#like literally referring to women as just vaginas and men as just penises

[libulanns]

To people who say the vagina is just “a hole” for a penis to enter, that is only one of its functions. It is an organ in the same way that the stomach or esophagas is an organ. It has its own microbiome, the balance of which is important in protect the internal reproductive organs from infection, including STIs. Vaginal pH also serves to prevent pregnancy when a woman is not fertile or when she is pregnant by killing sperm, and in fact, one of the main functions of semen is to lower vaginal pH to allow sperm to survive. The vagina also protects the urinary tract and bladder from infection. Menstrual blood and babies pass through the vaginal canal as well, which it expands to accommodate. And the vaginal canal, cervix, uterus, and ovaries all serve to physically support each other. In fact, having a hysterectomy increases your risk of having a pelvic organ prolapse. 

It’s incredibly degrading to refer this complex organ and vital part of the female body as “just a hole” and to reduce its purpose to expanding to accommodate penises and sexual pleasure. That is literally only one of its functions. And this kind of thinking serves to degrade women as a whole. Because as much as “feminists” these days like to say sex is “empowering,” the way that men treat women based on sex attests to the opposite. 

[catelyngrant]

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[thedeadflag]

I’m so confused! I know it’s not your responsibility to educate me but in your post bringing awareness to the negative aspects of g!p fanfic you say

“Why do these g!p characters rarely if ever involve experiences reflective of trans/intersex women? Why are they so utterly cis and perisex-washed? Why do nearly all writers have zero idea that tucking is a thing? “

Doesn’t that answer your original question? The reason they don’t reflect those groups of ppl is bc g!p isn’t trying to represent those groups of people or else it WOULD be transphobic to limit them to one specific fetish right? it just refers to a canonically female character with the addition of a penis (I don’t argue the name “g!p” should be changed bc that’s a no brainer why that could be offensive). But the fanfic in general, how could it be harmful? I’ve noticed in my time reading it as a non binary person it’s given me great gender euphoria reading a reader insert where reader has a penis while being a femme representing person just bc that’s a reflection of my personal experience. I don’t see anywhere where g!p fanfic ever references or tries to emulate the experiences of trans or intersex people so how could it be offensive?

Sorry this is way too long I’m just very confused

I'm going to try and lay this out as politely as I can. It's after 3:30 in the morning here, so this could be a bit disjointed and rambling. More under the cut:

In real life, ~99.999999% of women with penises are trans women. Which puts us in a tricky situation of (A) being the only women with penises around for media involving women with penises to reflect back on, and (B) being in the lovely position of precious few people actually having had meaningful real life exposure to trans women, meaning (C.) all those stigmas and all that misinformation are going to purely affect us and it’s going to be uncritically gobbled up by the masses, since they don’t have any meaningful information to fill in the blanks with instead.

When we peer into the depths of femslash fandoms and see all these folks who aren't trans women writing about women with penises, and using cis women’s bodies as platforms for these penises, it’s the simplest thing.

I mean, some of those folks might actually be struggling and confused about why they’re into it, what the real appeal is, why they get off on it, why they might have some feelings about wanting a penis of their own…

…but from our vantage point, it’s really easy to gauge 99.99% of the time. We can generally see valid, legitimate yearning to have a penis pretty damn easily in a piece of art/writing, and we can also see when people who create this media are just hung up on a boatload of baggage and fetishization.

And 99.9% of the time, the creators are just hung up on a boatload of baggage and fetishization, and see trans women’s bodies as a perfect vehicle to tap into that, generally due to deeply held cissexist views that link us and our bodies and genitals directly to cis men, to maleness. As if penises are rooted in maleness and masculinity (which is absolutely not true).

And I have sympathy for NB folks (certainly TME ones who have reached out to me in the past about this) who might be struggling with that, but just because they’re non-binary, it doesn’t mean they get to appropriate our bodies and reproduce transmisogyny and trans fetishization in their attempts at feeling better. Shit doesn't work like that.

Because again, the only women with penises in this world, essentially, are trans women. Meaning any woman with a penis in media is a trans woman, implicitly or explicitly. Meaning that when people who aren’t us want to write us, intent doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter if it’s just the writer’s fantasy, it’s still going to attach a variety of messages directly onto us.

And more often than not, due to cissexism, those messages are linking us to maleness, to toxic masculinity, etc..

While I do want to believe they're a fairly small minority, a lot of NB folks in fandom spaces like g!p characters in part because they see penises as male and the rest of the body as female and think that duality is interesting and would be comfortable, and is a nice balance of “both worlds” or a nice position “between male and female”, but that’s a wholly cissexist, transmisogynistic view to have, and it’s one that absolutely cannot be supported without directing sexual violence against trans women and invalidating our entire existence. Certainly not all NB folks into g!p like it for that reason, but holy shit a fair bit of them do and it’s weird and wrong and fetishistic.

g!p emerged from the idea that women can't have penises, and drew on the transmisogyny and cissexism of tr*nny porn to structure that frame of desire and the core patterns and trends within these works. It's always been trans women's bodies being used as a vehicle, whether or not the writers of these fics are explicitly aware of it, because the trope itself still holds true to its original patterns and cissexism. It's not the name that's the problem, it's the content; changing the name would be a surface level change that wouldn't affect anything.

g!p objectifies women with penises (trans women). A woman with a penis is more than just a woman with a penis, but the use of the term and trope is literally to (A) remind people that women don't have penises, otherwise the g!p term wouldn't be needed if people actually accepted women with penises as women, and that (B) this is a story centered on a scenario where there's a woman with a penis, with key focus on that genitalia specifically. it's the drawing point, it's the lure, it's what everything is centered on. It is a means for folks to write lesbian sex while also writing about penis in vagina and getting off to it. It's also no surprise that the penises so clearly emulate cis men's penises in these works, that is by design.

