#i also feel like i should clarify that when i say girlies in this context its gender neutral lmao

[jeeseth]

sorry! , izna ot7

pairing , izna x fem!reader

context , how will izna apologise to their girlfriend after an argument!

tags — fluff! might be a little angsty tho, drabble?, idol/non-idol au, literally a different ways of apologising, this is just how i think the izna members will apologise!

﹟mai !

mai will def be the type that will apologise to you IMMEDIATELY after you two had a fight, like i can already imagine her holding your hands while apologising slowly to you 🥹 PLUS her loving and caring gaze staring right into your almost teary one at hearing her apology.

"baby, i’m sorry i didn’t mean it. i love you so much." she apologised while interviewing your hands with her!

i love our calm baby, like how can you stay mad at her when she’s looking you in the eyes while speaking to you softly. I LOVE HER SO MUCH

﹟jeemin !

our calm baby number two! will definitely stay quiet (sulk) for a while then she’ll realised that it was actually her fault and would come running to apologise to you <3

imagine you’re just chilling in the bedroom and she suddenly come running to you like a puppy seeing its owner! she’s a bear tho but whatever. anyway, i literally can see her standing over at the door with the biggest guilt look on her face.

"baby… i’m sorry." she mumbled, looking down on the floor. you swear you immediately forget that you’re mad at her once you saw the pout on her face. i would too tbh

﹟jiyoon !

she’s lowkey testing your patience even more after the fight AND during the fight (argument). jiyoon staring at you blankly as you keep scolding her, how can it not piss you off? but that’s the thing! she knew about it and she tried her best to try and get your forgiveness since she can’t stand the silent treatment you’re giving her.

imagine waking up the next day and you open your front door to get some fresh air but then, you see a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolate on your doorstep! oh and of course you saw a little note saying ‘sorry for pissing you off.’

dw, you texted her after that and said i love you to her! which makes the worry in jiyoon’s heart melt away!

"i love you more, stupid"

﹟koko !

one thing about her is that i can clarify that she’s a bit stupid! but cute kind of stupid obv <3 she won’t even understand that you were scolding her but after she realised it, she would just stare off to space and think about how should she apologise to you.

well the first thing she tries to do is definitely not to approach you… let’s just say that koko is the type to be scared of her own girlfriend. who wouldn’t but anyway! she’ll def tried to bake something but ended up almost burning the house down. you immediately rush to the kitchen after smelling something burning and you’re laughing your ass off after seeing all the flour splattered on her face. and that’s how you forget that you were mad at her! girlie barely tried and is already forgiven <3

﹟sarang !

clingy. physical touch. kisses. three words to describe the ryu sarang. you were already getting skeptical when you saw sarang just smiling at you as you scold her, but sarang just couldn’t resist the urge to kiss your stupid face right there! it does caught you off guard but it also does lessen your madness a bit!

"what was that for?"

"that’s the only way to make you stop scolding me" sarang giggle and pulls you into a tight hug like nothing happened. you don’t blame her tho, you really enjoyed being in her warm embrace <3!!

﹟jungeun !

hmm… why do i feel like she’ll just say a quick ‘sorry’ then went to sulk in her bedroom. jungeun def HATES fighting or arguing with you. so after every argument it’s always ended up with HER giving you the silent treatment… only for a while tho because it doesn’t affect you at all but it does affect her!

so she’ll just straight ahead and stand in front of you while you’re watching Netflix on the couch.

"i’m sorry. please don’t be mad at me. it was my fault."

cutie.

﹟saebi !

our cute crybaby!!! she would already be breaking into tears as soon as you stop arguing with her. she tried to not make it obvious that she’s literally bawling her eyes out but her sniffles really betrays her. also saebi sucking in harsh breath every five seconds 😭 i can imagine it.

would immediately failed at holding back her tears and went to cry into your arms instead. i’m not sure how’s that possible since she’s sooo tall but.. it’s fine cause it’s saebi!

and that’s how you spend the next few hours comforting her as she keeps apologising to you. it was cute tho it got you giggling the whole time.

