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wolf-queer-discourse · 3 years

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Adventures in Aphobia #1

So I was scrolling through Tumblr the other day (a regrettable mistake as always), and I had the great pleasure of seeing this joyous post.

*deep breath*

Not gonna lie, posts like this make me real pissed. Pissed because the person who posted this exists in a space where they feel comfortable enough to post this online. Pissed because these posts are so common and often face little backlash. And pissed because there’s nothing better than allosexuals condescendingly explaining to asexual people why they’re dirty attention whores who invent their own oppression. Ace people deserve to be defended against this horseshit. Young people see these posts, and it’s extremely damaging to have your identity be nothing more than fuel for people in discourse to mock you and demand you bled in order for them to notice your pain.

Anger aside, many people do not see why this post is wrong, so why is it? Let’s unpack this clusterfuck of bigotry:

“would love to see substantive evidence of systematic “aphobia” that isn’t actually just misogyny, toxic masculinity, or rpe culture.”

God damn, we are not mincing our words here XD. A few things: systematic in bold, which tells you if you do not make a blood sacrifice on the altar of queer pain you will not be taken seriously. Potential nitpick, but systemic and systematic are not the same thing. I believe systemic is the word they’re looking for. Systematic implies a lot more intentionality that can be hard to prove. Systemic merely means that systems, in their current state, do aphobic things, which they absolutely do.

“Aphobia” in quotes is absolutely rich. Not only will this person refuse to acknowledge systemic aphobia, which is only one type, but this poster casts clear doubt upon the mere concept of aphobia in and of itself. We love to see it.

There’s a lot to unpack here. The statement, as clearly condescending as intended, is sort of correct, though it doesn’t mean a whole lot. Systemic oppression is about the systems in a society (government, healthcare, etc) discriminating against people. Systemic oppression is not bigotry faced on a person-to-person level. In short, systematic oppression is something a person experiences in their overall life, while personal discrimination is experienced on a personal level by people who are not singularly in control of the systems. This post boils down the negative comments ace people face into being called “weird”, which is an understatement for sure, but calling a gay person weird isn’t systemic oppression either.

It’s still bad and discriminatory.

This is such a snotty way to dismiss aphobia as some mere, insignificant comment with no meaning as if it doesn’t reinforce society’s painful aphobic views in the same way casual homophobic comments reinforce heteronormativity and society’s hostility toward gay people.

Ace people face discrimination in healthcare, most notably, which is systemic discrimination, but the systemic discrimination of asexuals really ought to be its own post if I’m to nosedive into it. Even if ace people faced no systemic discrimination, it wouldn’t make this point anymore correct. Discrimination is a perfectly valid reason to feel disregarded by society, and often only ace people are denied the right to feel this way and are instead gaslit into admitting what they face is no big deal and they’re just making it up for attention.

The experience of being pressured to have sex when you’re allo vs ace is very different. The vast majority of allo people do not plan to be celibate their whole lives. Many ace people do not want to have sex, ever. “Waiting for sex” in much of western society and in Christianity is seen as pure and honorable. Yet being asexual and never wanting sex is seen as a deviant disorder and people are accused of robbing their partner of sex forever.

There’s really a specific flavor of sexual pressure that is unique to ace people. Sex being to “fix” someone or because they “just need to try it”.

In this respect, aphobic sexual pressure is better compared to that faced by gay people and lesbians. Lesbians especially often can face this same struggle, men pressuring them to have sex because they think lesbians just need to “try it” or to “fix them”. I can imagine this poster would have no issue acknowledging lesbophobia being the root of lesbians coerced into sex with men, yet she does not give ace people the same.

Imagine if someone said (and knowing our fucked world, someone probably has): “Lesbophobia doesn’t exist. It’s just misogyny. Straight women are coerced into sex too!”

It’d be pathetic bullshit. Toxic masculinity, misogyny and many other issues can all tangle into combined messes with other forms of bigotry. Lesbophobia is an experience that deserves to be recognized apart from misogyny, even if the two are linked. Please stop erasing ace people’s experiences with this when it’s not the same thing.

Honestly, though, this post, as trashy as it is, if anything, is perhaps, really asking: Is there any type of aphobic experience that’s inherently exclusive to ace people?

I still wager to go say, yes, yes there is, but I must make an important point first:

Most experiences of queer discrimination are not limited to queer people.

Homophobia and transphobia are both experienced by cishets in certain instances. Feminine straight men can be victims of homophobic harassment. This does not disprove the fact that it’s homophobia just because a straight man is the victim of it. A tall cis woman with broad shoulders and a lower voice may be the victim of transphobic remarks or comments. The basis of these comments is rooted in transphobia, however, so the fact that the victim is cis does not erase the transphobia.

People who argue that experiences ace people complain about can be experienced by allosexuals are not poking a legitimate hole in doing this. Certain experiences related to aphobia can and are experienced by allosexuals. If you do not acknowledge this, then homophobia and transphobia aren’t real because cishet people have sometimes experienced them.

Despite cishets sometimes experiencing queerphobia, most of us acknowledge that their experience of that bigotry, however unfortunate, is not the same as that experienced by actual queer people. It’d be quite homophobic for a feminine straight man to claim he knew just as much about the gay experience as an actual gay man. Similarly, when allosexual people relate experiences that were rooted in aphobia, it’s overstepping a line when they claim asexual discrimination isn’t real because they experienced elements of it too.

Cishet (cishet including allosexuals) people do not experience their doctors telling them their sexuality might be a disorder or caused by trauma. Allo queer people can experience this with their sexualities too.

“using sex appeal to sell products is misogyny, it is not engineered to gross sex-repulsed people, it is meant to objectify women.”

This is a strawman thinner than my last nerve. Uh, what? What ace people are you seeing that literally think sex appeal was engineered to gross-out sex-repulsed people?? I don’t think this is a core argument??

Yes, sex-repulsed ace people sometimes complain about sex appeal in media being uncomfortable. But that’s it. Every time an ace person shares a discomfort of theirs doesn’t mean it’s the entire basis of their oppression. For the love of God, let ace people discuss their experiences without being blow-torched over not being oppressed enough with an individual discomfort.

BONUS ROUND

(This was in the tags)

“Completely vilifies celibate individuals”

...no…? What…? Huh…?

The most charitable interpretation of this vague accusation is that the poster means celibate people face aphobia as well, due to not wanting to have sex. I have no idea how this “vilifies” anyone, but that aside, as said before: people who are not queer can face aphobia. Also worth noting that society treats celibate people way better than ace people, which is really another example of aphobia. Celibate people can be told they’re missing out (which could be at very least related to aphobic ideals), but they’re rarely called broken. Celibacy is seen more as a respected, controlled ideal in allo people, but when ace people want to do it, they’re just mentally ill.

Anyway, the post was aphobic trash, and it needs to be debunked more often. Mocking ace people online is not a good look anymore, guys. Don't be ugly.

#discourse #queer discourse #LGBT discourse #Adventures in Aphobia #ace discourse #asexual discourse #aphobia #ace discrimination #asexual #asexuality #LGBT #queer #ace #rant #aphobes have no shame but they should #imagine having a brain smoother than a banana peel

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booasaur · 3 years

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God people being angry bc the Hera died and the girls survive is one of the things I kinda expect it but surprise me.

And another anon:

people really are being like "actually literally everyone other than the lesbians were the best characters in fear street and it should've focused on them instead, but I'm not homophobic or anything" i don't know why i'm surprised

I dunno that many God people would be angry if Hera died... :P

But yeah, I get it. You know what, I'm gonna address a bunch of the complaints and comments I've seen. First: where is the media literacy?! What do people think they're watching? It's a slasher, most people, including likable, fun best friends, will die.

And despite how often this happens, I am surprised each time. I guess in this case I at least expected that with leads, as rare as that is, THEN they'd get a certain inherent sympathy that leads get. But the issue is, Certain types of characters have to earn it. The viewer actually starts off a little bit against them, waiting for them to justify their selection over someone more default in Western media.

This happens for a variety of people, in all kinds of combinations: men (and even many women) find it difficult to get women's viewpoints, straight people toward LGB people, cis people toward trans, white people toward POC, POC toward other POC, especially Black people. Even within groups, darker skinned people find it harder and it took me a very long time to feel the same empathy for desi characters as for white (in case you don't read my bio, I am desi).

Even people who've had one queer experience may feel judgmental toward other queer people, like recently we've seen a rise in frustration and annoyance with closeted people, right. The biggest victim of Sam's struggle with homophobia is not Deena, or even Peter, it's Sam! So many people act like closeted people are manipulating others for the joy of it, like it's a secret because of selfishness and not a deeply traumatizing fear! They're never granted that empathy, though. I've seen people call Sam boring and undeserving, meanwhile she's the girl who showed huge personal growth, fully came out to her scary mom, has a fun lowkey sense of humor, and made the decision THREE TIMES this night to die!

Now to Deena. Again, the way people view her from the outside instead of thinking, oh no, she has to try to force pills down her gf's throat and then drown her while hearing her best friends be killed, now she has to pick between her brother and gf, hoping that she'll be able to save both but possibly losing them. You know what it is, it's such a lack of good faith toward these characters. I said sympathy and empathy above, but really, it's simply not believing them of being capable of the same emotions and feelings as everyone else. There's this suspicion and bad faith jump to the worst motivations.

Like, other characters do this all the time? Prioritizing saving a loved one? There is almost no concept more generally pushed forward by Western fictional media than "a group that sacrifices the few to save the many means they don't deserve saving the many"?? That love and teamwork will always win out, that you don't give up or give in, that against all odds, every effort should be made to save everyone?

Speaking of which, going back to media literacy, I love Kate and Simon, enough to say that before the official airing, but the moment they were ready to sacrifice Sam? These movies don't forgive that kind of selfishness. Like, okay, usually that comes from very obvious bad guys, the kind of smirking, bullying jock that Peter was, who would normally survive to be able to pull something exactly like this and then be killed right when he thought he'd escaped but the movie playing around with tropes doesn't mean it's completely ignoring them.

It's funny, people talk about how bold media like GOT, The Boys, Succession, etc, are but really, where's the boldness when you know your audience is gonna eat up your straight white people doing shitty things? It's stuff like this, wanting your audience to like characters they normally wouldn't and allowing them to be messy, that is far braver.

HAVING said all that....thanks for letting me vent the thoughts that've been percolating, lol, but I don't think we should dwell on this. As hard as that sounds, because the more mainstream this is, the more ubiquitous the discourse and it's obviously more than just fiction, it's about the real life ways real life people relate to us, and clearly I have had a lot of thoughts about itttt, but let's not let them ruin it, eh? Get your frustrations out and then just have fun.

It's not our responsibility to try to defend or promote the movie or even, really, try to get its ratings up. It's incredibly unfair that we have to do that and surely media producers and neutral consumers expect things like review bombing and lack of audience sympathy and factor it in. We get two more movies, it's their loss if they can't enjoy them.

#>_>#I didn't mean for it to get this long #but I've been thinking on it since the 5th #and seen the comments even before that #replies #femslash related stuff #sent on 20210705 #sent on 20210706 #Anonymous #fear street spoilers #fear street #fear street part 1: 1994 #deena x sam

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lassieposting · 3 years

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Bit late and random but it's the anon you leave food out for here to give away I am also bi and I think exactly the same as you about bi val pretty much, every time Derek offers me representation my reaction is to slowly, hesitantly take it and say "thaaaaaaaaanks..." while rolling my eyes, in much the same way one accepts their least favourite flavour of sweet from an annoyingly enthusiastic uncle-type-individual. Ironically I feel I had more in common with her before the bi shit started up.

What I find really amusing is that Landy actually did reasonably well at representation when (and only when) he wasn’t trying.

Oh god, this got long, anon, my ass rambled.

tldr; I'm glad actual bi people dislike bi val (or how Laundry handled bi val) as much as me, this will probably offend at least one person but i don't really care, Dirty Laundry wrote better rep when he didn't mean to write rep at all, and if he ever starts trying to "represent" groups I'm part of I'll take him out back like a dying horse and shoot him.