As I’ve said many times before, if you’re only writing trans women’s bodies to showcase cis men’s penises, you’re not respecting the womanhood of trans women, and this ultimately has nothing inherent to do with penis-owning women, it has to do with (cis) men and their penises, because trans women are just being used as a vehicle to emulate them. When NB folks do the same thing, and imagining themselves as those g!p characters, they are ultimately embodying cis men, their maleness, and often toxic masculinity, in a way that feels safe and distanced enough for them, a shell that they often code as cisnormative due to their own unprocessed cissexism.

And trans women don’t deserve that.

You seem caught in the idea that if something doesn't directly perfectly reflect trans women, that it can't be linked to us., which ignores the long long history of media being used to misrepresent marginalized peoples and cast us in insulting, dehumanizing lights. You show a lack of understanding of the g!p trope and the long history of its usage across a few other names, even if the content and patterns remained the same. It shows a lack of understanding of tr*nny porn and transmisogynistic stigmas, which the trope draws heavily from.

I think we can all recognize that most 'lesbian' prn that's made does not represent actual lesbians, it's overwhelmingly catered to the male gaze. We can also recognize that this category of porn has led to a lot of harassment towards lesbians from cis men who at the very least want to believe lesbians are just like they are in the porn he watches, that lesbians just need the right man. Lesbians are being used as a vehicle for a fantasy that was created externally to them, and doesn't represent their realities.

It's the same kind of situation here. The way g!p fics play out overwhelmingly doesn't reflect trans women's realities, but they are inherently linked to us regardless, as we're the vehicles for those fantasies, as unrealistic and harmful as they may be.

g!p characters are built in our fetishized image that’s based on a deeply cissexist misunderstanding of us, of the gender binary, and of bodies in general.

I mean, when 99% of cis folks don’t understand how trans women tend to be sexually intimate… when they don’t understand what dysphoria is and how it works and how it can affect us physically and emotionally…when they don’t understand almost any of our lived experiences…then they’re not going to be able to accurately portray us even if they wanted to.

And I’ve read enough g!p fics where authors wrote those as a means of trying to add trans rep, but because they didn’t understand us at all, it wasn’t remotely representative, and it was ultimately fetishistic, even if there was an undercurrent of sympathy and a lack of following certain common g!p patterns there that differentiated it from the norm.

If g!p fics were at all about reducing dysphoria or finding euphoria, then it wouldn’t be explicitly tied up in the performance of very specific sex acts, very specific forms of misogyny and toxic masculinity, very specific forms of sexual violence and exertion of sexual power, etc.

But it is.

So the notion that creating g!p fics helps NB folks? Nope. It CAN certainly prevent/delay those folks from facing a whole boatload of shit they’ve internalized, and coddle them at the expense of trans women.

Because if it was really about bodies and dysphoria/euphoria, there would be a considerable push (allying with out own) to end our fetishization and to represent us in and out of sexual contexts with accuracy, respect, and care. Because they wouldn’t care what sex acts were performed and what smut beats were hit, they’d just want to see someone with a body like their ideal being loved, being sexual, connecting, being authentic, etc. Which very much is not the case in the overwhelming majority of g!p fics. That's what we want, and it's not what g!p writers want, it's nothing they give a shit about.

Like, a ways back I started doing random pulls of g!p fics from various fandoms and assessing them for certain elements to provide some quantitative clarity. I started on The 100 here, and did OuaT here. Never finished the 100 one since the results leveled out and stayed pretty consistent as the sample size grew, so I didn't really see the point in continuing any further after about 140 fics when the data wasn't really changing much at all.

Lastly, media influences people. I've read countless posts and comments from people who use fanfiction as a sex ed guide, in essence. Which is ridiculous, but I also know sex ed curricula often isn't very accurate or extensive in a lot of areas, so people take what they can get. Representation in media can be powerful, and when it overwhelmingly misrepresents people, that's also powerful. Just because fandom is a bit smaller than televised media, it doesn't make that impact any lesser, certainly not for those whose primary media intake is within fandom.

Virtually all trans representation in f/f fanfiction is misrepresentative of us. That has a cost in how people understand us, how people react to us, and how people treat us. Not just online, but in physical spaces, and in intimate settings.

I invite you to read that post you referenced again, or perhaps this longer one which is a response to a trans guy who seemed to feel something similar to you with this trope.

All I can do is lay it out there and try to explain this. It's up to you how you handle this. All I know is whenever there's a big surge in g!p in a fandom, trans women generally leave it en masse, because it's a very clear and consistent message that we're not valued, respected, and that people value getting off on us over finding community with us.

[ficsex]

Hey, I just wanted to speak up about the way afab and amab are used as shorthand for kinds of bodies in a lot of the questions here. As a trans person, it makes me really uncomfortable seeing these terms used as a "woke" substitute for "female-bodied" or "male-bodied". The idea that the gender you were assigned at birth tells us what genitals you have is exactly what these words were created to get away from? You could be afab and have a penis (e.g. intersex). It just feels really transphobic.

I appreciate you sharing that! I hear you, that it makes you feel uncomfortable, and am glad you’re checked in enough with yourself that you can recognize that discomfort. 

(For those who don’t know, those are shorthand for “assigned female at birth” and “assigned male at birth”. They aren’t an exact description of genitals; they are instead what doctors write on a birth certificate based on ultrasounds or appearance of genitals at birth)

I am going to keep using amab and afab in specific circumstances, but I will explain why, in case this is helpful:

To start, I don’t usually use that language! I prefer to say “person with a penis” / “person with a vagina” / person with a prostate / etc, as I care more about what a person’s genitals look like during the sex that they are having, and less about what’s written on their birth certificate (In ficsex context, specifically. Generally, I don’t care at all what someone’s genitals look like). 

Sometimes people in the asks use that language.