"i-i’m.. i’m sorry.. please don’t leave- don’t laugh!" she sobbed burying her face on your shoulders <3

[septembermonologues]

it brings me peace to know that we dorym dorian girlies (yes that includes liam) have sam and travis in our corner

[bisluthq]

Could you explain to me why Dress has gay connotations? I just don’t see it, and it’s been years now.

Yes I can, because that was the song that lead me down this path of sin and insanity. The year was 2017. With more marbles and brain cells and far less COVID, I sat down to listen to the album Reputation. Perhaps I poured a glass of wine first. I don’t recall. I was but a more or less normal, very casual fan who had for many years enjoyed mocking Taylor for her messy ass personal life, supposed hyperconfessionalism and regular PR kerfuffles. One of my best friends and then roommate used to, as I’ve told y’all before, blast Blank Space as a chaos anthem every time we went out. Fundamentally, though I was too cool for Taylor Swift. I was listening for like... general pop culture knowledge because my brain is a treasure trove of entertainment tidbits and gossip. I got through almost the whole album and then I heard the song Dress and I said, “what the fuck did I just listen to?” And I replayed it and I went, “Damn Blank Space. That was gay.”

And that was the fateful day I came to believe in 2+ muses, Gaylor and, I guess, Kaylor as well because my (albeit surface level but even if I’d dug) Googling brought me mostly to supermodel Karlie Kloss’s door.

So why is this song so gay? I’m not even gonna give y’all the Kaylor reading today we’re literally gonna time capsule to 2017 before I knew any of this shit and when the only thing I knew was THIS SONG WAS GAY.

Our secret moments

In a crowded room

They got no idea

About me and you

Okay so they’re out and about. What secret moments? Like looks and stuff? I mean bold of her to assume nobody knows it’s pretty easy to convince people hets are fucking especially if they’re giving each other meaningful looks and shit. Idk like people whisper and gossip about hets just looking at one another all the time. This seems like she’s a bit overconfident in their sneakiness.

There is an indentation

In the shape of you

Made your mark on me

A golden tattoo

Right so whatever is happening between the speaker and the subject of the song has had an impact on her. This isn’t a thirst anthem. Like the secret moments aren’t because they’re just... looking at one another respectfully and kinda doing that “your place or mine” telepathic conversation. No, Tay’s body has a mark, an indentation from the shape of her lover’s body and the whole thing is a golden tattoo - temporary and removable, presumably, shiny and glittery, but visible to the naked eye. So shit’s already gone down. Friends with benefits maybe?

All of this silence and patience, pining and anticipation

My hands are shaking from holding back from you (ah, ah, ah)

All of this silence and patience, pining and desperately waiting

My hands are shaking from all this (ha, ha, ha, ha)

Nah, not simply friends with benefits. This is forbidden, right? Taylor can’t touch her lover. All they have are these secret stolen looks in the crowded room that absolutely nobody can tell mean anything. That... sounds like “gal pals” to lil gay me. Like she can’t touch her lover because it’ll be too obvious but as long as they don’t touch it won’t seem sexual at all. It’s not just that they’re friends and nobody knows there’s more going on, because why can’t they be friendly then? Why are they sharing secret moments but they can’t come close to the point where her hands are literally shaking from staying away? Why can’t she do that good old link arms with her good guy friend especially if they’re out and tipsy? And then it ends off with orgasm noises because... it’s this song so of course it does.

Say my name and everything just stops

I don't want you like a best friend

Only bought this dress so you could take it off, take it off (ha, ha, ha)

More nails in the coffin of “friends with benefits” and people just don’t know. This person saying her name makes her world stop. This ties into the forbidden vibe but it’s also so innocuous that it does fuck with the “we’re just friends with benefits but I want more” interpretation that a hetsplanation would require. Like this is clearly a lot more. It’s already a lot more. It’s not that she just wants more, this girlie is gone.