Like, yes. He had stupid and potentially offensive shit - I say potentially because what offends one member of a group won’t necessarily offend all of them. His attitude to mentally ill people is, frankly, disgusting. We’ve had “Skulduggery can’t be abused, he doesn’t have feelings��. We’ve had “eVeRyOnE iS bI eVeNtUaLlY”. We had Ping, who seemed to be pretty much universally offensive. And that's what's always going to happen when a straight, cis, white, wealthy, male author tries to write marginalised groups he doesn't know shit about, because inevitably he's going to fall back on stereotypes.

But we also had:

SEXUALITY REP: Phase One's nonstraight characters were treated like the straight ones, and like, isn't that the whole point? There was no need for a massive Coming Out Story TM to grab for those sweet sweet Woke Points, because sexuality isn't supposed to be important to mages. I never understood why Val needed that whole Coming Out Panic storyline. Like...Des and Melissa are ridiculously supportive, encouraging, loving parents. They accepted you dating a ~19 year old when you were ~16. They accepted you revealing you could do fucking magic and that you'd been lying to them for like seven years. They took your undead buddy in stride and the most pressing question your dad had was whether magic toilets exist. There is zero reason to think that "I'm bisexual" is gonna be the thing that makes them flip and throw you into the streets in disgrace, Valkyrie. Come on.

Tanith had girlfriends and it was just mentioned casually, because it's normal.

China had massive UST with Eliza. That was an opportunity right there to not only include a f/f relationship, but also to bring back one of the few precious surviving characters from Phase One, using characters and a relationship that already had several books' worth of setup and tension and interest from fans.

The Monster Hunters have a casual conversation about which one of the Dead Men they'd date.

Ghastly has a conversation with Fletcher about the pain he's been through being in love. He never uses any pronouns.

It was confirmed at one point re: the Dead Men that at this point, after 300-odd years, everyone's been with everyone else at some point.

Thrasher is gay, and while Scapegrace's...everything...is treated as a joke/comedic relief, Thrasher's love for him isn't. He's completely devoted to Scapegrace, and that in itself is not played for laughs, even though the rest of the scene usually is. Thrasher's description of their first meeting is essentially a love-at-first-sight situation for him.

"ABNORMAL" RELATIONSHIP REP: Age gap relationships are normal for mages. Off the top of my head, using only canon, canon-implied or almost-canon ships:

Ghastly/Tanith (~350 year age difference)

Tanith/Sanguine (~250+ year age difference)

Tanith/Saracen (~350 year age difference)

Caisson/Solace (~250 year age difference)

China/Gordon (~400 year age difference)

Kierre/Temper (~500+ year age difference)

If you include fan ships, there's also things like Mevolent/Serpine or my Mevolent/Vile, which are both ~600 year minimum age gaps based on the timeline, or Valdug (and its variations) which is ~400 years.

Now, whether you consider this kind of rep positive or negative is up to you, but it’s there.

MENTAL ILLNESS REP: more like "Which characters in this series don't have a mental illness or a personality disorder?" I have some of these issues, but not all of them, so this is just how I read it, but:

ADHD: Skulduggery

Dissociative Identity Disorder: Skulduggery & Vile

Dissociation: Skulduggery again, most notably in DD and DB

Schizophrenia (or similar): Valkyrie & Darquesse, Valkyrie "seeing" Darquesse's ghost thing in Phase Two

Impostor Syndrome: Reflectionie

Autism: Clarabelle

Trauma/PTSD/CPTSD: Skulduggery, Valkyrie, China, Ghastly, Erskine...pretty much everyone has a believable, understandable, morally grey trauma response in this series. People struggling with trauma are spoilt for choice of characters to see themselves in.

TRAUMA REP: This series is a trauma conga line, but everyone has a believable, understandable, morally grey trauma response in this series. I see little bits of myself in more than one Phase One character.

Childhood Abuse (of varying degrees & types): Skulduggery, Carol & Crystal, Omen, Fletcher, Ghastly, China, Bliss, Sanguine...

Estranged Family: Skulduggery abandoning his crest, Fergus & Gordon, China & Bliss

Bad Romantic Relationship: Skulduggery is also very clearly an abuse victim. He’s got a solid history of romantic attachments to women who manipulate, use and gaslight him for their own agendas. There's a whole paragraph in SPX about how Abyssinia broke him down, isolated him from his friends and preyed on his desperate need to be loved, all classic abuse tactics.

And I’m personally a huge fan of this backstory for two reasons:

1) Society likes a plucky victim in media. The "My suffering made me stronger" type of victim. And it's not always like that in real life. Not all survivors come out of their abuse stronger or kinder or more understanding. Some of us come out cold and fucked up. Some of us end up as emotionally stunted, bloodied-nails-and-bared-teeth survivors, broken in ways that can't be fixed and sustained by enough rage to power a small sun. But society doesn't like to tell the story of that kind of survivor, because we're not usually a likeable protagonist. When we're shown in media, we're usually the sympathetic villain, or maybe the antihero. But Skug is someone who's done awful things and lost pretty much all his faith in humanity and been burned more times than he can count, and he still makes the conscious choice to try and be the good guy when he could so easily go Evil Supervillain on the world, and I don't know about any of y'all, but I've modelled myself on him in that. I've made the choice to do something good when all I really want to do is just become a horrible, shrivelled ball of nastiness and revenge. And that's because I saw him do it and realised that I could do that too.

Skug is an incredibly capable, strong, masculine Man's Man. He gets in fights all the time, and he usually wins. He's military, an industry that's Really Bad for stigmatizing weakness and mental illness, and he's right up at the top of the hierarchy. Almost everyone is afraid of him. He's a straight up cold-blooded killer. Skulduggery Pleasant is precisely the type of person who's not normally portrayed as a victim of anything. Nothing about him screams "victim" at all. But his abuse history is insidious. He's so conditioned to respond in a certain way to abuse from the women in his life, probably from a very young age, that despite all that strength and capability and stubbornness and ego, he just goes along with it. And it's an established pattern going back hundreds of years. He keeps going back to China, even though he knows she's bad for him and his friends keep telling him to stay away from her. Abyssinia latched onto him when he was traumatized and vulnerable and weaponized it against him to make him easier to control - and when she reappears, hundreds of years later, she jumps straight back into using, tmanipulating and gaslighting him and not only does he let her, he doesn't even seem to realise that behaviour is abusive. He thinks it's normal! That's how he's always been treated by his long-term girlfriends, with the notable exception of Wifey. Even when Val is being fucking nasty to him in the first couple books of Phase Two, sniping and lying and blaming him for everything under the sun, he just takes it. There's no attempt to tell her she's being unreasonable, no telling her to fuck right off and give her head a wobble, no defending himself even when she's bitching over something that isn't even his doing. And this is a man who has an absolutely gleaming steel spine the rest of the time; Skug has no problem saying no to anybody else, but he can't get past the way he's been taught to treat the important ladies in his life. Skug is a walking reminder that anyone can be a victim of abuse, even the ones who seem least likely to be susceptible.

GENDER REP: This one is the most iffy out of the bunch and definitely was not done very well in the eyes of the people who matter most, but I'll include it anyway because it mattered to some.

So there's Nye, who's...agender? Genderless? And uses "it" pronouns? Nye was generally considered horrible rep because it's also a war criminal and experiments on people and I've seen people say "Well I don't want to be seen like that" but? It's still possible to be a war criminal and also genderless. I never saw the two things as being related or relevant to each other.

There's also Mantis, who's in exactly the same gender/pronouns boat as Nye and always seems to be forgotten about, which sucks because Mantis is a war hero. It fought for the Sanctuary during the War and they never lost a battle when it was in command. It's called out of retirement to fight for the Supreme Council in LSODM, ends up fighting alongside Skulduggery during the Battle of Roarhaven, and ultimately dies attempting a very brave, very risky strategy. Mantis is, unreservedly, one of the good guys. It was also my introduction to sentient beings using "it" pronouns, and did it in a way that felt natural, so when I met my first person online who used "it" pronouns and hated to be referred to as he/she, it was...weird, but not as weird as it would otherwise have been, because I was like, "Oh yeah, like the Crenga. Okay."

And then there's the Scapegrace sex change plotline, which...I might have an unpopular opinion on this one. From what I’ve seen, trans people don’t seem to think was handled well or with any sensitivity at all. I’m not trans, so if the trans community says he was being offensive to them, I’m not going to claim otherwise. But...I first read the Scapegrace plotline as a young teenager in a tiny rural school with zero diversity, going through a period of being deeply confused about my own gender identity. He was more or less my first introduction to the idea that genitals =/= gender. I was relieved, at that point in my life, to read someone having a lot of the same thoughts I was having about being in the wrong body. So while it may have been badly done and yeah, the series would probably have been better without it, it did make at least one kid suspecting she might not be cis go “Huh! So there are other people who feel like this.”

Thrasher is also implied to be legitimately trans/gender-questioning, and that's not played for laughs either.

So? Phase One, while it absolutely had faults and issues and things that were just "Oh god why", was actually full of rep, at least compared to the other series that I read as a child/teen. But? As soon as Dirty Laundry started trying to be woke? He fucking sucks ass at it. Aside from confirming Phase One's hints that Skug has a background of abusive relationships, every single attempt at shoehorning rep into Phase Two is Bad.

The painfully OOC, forced, badly-written awkwardness of Val suddenly being rabidly horny for women out of fucking nowhere. The stilted, forced cringiness between her and any of the women she's flirted with - contrast that with Sorrowscorn's interactions, full of natural chemistry that had us all like 👀 I mean, I never shipped Val/Melancholia, but I could always see why people did - they had miles more chemistry than Val/anyone in Phase Two.

The fucking mess that is v*litsa, because if someone says "I'm really not interested in friendships/relationships right now", clearly the route to true love is to bulldoze their boundaries and forcibly insert yourself into their life and proceed to treat them like a delicate soft uwu flower, completely ignoring the horrible things they've done, while gleefully damning their best friend as an irredeemable monster for the exact same things, which is. You know. Gonna affect your so-called love's self-confidence and self-esteem because she knows she's no different to him. Y'all know I love an angsty ship, an unhealthy ship, a ship with fucked power dynamics, but I literally cannot roll my eyes any further back in my head at this shit. I never read Demon Road, but from what I've heard from friends who did, it does seem like every time Laundry tries to write an f/f ship, he comes up with a cringey abusive/manipulative caricature and tries to call it rep, and he needs to Stop.

Val's Mental IllnessTM arc. It's funny how he wrote Skulduggery as a wonderfully complex character with deep-rooted psychological damage and long-lasting trauma, but believes he wrote a character with "no feelings" - but when he tries to delve into the damage the world of magic has done to Val, he turned her into a weak, whiny drug addict who treats everyone around her like garbage and is so selfish and dislikeable that I? Honestly can't even reconcile Phase Two val with Phase One val. They're two completely different people. He's shown on Twitter that he doesn't have any respect for mentally ill people, and it shows. Other mentally ill people might see it differently, but the whole thing just makes me go "yikes".

Never, who has no personality outside of being genderfluid, and whose pronouns make no sense. I'm sorry, I have never met an nb person who insists that you change from male to female pronouns multiple times in a sentence, every time you refer to them. It's confusing as fuck. Now I have been told that Never has apparently received some character development in the last couple books, and if so, fair play, but I quit reading after Midnight, and Never and the rest of the personality-less new characters introduced in Phase Two who just seemed to be 2D Stereotypes to snag Woke Points were a big part of why, so. Development too late, I'm afraid.

(Now, if anyone is looking for a well-written genderfluid character, I recommend the Tawny Man trilogy by Robin Hobb. I have a lot of issues with her as a writer, and unfortunately I hate her POV character which puts me off the series as a whole, but she wrote the Fool/Amber/Lord Golden and their gender identity/approach to sexuality with so much more respect and realism. That is the kind of rep nb people should be getting: 3D, complex, realistic characters whose gender is only a tiny fragment of their personality, not the be-all-and-end-all of their existence. You know. Like cis people get. Nobody wants to be represented by a 2D cardboard cutout stereotype.)

