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neomale-tboy · 10 months ago

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in my opinion, Fumble/Morven Loh fumbled their/her talk of trans men. to preface: i don't know anything about Fumble aside from it's in the uk.

the reason for the article, the title of the article, and a majority of the first paragraph begins by saying that as queer gender and sexuality takes more of a forefront in the social zeitgeist, trans men are scarcely talked about and she wants to talk about it.

my first problem comes from the last sentence of the first paragraph and the second paragraph. i've seen people talking about transandrophobia say that they're tired of having to disclaim that they don't hate or mean to detract from trans women's struggles. i especially don't like that this disclaimer comes from a cis woman trying to discuss trans men's erasure.

in that same paragraph, she links to another article she wrote. a fine article for what it is (a cis person talking about transphobia). but she cites it as a source in a paragraph about how trans women face worse transphobia as a result of hypervisibility...in an article about trans men's erasure. and the linked article highlights trans women's role within the terf movement and the bathroom debate, making it relevant to the paragraph about trans women in the trans men's article. the bathroom debate, i can get. all i've seen of that is people getting mad at trans women for wanting to use the correct bathroom. i just wish loh talked more about how terfs treat trans people as a whole in thr terf section instead of dedicating it to trans women. this is an article linked in a post about trans men's erasure.

loh then states that she's seen or heard of trans men's erasure in both the queer and mainstream society before saying trans men are men, giving a short paragraph about how the patriarchy makes being trans in general complicated.

she, a cis woman, the gives a paragraph about how fucking easy it is for trans men to pass. how it "just" takes a few years on testosterone and strangers percieve you as a cis man now. she says men are neutral/the default, so people won't question a trans man (who's been on t for a few year)'s gender. then the cis woman adds that trans women are in a constant battle to be seen as women regardless of transition stage...in an article about trans men's erasure.

loh then backtracks, "of course it isn't that easy"...for trans men pre- and 'during' transition, we get confused for butch lesbians and teenage boys. "this is both tedious and painful because many people don't even consider that trans men exist." once more, the cis woman diminishes trans men's issues. our passing is only barely a problem to her because it's just "tedious and painful". she doesn't consider that, similar to the violence she mentions that trans women experience in the article about trans men's erasure, trans men will also recieve repercussions for being trans. to her, it seems, trans men simply have to tell people we're men, and everything is rainbows and trans flags.

she starts off the next section, titled male privilege, by saying that trans men transitioning for the gain of male privilege is a "massive misconception". she asserts that trans men are men who simply happened to be born with female associated genitalia. best thing i think she says: "male privilege works against trans men, not for them...".

in the next paragraph she says "trans men are men" again while advocating that trans men can be of any orientation, not necessarily straight. this is fine, really. she says that we can have attraction to cis gay men, whereas i'd've preferred to hear it the other way around: that cis gay men can be attracted to us. cis validation gives more validity to trans gay men's position as gay men unfortunately. this is an article on trans men's erasure, one in which she acknowledged that that erasure extends to queer communities. but this complaint's a little nit-picky of me.

the article wraps up in a paragraph about general transgender discrimination, where she states that trans people face the highest suicide and homicide rates. considering this is an article about trans men's erasure where she say that trans women face the most discrimination and abuse, i think she really should've highlighted where trans men are the most targeted. because as i've seen in discussions of transandrophobia, there are plently of spots to highlight. she didn't need to give numbers, seen as she didn't for anyone else, but she should've conceptualized our discrimination as more than getting mistaken for a butch lesbian or a teenage boy.

finally, loh gives a list of tips on how to be a trans ally, the first of which being to educate one's self on trans issues, something i view as tone deaf due to my opinion stated in the paragraph above.

in an article precidated on the question "why people arent talking more about trans men?", loh fails to answer her own question. she says that trans men are men, and that cis people/society is accepting of this and our presentations. she never talks about how transphobia affects trans men. hell, she barely, if at all, talks about trans men's erasure! she just reports on what she, a cis woman, thinks trans men are.

i think it's irresponsible how cis people get to speak about trans people like this. how they read up a little on trans issues, and then decide they're qualified to write such an objectively shitty article where once more we are erased and put on the back burner. at the beginning of the article, loh says that times are "(hopefully)" changing. i just don't think she and a lot of other cis people are yet qualified to speak on this change as it affects trans people, especially when it comes to the erasure that they, as cis people, perpetuate.

idk how to tie this off neatly. hope you enjoyed my little analysis i spent over an hour on.

#transmasc erasure #transmisandry #transandrophobia

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bao3bei4 · 4 years ago

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girlbosses, male wives, and other lesbian genders

a post about jing wei qing shang. but also mostly about another unrelated movie. spoiler-free.

for a lot of people, mulan 1998 is their definitive “ohhh i’m a chinese woman dressing as a man for contrived reasons and i get absolutely nooo erotic pleasure from this” movie.

however, because i am very special and unique, for me it’s the love eterne 1963. it’s the shaw brothers adaptation of butterfly lovers, the classic chinese folktale. here’s how i’d summarize the movie:

zhu yingtai, an aspiring scholar, convinces her parents to let her dress as a man to attend school. on the way there, she meets liang shanbo, another prospective student, and they become sworn brothers. they study together for three years, growing closer, until zhu yingtai returns home. liang shangbo accompanies her for the eighteen-li journey home while she hints she’s a woman, but he remains oblivious. by the time he learns her gender, her parents have engaged her to another man. he dies of grief, and while she mourns at his grave, it splits open, and she buries herself inside with him. two scraps of her torn outfit turn into butterflies and fly away.

it’s worth noting here that like. this movie is made in the huangmei opera style. so both zhu yingtai and liang shanbo are played by women (betty loh ti and ivy ling po respectively). because of this, basically every level of the film is preoccupied with gender: if we take zhu yingtai’s male performance as credible (as the characters in the movie do) the leads bond through male homoeroticism; the text is ultimately about a heterosexual romance; it is acted out by two women, in a performance that is difficult to mistake as heterosexual or even feminine; and the dialogue of the movie can’t help but remark on this.

basically it asks: what if lesbians could be gay both ways? wouldn’t that be based?

like opera was traditionally made by single gender casts, so roles tended to be genderless, in that the gender of the actor doesn’t determine the gender of the role they play. roles are instead typed into four categories: dan (fem), sheng (masc), chou (clown), and jing (painted face). it’s a sick gender quadinary. each of these roles has further subtypes that are represented through stylized patterns of singing, makeup, costuming, movement etc.

so in butterfly lovers, betty loh ti plays a dan, and ivy ling po plays a sheng. but because of the textual cross-gender play, you end up with a woman playing a woman playing a man who falls in love with a woman playing a man.

i’m going to make a brief digression here into talking about like.. acting theory. in the european tradition, you see it evolving out of early concerns (from stanislavski, brecht) about the fourth wall, and its permeability or lack thereof. in chinese opera tradition, the fourth wall didn’t ever really exist. and mei lanfang, the legendary fanchuan performer, claimed that his success wasn’t just due to his appearance, but rather, his mastery of some nonliteral feminine subjectivity.