And then we get to my gayest line: “I don’t want you like a best friend.” Now I get saying you don’t want to be “just friends” with a guy. I also do get being best friends with a guy. One of my irl besties is Blank Space Chaos Anthem girlie and the other is a (mostly) straight dude. I also have other straight dude friends like my mate who I was trying to rescue from accidentally having to marry a converting girl a few years back. I’m like a (woke) straight dude whisperer tbh because being friends with me is a big win for their woke credibility and let’s be real I’m 1) irreverent and great fun and 2) give great advice on girls.

Now I can guarantee you my proposition to fucking any of my dude friends from besties to casuals would not be “I don’t want you like a best friend.” They’d be like, “my bitch wut? Are you with Pothead YouTube Ex again? Tell her BE GONE WITCH!” And sure, maybe that’s just me. But if was already fucking a dude I can guarantee you the words “I don’t want you like a best friend” would not exit my mouth. It’s not “I don’t want to be friends” or “I don’t only want to be friends” she says “I don’t want you like a best friend.” The implication is there’s an appropriate way to “want” a friend and the way she wants the person she’s speaking to is not like that. It’s a similie, she’s comparing the subject of the song to a best friend and saying this is not like that. Now, explain to me why that level of clarification is important in a fwb setup? You’re trying to make it more serious, I get it. You don’t want to be “just” friends with benefits (and we know they’re already fucking) I get that too. But why the similie?

Why would a dude you’re fucking ever misunderstand and think you want him like a best friend?

Carve your name into my bedpost

Cause I don't want you like a best friend

Only bought this dress so you could take it off, take it off (ha, ha, ha)

I mean again, if we needed clarity on why this is a sex anthem it’s the first line of this song. And she’s saying “have sex with me because I don’t want you like a best friend” again, they’ve already fucked that was established in the first verse. Why would this be stuff you clarify with a dude? Why would a man who is fucking you get the wrong impression and assume you want to be best friends? Not friends. Best friends. Why would he think that?

And then we get the dress line. Now, I know some people are like “I dress up for my boyfriend!” and sure. But let’s all be honest. 85%+ of the time girls of any sexual orientation wear outfits out - and we established this is an out type situation - it’s for other girls to notice their fashion. Come on, you’re not expecting your dude friend to be like, “nice dress, where’d you buy it?” “Oh, this? Hahaha it’s just Zara, they were having a sale. If you hurry you might get one too!” Like there’s something inherently sapphic/feminine about discussions of buying clothing. And come on, fellow queer ladies, clothes is a great way to get a chat going.

In this song, Taylor draws attention to this feminine article of clothing she bought to wear on the night in question and instead of saying “it’s Zara” she goes “I only bought it so you could take it off” - I’m doing an eyebrow wiggle but you can’t see because I’m just text on your screen. Why would you say that to a guy? Like if you did, if you’re that girl why are you holding back from him? Y’all are fucking and you have a massive thing for him. Surely he should know by now? Why is this dress even featuring in the conversation? Like I say bringing up a dress you bought in a conversation about sex feels pretty fucking gay. It’s either a really bizarre and kinda desperate flex which doesn’t really match the sexiness of the song or... it’s gay.

Inescapable

I'm not even going to try

Girl you’ve fucked why is there a point of trying at this stage? Unless you... can’t do this or it feels in some way wrong?

And if I get burned, at least we were electrified

Why the I/we split? Like why is only one of them burned if they were electrified? Sure maybe it’s a fwb thing and he can turn her down for more than sex and friendship but it sounds more like - given the best friends - this is her female friend and she’s maybe uncertain of the other woman’s feelings. This feels - and again we’re not doing a Tay’s personal life reading here - like one of them can be fully destroyed by this but despite that reality they are both lit up and hurt in the process.

I'm spilling wine in the bathtub

You kiss my face and we're both drunk

I mean this isn’t inherently gay it’s just sexy, get it Tay. This sounds hot.

Everyone thinks that they know us

But they know nothing about

All of this silence and patience, pining and anticipation

What do they know about you? Like again we’re not doing the Tay reading thing but like what’s the sekrit? She’s fucking her friend? Why don’t they know anything about this? Surely they can imagine it’s a possibility? Like however unlikely, why does nobody know anything about this?

The next chorus is the same as the one above and I still have no hetsplanation for it. Like especially in the broader context of this, again, very gay song.