Anyway idk how much sense this makes it just really amuses me that Laundry would include all this rep completely unintentionally and then go on Twitter and remind us all that actually he's a massive asshole via insensitive/offensive tweets about the groups he'd actually done a fair job of including (i.e. Skulduggery has no feelings, mentally ill people should find another series to read, the bullshit about Val being "heteromantic bisexual" on Twitter and then spouting all the "the woman she loved uwu" shit in the books (proving he has no idea what he's talking about), eVeRyOnE iS bI eVeNtUaLlY. He can only write half-decent rep when he's not trying and he inevitably outs himself as having a really shitty attitude towards those people anyway, proving that ultimately it's all either unintentional rep or performative wokeness.

#skulduggery pleasant #sp meta #derek landy hate blog #Anon #fire message #anti valitsa #anti val #anti phase two tbh #phase two fans will not enjoy this post

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discyours · 3 years

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Sorry maybe this ask is TMI so if you don't want that you can delete it .

Do you think that people who are attracted to transgender people (gynandromorphilia) have fetishes? I used to think it was transphobic because it implies that male or female individuals who appear androgynous are unnatural. But maybe it is more transphobic to deny the existence of this. Most of the harm of the sex industry is directed at females, the sex industry is anti woman. But as for the minority of MtF transgender individuals who exist and face abuse, the men who buy sex from them are not normal people. They are very deranged. Maybe it is not specifically the secondary sexual characteristics but something else. This is all without mentioning the men who get off to the idea of abusing FtM transgenders to "correct them". Surely this can't be ignored but maybe you can enlighten me you are more experienced with the transgender community. danke

I'll answer this but I do think a trans woman/detrans man could answer better than I can.

Personally I do think many (absolutely not all) of them have a kink/fetish. Not one specifically about trans people, but one that's directed at trans people because they're a good fit for it. Keep in mind I am not and have never been a trans woman. I don't know who approaches them in bars or matches with them on tinder. All I've seen is the barrage of men who join online trans groups with no introduction other than the ever-charming "I like trans".

If you've ever had the displeasure of being involved in the kink community, you'll know that a "forced bi" kink is relatively common among submissive men. A lot of them are bisexual men with internalised homophobia who want to be able to engage in that side of their sexuality without feeling "responsible" for it. They want an attractive woman to charm or even coerce them into engaging in sex acts with a man. That way the attraction to men that they don't want to acknowledge isn't actually a factor, and if they do end up enjoying it they can just tell themselves they're being great subs for their female dommes, which makes the whole thing super heterosexual if anything (/s). I don't think all of the men who have this kink are actually bi, some of them are straight but have terminal porn addictions that have left them completely detached from their real sexuality. If they actually ended up in a situation where they're about to fuck a guy, they'd snap out of it. Knowing they got so close to going through with it would come with a whole lot of shame, and anger at anyone else involved. And we all know that angry men who feel that they have been humiliated can be incredibly dangerous.

Both of these groups will end up gravitating towards trans women because it's a 2 for 1 deal on the element that allows them to tell themselves it's straight, and the element that isn't. Transphobia adds an extra element of taboo that's enticing to these types of people. One reason why the statement that trans people shouldn't trick or pressure people into having sex with them is met with so much backlash is because trans women literally feel like they're being gaslit. Imagine constantly meeting men who very clearly know that you're trans, who fetishise you for it, whose fetish includes an incredibly transparent narrative that you're "tricking" or "forcing" them into this, only to then be told by people from what's meant to be your own community that that's genuinely what you do to people. I don't need anyone to respond to this with a collection of screenshots of trans people saying rapey shit, I'm aware that it happens and I'm not defending it. But this is why even trans people who aren't like that at all tend to dismiss those types of accusations as bullshit. It's because they've already gotten them thrown at them by horny men who very much were lying to suit themselves.

As for men who fetishise trans men, I think it's some of the same (bi men wanting to explore their sexuality while still having a "ok but it's straight tho" excuse) but it's mostly pedophelia. I have a major bias here because I identified as trans from 16-18/19ish, so the grown men who were attracted to me would've been on thin ice even if I'd been cis. But I do think the fact that trans men tend to be smaller and younger looking than cis men regardless of their age often attracts pedophiles. That seems to be way more common than forced feminisation type kinks. My experience when I was trans was that to straight men it really didn't matter as long as they saw my body before they saw my face (I did get rejected a few times because they saw my face first and thought I was male), whereas bi/"gay" men who expressed attraction to me did care, and specifically found it very appealing that I was able to look like a young boy. I'm sure that other trans men have different experiences with this though, especially ones who medically transitioned and weren't teenagers the entire time they identified as trans.

Nothing I've mentioned here involves "real life" experiences because I live in a rural area with essentially no LGBT community and I find men too gross to engage with them IRL, so that undoubtedly affects my view too. If any trans/detrans people have something to add I welcome you to do so, because again my perspective is limited.

#anon #kind of a nitpick but please never say ''transgenders'' to refer to people #I realise it's the norm in some languages but it comes off as dehumanising

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kevin-day-is-bi · 3 years

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idk this might be a ☆controversial opinion☆ or something, but just because something is popular or controlled by a megacorp doesnt mean it’s “bad”. this goes for media and pretty much anything else. basically don’t shame people for liking things, specifically media. there are 3 mindsets i see pretty often, all of which are fairly toxic to varying degrees.

(Note: all of these are my own beliefs and thoughts. i dont want to speak for everyone; this is my moral stance. also this got long)

(Note #2. i am fully guilty of doing all of these at some point in time)

the first is cancel culture. i am of the pretty firm mindset that you’re the only one who should control what you consume. if you know that, lets say a musician is advocating for something homophobic, but you absolutely adore their music, listening to it doesnt make you a bad person. buying their albums doesn’t make you a bad person. being touched by their music doesnt make you a bad person. just because they are doing something against your morals/beliefs/identity, doesnt mean you should instantly cut off all contact with their media. why? first off, people make mistakes. that person might have a change of heart, or be educated on why what they did was wrong, or something else. if everyone immediately stops consuming their media, a teaching moments might never happen. #2, the more obvious reason. it’s your media experience. by listening to their music, you are not saying you support every single thing they’re saying. all it means is that theyre good at their job. ie producing music

the second mindset: cringe culture. ohh boy i dislike cringe culture. lets roll with the earlier example. let’s say you really like a musician. their music helped you through a rough time, or you really connect to it, or it just bops. this musician is really mainstream, like everyone has heard of them (think Taylor Swift kind of big). lets say you go to your friend, vibrating with excitement, and tell them you’re excited about the musician’s new album. they scoff, and call you basic for liking them, and say you jumped on the bandwagon. why was that bad? 1, my point earlier, its your media experience. you like the music. there is literally nothing wrong with that. 2, which is the point that always awes me. if the musician is really popular, and you like them, it doesnt mean youre basic or that you jumped on the bandwagon. it means one thing and one thing alone. they’re good at their job, which is producing music multiple people like.

(supernatural, sherlock, doctor who, hunger games, etc are not bad because theyre liked by a lot of people. it’s the job of the creators to make them be popular)

which brings me to my third mindset. this one is a lot less toxic, but if you push it on people as a necessity or hold yourself above others cause you do it, it’s toxic. Consuming media critically. it’s good to consume media with an eye out for negative messages, but it’s not always necessary. I’m going to use a new example. if you read a book that has a fairly non-diverse cast (ie mostly white, men, able-bodied, straight, cis, etc) and you like it, and use it as an escape or just a fun read, you are not required to go read or write a dissertation on how not-diverse it is. you are not required to know the full motivation of the writer. as a not cis, not straight, disabled girl, i do not see myself reflected in media often. i can still consume media that doesn’t feature characters like me, and i can do it without having to defend it as Reading With A Critical Eye. If you like doing that, props to you! it’s sometimes interesting to read your dissertations and think of things i hadn’t before. but if you say everyone should do it, or that they’re a bad reader if they don’t, that’s toxic. why? because 1, for some, consuming media is an escape from a world where they must constantly view things critically. 2, if a piece of media is very near and dear to someone’s heart, informing them all the ways it could be problematic is hurtful.

tldr, a person controls their own media consumption, and is not required to demonstrate they regret it’s popular, may have problematic content, or that the creators may be reprehensible

And y’all, have fun! enjoy your shows and movies and books, let yourself be lost, and try not to let the negative parts of fandoms get you down! There’s good bits in everything, and don’t be afraid to block people who give you a negative experience.

(ps, i know there are exceptions to every rule. i go through life and try not to involve myself too heavily in these mindsets, but sometimes there is media where you have to consume it critically, or where you have to state the fact that the author very firmly sucks)

(pps, I’m sorry for inconsistent grammer or spelling, i cut my thumb and typed this mostly one handed)

#idk what to tag this #fandom?#anti cancel culture #anti cringe #rant

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letsoulswander · 4 years

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What if you've thought about this for a long time and done lots of self examination and still find that your individual sexuality doesn't include desire for somebody who has a particular set of genitalia or secondary sex characteristics? Like I've really tried. It just leaves me cold, and I know I'm far from alone. Feels weird to be constantly called a bigot for something that is so personal, and that I cannot change 🤷

(I’m assuming this ask is in response to my reblogging this, from @cipheramnesia)

It’s funny that you are asking me this, anon, because I’m both ace and trans- what people have in their pants doesn’t really play much role for me in the grand scheme of things.

I’ve spent a lot of personal time researching sexual attraction, how it works, what it feels like. I’ve asked people to tell me about it and I’ve observed how they interact with it. It’s a feeling I experience very infrequently, if at all, so it’s endlessly fascinating to me.

I’ve also spent a lot of time researching gender identity, dysphoria, euphoria, and the roles they play in peoples’ lives. I’ve spent a lot of time talking to trans people about their experiences as trans people, and I’ve lived my whole life as a trans person.

Given these, I like to think those identities and their overlap gives me a unique perspective to talk about this kind of thing. Please keep in mind that I am not every trans person, every ace person, or every queer person.

Now I’m going to take a page out of Hannah Gadsby’s book, and set your expectations. In other words, here’s a TLDR:

Your sexuality/attraction probably isn’t specifically focused on genitals.

If you’re uncomfortable being called a bigot, ask yourself if you’re behaving like one.

Genitals are gross. People who find them gross still sleep with them, because they’re attracted to the rest of the person.

Even if you specifically have attraction for a specific genital type, you’re probably not going to meet many people genital-first.

“Secondary sex characteristics” that are associated with cis men appear in cis women, and ones that are associated with cis women appear in cis men, naturally.

Your attraction probably has room for things other than the specific look/feel/shape of the genitals of your partner. Consider that any partners you take, or people you feel attraction for, exist outside of any sexual activities you do together (which may or may not involve taking off your pants).

Homework: Examine, please, why you are so focused on genitalia as a deciding factor in your sexuality. It might be the people around you or the people who helped you come out, but it’s important to consider why you think these hypothetical genitals will make or break your potential relationships.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s begin.

To start: I’m sorry that someone has made you think that your sexuality is only specifically about genitals. It really sucks. Correlating genitals to sexuality has been used for a long time to defend anything from “not exposing” children to non-straight/cis content, to denying health care and housing to people “because we don’t want people doing that, here”.

(Because queer and non-cishet identities are all About Sex and the genitals involved, obviously.)

It sounds like you’re bothered by this topic. Maybe it’s just because you are uncomfortable with being called a bigot, or maybe you actually are a bigot. I don’t know you. I’m going to respond as if it’s the first, because I know there are probably a couple people who follow me with similar concerns.