If I kept my male feelings, even just a trace, it will betray my true self; then how can I compete for the audience’s affection for feminine beauty and guile?

i’m not going to argue that there’s like, an essence to being a woman because i’m not a fucking idiot. but there’s something to be said for the idea that the gendered interplay between the audience’s perception of the actor, the actor’s perception of themself, and the character they play is a massive part of the appeal of fanchuan performance.

this is echoed by david hwang’s m. butterfly, in which gallimard memorably says, “i’m a man who loved a woman created by a man. everything else—simply falls short.” btw sorry for having the type of brain disease where i constantly reference chinese crossdressing related media. you already know why i have it.

anyway. parallel to that (but far less morally detestably), jin jiang argues “young male impersonators in yue opera embody women’s ideal men—elegant, graceful, capable, caring, gentle, and loyal.” so, trivially, 1) the eroticism embodied by fanchuan performers is distinctly different from their “straight” counterparts, and perhaps less trivially 2) it’s way better.

back to the love eterne for a bit. one of the many reasons it’s lodged itself into my psyche is because there’s something more interesting at play than just all that. normally in opera, to compensate for any perceived residual femininity in the sheng, the dan camps it up even further. so this is how zhu yingtai first appears, this bratty femme pastiche of womanhood. yet within a couple minutes she’s dressed as a man, which she’ll stay as for the bulk of the movie. they do however make compromises with the makeup--more gently lifted eyebrows than the steep angles of the sheng opera beat, and an improbably masculine smoky eye.

that’s right. they performed girlbossification on her.

i don’t want to suggest that she’s straightforwardly feminine. i could write an entire other thing on her relationship to masculinity. instead i want to highlight the erotic interplay not just between the “girl” and the “boss” but also between her and her counterpart: the male wife.

liang shanbo is ostensibly straightforwardly male, but his relationship with zhu yingtai isn’t gay in the ahaha what if i was into my bro way-- it’s a what if i was into my bro and i was his wife way.

that’s right. they performed force fem on a cis woman-man. like when zhu yingtai tells him he can’t watch over her as she recovers from an illness because “boys and girls can’t sleep together,” liang shanbo asks “are you implying that I’m a girl?”

there’s a lot of shit like this that builds up over the course of the movie. it all culminates in that final 18 mile journey. along the way, zhu yingtai compares them to a pair of mandarin ducks, one male & one female. liang shanbo sputters “i am a man inside out-- you shouldn’t--” before graciously conceding, “you may compare me to a woman.”

this is like. a simple punchline. but it’s incredible. it’s true! liang shanbo isn’t a man inside out in that he’s a man and only a man, but rather that he’s a man seen inside first, built for desiring, by a woman & for a woman. as a perpetual object, he becomes a more believable woman than zhu yingtai. and at least in his view, it seems more likely that he could be a woman than her. but beyond that, his permissive tone reads as a kind of wanting in itself--recast, if she wants, “for you, i’ll be a woman.”

obviously this is a classic lesbian mood. who among us has not seen “no gender only lesbian” posts. and speaking of classic lesbians, you might ask. did you just tiresomely reinvent butches and femmes but with a more annoying name? yes. no. okay. well.

first, like butch/femme dynamics have both historical specificity and a classed character such that it’s not rlly that appropriate to impose them on the love eterne. and i guess more importantly, i wanna talk about stuff that isn’t real.

we fight all day about people who confuse performance with performativity, (i use we lightly here. for instance, i go outside every day so i don’t care about discourse) but what if we actually wanted to talk about the former for once? something specifically, whether we choose or are forced into it, that we pretend to be?

anyway. what the hell does all that have to do with jing wei qing shang. i’m going to start by first making the argument that there’s no such thing as a naturally occurring girlboss. i think, honestly, she’s a product of capitalism (“boss” should be the tipoff here) but because both of these stories are set in ambiguously historical china, i’m going to say, instead that she’s a product of uhhh primitive accumulation.

semantics so that i can be canon compliant with marxism aside, if girlbosses are made not born, can you choose to be a girlboss? sheryl sandberg says yes. i don’t disagree, i guess, but i will say: stop glamorizing it! humans only become girlbosses when they’re greatly distressed.

you become a girlboss when you have no other choice not to be one. when your wants are too great to be a woman, when the things you want are not things that women should want-- whether that’s something that really no one should want, like being a ceo, or whether that’s just something like loving a woman (or, as it is quite often, both) -- you have to become something else.

another important part of being a girlboss is that other people are not. your excesses mean that not only do you lose something in the process, but your bosshood comes at the expense of others. the girlboss necessitates a girlworker, or so to speak.

now we’re getting to jwqs. i’m assuming that you haven’t read jwqs, because most people haven’t. that was me until like four days ago. in broad strokes, the novel is about a woman, qiyan agula, who was raised as a prince, and her quest for revenge against the kingdom who slaughtered her people. of course, this involves marrying one of the princesses of that kingdom. it’s all very exciting (lesbian).

what’s striking about jwqs is that both of them seem to fit the girlboss paradigm, in vaguely similar ways. qi yan (agula’s assumed name) seems to follow the lineage of zhu yingtai, who pretends to be a man to achieve her goals. she’s forced to give up much in the process, and also sacrifices a, uh, lot of innocent people. similarly, nangong jingnu, the princess, is inherently a girlboss because royalty sucks. but also, qi yan girlbossifies her over the course of their relationship.

but i wouldn’t say jwqs is girlboss4girlboss. there’s something a little more complicated happening. qi yan isn’t zhu yingtai in that she’s a dan pretending to be a sheng. it seems more like that she was a sheng all along. it’s something that the women of the novel return to often: qi yan seems to be better than a man.

for instance, nangong sunu, jingnu’s older sister, reflects on this.

Nangong Sunu had seen many foolishly loving women who sacrificed everything for the sake of their husbands, but there were rarely any men who would do the same for them.

(...)

Thinking it through, Nangong Sunu felt that Qi Yan was truly becoming more interesting. She intended to observe discreetly for a while, to verify if such a man truly existed in this world. (ch 221)

and i forgot to write down the citation for this, but nangong jingnu also seems to argue that not only is qi yan prettier than a man, but she also seems to be prettier than a woman. (it’s the bit where she’s watching qi yan sleep. help me out here.)

moreover, the way qi yan relates to nangong jingnu is suggestive. jingnu brings out the elements of wanting to be a woman in her. it’s jingnu’s body that makes her wonder what she would look like if she was more feminine. it’s jingnu’s happiness that she resents, wishing that her people could have that as well. it’s her desire for jingnu that makes her a woman.

(another important distinction i suppose--while one person can’t be both a butch and a femme, because the girlboss and the male wife are things we pretend to be until we embody them / them us -- there’s greater slippage between the two.)

anyway, the girlboss/male wife dynamic is reversed wrt who’s actually dressing as a different gender. that suggests an inversion in the implications we see from the love eterne, if we are to take the love eterne as the paradigmatic girlboss text. which i do, for no reason in particular.

so then, is qi yan pretending to be a man? under the opera framework, we’re forced to say no. she’s not pretending to be a man any more so than liang shanbo (as acted by ivy ling po) was. but that, of course, feels incorrect, just looking at the text. is she, then, pretending to be a sheng? i’d strongly say no. the things that others see in her, they authentically see; and she does authentically feel the same things as liang shanbo wrt femininity.

so it has to be the opera framework that jwqs is subverting then. if qi yan kept some trace of her once-womanhood, if qi yan reveals her true self, and yet she still can compete for the audience’s affection-- jwqs’s inversion of the opera framework seems to argue instead that it’s that true self that allows you to compete. it’s being masc that lets you be a desirable woman; it’s being feminine that lets you be a desirable man.

there’s an increased gender ambivalence to jwqs, which make sense, i guess, seeing as it’s not meant to be a het story the way that the love eterne was. for instance, nangong jingnu crossdresses to go out in public, and qi yan remarks that jingnu’s disguise fooled her on their first meeting. when qi yan and jingnu go out in public, both disguised as men, they’re repeatedly perceived as a gay male couple. there’s freedom in that: they could be gay women only privately, they could be straight officially, but they could be anonymously gay publicly.

so it’s through the gay male pretense that they can be gay women; it’s through the qi yan pretense that agula can love women; it’s the qi yan caring husband persona that coaxes jingnu in caring for qi yan in return-- jwqs, more precisely, argues that you can’t be a woman if you’re going to love them, and even less so if you’re going to be loved by one.

this is perhaps well-trodden ground for anyone who has read wittig & certainly many people who haven’t. but it’s the layer of pretense that for me complicates these two narratives.

i think it’s a relatable feeling: wanting something anticipating getting something, or wanting something for yourself anticipating knowing that you already had it. that is, desire in itself being constitutive of that reality.

or less abstractly, knowing that you’d want to be a lesbian if you could, knowing that you’d want not to be a woman if you could-- anticipating any realization of either.

the dramatic excesses & wants of the girlboss, i think, are a decent literary stand in for being a lesbian.

i wanna note here that this is rlly just based on my experience being a transmisogyny exempt nonbinary diaspora lesbian lol. it’s fun & cathartic to overread this history & place myself in the accidental implications.

i don’t think most of the things i say are literally true. and i don’t want to overstep & say any of this can be generalized. please lmk if something here doesn’t read right! ok kisses bye

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the-ghost-king · 4 years ago

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different anon but i know this is a little more what you hc for nico and i adore it and maybe the other anon will too: headcanons for nb nico who is fairly fem? idk feminine nb nico makes me so happy 🥰 i love that you make a fair amount of content for it i truly love to see it on my dash, i appreciate you so much

Firstly, thank you for the compliments; and yes anon, you would be correct, femby Nico is something I'm so down for:

So originally Nico doesn't know he's trans, he doesn't even know the word trans exists

He's one of those people who is like "most people don't care about gender it's not a big deal it doesn't matter" and he's quite confused when people enforce rules based off of sex/gender

He's stands there going, "okay?? but it doesn't matter?? it's not real??"