A lot of those people are non-binary humans for whom that language correctly describes enough of their experience to ask me a question. I’m not ever going to tell askers what language to use for themselves. They might choose to tell me that they are “cis women” or “trans women” or “trans men” (etc.) and that would also give me some clear info about their circumstances, but that language doesn’t work for everyone. Saying “Mx. Ficsex, I’m AFAB and I’m experiencing this: ____” is telling me what they want me to know, and not telling me things they don’t want me to know. 

(I think this is mostly what you’re referring to, but I’ll go on a bit more to be clear with readers). 

I don’t think afab and amab are are a "woke" substitute for "female-bodied" or "male-bodied". They are genuinely useful phrases that explain a) what genitals a person most predominantly displayed, at least at birth and possibly now, and b) what kinds of social forces they’ve dealt with. 

On this blog (and in real life), I would never say "female-bodied" or "male-bodied". I know men with vulvas - I wouldn’t say any of them is “female-bodied”. I know women with penises - I wouldn’t say any of them is “male-bodied”. One of them might say she is ‘assigned male at birth’, though, as that is helpful information when it comes to learning about how she navigates the world, how the world responds to her, and - yes - what kinds of genitals she is likely to have, medical transitioning aside.

Definitely, none of these are guarantees. I try really hard to be specific when I am talking about trans bodies that have undergone any kind of medical transition, and if / when I talk about intersex bodies, I’ll specify that also! If you read my blog, you probably know by now that I am an over-explainer and a very precise person. I like specificity!

I read a lot of blogs by trans folks, binary and non-binary, and I check in with my trans colleagues frequently. I update my language and my teaching materials as often as I need to. As a non-trans person, it’s important to me to use the most affirming language that I can, and so I mirror the language used by these professionals and community members that I follow. These sources are still using amab and afab to describe exactly what they are saying - what sex a person is assigned at birth, and all of the baggage that comes along with that.

This is not to say that your discomfort isn’t valid - I can see that it is! Reaching out to a blog can be scary and tough! But it is to say that there is literally no language that makes every single person comfortable and safe, and all I can do is my best. At this moment, I feel like the language that I use in this blog still follows the guidelines and preferences that I see in the blogs / books / guides that I read. It also is to say that I’m not going to police the language that people who submit questions choose to use. 

If you submit questions and you have been using language like “amab” and “afab” to describe your own body or the bodies of your characters, please feel encouraged to see if there are other words that will similarly describe what you are trying to communicate. That���s a great move. But also, keep using the words that you identify with, and that is okay. 

[citrineghost]

100 Humans on Netflix

So there’s this neat Netflix Original show called 100 Humans. I immediately got interested in it because they take this group of various humans from different backgrounds, age groups, and so on, and they use them to conduct experiments to get answers to interesting questions.

So, right away I had concerns about this show because

If you know anything about data and statistical research, you know 100 people is a very small sample size and does not breed accurate results

However, I’m very curious and wanted to see what they came up with anyway. I watched all 8 episodes and, honestly, I enjoyed watching it for the most part. However, I have a LOT of issues with the show and how it was conducted and I want to list them out here.

If you’re interested in watching 100 Humans or have already watched it, please consider the following before taking any of the show’s data as fact.

100 people is a very small sample size. This is because, the more people you have, the more weight each increment in your percentages has. With 100 people, each person represents 1 entire percent. That’s a lot. That means even a few people giving incorrect answers, having off-days, or giving ridiculous results (such as you can see in the spiders georg meme), can sway the entire result of an experiment into unreasonable territory. This is why most scientific studies attempt to get data from many hundreds or even thousands of people. The bigger the sample size, the more accurate it is to the entirety of the world.

I’ll put the rest under the cut because it gets long

The 3 hosts, who I’ll refer to as the scientists (regardless of if they actually are, because I’m not sure and don’t feel like googling it) repeatedly make false statements. For example, in one episode, they told their humans to “raise your hand if you believe you’re less bigoted than the average person here,” to which 94 people raised their hands. One of the scientists then made the statement, “If that were true, it would mean only 6% of Americans are bigoted.” This statement is entirely false. The only way to actually determine a true meaning to that would be to determine at what percentage of bigotry you are considered a real bigot. You also must consider that believing you’re more bigoted than other people in a small group, who you already have an impression of, is not necessarily indicative of how you feel you measure up to America as a whole. Anyway, I could go on and on. The only way to accurately summarize the results of that question would be to say that 44% of the humans had an inflated sense of righteousness or something of the sort.

The 3 scientists, both in person and in narration, for the sake of entertainment (if that’s what you call it) continually made “jokes” that poked fun at different groups, implied men are shit, etc. Maybe that’s fun for some people, but the kind of jokes they were making to amp up the hilarity of their host personas was genuinely just uncomfortable and made me feel even more like they couldn’t be trusted to go about unbiased research.

The scientists continually drew conclusions where the results should have been labeled inconclusive

The scientists made blanket statements about certain groups based on 1 element of research that would not stand up to further evaluation. For example, when explaining that ~93% (i think it was about that number) of Americans have access to clean, drinkable, tap water and yet some large number of single use bottled waters are sold every year, one scientist said it was because people believe bottled water is safer and cleaner than tap water. I am going to do my next survey on this to see if my own perception is flawed, but I simply don’t believe that all of the people who buy bottled water do so because they think its cleaner than “tap” (as if all tap is the same.) I know there have been studies about people drinking unlabeled bottled water and tap water and not being able to tell the difference, but this neglects to account for the fact that different houses pipes can affect the taste of the tap water running through them, people can use disposable bottles of water for certain activities or events too far away from tap for people to refill their reusable bottles easily, and so so so much more. Anyway, it just really bothers me to see “scientists” making these kinds of generalizations when they’re the ones whose results we’re supposed to trust.