What I do know is, to put it bluntly, the argument that “my sexuality doesn’t allow for this set of genitals/secondary sex characteristics” is one that gets thrown around in a lot of anti-trans rhetoric, and it’s poison. So lets break down why someone might hear you say that, and then think you are a bigot.

Genitals are gross. I’ve asked people who are REALLY INTO GUYS, who have slept with guys, and have been told (by multiple people!) that penises are weird, and not that sexy. I did then ask, of course, “why do you have sex with them then?” The answer I got was because... apparently, they were also attracted to the rest of the guy. Who knew, right?

I’ve also asked people who are REALLY INTO GIRLS, who have slept with girls, and have been told (again, by multiple people) that vulvas are weird, and not that sexy. Their answer to why they have sex with a body part that’s not that sexy? Also attraction to the rest of the girl.

Why do I mention these? Because even people who are REALLY attracted to a specific gender aren’t (generally) all that invested in the genitals of their partners. I don’t know what kind of life you live, anon, but unless you exclusively meet your partners/people you find attractive via cam-girl tapes or porn, chances are you’ve met and been attracted to at least a couple of trans people who have transitioned, people you would never expect to have (insert binary genital type here).

Let’s talk about secondary sex characteristics. You’re familiar with terms like AGAB/AFAB/AMAB? If you’re not, google them (all together so they come up with the correct definitions). I’ll wait.

Okay, now that you know what they mean, let’s use a hypothetical. Imagine a baby girl is born, and the doctor looks and says “it’s a girl!” Everything looks fine. She grows up, gets her period, examines her gender identity and decides that she is cis.

Now, the secondary sex characteristics people tend to expect from cis women after puberty include a moderately high voice, soft skin, rounded facial features. Socially, women are also pressured to remove body hair and have long hair on their heads, and to move in certain ways to be “ladylike” or “sexy” or “demure” or whatever. Also, generally, people associate vulvas with “ability to get pregnant”.

But lots of cis women don’t fit those! Google Indian or Israeli or Arabic women, who are genetically more likely to have thicker and darker facial and body hair. Google PCOS or endometriosis, which can cause deepening voice, increased and darker facial/body hair, fertility issues and pain. Google vaginismus, which makes PIV sex very painful or impossible. There are posture issues and disabilities that make moving fluidly tricky, and disorders (like hyperthyroidism) that make your head hair fall out or thin. These are all secondary sex characteristics.

The issue I take with your dismissal of “certain secondary sex characteristics” is that, well, they’re secondary. Each body responds differently to genetics and environment both. There are cis men with soft skin, sparse body hair, long head hair, men with high voices and more fluid mannerisms and softer facial features, as well. These not indicators that the person in question is Actually Secretly Trans and is out to hoodwink you.

The argument you’ve brought to me seems to be “I don’t like x genital, therefore I couldn’t sleep with/be attracted to someone who is not cis”. I invite you to, instead of wondering about what genitals you are “attracted to”, consider what kind of person you like. Are they funny? Smart? Beautiful? Handsome? A mix of all of those? Do they tell you jokes? Help you with chores? Are they kind to you?

Honestly, anon, I don’t care who you are attracted to or who you sleep with. I’m not telling you that you need to be attracted to people you don’t find attractive.

But I strongly, strongly urge you to consider why the hypothetical genitals of the people around you are so important to you. Maybe you should reconsider whoever you’re hanging out with, who’s asking you these questions, because I doubt they have your best interest at heart, or the best interest of the trans people around you.

We get attacked, around the world, every day because of our genitals. People police us all the time, want us to “man up” or “be ladylike”, either to pass better or to force us to commit to play the role of cis for the rest of our lives. But the cure for this is NOT tapping out the moment trans people - and our genitals - are brought up and complaining that “I just don’t find (insert genital) sexy!”

As Cipher noted (in that post waaay back at the top of this thing), she’s married to someone who doesn’t particularly like penises, but loves her dearly, and Cipher, in turn, also isn’t a fan of her own. I promise you, anon, I promise you, genitals are strange, and love is stranger. Don’t put your attraction on the fulcrum of “what genitals I will sleep with”. (Note: you also don’t have to sleep with whoever you’re into, I promise, take it from an ace person who doesn’t have sex and still has a lovely time with the people I’m into.)

Instead, here’s a little homework: Consider what is attractive to you about the people you like, and try to let go of the idea of what does or doesn’t constitute a man or woman. Including genitals, sure, but also including secondary sex characteristics. Trust me. It’s worth the work.

#Anonymous #asks #improving #under a readmore because I wrote ~1400 words in response #anon I hope this actually helps you. sorry I took three weeks to write it out #I have been VVV busy #and had no wifi for a good bit #transgender #attraction #sexuality

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homenum-revelio-hq · 4 years

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Welcome (again) to the Order of the Phoenix, Seb!

You have been accepted for the role of MADALÉINA WARREN with the faceclaim of Sirena Warren! We really enjoyed how Maddy, while being a fighter against injustice, is also still a young adult. We truly can’t wait to see how she blossoms into herself and finds out who she really is as a person. We also love that she’ll be joining the ranks as a Muggleborn witch, as this is a group fighting for people of her blood status and doesn’t actually have many of them within their organization. So excited to have her on the dash!

Please take a look at the new member checklist and send in your account within 24 hours! Thank you for joining the fight against Voldemort!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME & PRONOUNS: Seb he/him

AGE: 21+ (not getting younger, lads!)

TIMEZONE: GMT+1

ACTIVITY LEVEL: I’m here! Usually I’d do at least a round of replies every morning (either 1 reply per character or a full round of 1 character) but at times I’m a bit anxious about spamming people with too many of my replies at once, so I hold off. And now that I’m on a holiday until October 15th, I’ll definitely be able to keep that regularity going so what am I to do? Find another roleplay? Never!

ANYTHING ELSE: Triggers, still: under-water sequences

CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME: Madaléina “Maddy” Warren

AGE: 18

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY:

Cis female. She/Her. Hetero.

To turn things around a bit, I like to think that Maddy is quite endeared by the idea of being bisexual, of just loving everyone and anyone regardless of their gender, and she definitely clings to the girl-crushes she had, but really, she’s just straight. She hasn’t had any serious relationships yet but I think the day she meets the right guy, she’ll realise that those feelings are very different from infatuation. For a while it’ll make her seek the same emotional depth with a woman for a while, but eventually she’ll realise that she’s fully straight. This being said, she was raised Irish-Catholic and this whole ‘I’m open-minded and bisexual!’ might ironically stem from that; a way to distance herself from the conservative world around her. So it’s less observation-based and more a head thing, where she’d just rather want to be on the side of the ostracised than the ostracis..ers.

BLOOD STATUS: Muggleborn.

HOUSE ALUMNI: Hufflepuff.

ANY CHANGES: No, please stay the way you are!

CHARACTER BACKGROUND:

PERSONALITY:

Maddy’s heart is big, open, and full of love. That is the first thing you must know.

She sees the good in people before anything else, and when there is no good, she dreams of planting it into their hearts, seed by seed, smile by smile. She’s the epitome of ‘kill them with kindness, giving everyone second, third and fourth chances, and truly believing that everyone can change for the better, that no one deserves death, that everyone deserves a friendly hand, helping them. The second thing you must know, is that she’s a clever little fox, and when she asks: What Would Jesus Do?, she doesn’t mean the glorified white Jesus people misuse for the prejudiced bullcrap, but the actual Jewish Jesus who yelled at the rich and kissed prostitutes regardless of their reputation. She’s got an innate sense of justice, and it can turn her into an American Honey Badger if ever she encounters someone being treated unfairly. The third thing you must know, is that she’s still very much searching for herself. She knows who she wants to be, she knows she wants to spread love and eradicate injustice in the world, but in between those goals, she’s an 18-year-old mess who’s not really good at what she’s doing. One minute she’s talking about the importance of unity amongst the Order, the next minute she’s talking about how cool it would be if they all wore the yellow-black X-Men uniform. One minute she’s angry about big corporations exploiting the poor, the next minute she’s babbling about how much she loves coca cola. One minute she’s talking feminism and how every woman should be allowed to do what she wants, the next minute she scoffs at a roommate wearing too short of a mini-skirt. She’s young, Christ-damnit – oh yes, she also truly struggles with cursing in a non blasphemous way – but she’s trying.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY:

Derry, 1972. The infamous key-event of The Troubles of Northern Ireland called Bloody Sunday, which caused the IRA to grow and radicalise further, makes the mother of 9 children a widow. The youngest of those 9 children has just been born in the hospital and Maddy is watching over the other younger siblings with only mild interest – after all, the Addams Family is on TV! – and she knows not to expect her mother to come home before tomorrow night. What she doesn’t know, however, is that while her mother returns, her father never does.

From that day on, the Warrens’ life is no longer the same. Were they a wild, jumbled bunch of messy but cheerful people, they are now scraping at the stone of their personal rock bottom hell. Maddy’s older siblings are off to find work, so is their mother, and Maddy is left to slowly become a second mum to her younger siblings.

Before that, she was one of many, forgotten and forced to scream and scratch for attention – now there’s not even that much left. Who she is doesn’t matter, what she wants doesn’t matter. All that matters is that the family survives, and a fun and quirky personality brings laughter but not bread to the table, so what’s it really worth?

The TV is sold, so are all of Maddy’s comic books and the cool earrings she got for Christmas. When it’s time to even sell her father’s clothes, she steals the jeans jacket he was shot in, never bothering to repair the hole on its back. A reminder, perhaps, of the injustice in the world. Of how dangerous it is, to let people know who you really are. No one notices. No one ever notices what she’s doing. Much like the big jeans jacket eats her entire frame, her father’s death overshadows everything she once was. By the age of 10, she’s lost her identity and personality, becomes ‘one of the many Warren children’, and people in the streets address her by her father’s name, not her own. And then she turns 11. It’s Dumbledore himself who appears in her living room, explaining Maddy everything, and her mother cries the whole time through. Why? That’s something Maddy learns only a few years later. And quite frankly, in that moment? She doesn’t want to know. Here is a real whole Wizard who looks like Gandalf the Wise and says she’s a Witch and says she’s special and says she has a life away from all of this. And then he says: “It’s okay to be scared,” and Maddy hears herself admit that, yes, she is a little scared. After all, she wasn’t raised to be special.

Suddenly she’s an individual, her own person, and the possibilities are endless. Who does she want to be? What’s the plan? Where will this adventure lead her to, and why is no one there to guide her? She’s lost. Alone and lost. Her dream has become a nightmare. Her first year, she is focusing on being a good Witch at Hogwarts, carrying the burden of her destiny as good as she can while keeping her head low and fearing the sound of her own name. It’s only been a bit less than a year since her father died, but a year in the life of an 11-year-old is a lot, and it scarred Maddy. Hogwarts isn’t a big school, people quickly know her, that Irish Mudblood, as they call her, and even though she hears the snarl in their voice she’s too afraid to correct them. “What is it, muddy Mudblood? Don’t know how to use your wand to defend yourself?” Then the Summer holidays come. She’s can’t wait to be back home, one of many, ‘one of the Robert Warren kids’, back in anonymity. But it’s too late. Things have changed. She’s the special one now here, too. In Derry, people know her as the girl who got a scholarship in a private school in Scotland; everyone is proud of her. Her older siblings are glad they don’t have to feed yet another hungry mouth all the time, to see at least someone get out of here unharmed. And her younger siblings have, for the first time in years, hope in their own future again. Hope that they, too, might become special at the age of 11. None of them are.

Maddy remains the only Witch of her family.