Gender just straight up confuses him

Anyhow, I think Nico definitly gets his further slightly more in depth explaination of queerness from Will, and Will is like "yeah then trans people-" or maybe Will is trans and tells him after they've been dating a short while

Either way Nico is like "oh, that's cool!"

Anyhow Nico doesn't really think about it for a long time, and kind of carries on without thinking about gender much.

If Will is trans in this as well, then Nico learns more about himself through learning about Will's gender... But if Will's not trans then maybe Nico finds out Lou Ellen is trans (I have a whole bunch of trans Lou Ellen and trans Will headcanons I need to write with Cecil too)

Anyhow basically Nico knows someone who's trans and there's a conversation of gender at some point where Nico's like "but gender isn't real?" or something similoar because he just doesn't understand the idea of feeling male or feeling female, it confuses him

So eventually he has a conversation with some friends who are cis, and he realizes that even they know they're a boy or girl, and so Nico is confused because "why does everyone have this figured out?"

So he starts asking more questions, and finds out about nonbinary and he gets nervous because he knows Will likes boys, but what if Will won't like him anymore because he's not 100% a guy

So he does eventually work up the courage to tell Will how he might be feeling and Will is super chill about the whole thing and he's like "Nico I like boys and girls, and most of all I like you" and Nico's happy because Will isn't going to break up with him

Anyhow they have a long conversation where Willl is like "please don't worry about coming to me with stuff I love you very much okay?"

Eventually Nico begins to try out different pronouns but just when alone with Will because he's not comfortable telling everyone yet

He decides he likes he/him, but she/her is nice too, and he dables in xe/xem pronouns but he has mixed feelings on them

In my last trans Nico post I said Nico would like alternating pronouns but maybe I don't think so... I think he would tell people what pronouns he wanted when/what day or he would say "you can use he/him or she/her" or something

and some people would use one set, and some people the other, and some people would mix his pronouns

So Nico starts getting more involved in fashion around this point

Mitchell and him are friends and Mitchell's dad is a fashion designer so free stuff!

Anyhow Nico finds all of this stuff fun, and eventually one day she gets the courage to try a skirt on and it quickly becomes her favorite type of clothing

Nico likes to wear skirts with tights and combat boots

Nico also falls in love withe leggings because "they're just so soft!"

He never really comes out he kind of just chooses to live life and if people know or find out whatever

Like he'll be somewhere with Jason and someone would ask for her pronouns and she'd be like "he/him or she/her is fine" and Jason is getting whiplash from how fast he turned his head to look at Nico and Jason's stumbling over "he/him" while looking at Nico because he wants to say congrats so bad

Or maybe Will is like "my girlfriend" and Percy's like "you have a girlfriend too?" and Will's like "no??? I mean Nico??" and Percy is confused af because he didn't even know people could be gay until recently- but people can be trans too?

(Percy has his own gender questioning that happens, although a bit smaller and he decides he/they and that dresses and heels are fun)

So Nico's friends all eventually know but they just sort of find out rather than a big coming out (this is how they all found out Nico was gay too, Nico was like “yeah so me and Will Solace are dating” or “my boyfriend” because Nico has a hard time saying “I’m gay” or “I’m trans” so he finds ways around it to make himself more comfortable).

Nico struggles a little bit with the concept, not as much as he did with being gay but there’s still obsticales there for him to overcome

When Hades finds out he’s just like “mhmm good for you okay love you… daughter?” and that makes Nico happy because he’s still trying to be a good dad

Anyhow immediately after Nico leaves Hades runs to find Dionysus or Apollo and is like “trans what does it mean? Daughter was the correct word right? I’m sorry tucking is what now??”

He’s confused af but also supportive af

“Nobody says that about my son-err daughter?”

“Both are fine, Papa”

And Will and Reyna are in the background silently giving Hades thumbs ups

Sometimes Hades buys Nico weird shit and is like “it’s for your gender” and Nico doesn’t need the stuff but his dad cares so she appreciates it

Dionysus is super chill about the whole thing when he hears it through the grapevine (ha!) and he’s like “new name or same one kid?”

Nico’s like “oh um, same name, just new pronouns”

And Dionysus is like “great sit your ass down you have therapy to do”

(Dionysus always gets trans kids name right and never even jokingly messes it up so he always asks)

Also, Nico loves little hair clips, you know the little ones that tik tokers wear? Yeah those he has hundreds of them!

Cloth headbands are also her best friend, she has so many of them… (they’re like square cloth pieces you tie and wrap a specific way and roll your hair around it… I don’t know the right word they were popular in the 50s)

Nico ends up growing out his hair because he likes being able to put it in a messy bun on top of his head and he likes having it in braids down his back too

She learns to do makeup from Hazel (Hazel had a makeup face and likes kpop I don’t take criticism on that) and it looks great tbh

Also in public all the time when people see Nico they’re like “Boy? Girl?”

And he’s like “yeah both is good, but also neither, I have all the genders and also no gender”

And Will’s standing in the background laughing his ass off at the confused look the cashier has on their face

Just imagine Nico and Will’s kids calling Nico both Mama and Papa interchangeably ~

She does end up changing her name from Nicolò to just Nico because Nico is gender neutral

So much jewelry… so much of it, Nico loves it

Nico ends up getting a leather jacket with “give us our roses while we’re here” printed/painted on the back of it and little roses built into the actual jacket as well

Nico always seems to have some new hair length going on, like sometimes her hair is down to her waist, sometimes it’s at her shoulders, and other times she has a mullet, while other times she has an eboy cut

He ends up dying his hair all the time, at first he does gold and silver highlights in really small spots so it looks like his hair sparkles with glitter when he moves

After that Nico does half of her head in blonde and the other side in black like a split down the middle type dye

And he ends up drying his hair a swirled blue and pink color as well when it’s short

When he grows his hair out long, he dyes it with the little egirl dye in the front

She also does that thing where you have a rainbow under your hair and a normal color on top

Nico gets an undercut at one point where she leaves enough in the center top to put it up in a bun or leave it down to her shoulders

He dies his hair a blue-green one time while lit’s long too and Will gets an ombre at the same time using his natural blonde and a bubble gum pink in his like “bangs” area (Will has like a halo of pink hair when he does that dye)

And yeah idk I’m out of ideas but nonbinary Nico is great actually

#nico di angelo #pjo #hoo #will solace #solangelo #enby nico #Nonbinary nico

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selfiecharmedlife · 5 years ago

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RE: The Politics of Queerness

There is a character in the Fate/ franchise I’ve been thinking about lately. Astolfo is a recent entry in a long line of characters that have all the aesthetics of a femme enby or trans woman while keeping the character’s gender ambiguous. The appeal to queers like myself is obvious, but I noticed a certain subset of political reactionaries (read: alt-right) also gravitating to these characters. At first, I was confused so I asked some friends what they thought the appeal might be and I heard some interesting responses. Despite how the character looks, their gender is never confirmed. Consequently, Astolfo’s character allows people to play with queerness in a purely aesthetic sense, sometimes for shock value, without addressing the underlying politics of queer life. It’s not even a new thing. I’ve also become aware of a small sub-culture of “femboys” who seem to also cross into the territory of queer aesthetics while remaining ambivalent or even hostile to the politics of queer life.