Then we get a very straight bridge. It’s like it’s from a different song or was written much later:

Flashback when you met me

Your buzz cut and my hair bleached

Even in my worst times, you could see the best of me

Flashback to my mistakes

My rebounds, my earthquakes

Even in my worst lies, you saw the truth in me

And I woke up just in time

Now I wake up by your side

My one and only, my lifeline

I woke up just in time

Now I wake up by your side

My hands shake, I can't explain this

Aha, ha, ha, ha

Okay but this is a completely different vibe to the... entire song. The rest of the song was about the other person not being sure and that being the issue. “I don’t want you like a best friend.” So why: “I woke up just in time”? Like “if I get burned at least we were electrified” but then... “I woke up just in time” - is the rest of the song like a weird nightmare? That’s not, to me, enough of an explanation. She spends the whole song in sexy anxiety pining after someone who cares about where and why she bought her dress and then she’s like “you’re everything to me” - it doesn’t make sense.

The rest of the song is the chorus again. As I’ve said, I don’t see a hetsplanation for it.

This is a gay song. The bridge isn’t and the line about the bathtub isn’t inherently. But the rest of this song is gay af.

[renardtrickster]

ThePedanticRomantic Rebuttal: “Traps” Don’t Exist And Here’s Why

This video has been out for a month, so maybe nobody cares about it. I made a previous debunking, but decided to re-do it. If you still care, you’ve come to the right place. If you don’t, then why are you still reading? There’s two other rebuttals on this, one which I’ll link because I liked the video, the other I won’t because... I didn’t.

First thing’s first, kudos to PR for clarifying the Lily Hoshikawa situation. Really frustrated at people trying to weave Lily into what she isn’t. Unfortunately, that’s about the only good thing I have to say about this video.

Second thing, before we move onto The Beef. Neither Astolfo nor Ferris/Felix Argyle are nonbinary/trans. Astolfo does use they/them pronouns sometimes and their gender is listed as a secret sometimes, but they also use he/him pronouns, and get listed as male. Astolfo has a very teasing personality, liking to mess with people, and that’s painting the medium by reflecting that mindset in some of the official guides and stuff. That’s the exact same tier of joke as a girl’s character sheet listing her weight as “that’s rather rude to ask”, but you somehow believed that was an official sources even though that only happens sometimes.

The Felix situation is even more blatant ignoring of the actual character. The reason Felix acts girly is because Crusch, the lady of house Karsten, is something of a tomboy and people expecting her to act like a real lady gets in the way of her work. They made a promise to each other, with Felix lending Crusch his “knightly side” and Crusch lending Felix her “girlish side”, so Crusch would be unobstructed in her duties and Felix could excel at serving her better. Demanding to be called Ferris and declaring himself a “pretty girl” is part of this, so he could seem more feminine and “make up for” Crusch and otherwise hold up the promise. Blocking secondary sex characteristics is also this. If he went through puberty and became more man-ish, that would break the promise because he couldn’t be girlish like what he promised. Felix doesn’t actually identify as a girl. He outright says he is a man “in both body and soul” and one chapter is outright titled “Felix Argyle is a pretty boy”.

ThePedanticRomantic used Lily’s backstory, context, and character to point out how she was trans, but completely glossed over all of that for Astolfo and Felix to lie about them being nonbinary and trans respectively. It’s incredibly transparent (pun not intended), because Lily’s explanation takes the first 5 minutes of the video, Astolfo gets 10 seconds, and Felix gets a minute.

Second, the video really bothers me as someone who is vaguely interest in language, lexicon, and all that junk. Pedantic spends several minutes talking about how Trap evolved from “crossdressing boys who make pingy feel funny” to trans and other similar identities too, making the point that the language is too fluid to just say “well that one’s wrong”... But then she says that because it’s gone too far, it’s unable to be reclaimed or used non-offensively? That’s doublethink so bad I got whiplash and am now typing from the hospital. Language can have multiple uses, but still have “wrong” use. Like, let’s look at “Lterally.”