For a while, as the years pass, she tries to fit in even better. Look less catholic, speak less witchy, smell less like a Mudblood. She’s long stopped screaming and scratching for attention but now she’s actively trying to never stand out. And why would she want to? The English don’t care about the beauty of the green. The Muggles don’t understand the full scope of the marvel that the Wizarding World holds in store. And the Purebloods can’t even grasp the greatness of using a damn – sorry! – telephone. People live and exist in in- and out-groups, and the walls are high, causing cold wars in the world and amongst possible friends. She’s special, yes, but in a way no one truly understands, and she realises that there is loneliness in being different. And that’s when Maddy, fourteen years old, walks into the second-floor bathroom at Hogwarts and into a long-deceased family member: Myrtle Warren. Her father’s sister and her mother’s childhood best friend. Killed by bloodpurist ideologies. Safe, nowhere, not even in the hopeful life she’d been promised here. And Maddy understands. People die because they’re different. It’s not just lonely. It’s dangerous. But ducking one’s head and letting the un-different people rule will never undo the danger. Only being visibly different, outspoken, unashamed of one’s specialness can tear down the walls and help people familiarize themselves with the cultures on the other side. She’s special, goddamnit – sorry! – and she’d rather die teaching people how beautiful that is rather than pretending she’s not! With determination, she puts her wooden cross back around her neck. Stuffs her Wolverine T-shirt into her jeans, tosses her dad’s jeans jacket over her shoulders. Then she marches up to the Slytherin table and smashes her fist into Avery’s face. “See, the thing is, we Mudbloods don’t need a wand to defend ourselves.” So, while the war in Northern Ireland gets worse and worse, Maddy makes a name for herself at Hogwarts by selling Muggle-trinkets (sending the money home), playing on the Quidditch team, excelling in various classes and just being a good sport altogether. People listen to her ideas and even laugh at her jokes, and she makes sure to learn about everyone else’s specialness as well. After all, if everyone realised they’re worth of attention and love, maybe they’d grant the same blessing to others as well, and no one would have to fear being different anymore.

Nowadays, cheer has returned to her family. With four children out of the house and two already capable to work, the Warrens are much more relaxed, enjoying watching everyone’s path unfold, while still waiting curiously to see if the youngest, Robert Jr., will receive a letter for his 11th birthday or not. Some resent never having received their letters, others are just happy for Maddy, and others prefer not to think about it at all. What matters is that they’re now all individuals thinking for themselves, allowing each other, at times together, to be happy. And all would be good… Only that Maddy’s no longer part of it now, is she?

OCCUPATION:

Entrepreneur (Business for Muggle-trinkets sold in the magical world).

What started as an act of desperation (bringing ballpens to Hogwarts) suddenly turned into its whole own thing, where first Muggleborns begged for more objects from home and then the other kids got interested in it, too. Seeing how Hogwarts’ magic didn’t let electronics function properly, those objects were usually of mechanical banality or just plain cultural stuff like magazines, blotting paper, alarm clocks, a special type of cereals, etc.

Maddy was more than ready to stop her business after graduating, but the fact that her clients graduated along with her and now still preferred her shop than hunting through Muggle cities for the things they never really had to buy for themselves in seven long years just had her continue the thing. And now, since she has to make money somehow, she’s looking into buying an empty shop at Diagon Alley.

ROLE WITHIN THE ORDER/THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ORDER:

Maddy was attracted to the Order by Maurice’s radio show and his subcultural references calling out for more Muggleborns to join the war. In all honesty, up until that point, she wasn’t really aware that a war was going on..? She understood that she was being discriminated against, and that Muggleborns were fleeing the country, but, Jesus – sorry! – she’d grown up in Derry, a bit of oppression is neither a proof of war nor a reason to run away, is it? But when she learnt that there was a vigilante group trying to fix the racist bullcrap that was going on, she found herself quite interested. “I don’t really know what I bring to the table, though,” she told Maurice after meeting him before anyone else, and he replied: “You bring perspective, and that’s exactly what we need.”

She doesn’t really support the more radical notions of some Order members, and would rather see them figure out a peaceful way to end the war (the idea of seeing someone be shot in the back like they did it to her father is haunting her at all times, unfortunately) but she knows that not doing anything won’t fix things either. And at least these people understand the beauty of diversity. In fact, she’s more than proud of the Purebloods who have joined the cause, and takes it as proof that everyone can change if given the chance.

She’s still very new in the Order (therefore still full of hope) and is mostly trying to find her footing. But I think it won’t take long until she will come forth with her first pro-active, constructive suggestions: it’ll be less about killing Voldemort and more about educating those who could become potential followers. Teaching them of the Muggle World, of how fun the culture can be, how there’s not such thing as blood dilution, etc, perhaps going all the way to even dismantle the Statue of Secrecy.

SURVIVAL:

She lives in a flat with some Muggleborn and Halfblood friends in Muggle London. Gerry and Charlie started a university degree and Kathy is currently doing an internship at the Ministry of Magic. None of them really know what’s going on, what they’re doing, and how to subscribe to a newspaper, so while they do face daily discrimination in the Wizarding World (very much a reason why Gerry and Charlie went back to the Muggle World for the time being), they haven’t really paid attention to fixing it yet. And while Maddy knows it’ll be a bit difficult to keep the Order thing a secret from them, she also knows that they wouldn’t really care. In a way, that’s what’s also keeping them safe: they’re just a bunch of kids, so no one would ever suspect Maddy to be a danger to society. Right?

RELATIONSHIPS:

As you just saw above, there will definitely be a strain put on Maddy’s relationship with her friends. She knows that she’ll eventually have to leave them, if the secret becomes too much of a burden or Death Eaters could put them at danger just for being close to her, or tell them the truth and let them decide whether they want to join the Order as well or not. In a way, she already knows they won’t. After all, they chose to go back to the Muggle World for a reason. The same goes for her family – who, admittedly, are less close to her these days, but who are still very much family, and she’d never forgive herself if something happened to them. Other than that, I think joining the Order will open a lot of new relationships, seeing how Maddy will be surrounded by people who are equally as invested in wanting to make the world a better place.

The Bang Gang (Chaos Trio): Maddy went to school with them and has a complicated relationship with them. By the type of personality, she’s similar to Dorcas, her roommate, and you’d think that’s a great basis for a friendship. But that’s definitely not what happened. From the day Dorcas revealed herself to be more on the ‘I’ma fight everyone!’ type, Maddy decided to go against that and be of the ‘I’ma befriend everyone!’ type. The Bang Gang seems loud and obnoxious and not at all on the peace-path to fix discrimination with love. No wonder the Order is so radical! Sure, deep down, Maddy admires them at least a little, for being so cool and brave, but on the outside she’s mostly annoyed. After all, if Maddy had wanted to join a terrorist group, she could’ve picked the IRA.

Caradoc: Big Grumpy Man, Maddy is not a fan. While he’s surprisingly civil to her, compared to many other Order members, she doesn’t agree with his radical notions. Sure, Purebloods are the ones who started it all, but Christ – sorry! – give them a chance to change! It’s not by antagonising them that you will end up making friends. From the outside, their relationship must look like a tiny dog yapping at a benevolent old man who just smiles back with patience.

Dedalus: Funky Funny Man has a shop on Diagon Alley, and while Maddy absolutely despises Wizarding Candy, she wonders if the flamboyant (and very handsome) Wizard might want to give her a corner of his shop for her to set up her own. Just until she has enough money scraped together to buy her own shop. And if the poor Muggleborns entering this world had to suffer through ear-wax jelly beans, then it’s about time that Purebloods experience the greatness that is Muggle candy.

Maurice: Feisty Pretty Man is the one who attracted Maddy to the Order. His voice drew her in, his face made her stay. Who can blame her? When she asked him what the Order could possibly want from her, he said: “Perspective”, and it was what Maddy needed to realise that her whole thing about changing the world one kind deed at a time might’ve just found a home to grow in. Whether Maurice knows it or not, he’s become her mentor, and Maddy couldn’t look at him with any more heart-eyes if she were a cartoon.

OOC EXPLORATION:

SHIPS/ANTI-SHIPS:

I direly need Maddy to have a crush on every boy she encounters, be they gay or racist. I don’t care how far it gets (I don’t think she really wants anything serious anyway, even if she whines about being single all the time) or how many rejections she’ll receive, I just need her to constantly be distracted by the urge to snog, thank you.

WHAT PRIVILEGES AND BIASES DOES YOUR CHARACTER HAVE?

I think by nature of who they are, how they grew up, Muggleborns are less prejudiced towards people and creatures from the Wizarding World. Because on the one hand, everything is weird and different to them, on the other, it’s just fairy tales! Werewolves are cool as hell – sorry! – why would you be mean to them?! Why not befriend them and learn everything about them! And while obviously Maddy finds herself kind of tense around Purebloods, it’s not at all an innate thing like her hate towards the English. And then there’s the whole thing where she believes in the good in everyone that just makes her actively fight any prejudices she might have. So while I’m sure she’s free of bias, I think of all my characters, she’s the most open-minded one.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? Listen.

PLOT DROP IDEAS:

For Maddy: - have her fight for a spot on Diagon Alley while bloodpurists try to keep her from it. - have her kill the Basilisk at Hogwarts (it’s personal, okay) - have her get some snogs - make up with Dorcas and Benjy? For the RP: - telephone station at House of Bones for Maurice to actually receive responses from the Muggleborns he calls out to (Pride style) - Generally a branch of the DTF actively recruiting Muggleborns (and it causing discussions in the Order) - maybe a law passing at the Ministry related to her shop in Diagon Alley, taking away the right for Muggleborns to have their own shops, and the Order managing to prevent the law from passing (but before they manage, perhaps there’s a surge of refugees the DTF has to take care of?)

ANYTHING ELSE?

Maddy is Low-Level. I’d say she joined fairly recently, seeing how Maurice’s radio show plot hasn’t even been made official yet. So maybe Dedalus’ plan of that buddy-system [x (first paragraph)] for new Order members could take effect on her as a test dummy? :’ D

EXTRA FOR NON-BIO CHARACTERS:

PAST: Born and raised as an Irish Catholic in Derry during The Troubles of Northern Ireland, young Maddy learnt from a young age that there are people who will kill you based on something you cannot control. Born and raised amongst a family of nine children, however, she also learnt that being different is a gift and not something you should hide. Being the same as everyone else, one of many, might make life easy, but it certainly doesn’t make life honest and good. This realisation came when she met the ghost of her aunt in the second-floor bathroom at Hogwarts – known as Moaning Myrtle; Maddy didn’t know why she was the only one of her siblings to have been granted magical powers, but she sure as hell – sorry for the swearing! – understood in this very moment that keeping a low profile like Myrtle had done fifty years ago would neither protect her life, nor change the world for the better. Thus, in the span of four years, she grew to be the most honest version of herself that she could possibly be: an Irish Catholic Muggleborn Witch with a love for superhero comics. Selling Muggle trinkets at Hogwarts (ranging from ballpens to comic books) she was known as the proud Hufflepuff who knew how to befriend about anyone. ‘Kill them with kindness’ became her motto, and while she still had a lot to learn regarding how to be as self-assured as she liked to present herself to be, she was, for the most part, succeeding in her mission to introduce Purebloods to Muggle culture, building bridges for those two worlds in ways she knew she’d never be able to do it for the English and the Irish at home.

PRESENT: The cat who dragged her into the Order was Maurice Creevey and his radio show. Her “What do I possibly have to offer them, though?” was answered with a “Perspective,” and it was all she needed to hear to be convinced. Had he said ‘your wits’, ‘your optimism’, or ‘the stakes you have in this war,’, she would’ve declined and gone back home to her Muggleborn flatmates who have turned their back to the Wizarding World after graduating from Hogwarts. But he said: “Perspective”, and that was the one thing Maddy has always believed is in her range of capabilities. After all, she does have a different perspective on it all, and she is more than willing to teach people of this perspective, of her side of the story, to make them empathise and want to tear down the walls of cultural divide alongside with her. She firmly believes that everyone could be friends if they only understood each other, and she’s not afraid to grab her megaphone to have communication happen. Either way, she does not care for another war like there is at home, does not care at all for seeing more people she loves be killed by being shot in the back, the way it happened to her father in 1972. So her main focus right now (except finding an empty place in Diagon Alley to set up her Muggle shop) is to identify the more radical members of the Order and explain to them that they shouldn’t hurt anyone on behalf of the Muggleborns, or there will be direct retaliation against exactly those. And once she’s got them in her pocket, she wants to update the Hogwarts curriculum to educate Wizards about Muggles to finally end the divide – and perhaps even the Statue of Secrecy, one day.