Suffice to say that queer life is inherently political. The first Pride was a riot against police disruption of queer spaces. In a world where the dominant message is that trans is worse than cis, just having self-confidence is a revolutionary action. Heck, even just living a normal life and having a slow morning in my PJs is political.However, life in late capitalism has also meant that queerness has also become a commodity. One of the most visible cases I can think of is the case of drag. My first exposure to drag, as I expect is true for many, was through the film Paris is Burning. The movie is a documentary covering the Ball scene in New York during the 1980’s. The film focuses almost exclusively on people of color dealing with the weight of poverty, racism, sexism and homophobia while trying to live their lives with dignity. It’s a beautiful film that I still think about regularly.

The community that created culture trends that persist to this day was inherently political. There is an extended sequence in the film discussing the idea of “realness” and how part of the Balls was to show how a person could carry themselves with dignity even in the face of overwhelming opposition. Performers would walk the runway dressed as doctors, lawyers, etc to express the message that they are capable of living that life. It’s hard to talk about drag in the year 2020 without also talking about Ru Paul and Drag Race. The show is extremely popular, and I first found out about it through my straight ex-fiancée. The show managed to take the culture of the New York Ball scene and sanitize it so it would be marketable to a straight audience. Politics aside from milquetoast centrism are usually ignored or only given lip service to avoid making straight people uncomfortable.

I watched a few seasons and became a fan of some of the queens but stopped watching after season 10. In this season, one queen made her performance overtly political. The Vixen steered conversations to address intersectional issues like racism in the gay community. It ruled. Her reward for it was being edited to be the villain in scenes and the discourse I saw around the show, especially from straight people I knew, turned against her. For having introduced politics and especially for having drawn attention to how an artform pioneered my queer POCs was being consumed by an audience of largely straight cis women, she was vilified.

Drag Race is a cultural force that speaks to how queerness as an aesthetic can be packaged in a way that appeals to a straight audience. Another example you don’t have to look very far on twitter to find is “yass queen feminism.” This brand of feminism borrows the aesthetics of queerness while ignoring the intersections of racism and sexism to focus on the wants of straight white women first and foremost. “Yass” is a phrase I associate heavily with Ball culture but yass queen feminism doesn’t seem to care much about addressing the intersectional issues that produced it. It’s the kind of feminism that my sister seems to ascribe to. She would go to Pride and party with her friends to look like a good ally. However, when I came out as trans she hung up the phone on me. We haven’t spoken for almost three years now. I’m sure she believes that she is a good ally. She says the right things and goes to Pride, but she didn’t hesitate when it came time to choose between ally-ship and her comfort.

I wanted to toss a bunch of stuff at the wall here and there is a dissertation that could be written on any of these topics from the anti-LGBT femboys to the demographic breakdown of Drag Race viewership. Each of these cases highlight how the aesthetics of a sub-culture born out of oppression can be divorced from the underlying politics that helped create it in order to create a safe commercial product. It becomes a fun novelty to be played with or reduced to catch phrases like “love wins” or “love is love.” Neither of those phrases addresses existing structural barriers for homosexual couples and never mind how those barriers interact with other systems of oppression like racism and sexism. They do however sure do look great on a yard sign. These kinds of sayings mostly serve to reassure people they’re being a good ally without having to step outside of their comfort zone. This is just my opinion, but if your ally-ship ends at the point of your own comfort you might just be a good ally.

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gettin-bi-bi-bi · 6 years ago

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1 - I feel like this message will be all over the place, I'm sorry. I just have to get it out. So I'm questioning my sexuality and have been for a while now, but I'm afraid to really think about it. I think I might be bi but it's hard to tell because I'm fairly sure I might be on the ace-spectrum as well which makes it extra hard to realize attraction since I don't think I feel sexual attraction. Or maybe I do but I'm just that dumb and don't get it?

2 - And at one point I thought I might actually be a lesbian bc my (romantic) attraction to men was paired with like a lot of nervousness and not actually wanting to date them if it came to it. But now that I have a crush on a girl (my first same gender crush that I can think of) it’s still the same; I’m super flustered around her and would do ridiculous things to impress her and just wanna hold her hand but if she were to ask me out I know I’d panic and decline.

3 - It doesn’t help that I’ve been depressed for years and I know my mental health is in a very bad place (but I’m getting therapy for it). Does that affect my confusion about my sexuality? I’m also very afraid to pick a label like bi or ace or both just in case I turn out not to be, I don’t wanna be “that straight girl” who tries to belong where she doesn’t you know?

4 - Doesn’t help that I’m terrified of the backlash I could potentially get if I was lgbt+, I don’t know if I could handle it, especially from my parents. I’m sorry if this is a lot, I’m just so confused.

I’m gonna go through this bit by bit again because there’s a lot of different issues and questions here. It’s gonna be a long reply but I don’t know how to condense it even more.

“I think I might be bi but it's hard to tell because I'm fairly sure I might be on the ace-spectrum as well [...] maybe I do but I'm just that dumb and don't get it?”Sexual attraction can be a difficult concept to understand especially if you’re on the ace-spectrum. But you’re not “dumb” for having trouble with this. You simply live in a society that treats sexual attraction a standard experience that ~everyone~ is supposed to have so it’s not really talked about what it really means. Of course it’s an individual thing to an extend but generally speaking, sexual attraction means you can look at someone (even a random stranger) and feel a desire to have sex with them. It doesn’t mean one has to act on that desire but it’s certainly a “oh this person is hot - I wanna bang!!” in the most primitive sense lol I can imagine that being on the ace-spectrum can make it harder to explore what other types of attraction you might experience and to which genders. But it’s not impossible. There’s plenty of asexual/biromantic people and I’d recommend trying to talk to some of those as well and just generally get involved with the ace community.

“my attraction to men was paired with like a lot of nervousness and not actually wanting to date them if it came to it [...] but if she were to ask me out I know I’d panic and decline.”I mean... what you talk about regarding men can be a sign of being a lesbian but I guess it can also just as well be a sign of being asexual since “dating” and “relationships” are often associated with sex and though some ace people do have and enjoy sex there’s also sex-repulsed asexuals. So if you genereally don’t want to have sex or are iffy about it that explains why you backed off whenever you had the chance to date someone - bc you thought this would have to lead to sex which you may or may not want to have. Regarding the girl you currently have a crush on, the whole ~being ace and possibly sex-repulsed~ can also play a part plus internalised queerphobia. Since you struggle to accept your queerness and you currently don’t dare claiming a label for yourself it’s evident that you have a lot of shame that needs to be unpacked. As long as you have this much anxiety about your (a)sexuality and potential biromanticism your gut reaction to a girl’s advances will be panic. It’s not surprising. Crushing on a girl forces you to think about being bi and since you’re scared of facing this reality it’s a logical consequence that you’re freaking out!

“It doesn’t help that I’ve been depressed for years [...] Does that affect my confusion about my sexuality?”Yes, it definitly can affect your sexuality and/or your questioning process. Being queer in an inherently queerphobic society is a form of constant low-key (at best; high-key at worst) trauma. A lot of queer people have some form of PTSD just from ~being surrounded by everyday queerphobia~. But even if your depression has totally different reasons, it can still affect how you deal with sex in general, how you experience romance, how you experience yourself. Questioning one’s sexuality is (unfortunately!) not a safe thing to do for many people which means it can be anxiety inducing. And queer people have higher rates of mental health problems that non-queers. That’s a fact. Anf if you’re already depressed for whatever other reason and then add anxiety over being queer to the mix, well... you do the maths! It’s hard, man. It sucks. But it’s great you’re already getting help already. I’d hope your therapist is queer-friendly so you can talk about these things with them. And additionally you should try to get some queer counselling if there’s something available in your area. If your therapist isn’t queer-friendly then I would strongly advice you to find a different one.

“I’m also very afraid to pick a label like bi or ace or both just in case I turn out not to be, I don’t wanna be “that straight girl” who tries to belong where she doesn’t you know?”’Okay, look. I recently answered two asks that touch on that subject and I don’t think I can say it better than there so I’m gonna quote myself and link you to them so you can read the whole thing if you want.