The show was incredibly cisnormative. There was an entire episode based on comparing men and women that made me extremely uncomfortable with its division of people by men and women. There was the implication that all men have penises and all women have vaginas. There were implications that reproduction is a necessity in picking a partner. It was just a shitshow. There was one comment by one subject who asked, when being told to separate by men and women, “What if I’m transgender?” Obviously I can’t say for sure, but this person didn’t appear to be transgender and the sort of tone it was asked in makes me think it was literally something they asked him to say in order to get inclusivity points with the viewers and to “prove” that they’re not transphobic by having them divide up, because they said to go to the side you identify with. This whole thing is a) harmful to nb folks who would not have had a side to go to and b) completely negating the fact that the way we were socialized can have an effect on our social responses. That means that for a social experiment, a trans person could sway the results of one side due to their upbringing and the pressures society put on them before/if they don’t pass. This is all assuming they had any trans people there, which is potentially debatable.  I also take issue with this entire fucking episode because just, the amount of toxicity in proving one sex is better than the others is really gross and actually counterproductive to everything feminist and progressive. Not to mention, them implying that they’re trying to support trans people only to reinforce the notion that a trans man is inherently lesser for being a man when even prior to hatching, he would have also been force fed propaganda and societal pressure implying he’s less than for supposedly being a woman is really gross and makes me angry. The point of what I’m saying is that it’s actually not woke to hate men as a way of bringing women up because there are men who are minorities who are being hurt by the rise of aggression being directed at them for their gender. Anyway enough about that.

The tests drew false conclusions because they did not account for how minorities adapt to a world that’s not made for them. This is specifically directed at the episode where subjects were asked to match up 6 people into couples. There were 3 women and 3 men and the humans were asked to put them together into pairs. they could ask the people 1 question each but then had to match them up with only that information. The truth is, the people brought in were 3 real life couples already, which the humans didn’t know until after they matched them. The couples were m/f, m/m, and f/f. I think that’s great, but the problem is, literally none of the humans asked any of them their sexuality as their question and most people didn’t even consider they could match up same-sex people. One girl even thought that they had told her to make m/f pairings, even though they didn’t.  The scientists concluded from the experiment that the humans have a societal bias toward people, and assume they’re all straight, even if they, themselves, are not straight. I personally believe that was the wrong conclusion to draw. You could see some of the queer humans were shocked that they hadn’t considered some of the pairings might be gay. But, I don’t think it’s because they believe everyone they meet is straight, I believe this says more about what they expected from the scientists themselves. If someone is in a minority and they go to do something organized, like a set of experiments, they are going to be judging the quality and setup of the experiments by those designing them. I feel that the lack of consideration that the couples might be gay has a lot more to do with queer people having adapted to a world where queers are rarely involved or included in equal volume to the cishets. The queer humans taking part in the experiment and failing to guess gay couples shows that they have adapted to a world where they are excluded rather than a belief that every random person that they meet is straight. My point is further supported by an expert they had on the show who explained that, statistically, it was entirely likely that they were all straight and that even queers will account for being minorities by going with what’s most likely. The truth is, we are surrounded by a whole lot of straight people. It makes sense to assume only 6 people are all straight and that, if any aren’t, they may be bi.

The scientists frequently broke an already small sample size into even smaller groups. The group was very frequently broken in half, in thirds, or into sets of 10 people. These sample sizes tell us almost nothing actually conclusive. 

The experiments/tests frequently were affected by peoples abilities, unrelated to what was being tested. For example, one test that was broken down into 6 people and 6 control people competing at jenga was meant to show whether needing to pee helps or hurts your focus. first of all, sample sizes of 6 are a fucking joke. Second, this completely ignores these 6 people’s actual ability to play Jenga. If someone sucks at jenga with or without needing to pee, them losing Jenga when they need to pee says exactly fuck all about whether needing to pee affected their focus. They should have tested people’s Jenga skills beforehand, counted the amount of moves they made before the tower fell, and then did it again after hours of not peeing to compare their results. This test made no logical sense at all.

The scientists ignored the social effect of subjects knowing each other as well as duration of events during their last experiment. They were testing to see if people with last names near the end of the alphabet get a shittier deal because they go last in everything where things are done by name order. They tested this by doing a fake awards ceremony where they gave out some 30 awards to people, gauging the applause to see whether the people at the end got less hype and therefore felt worse about themselves than those in the beginning who got the fresh enthusiasm of the audience. the results showed that the applause remained fairly consistent throughout the awards. The issues with this test are numerous, but here are the three I take most issue with. 1) the people here all got to know each other very well over the week it took to make the show. People who know each other and have become friends are much more likely to cheer for each other with enthusiasm, regardless of how long it’s been. On the other hand, polite applause from a crowd at, say, a graduation, where you are applauding people you don’t know, WILL start off more raucous and grow very quiet except for individual families near the end. 2) the duration of the test was a half hour, which is not very long at all and doesn’t say much to test the limits of enthusiasm. Try testing the audience at a graduation with a couple hundred graduates that also involves the time it takes to walk all the way up to a stage a hundred feet away, accept a diploma, and then wait for the next person. These kinds of events take hours and nobody keeps up their enthusiasm that long unless they’re rooting for someone in particular. 3) this study tested only one of many many ways name order affects a person. Cheering and applause is only one factor. It does not take into account people having their resumes looked at in alphabetical order and therefore people at the beginning of the alphabet being picked before anyone ever looks at a W name’s resume. It doesn’t take into account a small child’s show and tell day being at the very end of the school year, after 6 other people have brought in the same thing they planned to. No one cares about their really cool trinket because they’ve seen a bunch like it already. This test doesn’t take into account how many end-of-the-alphabet people just get straight up told, “we ran out of time. maybe next time,” when next time doesn’t really exist. I feel genuinely bad for the girl who suggested this experiment because the scientists straight up said something akin to, “lmao her theory was bs ig /shrug” even though it was their own shitty research abilities that led to their results.