FC CHOICES: Sirena Warren as found here: [x], [x], [x]. Alternatively: Meta Gewald [x], [x], [x] or Faith Jaggernauth [x], [x], [x] . I must admit, none of them have very good resources, though…

#homenumaccepted

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direquail · 5 years

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An NB reading of Grace in Terminator: Dark Fate

Disclaimer:

Before I start, just want to get this out here: I’m in no way insisting that Grace *has* to be non-binary, that we’re *supposed* to read her as non-binary, or that that’s in any way what she’s “meant to be”. This is just some stuff I’ve noticed that, as someone who sits on the genderqueer/non-binary/transmasc side of things, really resonated with me. Again--read her as entirely woman-identified if that’s what you want to do or feels right to you. I am ecstatic that lesbians and wlw-identified folks have someone that they feel represented in, too. I wish I’d had more characters like her when I was growing up and felt so out of place because of my gender non-conformity.  

But I, for one, would love a non-binary or even trans reading of Grace.

So what I’d like to do instead is just lay out a couple ways someone who is NB-identified *might* connect with Grace as a nonbinary character. Starting with the obvious.

Androgyny Now, I do want to be clear that I know that gender presentation =\= gender identity. And again, obviously, people will latch onto things that they relate to in characters, and I really do believe that there’s no “one right way” to read a character. The character of Grace isn’t a real person; she’s part of a story, told by people, who had something specific to say, and her character reflects that. But from the perspective of the people who watch her, who internalize and connect with her character, there can be points of connection that have nothing to do with the author’s/creator’s intent, and so, Grace-the-character can be many things to many people. The only real way to know how a person IDs is to ask them. That’s it, that’s all. You can’t assume. But also, sometimes, people do “ping” a certain way. They give off a sort of “energy”, and for me, Grace’s energy isn’t the sort of “diaphanous femininity” that even visibly-gender-nonconforming AFAB characters are often framed to exude. Grace’s energy isn’t masculine, either. Her mannerisms don’t seem intended to read that way; rather, they seem intended to read as soldier. I’m not very skilled at breaking down movements, especially when it comes to how actors move and what it all means. It’s totally possible that a lot of what’s unique about how Grace moves is because Mackenzie Davis is, self-admittedly, not the most athletically-inclined person. Grace is long-limbed and rangy and sometimes very stiff/poised, but never stiff through the hips like a Straight Dude(TM), or heavy through the shoulders like a musclebound meathead. She takes up space, too; she’s taller than Dani and Sarah both, and the only recurring characters who are “bigger” than her throughout most of the film are Carl and the Rev-9.

To be clear: Women can be tall, and rangy, and androgynous, and take up space, and that doesn’t make them less women--unless they don’t identify that way. My point with all of the above is just observing that Grace doesn’t move like a “male action hero”—but she also doesn’t seem over-the-top feminine in the way that mainstream-y media will “compensate” for perceived unfemininity, and that’s kind of wonderful. Her stature, her physique, all of that, seem to be chosen and calibrated towards an end goal that isn’t gendered: Combat, efficacy as a warrior. Whether you want to read her as a woman or as nonbinary is largely going to be about your personal preference. This also has the effect of giving the impression that Grace is absolutely unselfconscious about her body and how it looks—and she has no reason to be, not because she looks good or bad, but because what she can do with her body is just so vastly more important, and because she’s so willing to put her body and everything it can do on the line in order to fulfill her mission (and protect Dani). If Grace has a gender, it’d be “Protector” or “Warrior”. And in a way, what makes Grace so appealing to female-identified lesbians is the same thing that makes her appealing to NB people—Her character was explicitly designed not to cater to “the male gaze”, and therefore, she also exists outside the typical gendered confines reserved for “female characters” in media. The emphasis is just slightly different: Instead of a different way of being female, NB!Grace has little to no use for those categories at all. Again, it’s all in how you want to read her. Grace comes from a future where survival and fighting take first priority, and you could project the same tired “Gender isn’t a ~problem~ in the future/after the world ends” approach that a lot of cis and hetero men take to sci-fi--but also, why? It’s tired. Give me a Grace who is preoccupied with survival, yes, who maybe doesn’t have time to think too much about this gender shit--but also, a Grace who finds that this “androgyny” (although she might not call it that) suits her, who takes to this way of moving and being in the world, this way of using her body, and identifies more with that than with being a “man” or a “woman”.  

(Sidenote: as someone who took a fair amount of Queer Studies classes, it does irk me a bit that discussions of mainstream-y speculative media seem permanently suspended between this sort of “genderblind” futurism where “identities” just don’t exist because they’re apparently not needed anymore, or copy-pasting our contemporary discourses about identity into a future that is materially very different than ours. The point of these identities is, in part, to describe our experiences, the good as well as the bad, and those experiences of gender and sexuality don’t exist in a vacuum. So, the words we use will necessarily change to accommodate that—especially in the post-apocalypse. BUT, everything that comes after us will also bear the stamp of what came before it; it’s just a matter of what the creator means to emphasize.) Augments & Body Mods This is a little dicey, because there’s some clear tension in the movie between the idea of robots = inhuman/unfeeling = bad, and humans = good/feeling. And in that light, it’s potentially problematic to (even incidentally) imply that nonbinary/gender-nonconforming = not human.

But I’d like to point out that the film does deliberately challenge any neat separation of “human” and “machine” with Carl’s evolution as a person.  And based on what I’ve read from James Cameron and Tim Miller interviews, there is some “blurring” intended between human and machine in the franchise.

In fact, Carl and Grace are foils for each other, somewhat, in the sense that they’re on opposite ends of a spectrum where human and machine become blurred, and I love that. As a genderqueer person with a very fluid experience, it appeals to me on a deep level because you could spend literally forever breaking down where does one “gender” end and another begin--emotionally, socially, spiritually, and physically.  

So the fact that there’s (1) no hard binary between human and machine (it’s explicitly subverted), and (2) we’re given multiple points of inflection, especially if you count Sarah and the Rev-9--alleviates a lot of the tension I’d feel otherwise in mentioning this. But I don’t think this is something that should be allegorical or a direct comparison; I think that it operates best on a metaphorical or theoretical level.  

And just, it’s the whole vaguely-cyberpunk idea of modifying your own body, not in a mass-produced or manufactured sense, but in this organic and highly individual sense, born out of contingency and necessity, that makes Grace’s Augments so meaningful. It’s one of the things that makes her read as human, too, because it feels more in line with our tendency to stick ink, steel, bone, what have you, through our skins whenever we get the chance--as opposed to some kind of symbolic dehumanization by “becoming a machine”.

Grace routinely refuses to categorize herself in anything other than the most general terms, or explain the details of her Augments, and she seems very protective of them. Rather than seeming ashamed, this refusal reads a lot like the popular queer identity explanation “not gay as in happy, but queer as in “fuck you’”. Her Augments are part of her, and part of her humanity; she volunteered for them, she owns them, and is even protective of them, viewing CBP’s invasive examination of her Augments as a kind of violation of her bodily autonomy. They’re clearly complicated for her, but they’re anything but depersonalized.

And going even further, the reason why she volunteered for them is so that she can defend humanity--and also someone she loves (Dani). They’re an extension of her sense of family, loyalty, love, and willingness to sacrifice.

And I don’t know for sure, but I imagine that Grace is basically one-of-a-kind, even among other Augments, if only because those Augmentations seem to be performed with the tech that’s on hand--salvaged Legion tech, by the sound of it, at least to start with. So the outcome depends on the parts available, the complexity and maturity of the Augmentation technology and process, and the skill & experience of the surgeons, all of which would vary over time.  

And honestly? If that doesn’t qualify as “beyond the binary”, I don’t know what does.

Some other general observations:

- Grace’s short hair is a constant throughout the post-Judgement Day scenes. As someone who started wearing their hair short as a preteen and hasn’t had hair to my shoulders since age 12, that does seem significant.

- Grace only introduces herself by name after Diego shouts “HEY LADY” in the factory before dropping an engine block on the Rev-9. Granted, most women don’t like to be addressed as “HEY LADY”, either, but it stood out to me, especially because she refused to give her name only a couple of minutes before that. Either way you read it, the line feels like it expresses some level of discomfort with or objection to that gendered statement. Maybe she finds that particular reference annoying or even offensive, but also, maybe she doesn’t really identify as a woman. She’s just... Grace.

- there were multiple times I mistook the back of her tank top for the back of a binder, even though she clearly was not binding.

- she constantly steals mens’ clothes--partly because she’s too tall for a lot of womens’ clothes around her, partly out of utility (like at the factory and CBP, where a lot of the guards are men). But also, it pleases the genderfucking queer in me quite a bit. And, I should note, when she had the option to take a female guard’s clothes at the CBP facility... she didn’t.

But ultimately, when I look at Grace, I see someone whose gender is “Warrior” or “Soldier”. And it’s so wonderful to see that so purely represented on a character we’re meant to perceive as female. So, please believe me when I say I don’t want to “take away” what Grace means for other people.  And, for the record, I do mostly default to using she/her pronouns for Grace, because that’s how she’s canonically referred to. But just for fun--try this on for size: Using “they/them” pronouns for Grace. They (Grace) came back in time to protect Dani. It rolls off the tongue, right? It feels nice. Let’s re-try a couple of sentences from above:  

- “multiple times I mistook the back of their tank top for the back of a binder, even though they clearly weren’t binding”  

- “Grace’s Augments are about their ability to be a soldier. They were Augmented in order to hunt Terminators... Everything else is secondary to that, and their mission to protect Dani”

- “Grace only introduces themself by name after Diego shouts “HEY LADY” in the factory before dropping an engine block on the Rev-9 ... Maybe they find that particular reference annoying or even offensive, but also, maybe they don’t really identify as a woman. They’re just... Grace.”

And finally:  

Can you imagine the poor sod who tried to make fun of Grace for having a “girly” name? lmao rip

#terminator dark fate #tdf grace #meta #mine

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fandomshatelgbtqpeople · 5 years

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I’m not sure it’s possible to explain to cis people what it feels like to watch someone you used to be friends with slide towards terf-dom, but I need to get my Emotions(TM) about this out, so here you go.

Disclaimer 1: This focuses on lesbians because the two people this is about and I are all lesbians. That’s the only reason.

Disclaimer 2: I’m not a trans woman, and I can’t even begin to imagine how much worse it would have been if I was. I’ve felt a lot of things during this whole ordeal, but I haven’t felt physically threatened, and I know that’s something trans women don’t have.

At first it’s gradual. She posts something that comes off as a little biphobic, but when she gets called on it she claims that wasn’t how to meant it. Based on the context, that’s plausible, but she also accuses the bi women who called her out of trying to make everything about them. It’s the first time you’ve seen this kind of behavior from her, and you make a mental note to keep an eye on her for a while.

A few months later, she quietly shifts from using the rainbow flag to a less inclusive symbol. She suddenly says that she doesn’t identify as queer anymore, even though you reblogged a “we’re here we’re queer” post from her last summer. She claims that she only uses it now when she wants to taunt conservatives, like this identity that you’ve been harassed for by other cis lesbians is something she can use for her own non-genuine purposes and then discard like a Halloween costume. She implies that you can’t be both lesbian and queer. You stop interacting with her posts.

(you know who those conservatives are going to come after when she’s done throwing your identity around to piss them off)

At this point, you have a sinking feeling you know which way the wind is blowing, and you set hard limits for yourself. The first time she makes a post that misgenders you, the first time she reblogs something suggesting that you don’t exist or you’re just confused or you need to unlearn your internalized misogyny, the first time she posts anything with clear biphobic or transphobic or queerphobic or aphobic intent, you’ll unfollow her. But you’re hoping you’re wrong. She once defended the ability to use queer freely and the right of aces and aros to be included. She hung out with bi people and trans people and ace people. She usually listened when she was called out. When you were closeted and coming out, you looked up to her as an older, successful, out lesbian. You’re still hoping she’ll remember that you were her friend.