1) Even when you’re not entirely sure of your bisexuality yet, questioning people belong into the community as well. The “Q” in LGBTQIA+ stands both for “queer” and for “questioning” - some people even use a version of the acronym that has two Qs to highlight that! So you belong whether you already identify as bisexual or not. The LGBTQIA+ community is supposed to be an environment where you can safely explore your sexuality - even if you turn out not to be queer. You still belong for as long as you are questioning because “questioning” is a queer identity. (x)

2) “Straight” women are allowed to experiment and explore their sexuality. I put “straight” in quotes here because a lot of these women might actually be questioning or they are bisexual and struggling with internalised biphobia (which won’t get better if biphobic lesbians keep telling them they are “just one of those straight girls”). And even the women who do end up realising that they really are straight have had every right to experiment. It’s their sexuality and they can do with that as they please as long as they don’t hurt anyone. They don’t owe anyone to come out as queer. “Only to say they are straight” sounds like it’s a huge disappointment when all these women did was live out their sexual curiosity. Any half decent queerfeminist should know better than to police women’s sexuality - even when the women in question are straight. (x)

“Doesn’t help that I’m terrified of the backlash I could potentially get if I was lgbt+, I don’t know if I could handle it, especially from my parents.”I understand it can be terrifying, especially if you know your family won’t support you. But the thing is... no matter how much potential backlash there is, you won’t stop being queer. You cannot stop. You cannot run away from your sexuality. You can certainly try but it won’t make you happy and it will take a toll on your mental health. This is not to say that you ~must~ come out. You can be as much out or closeted as you want and as is safe for you. But you cannot convince yourself of being something you are not. There will probably be some people you can safely come out to, others you’d rather not tell. That’s the on-brand queer experience. Maybe one day you can afford to not give a fuck about what your parents think, even if it comes at the price of losing them. That’s gonna be a problem for future!You though. And if you work on self-acceptance through therapy and through connecting with the queer community, building a support system - then it’ll get easier over time.

It’s unfortuantely very common to be scared of this but being scared won’t make you any less bi or ace or whatever type of queer you wanna be. And yes, I say “wanna be” because at the end of the day what label you use and feel comfortable with is your choice. You cannot technically be “wrong” about your sexuality. Even if you pick a label now and then later realise another one suits you better - then you just change your label. No harm done.

And even if you go through a period of questioning, try on multiple queer labels and then have the grande epiphany that you are actually just a basic ol’ heterosexual heteroromantic cisgender person - you did not harm the queer community in the slightest. I wish more straight cis people would question their sexuality and gender and come to the informed conclusion that they really are straight and cis - instead of taking it for granted because our society treats it as the default. What’s the point in questioning if only people who already know that they are queer were allowed to do it?! What’s the point if everyone who questions their sexuality ~has~ to realise that they are queer?

So.... long story short... sounds like you have the very common Queer Anxiety on top of your existing depression and they are probably affecting each other and make each other worse. You should definitly try to work on your internalised biphobia and acephobia and talk to your therapist about it. I have advice on internalised biphobia here - you can use those methods for asexuality as well.

Maddie

#Anonymous

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jackiforjustice · 6 years ago

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hiya everyone! I’m dev ( use any pronouns, mine are up in the air rn ), and this is my social justice baby jacki! please hmu for plotting - I’d love to really develop something with each of you! bio below!

trigger warnings for racism, sexism, and police brutality.

✘ CHARACTER BASICS

Skeleton Title: The Cavalier Faceclaim: Laura Harrier Jacqueline “Jacki” Reynolds | Twenty-Two | Cis-Female | She/Her | May 18th

✘ CHARACTER BACKGROUND

The Gist:

Jacqueline is the oldest daughter of Susan and Barry Reynolds. Born in 1969, just two years after the Supreme Court Case Loving v. Virginia legalized interracial marriage across the United States, Jacqueline was one of the first interracial children in her small Idaho hometown.

A couple years and two younger brothers later, the Reynolds family decided to move to Graingerville to be closer to a big city. It was clear from a very young age that Jacqueline was smarter than her years - she exceeded in school from day one, and always preferred reading to the rowdy games at recess.

Although she was incredibly intelligent for her age, Jacki always had trouble fitting in. The other black kids thought she wasn’t black enough because of her white mother; the white kids took one look at her rich dark skin and knew she wasn’t one of them. While she managed to find her own group of friends who didn’t care much either way in terms of her race, the underlying discrimination and confusion based on being from a mixed family stuck with her for a long time.

When Jacki entered middle school, her father started telling her stories of his own adolescence - while Jacki worried about math quizzes and essays, Barry was fighting for his rights every single day. He became a lawyer because of it, and after hearing about the Civil Rights Movement directly from him and her other relatives, Jacki decided she wanted to be a lawyer too.

As Jacki got older, her peers began partying more often, rebelling against their parents to make a statement, to be reckless and bold with no apologies. Jacki tried that phase for a minute (but quickly ended when she realized she cared more about what her parents thought of her than her friends from school). Instead of completely locking herself away from the other teenagers in Graingerville, she chose a more proactive route: everyone at her high school knew if they needed a designated driver, Jacki would be there to lend a helping hand.

By the end of her sophomore year in high school, Jacki had a perfectly laid-out plan of how to get into either Harvard, Yale, or Stanford majoring in Political Science. Her parents were undoubtedly impressed, and worked to help her achieve her big dreams of getting into top notch schools.

Needless to say, her plan worked. After graduating as valedictorian from her high school, Jacki was off to Yale majoring in Political Science with a minor in American History. Yale pushed Jacki to her absolute limits in the best way - she worked harder than ever, made lifelong friends, and even had her first boyfriend (his name was Liam, and they dated for one semester before she dumped him during finals week because he was distracting her).

Although Jacki entered college with the hopes of becoming a lawyer, the more she learned about the Civil Rights Movement and the treatment of black people in American history, the more she wanted to immediately help those in need. She had been eyeing the possibility of Law School for a while, but it wasn’t until she moved back home to Graingerville post-college graduation that she changed her career path slightly.

The Big Freakout Event of 1990 threw her family for a loop. Her younger brothers were just about to start their sophomore and senior years of high school, her mother had just been promoted at the hospital, and her father had just won a huge case against the unjust arrest of two young black men. But when people with psionic powers and lizard deers terrorize the streets out of the blue, the world sort of pauses for a while.

When the dust had settled from the craziness of the BFE, Jacki found herself wanting to help more directly. Being a lawyer helps those accused of a crime - she wanted to help protect the people of Portland from...whatever the crazy shit out there was. She was still torn between being a lawyer or moving to a different career choice when another event influenced her decision.

In March of 1991, Rodney King was horrendously beaten by police officers in Los Angeles. It was unjust, it was unfair, and it was entirely based on race. The trial for the police officers in question was scheduled for the following year, as these sorts of things take time, but it was that one event (and reading about other racist events prior to the Rodney King beating), that led Jacki to join the Portland Police Department.

She was the top of her class at the Police Academy (she’s always had a penchant for rules and regulations), and with marks like that, she was absolutely sure she’d start making tidal waves once she was officially on the force.

Unfortunately, they had her saving cats from trees, dealing with parking tickets, and lost elderly people roaming the streets.

The Emerging Threats Unit looks better and better by the day. Jacki’s dreamed of helping people since she was little - why won’t the higher ups let her just do it? She’s starting to get sick of pushing papers around while she could be making the world a better place. Luckily, that Yale degree is coming in handy - she’s doing her best to study up on the supernatural stuff going on around town, and she’s determined to be the expert on all things crazy in this place if it kills her.

Jacqueline Reynolds has no supernatural powers unless you count her unnerving organization skills or her endless knowledge on the historical racism in America thus far (both of which cause her major exhaustion and/or frustration, which I would deem a consequence for her power).