Speaking on strict terms, Literally means “exactly, without exaggeration”. “That bear was literally nine feet tall”. But people also use literally in a figurative sense. “That bear was literally the size of a house”. I’m sure there’s a proper word for this, but it’s taken on a slang connotation. Both of those sentences were “correct” in that they both flow correctly, and you get what the person means, but by the book, the second person was incorrect because that’s not what the word means, and they stretched it for some purpose.

Similarly, let’s look at “trap”. “Bridget from Guilty Gear is a trap” is correct because this fits the original definition of the term, and the intent of the usage aligns with what the majority of people mean when they say this, contrary to what the video would have you believe. “Erica Anderson from Catherine is a trap” is incorrect because she, a trans girl, doesn’t fit the original definition of the term, and even though you know what people are egging at when they say this, they are the minority, and the vast majority would agree that they are using the word wrong, in addition to the fact that they’re probably dicks or at the very least misinformed.

Additionally, Jasou and Otokonoko, while I like those words and a buddy o’ mine even uses them frequently, are not the solution. First of all, you even said that the history included both crossdressing men, and trans women. So does Trap and Drag Queen and any other word implying some degree of not conforming to gender roles. This seems to be saying that Jasou and Otokonoko are “good” simply because they haven’t been “tainted” yet. Tying into the second point, what’s to stop transphobes and Edgy People and other buttheads from adopting Jasou and Otokonoko and use those to refer to trans people. At best, we’re just rotating words and sooner or later, we’ll be right back at square one. At worst, you’re actively ringing a dinner bell for them. You know that these kinds of people love jumping on “safe words”, mandating a newer, gooder word that doesn’t have offensive connotation will just encourage them to use it in an offensive sense, and then we’re back to square one.

Perhaps the biggest one of all though, ties back into the idea I discussed with Literally. The intention of the user matters a whole lot. Trap alone is just a word with a few implications and meanings attached, but it’s nothing until someone applies it, and what it’s applied to. If a person calls a crossdressing anime boy a trap, that’s not transphobic. If a person calls a transgender anime girl a trap, that’s transphobic. Similarly, if you call a crossdressing boy a crossdresser, that’s not transphobic. If you call a transgender girl a crossdresser, that’s transphobic. If you call a crossdressing man a man, that’s not transphobic, If you call a transgender woman a man, that’s transphobic. You wouldn’t make a video trying to state that “crossdresser” or “man” are innately transphobic words and that we should stop using them and replace them with something else, you would correct the person using those incorrectly that it’s incorrect, and if they persist, you dropkick them like garbage into a trashcan.

And, while this isn’t as strong as the other points... The “far right memetic anime fan” burn says more about you than it does about any dissenters. If you end your thesis with “and if you disagree, you’re bad”, all it does is display a lack of confidence in your persuasive and informative skills on your part. To anyone who was on the fence, you guilted them into agreeing with you for fear of being called a transphobe, to anyone who disagreed with you, you just stacked the deck because now they’ll already have people predisposed to thinking them a monster, and to people who already agreed with you, you just pandered to them.

I’d also recommend watching this video by TheSMonroeShow. Seeing it on my dash inspired me to re-do this rebuttal, and he focus more on the general history and connotations and junk where I mostly focus on ThePedanticRomantic’s statements and how language works.

[premakalidasi]

thepurelands reblogged your post:Listen, I’m up to here with “spiritual” men and...

I love this SO much… All else to say, which is not in contradiction to your words but a qualifier, is that we as women...

#so much YES#sexuality

Well, I would be very careful with your terminology there (even though I believe your basic intent was benevolent, don’t worry). Saying women “aren’t victims of the patriarchy” edges far too close to basically telling women, bluntly in their faces, that they’re just imagining it all. Which is bollocks--and what I’ve been trying to get at in my post; that there are issues in the way of healing and liberation and becoming whole. It’s exactly because women are victimised as fuck and abused and beaten up all the time that it’s more difficult for them to even start handling sexuality. 