A month later, she puts a post on your dash about how “the queers” don’t care about the lesbian community so the lesbian community shouldn’t care about them. She’s blaming other queer women for saying things you’ve only ever heard straight cis people say. You have no idea where it’s coming from because lesbian is one of your many identities, and it’s the only one you’ve never been harassed for within the community.

She reminisces about that time some celebrity did something homophobic, only she’s saying no one else cared. She’s saying that lesbians told people it was a problem but “the queers” defended it. The problem is you remember when that happened. You were involved in the fallout. You know that’s not true.

(that celebrity was biphobic too, but she doesn’t mention that)

You unfollow her.

It breaks your heart, but you feel better after it’s done. Now you don’t have to wait on edge for her to post something how your entire identity will always revolve around sex characteristics you wish you didn’t have or that those are the only things potential partners will ever see. You don’t have to wait for her to claim that you're reinforcing the binary by intentionally living outside it. You can just be done.

You check up on her a few months later, and you find all the posts you spent half a year bracing yourself for. She’s a whole terf now. She’s still trying to pretend she’s not transphobic, but the jig is up. On her blog, transmisogyny doesn’t exist, trans women are all cishets and also all white, and trans men and nonbinary people are lesbians in denial. On her blog, historical trans women are gay men if they exist at all. On her blog, bi women are “choosing” to be “dick-obsessed,” and they’re not to be trusted. You scroll through her blog for a few minutes so you can block everyone she’s reblogged from, and then you block her too. You’re glad you got out when you did, but you can’t concentrate on anything for the rest of that day or the next.

She’s been there, a part of your life, for six years. You knew her when you where closeted and when you thought you were bi and when you thought you were cis and when you were trying on genders like shoes. You already knew her the first time you said, “I’m gay” out loud. She was there that whole time as an inspiration of what a fully adult queer person could be and now she’s here and it makes your life feel dirty, like she left a stain that you’ll never be able to get out. You think back on how badly you used to want her approval and it’s embarrassing.

#modk #transphobia tw #misgendering tw #terf tw #transmisogyny tw #biphobia tw #genital mention #anyway back to star wars

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cardentist · 5 years

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I’m making another new post just for space conservation, but here’s a link to what this is in response to here (X,X) @seishana you’re Still hiding in replies but whatever I’m gonna tackle these a bit out of order but the order isn’t very cohesive anyways and anyone curious as to what was sent when can just check the notes

I also won’t be responding to everything because not everything is worth responding to

I’ve said it before but apparently I have to say it again, there was nothing on the original post that indicated that it was a vent post, there was nothing on it or in the original notes about them not wanting it to be reblogged or interacted with, and by the time I saw it it had almost 200 notes with zero complaints from op. op only had an issue with anyone interacting with that post when someone disagreed with them. they didn’t even mention that it was a vent post until their second reply. so no, I don’t think it’s morally wrong for me to interact with a “vent post” when it’s indistinguishable from any other discourse post and when the complaint only came up hours after the original interaction. and again, lets assume for a hot second that I’m right, or at least picture a totally different situation between two totally different people. someone saying something potentially harmful isn’t suddenly okay when it’s a vent. personal responsibility doesn’t vanish when you’re upset. it being a vent post doesn’t make it free from criticism

there is an argument that could be made about me continuing to interact after the fact that it was mentioned to be a vent post I suppose, but by that point they were openly insulting me and lying about the things that I said, as I’ve already pointed out. I have the right to defend myself if they’re going to openly slander me.

And Again. if they’re allowed to say whatever they want because it’s a vent, if disagreeing with a vent is inherently wrong, then why is it different when I’m the one venting? I was upset, I felt hurt, I was just venting my feelings too. but I have to be held accountable while they don’t? if I shouldn’t be allowed to disagree with them because they were upset then why are you allowed to disagree with me when I was upset

moreover, it’s not specific to transwomen? like, obviously transmisogyny itself is, but intracommunity bigotry isn’t a one way street? and treating it like it is was part of what set me off the in first place. which, I actually spelled it out in another reblog of the post earlier, so here that is (X)

and A G A I N as I said earlier, trans men only have any form of privilege in spaces progressive enough for them to have social capital, which isn’t most of the world. my point was never and has never been that trans men aren’t or can’t be transmisogynistic, even though op has actively lied to put those words in my mouth, it’s that the potential violence between different kinds of trans people is Lateral Aggression and that specifically trying to paint trans men as more privileged, especially on this hellsite where oppression is treated like discourse points and social capital, works to take away the severity of intracommunity bigotry that trans men face. like

op claims that the ability to bigoted towards another group of people is predicated on them having privilege over them. without the privilege there is no bigotry. that line of logic directly concludes that trans women cannot be bigoted towards trans men because trans men hold privilege over trans women. that is what that line of thought is saying

and you saying that it’s an issue Specific to trans women is telling me that you agree with that line of thought. and I really don’t feel like I should have to point out that it’s bigoted towards trans men to insist that bigotry they face isn’t real or doesn’t matter.

it’s literally not transmisogynistic to point out when someone is minimizing the oppression of another minority

op has compared trans men and/or me specifically to:

- cis men - straight men - The Police

- transmeds - terfs - Terfs A Second Time

they literally did that thing you said they didn’t do from the beginning for the entire time. the closest they got to apologizing was saying that they only said it because trans men have gotten upset with them generalizing trans men before, which isn’t an Excuse.

trans men can be all of those things (well except for cis men obviously), but that doesn’t make comparing All Trans Men to them okay? for the exact same reason that it isn’t okay to compare lesbians as a group to terfs. if they didn’t mean to do that then they had plenty of opportunity to correct themselves or say sorry or Something, but they didn’t. I’m not going to accept an apology that was never made

from my original response:

I Openly Acknowledged that trans men can be transmisogynistic And that those people should be held accountable by the broader community. it is an issue when bigoted people burrow into our community and hurt our other members and I have never once said or implied anything to the contrary. you guys just keep saying and implying that I have so you can justify calling me bigoted when I haven’t said anything bad about trans women.

I’ve stated Multiple Times Now that my issue with the post was never what it was saying about trans women but what it was implying or outright saying about trans men. it’s possible for someone to advocate for something good in a bad way and calling them out on the bad parts of their speech doesn’t mean disagreeing with the good

and again, That Is My Point assigning Valid Points and discourse validity by way of privilege leads to a trans man pointing out when something bad has been said about trans men being labeled as “speaking over trans women” you’re speaking about trans men, I am a trans man, I have the right to an opinion on it. and it’s specifically this sort of thing that makes me upset when trans men are labeled as privileged, because it almost always translates to trans men being minimized in trans spaces, treated like their problems aren’t as important, or outright vilified. and that’s literally, exactly happening

everything I’ve pointed out that made me uncomfortable with the original post has played out in response to me pointing it out

#discourse #long post

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radiqueer · 5 years

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I read Natalie’s endnotes to the aesthetic and this is disturbing the fuck out of me so here are some. rambly thoughts I guess. people are welcome to add to this if they like

first she goes “this video is primarily about trans women” and like. caveat that I am not a trans woman, I’m nonbinary & afab so that’s not an experience I have access to in any way. so keep that in mind I guess

I wanted to show a wider audience the way trans people talk about gender amongst ourselves

look...I’m not an expert on trans people or anything but I watched the aesthetic and I can tell you that that’s not how trans people talk about gender. at least, I’ve never known them to. I’ve never participated in a conversation about gender that works that way.

....no wait. I have. I’ve seen truscum talk about gender, and the way Justine talks pretty much mirrors the way truscum talk.

I wanted to work through some of my private doubts about common explanations of what it means to be trans

I can’t argue with that.

I also wanted to reconcile the existence of a devoted Tabby fandom with my having created the character as a caricature of leftist ineffectiveness

I mean. how do I say this. I’ve been thinking about the difference between revolutionaries and incrementalists, and it’s clear to me that they need each other. but throughout the video, the way Justine treats Tabby mirrors the way incrementalists treat revolutionaries; as laughable, disposable, pitiable. like they’re caricatures of themselves.

I had to google what veracity means.

Some non-binary people disliked this video because they felt that the dialogue excluded or invalidated them. Whereas most of the feedback I got from binary trans people is positive. Which, fair enough—this is a video about binary trans women.

look...I try not to be like “binary privilege” and stuff because when it comes to trans people that concept becomes increasingly incoherent but how else do I talk about how it feels to be a nonbinary person watching that video, listening to people harp on and on about passing, when I myself will never pass? not just because I’m brown even though that plays into it - white people remain the standard of nonbinary presentation and aesthetics - I won’t ever pass. people are never going to look at me and think “oh, nonbinary” because that identity is not articulated in mainstream society at all. and I have to live in mainstream society, right, even as a marginalized person I still exist in the same spaces as other people.

it feels like this is basically going “articulation of a binary trans identity has to exclude and invalidate nonbinary people” which is how you get truscum. it’s literally. the same thought process.

I feel like I'm being grossly misunderstood by NBs when they characterize the desire to pass, Justine's point of view, as "respectability politics."

nonbinary people are not characterizing Justine’s (or Natalie’s) desire to pass as respectability politics. they’re characterizing Justine’s efforts to police Tabby’s presentation, and by association the presentation of all trans people who “fail to pass” (scare quotes because Tabby passes just fcking fine) as respectability politics. you can’t misrepresent our position and then accuse us of misrepresenting you. holy shit.

My wearing long hair, makeup, changing my voice, generally softening my confrontation with the world is nothing like e.g. a black man wearing a suit and speaking in "white voice." I'm not doing "woman voice" to please cis people. I'm doing it because I want to be a woman.

oh god this is a mess. this is such a goddamn mess. starting with that simile I guess but omg Natalie. who the fuck decides what “woman voice” is? why is that song-and-dance necessary to be trans and to be a woman? like if you want to do it for yourself then that’s fine, but trans people remain trans even when denied the ability to perform their real gender. a trans man who is forced by circumstance to wear dresses and heels and makeup when he desperately does not want to is still a trans man. equating your transness with your desire to pass is just, straight up truscum shit. this is why people are calling you a transmed.

Cis women understand this deeply. They know that they aren't oppressed as women because they psychologically identify as women. They know that misogyny is foisted upon them regardless of their psychology, so long as society views them as women. Trans men escape misogyny to some degree—generally to the degree that society views and accepts them as men. And trans women are in the sad situation of having to claw our way into a social position where we begin to experience misogyny.

dskjhvdkjfhkfdgdslg this is another mess.

trans women do not have to “claw their way into a social position where they begin to experience misogyny” they already experience misogyny by virtue of being women. a woman who looks like a man is still experiencing the world as a woman. she’s still being affected by the things which affect women.

trans men are harder to parse because trans men who fail to pass experience misogyny and the associated violence in addition to violence for refusing to conform to their assigned gender. but they’re experiencing all of these things through denial of their real identity. and that colours their experiences to a great degree. additionally, the social aspect of trans manhood is very, very conditional because manhood, even for cis men, is very conditional and highly gatekept. it’s very hard for trans men to access these structures and weaponise them against others outside of like...a tiny bubble saturated with queerness. to simplify, they’re men without privilege.

It's not psychological identity that makes this happen. It's the interpersonal recognition that comes about as a result of habitually living/performing the identity. Let's be good leftist materialists here.

I don’t know what kind of materialism it is to reject the realness of the mind, of our emotions and experiences, of our internality. I don’t know much about materialism, but if it leads to takes like this I’m not sure I want to. the internet and what happens on it is real. the mind (or brain, or whatever the goopy shit in your head that lets you be a person is, whatever you wanna call it) and the thoughts and emotions it experiences are real. I feel so stupid arguing this. I feel like I’m trying to teach someone that 2+2=4 but I have to start by convincing them that numbers are real. it’s degrading.