They did one experiment intending to see how many people have what it takes to be a “hero.” The request for this test was made by someone curious about the effect of adrenaline and if it really works how some people say. The scientists thought it an adequate method to determine an answer by testing their reflexes with a weird crying baby sound and then dropping a doll from above while they were distracted with answering questions. The scientists looked up before the doll dropped to indicate a direction of attention. While this does give some answers about peoples intuition, reflexes, and ability to use context clues, its entirely an unusual situation, makes no sense in reality, fails to take adrenaline into consideration literally at all, and has a lot more to do with chance. The person dropping the doll literally couldn’t even drop it in the same place from person to person. Some got it dropped into their lap and others almost out of arm’s reach. This, like a few of the other mentioned experiments, was during the last episode, which felt lazy and thrown together last minute, with very little scientific basis to any of the results. The last episode was weak and disappointing overall. 

One of the big issues I have with this show is actually their repeated use of the same group. They said at the end that they had done over 40 tests. Part of doing studies is getting varied samples of people in order to get more widespread results. Using the same 100 or less people (already a tiny sample) repeatedly is a terrible research method. You’re no longer studying humans at large. You’re studying these specific humans. You can’t take the same group with the same set of inadequacies, the same set of skills, and the same set of biases and then study them extensively and in many different ways like this. Your results are inherently skewed toward these specific people and their abilities. I expected them to at least get a new group each episode - every 5 or so studies - but no. They keep the same group all week, which makes the entire season. This is inexcusable in research imo.

The next issue is contestant familiarity. The humans all getting to know each other is great, socially, but it also destroys the legitimacy of many of the studies that involve working together or comparing yourselves and your beliefs

Many tests had issues with subject dependency. One study, meant to compare age groups and their ability to work together to complete the task of putting together a piece of ready to assemble furniture had each group with members they relied on entirely. A few people built the furniture while one person sat across the room, looking at instructions with their back to the others. They had to relay the instructions through a walkie talkie to another contestant and that other contestant had to relay it to the people they’re watching build the chair. You cannot study a group’s ability to build something with instructions by the ability of one single person to communicate. You’re testing that individual and the rest of them on two completely different capabilities. One person fails at being able to communicate and everyone else becomes unable to build the furniture. Even if everyone else in the group is more effective than all the other groups at building ready to assemble furniture, they might end up falling in last because of their shitty communicator who is literally not able to convey simple instructions. (yes, this actually happened in the test)

One test judged the subjects at their speed of getting ready, to see if men or women are faster at getting ready. While most elements of this test were just fine, the part I took issue with was that they did this test without regard to social convention. They told the subjects they were going on a field trip and to get ready by a certain time. Then, they gave them many things to get distracted by, like refreshments to pack with them, a menu to preorder lunch from, and so on.  The part that upsets me about this test is that they ignored social convention entirely, to the point that subjects were judged based on their conventional actions and expectations more than their actual speed at getting ready. The buses promptly shut their doors and left at the time they were supposed to but there was no final call to get on the buses. In general, when a group is to be taken somewhere by bus, there will be an announcement to load up and leave. You could clearly see many of the subjects were ready to go and were just standing around talking while they waited for fellow subjects to finish getting ready. I have no doubt that, if given a final call, most of them would have loaded up within a couple minutes. However, they were relying on the social convention of announcing departure and were therefore, left behind entirely (for a nonexistent field trip). These people who were left behind were counted as being late and not making the time cutoff. If one were to look at the social element of this situation, if everyone there believed there would be a warning before departure, the fact that 24 to 14 women to men were loaded onto the buses at departure doesn’t necessarily indicate the women were faster to get ready. It seems to me that it’s more likely to indicate anxiety at being late and a belief that they need not impede on anything lest they be reprimanded or have social consequences for taking too long - something women are frequently bullied for. There’s also the chance that many who boarded without final call are more introverted or antisocial. Plus, we can’t forget to include the people who have anxiety about seating. If someone is overweight, has joint pain, or has social anxiety, they will be more likely to board early to get a seat they feel comfortable in. If they had counted up all of the people socializing and waiting on the sidewalks nearby, they may have found that there were more men who were ready to board up at a moment’s notice. I’m not saying I think men are faster to get ready, I’m just saying that we can’t know based on who boarded without a final call. If people believe they will have a last minute chance to board, a large number of them will take the last few minutes to socialize with their new friends until they’re told they have to board. Therefore, this test cannot be considered conclusive without counting and including the people who were ready and not boarded as a third subset.

Honestly, I could go on and on about how sensationalist and unscientific this show is, but I just don’t have 6 more hours to contribute to digging up every single flaw with it. There’s A Lot.

My point is, if you feel like watching this show, which I don’t necessarily discourage inherently, I just beg you to go into it with a critical eye. Enjoy the fun of it and the social aspects, but please don’t rely on the information provided and please don’t spread it as fact, because it’s not.

It’s entertainment, not science.

[pony-boy21]

The Journey Continues

As an individual who is constantly trying to figure out who I am and where I belong, is the biggest journey I have undertaken. I was never taught that I had the choice of gender, or that there was a possibility of living outside the gender binary.  This self-exploration so far has been challenging, overwhelming, dark and scary at times, yet it has helped me understand myself better: with my thoughts, feelings, actions, and insecurities.  

First off, you may ask what is gender binary? According to Psychology today; it refers to “the notion that gender comes in two distinct flavors: men and women, in which men are masculine and women are feminine. Men are male sex, and women are the female sex.” It can affect the clothes we buy, maybe the barbershops we go to, men's restroom vs. Women’s restroom. In fact, one of the first things you learn about your child is their sex at birth, which is typically assigned by their sex organs; girls have vaginas and boys have penises. Wait! The gender binary doesn’t end there; it affects maybe the color of their nursery, the clothes we purchase for them as well as the terms we use to describe them. Societal norms label boys as strong, tough, or handsome; while girls are labeled sweet, gentle and kind.  