Women are victimised and abused left, right and centre by a fucked-up, patriarchal system that values the male and “masculine” values over “feminine” ones, and that fucks men up as well as it goes. The whole system is based on violence and power-over and it’s 100% real. And we absolutely need to acknowledge that before we can move on. Not tell women, like far too many self-help guides (who’ve never had PTSD themselves) that hey, just think positive sparkly New Age thoughts and be ~open~ and ~forgiving~ (and forget about these silly BDSM things as therapy) and everything will be fine. Women are fucked over in this world 24/7, end of story.

But.

But.

There’s a difference, a massive difference between being victimised, being on the receiving end of violence and abuse and adopting a victim identity. That’s the key; that’s what I hope you were after, too. I don’t believe in victim-blaming, but I do believe in shaking people out of the *internalised* victimisation part, the internalised self-hatred and passivity and weakness. I would never have said this pre-Tumblr, but I am honestly starting to wonder if women wouldn’t be so badly off right now if it weren’t for their own fetish for fucking themselves over.

My dear, dear sisters: whenever you feel hopeless and useless and act accordingly (or, rather, remain passive because you’ve accepted you’re shit), feel like you don’t have the right to do X (act that doesn’t harm anyone), don’t have the right to say Y (thing that doesn’t harm anyone), that this thing is rude and that thing is being a spoilsport, circle your sentences with “hehe” and don’t use full stops because that’s too stompy and yadda yadda, that’s a big-ass part of what keeps you down. You. You keep yourself down because once you’ve been put down by someone else, you copy them and start doing it to yourself, too.

Every time you call yourself a victim (instead of someone else victimising you that very moment), every time you think you’re weak, every time you’re being a nice girl and not making a fuss (when you absolutely should), every time you put yourself down and remain passive, someone benefits from that. Every time you fuck yourself over typing a Tumblr tag saying “but I feel like there’s nothing I can do” or “im shit lol”, someone’s going to benefit from that, usually the dudebros who are having fun somewhere else celebrating violence and other tough-guy crap (while trying to pretend they aren’t soft and squishy human beings underneath all that). Every time you define yourself through something you are Against, you let yourself be defined by the thing you think is your enemy; by focusing on resistance you’re forgetting about the part where you should be exploring and actively building alternative ways of handling things. You have a choice as to whether you’ll type that Tumblr tag or not, but you’ve forgotten you have it. You’re not being yourself--you’re being what The Man wants you to be. Miserable and malleable and useable because you don’t believe in yourself, believe you have any rights, any power, any divinity in yourself.

So I just want to clarify that. There’s a difference between being abused and *abusing yourself,* putting yourself down. There’s something you can’t help--if someone’s kicking you in the face with a combat boot, it’s pretty damn difficult to start manifesting your innate divinity. And I don’t want anyone to belittle that. It’s incredibly difficult to handle sex if the penalty for that is humiliation and physical violence. But those times you are on your own, self-governed (for example, on your own blog on the Internet, or in your own bed with a vibrator)--if you choose to put yourself down *there* as well, then, yes, that’s a problem. And that’s where you’ve got to start, because if you don’t believe that you have any value, you can be used over and over. That’s candy for abusers; that’s candy for narcissists--they see they can walk all over you. 

These self-defeating structures have been programmed into us for millennia exactly to uphold the system as it is, so that we remain home as passive housekeepers and baby machines. It all goes back to that; every time you say “I should put my feelings and hurt aside and put others above myself at all times even if it literally kills me,” it goes back to being an efficient homemaker while the guys (in turn brainwashed into being good cannon fodder, efficient killing machines) go off to wage war. All gender bullshit boils down to that: either making someone into an efficient home/kid management system or a killing/moneymaking system, and all the divine potential inside of us, regardless of genitalia, gets destroyed and burned on the altar of that system. It’s madness. 

But we’ve come so far from that. We’ve now got the technology and civilisation and brains to be far more than just homemakers or soldiers. We already know we can use these skills for building hospitals--transcending the homemaker and the warrior and channeling that into medical science and the engineering and power needed to build that hospital (and that these skills exist cross-sex, so gendering them is too limiting). We should be able to articulate our feelings and use them wisely by now, and to respect each other by now. But we have to respect ourselves first (and the same goes for guys respecting their “girly” parts). If you start saying “no, actually, this is how it works for me”--which is why I was explaining all those things about the female orgasm in my post, because nobody fucking talks about it on that level, especially in spiritual contexts--then we have a beginning. It’s a defiant act, a hella radical act and it’s exactly when we realise what such women are up against that we understand just how revolutionary it is. 

