at birth) so they are able to sustain themselves just fine. But the role of like, champion or king or whatever you want to call it, there's a distinction from the average person. Ganondorf isn't special because of his, err, equipment or anything. But this nuance is lost on Hylians, and centuries of misunderstanding contributed to this idea of "ah gerudo only have 1 man" (always did find it backwards that divinity is feminine in this series, yet it's almost always Zelda's father The King who is in charge and gets to be a character)

Ohhh the famed question of Gender Among Gerudo!!!

Okay, so. I think I'm a little weird in that regard. First, I think I need to be a little transparent about how I write, because it changes the way I go about this sort of things. I tend to be the sort of person that kind of gravitates around fictional cultures with really weird gender components and pressure points and then want to scratch at them and push them to their breaking point, because it interests me to see characters struggling to make sense of their identity in these contexts.

Again, all of this is about my own approach/my own creative curiosity and not at all a rebuttal of any other approach!! I'm super interested to see gerudos interpreted across the fandom, it's always so endlessly fascinating!!

(I'm putting it under the cut because I don't know if my own approach interests you, so just in case!)

So. While I think that it would also make sense for gerudo to think of gender in way that are radically different than hylians, I'm personally interested to take the claims at face value and see what sort of people that would create --for better and for worse. I am a big fan of the gerudos, but I also see gender (and especially masculinity) as one of their messiest pressure points.

The reason why that interests me is that an enormous part of Descant's subtext is Ganondorf being completely overwhelmed by the notion of masculinity and its expectations. Having no real blueprint to even understand what being a man is even supposed to imply beyond old legends about kings long dead, more myth than people, the contradictory, vague and messy expectations of the gerudos women who hardly know any better than him (but might say that they do, right Koume&Kotake), and hylian men who are literal threats to his life, actively hated by his people and who get imprisonned/killed if they ever get inside gerudo lands... How in the world are you expected to construct a stable perception of yourself in a context like this? And that's excluding the differences between hylian and gerudo perception of masculinity, or the insane stuff that hylians do project upon him based on their own understanding of gender and gender dynamics. In the end (in Descant), it's Darunia who does the most for him in that regard, though pretty much without realizing it nor the importance that it holds for Ganondorf, and then uhhh everything goes well forever and nobody's people gets eaten by a reanimated dragon very importantly.

I am taking a rather dark interpretation of the gerudos in OoT by taking their situation so literally, buuut I'm that kind of writer unfortunately for everybody involved. :((( This makes their relationship with hylians and their own brithrates very very dire in a war context, makes Ganondorf's appearance in the equation all the more important --but also very... questionable in a lot of ways. Extreme arbitrary gendered power combined with absolutely crushing gender expectations you can't really run away from, and expectations that are far from neutral (that's some wild shit to project onto a literal newborn is all I'll say). I think a Ganondorf raised in such a context might try to do anything for his people, buuut a part of him might also cultivate some resentment for the role bestowed upon him and the fact that he can't just be. This would have uhh implications once he gets a whiff that divine power (so self-definition at its most absolute) is a goal he can strive for.

What can I say, I'm interested in the mess!!!

But I also think trans gerudos are completely fair game, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a social space for trans gerudo to exist without this kind of pressure, especially when, culturally, masculinity is also a function --but I also think sheikahs might be much, much better at the whole gender thing than gerudos are as a culture tbh.

And as far as Goddesses being feminine while Zelda not holding actual power... I agree that it feels weird. I decided to handle this as hylians using it as an excuse to have the Goddesses relegated as religious passivity --blessed symbols of balance-- while having the concrete messiness of down-to-earth power be the domain of men; less pure and heavenly, but also, by definition, more power.

(I think this also changes a lot across Hyrule's history, but again I'm talking OoT era)

Thank you so much for your ask!! I hope I didn't overspill with my own headcanons haha