Before I transitioned I identified as genderqueer for a while. I presented basically as what used to be called a male transvestite. People were sometimes shitty about that, but my coming out with the NB identity was greeted mainly by, "sure, whatever bro, wear whatever you want." I found that as an AMAB NB, I was for most intents and purposes—socially, structurally, materially—still a man.

I don’t want to explain someone’s experiences to them but that’s them dismissing the reality of your nonbinary identity. and because you were and are a massively privileged person in every other way.

surely an account that begins and ends with "I'm not a man because I don't identify as one" is pretty weak.

[uncharitability cw] I mean. sure. lets all set out to prove why we deserve to exist. that’s a good use of the trans community’s time, because we don’t do that enough in our private lives. lets make it the only story we tell. brilliant plan. and then everyone clapped.

okay and then she goes on for a bit about the relationship between Tabby and Justine, which is fine. they’re good characters. if they were 100% fictional I would write fic for them. thanks for the extra content, I guess.

The most hurtful things Justine says are my confessions. I have no security in "feeling like a woman." I feel like I'm desperately trying to be a woman though confronted by endless obstacles. It's a shadow that hangs over me every moment of every day. But these are just some feelings I have. I don't have opinions.

I don’t like telling people that they need to cope in private but if you’re coping then the content that you create to cope with your feelings and insecurities needs to be separate from your activism. conflating the two is a really bad idea and I have about 4 years worth of fandom drama on tumblr dot hell to show for it. bad things happen when people look at someone working through their emotions and trauma and go “oh yes, are these your politics?” and worse things happen when you do that to yourself and then you end up being invited to ted talks and fuck a whole bunch of people over.

I keep trying not to talk about contrapoints because it serves no purpose and leads nowhere - she’s not going to change. but on some level talking about it helps me and maybe someone wants to hear me talk about it I fucking Guess.

this is okay to reblog, and written entirely in response to those tweets. if you’ve got additional responses to those tweets or want to talk about something I said, feel free. but if you’re going to come here and defend contrapoints, then save it. I’ll block you at best. there are times when I can have a rational, nuanced conversation about this but I won’t ever on this post because that’s not what this post is for.

#contrapoints #me; hey i should finish watching bsd #me; has no executive function #me; writes this thing to procrastinate #thats adhd for you: doing something painful to procrastinate doing something you really want to #or self harm i guess lol #original

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fatui-harbingers · 5 years

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Soooo episode 4 is just... Weird.

I'm especially tired of hearing about Jon supposedly being a better ruler when he and Daenerys seem to be about the same. Everyone just wants Jon on the throne bc they know they can manipulate him (I love him but he is easy to manipulate sometimes). People don't want Daenerys bc they can't control her and they're mad about it now that they know they can't.

I saw some people saying that Daenerys was manipulating Jon but like I saw none of that coming from her. She was like the only person that wasn't up to no good. Every single one of my family members is manipulative so I know it when I see it! And also bc I do a little manipulation of my own to survive capitalism as a jobless teen so I know what it's like to be manipulated and to manipulate! Daenerys wasn't doing that but trying to prevent more problems for everyone, including Jon.

I was a bit disappointed in Jon but I don't hate him it anything. I just don't think he's quite used to sharing feelings and speaking his mind. I did wish he has said “I love you” back to Daenerys. And obviously, I know things are gonna be a little off till he fully makes peace/comes to terms with his true parentage bc I'm pretty sure he loves her all the same. And I'm happy we got to hear him say that Daenerys is his queen and nothing would change that.

I want to smack some sense into Jon! You don't have a furry friend and then NOT pet them before you leave! And you sure as heck don't just give them away! Leaving pets for even a few hours is terrible for me so that scene just made no sense to me whatsoever.

Let me just say I am as tired of watching dragons die and I am of all the misogyny in this shows writing. As an animal lover, it wasn't hard at all to fall in love with the dragons bc they just seem so realistic and they have personality. So watching them die is terrible. Especially bc I know how it feels to lose a nonhuman creature you see as your child. It's horrible, as anyone that's ever had that bond with an animal knows. And knowing that Drogon is all alone without his brothers now is just heartbreaking! Poor sweet baby only has his mama now and no dragon bros to wander the skies with 😭😭😭

Jaime leaving Brienne made me so upset. She doesn't ask for much but she wanted him to stay and he couldn't even do that for her. I do understand that it's hard to get out and let go of toxic/abusive relationships bc there's usually so much that went into them but I really thought he had left Cersei for good. But hey, this season seems to be about stupid decisions with zero logic behind them!

I'm just sick of Sansa this season. I don't want to be but she's been written so horribly I can't ignore it and make excuses anymore. I think Bran is the only true-born Stark I actually like at this point bc he's chill. And I really don't understand Arya leaving Winterfell after all that family talk.

I OBVIOUSLY hated how Sansa and Sandor talked about Sansa’s rape. I can't think of any rape victims being glad they were raped and abused but what can I expect from misogynistic writing. What a disappointment.

I'm pretty disappointed that Sansa shared Jon’s secret and has put Daenerys (and even Jon!) in danger (which I suppose she would be happy about since she's a petty manipulator now). I understand why Jon wanted her and Arya to know bc I hate keeping secrets from people I love and trust too, it doesn't feel good. It feels a lot like lying. But I do think he should have listened to Daenerys and not told anyone or just told Arya since she is trustworthy at least. I just can't believe the writers would make Sansa do such a thing and still try to make Daenerys look like the villain (which I don't see bc I understand people and feelings and enjoy actually learning about human behavior however I can).

I ugly cried when Missandei died bc she was so pure and intelligent and just perfect. And obviously bc I love her so much. The world didn't deserve her! That was so horrible I can't even believe they did that to her. Especially considering she was the only woc left on the show! I did love her last words though. I just can't believe she died in chains 😭

I don't see what everyone is talking about in terms of Dany going “mad”. I see a human woman reacting to loss after loss, betrayal after betrayal in such a normal, human way. I honestly feel like I actually am going insane and I haven't suffered anything compared to Daenerys! Missandei was clearly the last straw and I don't blame Daenerys for anything she does now (I probably wouldn't anyway bc I do understand how war works and don't blame the strongest woman for it first chance I get). Like seriously, her haters’ internalized misogyny is showing!

I officially hate Cersei now bc she had Missandei killed. That is not something I can look past just bc she's kinda relatable or used to be anyway.

And I'm so done with Varys. Tyrion seemed pretty cool this episode so I don't hate him atm. He was trying to defend Daenerys at least.

I just don't like the brutality of this episode. Some deaths make sense but some don't (and I mean in the series as a whole, not just this episode)! If all I wanted was blood and gore and murder I would watch nothing but John Wick type movies and play games like Call of Duty. I love fantasy. I love magick and I love romance and I especially loved how this fantasy in particular managed to still seem realistic with dragons and direwolves and magick and all the neat stuff we don't have in the real world (well, except magick, we do have that). I only play Nintendo games for a reason! I'm gonna have to force myself to get back to reading the books now just to get to know the real characters and all the storylines that were left out.

I honestly feel betrayed after watching this last episode. I've never been so invested in something like this and I probably won't be again tbh bc I don't think anything could compare. The way things are playing out upset me as a woman and as a feminist, especially knowing this is a global thing! You find want to be sending the wrong messages when everyone on Earth is watching.

I feel played! I guess that's what I get for being optimistic about something for a change. I always get tricked into looking on the “bright side” only to be disappointed yet again! And almost always by men or humanity as a whole. I much prefer expecting the worst and not being disappointed when it happens. Though I seem to always hope for the best and prepare for the worst so I guess this is going to be an endless cycle for me, lol.

Not sure why I'm always surprised when straight white guys disappoint me, especially when they're in charge of telling the stories of women and poc or even just anyone that isn't a straight white cis guy. I suppose we can only imagine how different (and probably better) this show would have been if there were more female writers, especially woc!!! Gosh, I bet the show would have been 10x better. Oh well, I guess.

I think that's the end of my personal rant over episode 4, lol.

#got season 8 #got spoilers #got s8e4 #game of thrones #sorry for the long post but i needed to get it all out

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flockofdoves · 5 years

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ok sorry to dig up mindnumbing good omens gaybaiting talk but

i was talking to some friends about how it almost feels like neil gaiman has backtracked recently with denying aziraphale and crowley are gay when i feel like before the show came out it was common understanding between him and fans ‘their relationship kinda transcends human concepts but its a very fair interpretation to call them gay from our human perspective’ like generally i think hes goofy but the way hes been putting his foot in his mouth over this is so baffling to me i went to defend his “intention” at first because of my memory of things he said ages ago and also because i do genuinely appreciate the outlook hes expressed before about how even anything he himself thinks of as being true about his work that isn’t shown in canon is “headcanon” so he encourages fans varying interpretations and ideas

he just seems a bit idiotically straight and is doubling down on it when confronted like i think Maybe this whole recent thing started bc hes trying to take credit for being progressive by angels being genderless and takes a step no lgbt person would to then take like -> ‘thus its canonical that they arent gay so this isnt me violating my usual fan interpretation guidelines’. and im sure theres some latent homophobia in how insistent hes been in latching onto this this past year but i do think he really doesnt realize the dissonance when he does that and then simultaneously takes credit for people seeing it as a love story. i think hes pretty ignorant of Why it is that people latch onto them as gay like he probably thinks hes rightful to start lashing out about this because he sees the lgbt rep of them being genderless (which ofc fantastical beings not having human gender doesnt really connect to like. human experiences of lgbt identity which i sont think a lot of cis creators who are like ‘yeah i have a nonbinary character 🙂’ realize lol) and then people wanting to “ship” aziraphale and crowley as separate when really the issue is he doesnt understand how him being insistent on them not calling it “gay” because of him newly deciding to more clearly label angels as not having a concept of gender in the new adaptation for the miniseries and he probably sees that as him having learned about gender identity since then but really its just him being pedantic as a straight cis man about how lgbt people label the actual part of narratives lgbt people come to care about these stories for and how much aziraphale and crowley’s narrative and the themes it brings up make very easy parallels with those of gay people and how angels not having a concept of gender doesnt make them being gay not possible, but actually makes the argument all the stronger because aziraphale actively chooses to align himself with gay humans as demonstrated in canon for example, which can be seen as him seeing his own experiences starting from before humans even had the patriarchy and this by extension concepts of gender/sexual orientation/homophobia as similar to the experiences of gay humans. and that active alignment with gayness is what is important, like. maybe he doesnt realize that for the majority of nonbinary people irl even people who consider themselves to be genderless very often will also align themselves with gayness?? like thats not surprising even its very sensible with how homophobia and transphobia fucntion in our society.

and then its so messy because hes goofy so despite all of that he messily tries to engage with his fans by being like “all your interpretations are valid :)” in the middle of doing this and one of the ones he retweeted was about how someone who said they interpreted their relationship as platonic but phrased it in a weird “gay people are ruining male friendships” way and because hes being dumb ig he just momentarily like. forgot to be the same amount of pedantic about them being genderless when it comes to people perceiving them as men despite making the jump to say they cant be gay despite living on earth functionally as men.

this is so long lol but im Pretty sure its his thought process its so aggravating he needs to get a clue djdjdjdjd. like this isnt me trying to be charitable to him i just was confused how he even got to this point from where he used to seem to be. like i guess he wasnt actively trying to be malicious with it to begin with but im not asking people to give him that when he keeps showing his ass like this time and time again and when people try to discuss stuff he never admits he could be homophobic on accident or be mistaken in his understanding of certain things. (and ofc thats only on this topic, i definitely woudnt even begin to ask people to be charitable to him for shit like how he tried to write in new racist scenes in the script and his apologism for romanticizing pedophilia/abuse/etc in fiction)

#cpost #good omens #neil gaiman #ok to rb i guess but its a messy rant #dont take the tone of this too seriously dbdjjd im just kinda loose w words rn

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