Even now, I have to try and stop myself from saying “TL;DR” here because that’s one of those many forms of self-belittling, ways of saying “hehhehe, what I just said isn’t that important” because it bloody well is. I struggle with that shit, too. (I’m not even going to go into the list of the shit I’ve been through, even if this kind of Discourse often demands people show their hand--because I don’t believe in cred through victimhood. I almost started to list that shit, but stopped myself, because that’s what awareness is all about--not just vomiting out what you feel, but trying to at least have some consideration over what your output’s gonna be. And I don’t want anyone to feel they somehow have less cred than me because they haven’t been on the receiving end of X, because that’s inhuman and also insane). But all you folks need to know that I’ve been There, and over and over. And sick of it. And it’s exactly because people still self-perpetuate all this crap that I can’t keep quiet about it any more, having been through all this myself. Twenty years ago, I hoped things would be better in 2018, but they just seem to be getting worse, so we’ve got to talk about this stuff, start talking about it as much as people talked about this stuff in the 60s and 70s, and as critically as they did then (but that’s a whole different rant).

We’ve all got to start somewhere--but let’s just be careful about the terminology and not taunt people with broken legs into running when they’re still recuperating, or in any way imply they fell over themselves when someone else tripped them over. 

There’s a difference between sabotage and self-sabotage. Being victimised=/=victim identity.  

Now, can we talk about the glory of uterine orgasms? 

[eeveelutionsforequality]

Hi Vape... I just need to ask: Why is it that when someone who’s FtM or MtF dresses more masculine or feminine to ease their dysphoria it’s fine, but when a genderfluid person dresses according to their gender to ease their dysphoria, their gender identity suddenly becomes a fashion statement (according to binarists... I think that’s what they’re called) like what gives? (Sorry, I just needed to vent my frustration. I just think it’s not fair and it makes me feel horrible.)

I don't know if this was meant to be rhetorical, but I'm going to try to answer it as best I can, in case it wasn't.

I think that the wording of a lot of posts or conversations on the topic (and the fact that some of them came from "trenders" or "non-dysphorics" or "tucutes" or whatever the kids are calling it these days) made it even easier for people, especially those with either a bias or a lack of foundational knowledge of the experiences of non-binary people, to misunderstand the direction of cause and effect.

Take a typical Milo video (not the flamboyant conservative Milo, the flamboyant left-wing Milo), and a statement that may be said in one... like maybe something along the lines of "I'm genderqueer, look at this wonderful combination of my boyish tie and my girly shorts!" To anybody who knows Milo's style and who is relatively familiar with such conversations, that would be seen as no different (structurally) to somebody saying "I really love horses, look at my horse top!" The first part of the sentence is sort of like a context for why or in what capacity the clothing is being discussed, why they're so enthusiastic about it. The first part of the sentence is not a claim that is supposed to be "backed up" by the "evidence" shown in the second part of the sentence, because this isn't a debate, this isn't them providing you with an argument... it's a casual conversation. The second part of the sentence is the actual focus of the sentence - that the person is trying to casually converse about their horse top, or about what they believe is an innovative way to express their gender.

Similarly, a post saying "What it's like to be genderfluid!" and then some kind of boy logo next to a picture of a conventionally boyish outfit, a girl logo next to a conventionally girly outfit, and so on, isn't meant to be taken as an argument piece to convey the nuances of one's inner experiences and the reasoning behind those experiences... it's a quirky, "hashtag relatable" post about how one's style changes (and said changes are inspired by a trait that you share with any who would find that post relatable). I could make a "What it's like to have bipolar!" post, with a hoodie-clad me beside a rain cloud, and a technicolour disaster outfit beside a smiley face, and (hopefully) nobody would assume that I was saying that the outfits caused the mental state - it, again, would simply be a relatable post about how irregular my choice of clothing is. Somebody could even make a "What it's like to like horses and rhinos!" post with the same theme... you wouldn't think that their favourite animal of the day was dictated by which item of clothing was clean.