Quick history lesson, the gender binary is actually a fairly new concept; however, due to Christian colonization, we think that the binary has existed since the dawn of fucking time.  When missionaries recognized that majority of indigenous cultures had three or more genders (known as two-spirit), the idea of extinguishing their beliefs and practices was a must.  The Navajo call them nádleehí, in Siberia Chukchi are tribal shaman whose third identity designates them as spiritual leaders within their community. The Maori culture in New Zealand are known as  wakawahine and in the Democratic republic of Congo, individuals are referred to as bangala.  

How does this all fit into my journey? Well, I guess this is really just another coming out, a new discovery that was waiting to be explored, to be found, and eventually to be lived. I have been going through this narrative in my head for quite some time; let’s just say, once I became nutritionally stable during my stay at Rosewood Ranch. I am a person who questions, who wants to learn, and wants to understand more than anything. When it comes to myself, this drive is pushed into overdrive, because hey I want to be able to know these questions about myself and not feel so insecure all the time about understanding who I truly am. Since 2012 I have been out as a Transgender man. I thought that is all it took, to know that hey If I didn’t feel like a biological female, didn’t want my genitals nor my reproductive organs, and living my life socially as a female didn’t seem possible; when I thought about the idea of being a woman, a sister, a mother, a grandmother all that left a bad taste in my mouth, physically nauseous and lightheaded. I knew that if I wasn’t a woman the only option that I saw at the time was man. I whispered dad, brother, grandpa in my ear and the bad taste slowly subsided but always lingered. Something was off, but again something I couldn’t grasp or even comprehend an Idea outside the binary; when I didn’t even know such a thing existed.    

Fast forward to 2020, there was still so much for me to learn beyond this label, and what transgender actually meant for me. Picking it apart and putting it back together. What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be transgender? Do I fit somewhere along this binary? Is there something beyond the binary?  I kept on that struggle bus for 8 years up until recently. Once I returned home from residential, I consumed as much information about gender and the binary as I could. I talked with to so many people in and out of treatment who Identify on the binary spectrum as well as not on the spectrum.  Many conversations of how they knew this is who they are down to their core. It’s hard to feel like you know who you are and after 8 years you realize that this has only been just the beginning of my transition.  I have learned that I want facial hair, body hair, no tits, I don’t want my vagina or reproductive organs. I thoroughly enjoy having a lower voice and not too sure about bottom surgery still going back and forth with procedures.  I also learned that having all these qualities can help you identify as a man (if you are on the spectrum) as well as not, just like myself.  All these physical traits represent how my brain identifies my physical appearance that makes me feel more connected; at peace with myself.  Being transgender to me means not identifying as my biological birth (AFAB-Female assigned at birth). I think just knowing that takes so much weight off my shoulders at times. I have spent the last 8 years of my transition forcing myself into a box literally that I can’t conform to. I have spent the last 15 years being forced into a box in every aspect of my life that has left me weary of myself worth, and at many times still had me questioning the existence of my life. You know the toy when you were a kid where if it was a square you had to put it in the square hole. I have been trying to shove/bash/fit/mold myself into a square hole when I do not even have a shape to put in, and yet I couldn’t see it all along. The idea of gender and keeping myself in this normal box has caused so much pain/trauma/hurt in my life and yet has kept me silenced for many years due to rejection/hate that I have experienced so far since starting my physical transition in 2012.  When I think about what it means to be a man, I can give you qualities/traits/morals/values of a typical “biological male” I could go on and on and on, but when it comes to relating to myself and asking myself, what does it mean to be a man, Wyley?  Everything goes fuzzy/blank because I try to figure how to fit myself into this binary that society has molded for me and I can’t do this anymore.... the idea of living a life inside the gender binary doesn’t fit who I am down to the core. Now this doesn’t mean I am invalidating anyone who is living a life within the binary, I just don’t Identify anywhere on the gender binary and that confuses the fuck out of me. So, the question exists in my head quite frequently, what does this mean for my gender identity? As per usual, I researched, messaged some folks, and watched tons and tons of videos. Here is what I found that profoundly fits with how I identify my gender; which is non-existent. The Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines Agender as “a person who has an internal sense of being neither female nor male or some combination of male and female. An article from an individual by the name of Adrien Converse which sums up my brain:

“I'm no gender expert. In fact, I don’t even have a gender. You’d be better off calling me a No-gender expert. Expert? Still not accurate? That would be like calling a tree a tree expert. It’s a tree. It knows what it’s like to be a tree, and it can thrive as a tree without being an authority on the science of trees. Agender is the world for a person without gender. Like me. So, this tree has had to learn a lot how to explain its existence, how it functions, and the fact that trees aren’t imaginary.”  

What does it mean to be Agender? Agender is an individual who identifies as someone without gender. They can appear androgynous, like myself; Some can have bodies that appear more masculine or more feminine. Some people use gender neutral pronouns such as they/the, Ze/ZIr (such as myself) and many others. Some pursue hormones and some don’t, some get gender affirming surgery and some are completely happy with their biological makeup. In all honesty, a person's physical characteristics does NOT define their gender and, there is not one standard to be Agender or any gender really. Navigating society can be a challenge for folks who identify as not having a certain gender. Almost every interaction is gendered in some way; from clothing to mannerisms. You would be amazed at how much of everything we do revolves around gender. If your gender is part of the system, it’s easy to not notice.    

[apolesen]

Cardassian Reproductive Anatomy

I decided to do something with all my ideas about what Cardassian genitalia looked like, and here we are. Below the cut are some anatomical sketches (of the kind you get in text-books, so they are mostly SFW, but it depends on where you work, I suppose) and a description of my take on the Cardassian reproductive systems. 

Content warnings: anatomical sketches, anatomical descriptions, mentions of menstruation and pregnancy. 