✘ “STAY WEIRD PORTLAND”

One wall of her apartment bedroom looks like a conspiracy theory wall. She’s incredibly organized, yes, but her obsession with being the expert on all things supernatural in Portland has caused her to look a little bit like a nutcase. However, the conspiracy theory wall is prettier than other conspiracy theory walls in TV shows and movies because hers comes with color coordinated strings, index cards, and pens. Sometimes when she’s feeling frisky, she even manages to color coordinate the thumbtacks.

While Jacki is a picture perfect student, she has no clue what it means to be good at maintaining a romantic relationship. Absolutely no idea what she’s doing. Flirting often goes right over her head. She can give you historical dates and supernatural factoids up the wazoo, but hit her with a one-liner and she just sort of stares...and then walks away.

✘ ASPECTS & SKILLS

Straight A Student: Jacki never earned less than an A- in her entire academic career (a fact that her parents remind her younger brothers of every single day). She excels in history and English, and performs well in math and sciences. Although art has never really been her thing, her ability to give it a try has always earned her at least an A- in class.

Strong, Smart, Underestimated Woman: It’s 1991. She’s a Yale graduate, incredibly intelligent, resilient as hell, and determined to serve justice and protect those around her. She is fierce by any definition of the word, but that doesn’t mean everyone sings her praises. Some men find her strength frightening. Some others find her intelligence to be overbearing, or too “know-it-all” for their liking. She’s underestimated, and often given the dirty work rather than the work she joined the police force for, and she knows it.

I Have to Do What’s Right: Even though Jacki loves rules, regulations, and the like, sometimes the rules are wrong. That’s why she started training with The Fighter. That’s why she’s studying up on supernatural occurrences. And that’s why she’s more than willing to protect people who aren’t in the wrong. I mean come on, it’s not anybody’s fault that some of these people have powers - just because people fear them for being different doesn’t excuse any harm that comes their way, and Jacki has made it her mission to protect people with powers as long as they don’t maliciously hurt others.

Great: Will Good: Notice, Academics Fair: Investigate, Shoot, Lore Aver: Athletics, Stealth, Drive, Fight

✘ AESTHETIC

A brand new pack of index cards. Happy family photos on the wall. Clean laundry. The same haircut every time. Highlighted textbooks. Annotated novels. Reading the newspaper thoroughly. Fresh scented candles. Conspiracy theory strings. Too much coffee. Waking up to sunlight peeking through the window. Horrible headaches. Extra poster boards for future rallies and marches. Sleeping alone. Speaking quickly for efficiency’s sake. Gin and tonics. Being overwhelmed by large social situations. Studying without being assigned to. Forgetting to sleep. Forgetting to eat. Forgetting to take a moment to just breathe. Justice. Family dinners on Thursdays. Bending the law for things that are right. Ironed clothes. A color-coded planner. Wearing a retainer every night to bed like you’re supposed to. Bob Dylan CDs. Perfectly polished badges. Quiet breakfasts. Practical clothes.

✘ SEASON 2, EPISODE 1

If anyone else were to see what Jacki’s apartment looked like, they’d think it was just as clean as ever. But by her standards? Her room was a mess. Textbooks on the history of time and space stacked high on her desk; questionably sourced papers on the existence of supernatural creatures in our universe highlighted, annotated, and in their own folders; four mugs of coffee, all of them empty and lined up on top of her dresser. She would get to the bottom of this case. If her boss didn’t want her on anything more important than parking tickets, she’d work the Emergency Threat Unit cases on her own time. Sure, Jacki was losing sleep by the minute, but it would be worth it when crisis inevitably hit Portland again and she was the best resource they had. Plus, now she had a friend to help her improve her combat skills! She’d be prepared for anything, with a twelve-step solution to the next Big Freakout Event to hit her town. Just like her dad always told her: “If you can’t be the boss, be better than them.”

Please feel free to message me for any plots! I have a wimpy ass plotting page here, so feel free to look at that for inspiration!

#stv:welcome #stv:intro

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ghostgetsablog · 3 years ago

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This argument exactly.

I started being uncomfortable with LGBT (including LGBT+, LGBTQIA+, LGBT*, and all the other assorted related acronyms) when I realised I was not so entirely the L I thought I was.

When I realised I was genderqueer, and stared getting into the community politics, I started to get uncomfortable. LGBT started feeling like saying "just like you, except [this] easily digestible difference".

And... I wasn't?

Like... I tried shoving myself nearty into the trans category, and ran headfirst into all the baggage that comes from that. Transmedicalists and passing rehtoric and binarism.

Turns out I am as much a straight trans man as I am a lesbian cis woman. That is to say, they are the impeccable wrapping paper covering a very strange package of truth.

When I found MOGAI, I was ecstatic. This was a compromise between the restrictive feeling of LGBT and the wonky freedom of reality.

It's probably worth mentioning that I didn't grow up with queer being the slur du jour. Gay was the popular slur, and I only ran into queer in reference to the history and studies. Queer was to LGBT as Homo Sapiens was to human. I loved the word queer in writing, to denote things that were... Not quite "right". Not dangerous or necessarily unpleasant, but different.

In fact the biggest slurs used against me were dyke (most notably being called a dyke is what caused me to Google that and realise that yes, yes I was a dyke), and--get this-- LGBT.

LGBT had been around long enough and accepted long enough by the time I was came out in highschool that the folk who bullied me asked if I was "one of those LGBT fuckers". It has ceased being an acronym and instead became an emblem of the community... Much like queer.

But yeah. I found MOGAI, and it felt good! And then the attacks on that came in. It was too inclusive-- cishet women are a marginalized gender!; it didn't highlight people's individual struggles; it was new and therefore folk wouldn't remember it-- as if LGBT had existed forever; pedophiles and zoophiles and all manner of degenerates have claim to that word!--the same argument used for anything we ever try and claim for ourselves.

The fact that it was easier to say and wouldn't have to be constantly adjusted to cover everyone was irrelevant. In fact, those were the problems, as far as detractors were concerned. They didn't want the focus to be diffused away from LGBT (honestly these same people would probably have been happy with just having lesbians and gay, cut out the weirdness of bi and trans folk too) neat categories. Easily explained. "I'm exactly like you, except this one tiny detail."

So when I re-realised my gender wasn't binary, quickly in succession realised my romanticism wasn't allo, and my sexuality wasn't as simple as "folk who present as women"... I was stuck.

I could either go down the rabbit hole of trying to find ever more precise terms to exactly paint in my boundaries-- which I did for a while! For a good period of time I ID'd as a genderflux transmasculine quoiromantic gynesexual* person.

*the best word I had at the time to say "female presenting regardless of actual gender identity". I never felt comfortable with that word, which is another reason I didn't like this rabbit hole.

But y'know what? That was fucking EXHAUSTING. Just telling folk "what I was" usually meant explaining every single one of those terms, usually meant opening myself up to argument. As though it was less an inherent identity and more a series of questionable life choices.

Queer. Queer is a reprieve.

Queer let's me say "here's a category that includes me, you don't need to know the details." Heck, queer let me get to the place I'm at now, where I don't need to know the details. That became especially helpful when I realised my DID and suddenly had a lot more identity confusion to deal with.

I can just flow through life, accepting how I feel about myself and others without throwing it under the microscope of "how is it different from cis-het-allo-- how is it different from 'normal'".

Queer lets me just simply say "it is".

Those other words are still useful to me. They help me find other folk with similar experiences to mine.

But day-to-day? No one needs to know if right now my inner essence is male, female, non existent, attracted to men, women, both, neither, all, romantically or not. Not even I need to really have a constant awareness of those finer details.

I am a person, who feels some ways, about myself and others.

Those ways are different from what is presented to me as "normal".

Therefore, I am queer.

Simple.

Easy.

A deep breath of fresh air, after years of struggling to tread water.

I don't see myself in LGBT.

I still feel a small sting from the folk who used it against me-- both in and out of the community. People outside used it as a weapon to attack me with, people inside used it as a shield I didn't fit behind... and wouldn't make room for me.

I'll never ask anyone to stop using it, it helps a lot of people!

But it isn't my home, that sterile box.

I found my way to the great foggy expanse of Queer, and I'm building my home somewhere out there in the moors.