But, while it may be a casual conversation about outfits to us, many of the (for lack of a better word) "detractors" commonly (or even exclusively) broach the topic of non-binary identities from a debate standpoint. When you only ever talk about this topic seriously, when you've already got the seeds of doubt nestled in your belly, when you're raising your eyebrows at the vague idea of the thing let alone casual discussion of it... well, it's pretty easy to mistakenly interpret that sentence or that post as the person claiming that the horse-themed clothes either prove their love of horses or are the reason that today they love horses.

Of course, that's ridiculous to think of in the context of a horse top, because we know that nobody would say that their identity as "person who likes horses" is created or proven by the horse top, since we have a pre-existing understanding of how appreciation of horses works - you like horses, you probably watched Black Beauty as a child, and now you buy horse-themed attire and decorations because of that appreciation. A similar pre-existing context exists for understanding why a binary trans person would be happy about passing well in a certain outfit - they know that binary dysphoria is a thing, that people may feel "trapped in the wrong body", that people want to be perceived as the "opposite" sex, and that the clothing choices and the excitement about the clothes logically follow on from those things.

However, alongside the basic understanding of transgenderism, there exists a lot of debate about gender roles, about how girls can do "boyish" things and shouldn't be judged for it, about how boys can play with dolls and shouldn't be judged for it, and so on. (They also often know that "abolish gender roles" is a popular mantra amongst the left-leaning, so it's often the case that if they don't passionately support that themselves, their political opponent supports both that mantra and non-binary people... the opportunity for a "gotcha" presents itself, and it's easy to assume that your opponent is stupid enough to be so hypocritical, it's easy to not pry deeper... and it's easier and more fun to just be a snarky shit to people that you don't like.)

People find themselves with two potential contexts to assimilate this situation into - is it a transgender person who is easing dysphoria, or is it somebody reinforcing a gender role that should be abolished (or reinforcing a gender role that "their side" and those who support them believe should be abolished)?

But they've come into the conversation at a point when the rest of us are talking casually - we're all aware of the multitude of foundational steps that are required for a complete understanding of the context of the sentence or post. Nobody bothered with the middle step of "I was feeling dysphoric and I picked this outfit to ease that." because the "I'm genderqueer" part of the sentence came packaged with that for us. Nobody bothered to explain that the gendering of the clothes wasn't meant literally, but rather as a statement that they either enhance or hide sex characteristics, or as a commentary on what is socially perceived as gendered and thus eases passing... because why would we? We know what we mean, so going on that tangent every time we speak is just unnecessarily convoluted. You wouldn't explain that the hoodie in the bipolar post was worn because (for example) in a depressed state it's hard to find the energy or will to wear more eccentric outfits, and the comfort of a familiar old hoodie is more appealing, because anybody who'd relate to the post already understands that context. You wouldn't feel the need to explain and validate your appreciation of rhinos every time you said "I like rhinos." You wouldn't feel the need to explain that you don't have to like rhinos to wear a top with a rhino on it, or to explain that you still like rhinos on days when you wear a plain top.

Unfortunately, in the case of non-binary identities and the internet age, some people's introduction to the topic happens to be in those times when people within the conversation aren't feeling like clarifying their every word and intention... which means the "newbies" are either left to make that jump on their own, to somehow fill in all of those gaps accurately on their own, or to draw context from the surrounding words. And what are the surrounding words? "Look at this combination of clothes that I'm seemingly arbitrarily gendering."

I imagine that it's very easy to, if you find yourself in that situation, assume that the clothing is the context and the gender the claim, rather than the gender being the context and the clothing being a casual conversation. This, in my opinion, leads to them getting cause and effect the wrong way around, as I said at the start. They think that what's being said is "Boy clothes mean that I'm a boy." when people are actually saying something more akin to "I'm a boy, I felt boyish but experienced dysphoria, and so I found some nice clothes that made me look boyish."

~ Vape