As this is about reproductive anatomy in broad terms, I have used the terms ‘male’ and ‘female’ in an essentialist way. This is mainly to be as clear as possible. I think that we should move away from referring to, for instance, “external female genitalia” when we could just say “vulva”. However, when you discuss an alien species where writer and reader don’t have any common frame of reference, that can get very confusing. There are definitely Cardassians who are intersex, trans and non-binary, so what is described below are broad generalisations describing cis Cardassians. 

Cardassian male and female external genitalia are fairly similar to one another. Both have a cloaca (in Cardassian, ajan), which the urethra and anus lead into. This means that Cardassian men and women urinate in the same way, and they find the human organisation very confusing. The reproductive organs are mostly internal, which makes it harder to tell at a glance what you are dealing with. It is very difficult to tell the sex of newly-hatched Cardassians, as their external genitalia will look basically the same. In adults, the only real difference is that in males, the tip of the penis usually sticks out of the cloaca, most often no more than one or two centimetres (5/8ths-4/5ths of an inch). Both males and females have a chuva, sometimes called (though never by Cardassians) as the groin spoon. The evolutionary reason for the chuva is to catch water and lead it over the outside of the genitalia when the Cardassian is lying on their back. From the point of the chuva, two thin scale-ridges run, one on each side of the cloaca’s opening. 

Cardassians are oviparous, meaning they lay eggs, so the internal reproductive organs of the female are collectively called the oviduct (a word that in viviparous species is only used of what in humans is called the fallopian tube). Cardassian females have two ovaries. After ovulation, the ovum enters the infundibulum, a funnel-shaped organ. (The term infundibulum is used of many other funnel-shaped anatomical features.) The yolk is also created by the ovary, but is distinct from the ovum, which is the actual cell. The ovum and yolk migrates into the uterine tube, where the albumen (egg white) is added. It stays here until one of two things happen. 

If the ovum is not fertilised, it is pushed through the isthmus, which divides the uterine tube and the shell gland (which is analogous to the human uterus). It passes through the shell-gland and vagina and is expelled through the cloaca. The result is analogous to human menstruation. As the foetus does not grow inside the Cardassian body, there is no uterine lining to shed, so there is no blood. (Bleeding from the cloaca is always a bad sign, and the average Cardassian is pretty freaked out that the concept of menstruation.) An unfertilised Cardassian egg does not have a shell, and the membrane holding it together breaks when it is expelled through the vagina, so what comes out is a runny mixture of albumen and yolk, a little like what one gets by messily cracking a chicken’s egg. This gets called vitelline effusion or passing yolk. 

If the ovum is fertilised, it is again pushed through the isthmus, but then stays in the shell-gland. There, the body starts creating the shell, including additional membranes. The time it takes to create the shell is about fifteen days. The Cardassian in question is able to tell they are gravid (the homologous term for mammals is ‘pregnant’) about five days into this process. The Cardassian egg has about the same circumference as a human baby’s head. A gravid Cardassian will in no way be as large as a pregnant human, but it will be obvious. As the creation of the shell is relatively rapid, it is not a comfortable experience. The oviposition (egg-laying) is not unlike human child-birth, with the exception that there is no afterbirth (which means no blood - again, blood is a bad sign) and an egg instead of a baby. At the point of oviposition, the foetus is still in the early stages of development. 

Because Cardassians do not have placentas, they do not have umbilical cords and therefore they do not have navels. It probably leads to them being weirded out and fascinated by belly-buttons. 

Cardassian male genitalia are in many ways not unlike human male genitalia, only it is internal. The testes have about the same position as the ovaries in female. As Cardassians are  ectotherms (cold-blooded) and have no constant body-temperature, there is no danger of the sperm being damaged by the body-heat. The vas deferens runs from the testes to a gland analogous to the human prostate, which produces seminal fluid. Cardassian females has a homologous gland which creates lubrication. The vas deferens then goes into the penis (sometimes called prUt). As mentioned above, Cardassian males do not urinate through their penises, so the double-duty that the human urethra does must weird them out to no end. The Cardassian penis is usually retracted, with only the very tip being visible. The rest of the penis is held in a sheath (the Latin nerds among you can imagine that this makes things complicated, as ‘sheath’ in Latin is vagina). However, arousal makes erectile tissue fill with blood, both in the penis and around the sheath. This pushes the penis outwards, making it protrude much further. This is referred to as eversion, literally tuning outwards. The penis is not covered in skin but mucous membranes, like the human vulva. The sheath is self-lubricating through glands on either side in order to make eversion easier. Without that lubrication, eversion is not fun. It also comes in handy during penetrative sex, of course.

The female homologue of the penis in Cardassians, roughly their clitoris, is referred to as the vit. It looks much like a small version of the prUt, with similar sheath and erectile tissue. It is far narrower (as much of the area taken up by the sheath in males is taken up by the vagina in females) and shorter (possibly because of hormonal reasons). It also does not have the vas deferens that the prUt has. Like the prUt, the vit will lengthen and be pushed outwards because of arousal, but because of its smaller size it tends not to reach the cloacal opening. The sheath of the vit has glands like the male homologue, though the posterior ones also lubricate the vagina. (This is mainly for the purpose of oviposition, as penetrative sex tends not to reach into the vagina). 

Naturally, there are individual variations. For instance, a vit may be longer than average, and a prUt may be shorter than average. Also, just like among humans, there are Cardassians who are intersex and do not fall into one of these categories but somewhere in between. 

Addendum: Cardassian/Bajoran hybrids (or: how narratives win out over anatomy)

It makes no sense to me from a scientific point of view how a cold-blooded oviparous species and a warm-blooded viviparous species can have children. What I have decided to appease myself is that through some odd coincidence, it is possible for a Cardassian man to impregnate a Bajoran woman, but not for a Bajoran man to impregnate a Cardassian woman. 