Come visit, I think you'll like it.

Here’s the thing about LGBT+ vs. Queer.

I’m ace, nonbinary, and demiromantic. With LGBT+ I’m included in the plus. And I’m happy to be included! Indeed, folks pointedly using LGBT without the plus makes my hackles raise.

But. I am sick of being in the fucking plus sign like an afterthought.

And no, adding more to the alphabet soup doesn’t help that feeling. There’s a limit to what human brains can cram in. I don’t think it’s reasonable to make folks say an increasingly long acronym every time they mention the community. I appreciate the effort, but you’re always going to either leave someone out or cram them into the miscellaneous field the plus sign represents.

With Queer I’m just there, alongside my queer siblings. The details may be different, but I’m just as queer as a cis allo gay man or a trans allo straight woman or a genderfuck individual.

We already tried to meet folks who don’t like queer as a word halfway with MOGAI. Marginalized Orientations, Gender Alignment, and Intersex. It’s inclusive without using the Dreaded Q-Word. Surely, if the objection was to “queer” as a Terribly Traumatizing Word (just like, oh, every other word used for us: “gay” was the slur of choice where I was growing up), MOGAI would be the perfect solution, yes?

And yet, that was thrown back into our faces and turned into an insult. So, at that point, I said fuck it and fuck you. I’m queer, and if its inclusivity makes you mad, good.

#queer as in fuck you

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madtomedgar · 8 years ago

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runsquidling replied to your post:

Idk sometimes you want to specify your gender but not your sexuality or vice-versa. "Queer trans" means "trans whose sexuality is complicated" like.... Sometimes you don't want to go all the way through the nutrition facts so you give the highlights and an "it's complicated" instead. Makes sense to me

This makes a little more sense. It still leaves me confused as to whether or not “Queer” is seen as including trans identities and ways of relating to gender that do not exist in a cis-het context. My understanding has always been that it does or is meant to, but then that makes statements like “Queer Femme” which I see a lot in (mostly) white, progressive, young spaces, really confusing because, a) what other kind of Femme is there? and b) I don’t know if “Queer” is referring to trans status and Femme is referring to the subject’s relation to other wlw (or, if the subject is coming from Gay and/or Ball culture, how they relate to other mlm), or if Queer is supposed to tell me they experience attraction to same and/or multiple genders, and Femme is supposed to tell me how they relate to gender. Likewise, when people title events things like “march for Queer and Trans Liberation,” it feels like that implies those categories are distinct and “queer” refers exclusively to attraction while “trans” (obviously) is about gender.

Someone saying they’re a “trans queer” makes a little more sense, because then trans is modifying queer, telling me a specific way in which they are queer. This is similar to saying “Chasidic Jew,” where “Chasidic” tells me what type of Jew they are. The former feels like saying “Jewish Chasid,” where “Jewish” is modifying “Chasid,” implying that there is a variety of Chasid who is NOT Jewish, which... is just not the case. I still think things like “Chasidic Jew” and “trans queer” are redundant, and therefore annoying to me, but, again, my finding linguistic constructs annoying should not invalidate anyone’s identity. Obviously Chasids exist and are Jews, regardless of whether or not I think “Chasidic” is a better way of communicating that, just like trans people who feel their sexuality is best described as “Queer” exist regardless of whether or not I think we should have 2 distinct words for “everyone who isn’t cis+straight” and “all modes of attraction that aren’t straight” for the sake of clarity.

#q slur

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sophiayacoub-blog · 8 years ago

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Blue is the warmest color: challenging heteronormativity or fetishizing the lesbian experience?

In this essay I am going to explore the different ways in which compulsory heterosexuality is challenged in cinema and how the film making industry has been influenced by feminism. I am going to do this by using Blue is the Warmest Colour (original title ‘La vie d’ Adele’ (Kechiche, 2013, France)) as a case study in order to explore the idea that the feminist issue of heteronormativity is challenged and put in contrast to lesbianism. However, I will argue that the film isn’t in itself liberatory because the lesbian relationship (which is the main part of the plot) portrayed in the film isn’t in itself feminist or empowering for women. I will argue that the film must be criticised with an understanding of the male gaze (and with the lack of contestation of domination portrayed in mind) to deconstruct what might at first glance seem to be in opposition to the heterosexual oppression of women and to explore how the relationship portrayed is oppressive and normative in other ways. I will try to uncover how this contemporary film is inspired by feminism in the issues that are tackled whilst at the same time being ambivalent about feminism. I chose this film because it has been one of the most acclaimed films about a lesbianism in the last years. It won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival and has had a big effect on the film industry, both in terms of its realistic cinematic style and the themes that are covered (something that I unfortunately wont have time/space to cover).

In ‘compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence’ Adrienne Rich (1980) sets out, in typical radfem manner, to critique and deconstruct the heterosexual institution, by arguing for an understanding of heterosexuality as an enforced system of male domination over women. Rich identifies heterosexuality as a hegemonic ideology that silences alternatives, when there are other forms through which women can organise their emotional lives. Rich highlights the fact that women have engaged in non-heterosexual relationships through history, and in many different parts of the world, but that they often have been persecuted, marginalized, and made invisible. She argues that heterosexuality is imposed onto women culturally through different means of propaganda such as film, print media and pornography. Further, she argues that all women exist on a lesbian continuum from childhood attachment to the mother; drawing on psychoanalyst feminists writers. She argues for a kind of feminism that doesn’t take heterosexuality as the norm or the absolute, but rather sees it as a political institution materialised by power. Rich argues for a feminist discourse that sees the potential for women-empowerment through equal romantic relationships and lesbian existence. (Rich, 1980)

“Blue is the Warmest Colour,” which is written by Abdellatif Kechiche might be said to challenge heteronormativity through telling the story about the young woman Adele who falls in love with the slightly older art student Emma. The film is set in contemporary Lille, France, and follows Adele from her last year of high school until she is in her early twenties, working as a schoolteacher. In the introduction to the film we see how discourses of compulsory heterosexuality are played out in the life of the main character when she starts to date a cis-man from her high school, whom she isn’t interested in. She starts the relationship because of pressure from school friends. She is essentially forced; at an early scene in the school cafeteria, the boy walks past and her friends ask her whether she thinks he is attractive. She replies that “he is cute but he is not Brad Pitt” to which they respond by saying that he is “pretty close [...] our choice at school sucks.” I read this as an insinuation that a choice must be made, taking for granted that she would be interested in a man, simply for the reason that he is (in their eyes) attractive, and interested in Adele. As the conversation in the cafeteria ends Adele is shot up close clenching her jaw and twinning her hair between her fingers. This scene sets the backdrop on from which the rest of Adele’s exploration of her sexuality and love life develops through the plot; From this scene on there is an evolution in how Adele expresses her sexuality and how she allows herself to challenge things that has been taken for granted in her own life. This is one of the ways that Abdellatif challenges the norm: he doesn’t romanticize heterosexual love but rather shows us how heteronormativity is forced upon young people.

After Adele has broken up with the guy, one of her girlfriends kisses her whilst they are outside the school building smoking a cigarette. The friend tells her she is pretty and Adele blushes. This is the first time an alternative to heterosexuality is represented in the film. Adele’s gay male friend Valentin senses Adele’s confusion and takes her out to a gay club. She then wanders off into a lesbian bar close by; the bar is dimly lit, with “spacey” electronic music playing and women kissing in frame. This is when Adele and Emma have their first actual interaction. (Except for a scene in the beginning of the film when Adele spots Emma at a crossing and later that night masturbates whilst fantasising about her). At first they only exchange looks from a far; another supposed lesbian woman then comes up to Adele to speak to her but Emma swiftly interrupts them asking the woman “Are you ok...are you talking to my cousin?” in a slightly threatening manner. The woman leaves and Emma asks Adele “why are you here alone?” to which Adele replies, “I don’t know, I came in here by chance”. Emma replies “By chance” nodding her head as if to say that there is no such thing as chance. It becomes obvious that Emma is made to seem like the more dominant person in their relationship from the get go; she is already very well versed in the lesbian club scene for example, pointing out that Adele is drinking a “butch” type of beer and thus marking Adele as femme. Emma’s costume is very important to the reading of this scene; she is wearing a denim vest, short blue hair and no make up; this could be read as butch costume, enhancing the fact that they are both doing some sort of gender performance; this is one way in which Emma is made the more active, dominant character in the relationship and Adele’s character takes on a passive “feminine” role. Judith Butler’s take on gender performance is important here:

“...Performativity is not a singular act, but a repetition and ritual, which achieves its effects through its naturalization in the context of a body, understood, in part, as a culturally sustained temporal duration.” (Butler, 2007, xv)

Butler shows us how gender is not a set category but something that must constantly be produced and reproduced. Emma’s dress and mannerisms in the film speak for the intention of the relationship to be portrayed as gendered; Adele and Emma both take on their gender roles in relationship to the other. (and it is very important to highlight that this is only intrapersonally between the two main characters.) When Emma neglects the relationship, Adele takes on a more nurturing role, this in turn allows Emma to dictate a big deal of their life together. The lesbian relationship that Adele enters into isn’t as equal as Rich sees potential for in 'compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence’; the power inbalance allows for Emma to take a dominant role in the relationship and for Adele to take on a very nurturing and caring role from which Emma is allowed to develop herself artistically and socially. She carries the relationship in terms of emotional labour, which is something that feminist scholars such as Hochschild (1983) have argued is typical of the feminine role within heterosexual relationships.

When the two eventually become involved in an intimate love relationship, they do so despite Adele’s school friends’ initial protests and harassments. These harassments could be seen as a portrayal of the heterosexual patriarchial backdrop against which the queer relationship that the women engage in has to struggle. It is noteworthy that Adele’s male friend Valentin is accepted for his homosexuality and that there isn’t even any discussion about his lifestyle, but rather it is taken as granted whereas Adele is completely shunned by her friends who in one scene call her a slut and tell her that they are disgusted with her when they find out that she might have a sexual interest towards women. It could be worth posing the question as to whether this is done purposely or if the director takes for granted that lesbianism is less normative than male homosexuality in which case it could be said to resonate some of the ideas put forward by Rich (1980).

Because the relationship is so centered on passion and sex, it makes me think that it is informed by the male gaze – the portrayal of the relationship often borders on fetishism. It is important to remember that the director is a straight male, and thus cannot have direct insight into the lesbian experience, when doing a reading of the film: one of the scenes that is the most important to analyze to understand how the film is informed by the male gaze is the 7 minute long sex scene. Although the scene portrays two women having sex (or maybe even because it portrays two women having sex) I would argue that it is clearly saturated by the male gaze and made for patriarchal, eroticised pleasure and spectatorship. Van Zoonen makes the argument that

“In mainstream Hollywood film, women function simultaneously as erotic objects for the male audience who can derive scopophilic pleasure from their presence, and as erotic objects for the male protagonists with whom the male audience can identify.” (Van Zoonen, 1994, 89)

This statement isn’t perfectly accurate for Blue is the Warmest Colour because it portrays two women and not a man and a woman; however it may be argued that because the two women take on gendered roles, it doesn’t matter that one of them technically isn’t a man. I would argue against Van Zoonen and say that a scene can objectify women for the erotic pleasures of men even if there isn’t a male character present. Especially today when “lesbian” porn is so prevalent. The fact that the sex scene is shot up close and also the nature of the length of the scene speaks for its pornographic, voyeuristic character. In an article on the lesbian culture website Autostraddle writer “Kate” has weighed in on her opinion on the scene:

“All I could think as I watched the scenes was that there were not two people fucking because they were desperately, even harmfully, in love. It looked like two women fucking in a way that would be stimulating to a viewer with little expectation for queer intercourse.”

However, in contrast to the first sex scene between Adele and her cis-boyfriend, it is clear that the director has used the scene between Emma and Adele to explore how Adele is allowed to completely give in to her passions, as opposed to the first sex scene with the guy where she looks like she is completely disassociating. However, this doesn’t take away from the fact that the director is a man and that the scene is arguably pornographic.

The juxtaposition of the two family meals is an important window through which we can see the class difference of the two girls and thus where some of the power inbalance might stem from. Emma’s family is portrayed as having a lot of cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986); there are beautiful paintings in the kitchen, they drink white wine with much attention and they eat fresh oysters; during the meal Emma has to teach Adele how to eat them, taking on a very protective, pedagogical role. Emma’s family dinner is juxtaposed with Adele’s where spaghetti Bolognese is served and more mundane every day topics are discussed; the family assumes that Adele and Emma have become friends through Adele being tutored in philosophy by Emma (the film again plays with themes of power and initiation here). Adele’s parents challenge Emma’s culturally radical lifestyle by commenting on her blue hair, artistic career choice and even ask if she has a boyfriend who can support her financially; while Emma’s family cheers to the love between the girls, Adele and Emma have to hide their relationship from Adele’s family. Class is something that severely informs the relationship between the girls, with Emma having more freedom to express herself artistically and sexually – a theme that runs through the whole film, and something that could be potentially be seen as the demise of the relationship.

The relationship is almost portrayed as an ecstatic paroxysm of passion framed by the mundane heterosexual/normative working class lifestyle that Adele experiences both before and after Emma: at the end Adele is ‘unfaithful’ with a man from work because she is neglected by Emma in favour of the art; subsequently the ending scene is of her being chased up by a man after leaving an Emma’s art show. This is how the lesbian experience is framed. Adele even tells Emma that she doesn’t think she couldn’t be with a woman again when the two meet up for a drink after being broken up for a while. Emma has already moved on with a woman who can be said to be of the same type of social group in terms of class and culture but Adele is still somewhat grieving at this point, she has to go back to her old life whilst Emma moves on to a more mature type of flamboyance, living with the other woman and her child and working as a professional artist.

What is being portrayed in the film is a relationship based on hierarchical power structures that adhere to heteronormative standards of monogamous relationships. Even when Adele has been with another person it is out of the question to think that Emma would have any sort of understanding of Adele’s decision to do so, even though Emma had been extremely dismissive of their relationship, and Adeles emotions. What is portrayed is not a lesbian, but rather a heterosexual relationship disguised as a lesbian relationship. The heterosexual, patriarchal hierarchies that Rich explores in her text are being reproduced and projected onto a lesbian relationship as a canvas. With that in mind, I do think that the film is offering a contestation to heterosexuality to some extent, because Adele is struggling to exist in between two worlds, one which is tainted by a conventionally heteronormative existence where she has her family, friends and her workplace (she doesn’t tell her co-workers that she is in a relationship with a woman for example) and one in which she is allowed to explore alternative and to have a very passionate relationship with an artist woman, even if that relationship is very centered around sex and passion as opposed to companionship and mutual care (not that the two are mutually exclusive).

The main problem in achieving something which is close to a contestation to heteronormativity seems to me that the director isn’t himself a lesbian woman so he can’t fully step into that mode of existence; he is stuck in the heterosexual way of thinking, even when he is trying to portray something that could be the opposite to heteronormative. We must however remember that the film is a drama and maybe that an equal, loving, caring and nurturing relationship wouldn’t be interesting to make a film about; it wouldn’t be dramatic. It is interesting to consider how gender can be performed “outside” of normative bodies and how the two women constructed themselves in relationship to one another based on class, culture and mainly dominance.

Bibliography

Butler, J (2007). Gender trouble. New York: Routledge

Blue is the warmest color (2013) Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche [Film]. Frace: Quat'sous Films

Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In: J. Richardson Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. New York: Greenwood. 241-258

Hochschild, A. (1983) The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. London: University of California Press.

Kate. (2013). Blue Is The Warmest Color: The Male Gaze Reigns Supreme. Available: http://www.autostraddle.com/blue-is-the-warmest-color-the-male- gaze-reigns-supreme-203158/. Last accessed 10 March 2015.

Gender, culture and popular media Student ID 1317747

Rich, A. (1980). Compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence. signs. 5 (4), 631-660.

Van Zoonen, L. (1994). Spectatorship and the gaze. In: feminist media studies: Sage.

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