The reason I want to salvage this instead of just reject it is that Cardassian/Bajoran children are the most interesting hybrids in terms of narrative since Spock. Spock’s human/Vulcan nature was a way of dealing with stories about internal struggles and external prejudice. Spock is clearly coded as mixed-race, while many TNG and VOY hybrids lack any thematic aspect within the narrative. However, Cardassian/Bajoran children are interesting because they are a living reminder of the Cardassian occupation. They represent the way that both Bajorans and Cardassians now have to live with what happened, and how they are interlinked through that history. This makes me willing to put aside how unlikely it is for these two species to be able to have children together. What changed my mind was Una McCormack’s novel Enigma Tales, which I highly recommend for its depiction of Cardassian/Bajoran children and Cardassia’s attempts at dealing with its past. 

With that put aside, what about the anatomy? I think Bajoran genitals are fairly close to human ones. Considering the Cardassian anatomy described above is so different, Bajoran/Cardassian children probably need surgery at a fairly early age to function well. (Some of the surgery might also be unnecessary and mostly be about making their anatomy more Cardassian.) They are also very, very unlikely to be fertile, but again, I am happy to turn a blind eye to this when the result is interesting enough, as it is in Enigma Tales, which deals with the ways in which Bajoran culture becomes part of Cardassian culture because of the descendants of Bajoran comfort women.

Sources, further reading and acknowledgements

Girling, Jane E. (2002), “The Reptilian Oviduct: A Review of Structure and Function and Directions for Future Research” in Journal of Experimental Zoology 293, pp. 141-170 – an article that was hugely helpful and also made me realise how little we actually know about reptiles.

Anapsid.org - My go-to place for reptile information. 

Speculative Cardassian Reproductive Xenobiology  - Good meta on Cardassian genitals, with special focus on sex.

Comparative Anatomy - A very smutty NSFW Garashir fic. It does an excellent job discussing Cardassian anatomy (even if I have ended up developing different ideas from this person). 

The Hatchling – A short fic by yours truly about Doctors Bashir and Parmak discussing Cardassian eggs, babies and sex assignment.

Thank you to my sister for letting me show her my work in progress, and D, who has been instrumental in my figuring these things out and first suggested the evolutionary reason for the chuva. 

[cuckiller-blog]

About the Killer...

Hello there person on the internet. I don't know you, but if you're reading this you will know me, or at least what I'm about. The name and description of this account pretty much says it all; pretty much...

I just want to clarify that I am fully aware that the terms "snowflake", "SJW" and "cuck" have been made popular due to extreme right Republican, mostly Trump supporters over the last few years; however, they don't own those terms nor are the first to use them. I am not a Trump supporter and never will be. As a matter of fact, Donald Trump is one of the biggest snowflakes I have ever witnessed. Getting butthurt over every little criticism, insulting people he once claimed he liked/respected because they say they don't agree with everything he does (pre and post presidential election mind you), etc... the man is a crybaby.

Just so we're clear here... A snowflake cuck is simply anyone, republican or democrat, liberal or conservative, who gets offended by every little thing or every little person under the reality sun who doesn't agree with their fragile sensibilities.

This goes for the following which I will be covering over time:

- Using certain terms/phrases which can be negative (grasp your chest and gasp now) to express emotions, but don't reflect that person's actual beliefs about human issues. I.E. If I say something is gay or call someone a faggot that doesn't mean I am against homosexual people, or their rights or that I'm protesting gay marriage in front of court houses. Sorry the word "straight" isn't used to describe dumb shit, but that doesn't mean everyone saying shit is gay means they hate gay people...

- Stating facts about people and their appearance..... Sorry fat people... If you're fat, you're fat. Sorry simple facts of life bother you so much. I know a few skinny people also hate being called skinny due to body issues, but it's far and few between fat people and the same still applies.... If you're fat, you're fat, if you're skinny, you're skinny, if you're whatever in between, you're whatever in between, doesn't always mean people are out to get you and doesn't mean they hate you or think you're ugly just cause you're FACTUALLY fat...

- Jokes/Stand-Up Comedy/Overly PC Fascist crowds... You are cancer, you are killing comedy because you don't know how to take a joke and not take everything seriously.... Do you not realize most of what comedians say they don't even truly believe IRL? Even if they do..... Who cares? As long as it's funny? Sorry, anything can be a joke, including rape. Doesn't mean they condone rape... If you can't understand that, move the fuck along snowflake. The PC culture has gone to the extremes in general as well, people can't say anything without being made to feel like pieces of shit because they say something someone may not like as a part of freedom of expression. I'm not even talking about people going around saying blatantly evil shit, those people are dicks, but I mean the most innocent of shit. Like if someone says "I have a friend who's an Indian, he lives on a reservation a few towns over." and people act like you just condemned that whole group to hell because you didn't call your FRIEND a "Native American!!!!" instead.... Lol..... Ugghhhhh.... Get a grip people......

- Millennials.... The epitome of the snowflake plaque..... Sure, not all millennials are snowflakes, but a good majority of them are. Much more than past generations..... They call it progressive behavior when really they are being fascists trying to control free speech and expression; especially at stand-up comedy acts..... Just gay as fuck.... Lol

- Asexuals/Sexual Shamers.... So now a days if you comment on someone's appearance as being "hot" or "sexy" these little pieces of shit wanna downvote and criticize said posts because they don't understand the simple fact that men have penises and women have vaginas and sometimes they see people in certain revealing clothing/poses that induce a sexually attracted response as a condition of being a normal human rather than some sexually repressed cuck.

- Feminazis...... Lol...... Just lol..... Not every person who has a penis and makes a seemingly funny or observational comment about the opposite sex is trying to strip away all of your rights or how strong or equal you can be. The difference between genuine feminists and feminazis is night and day....

Oversensitive/overprotective animal rights cucks..... Sorry bitch boy, it's not animal abuse, it's innocent fun so STFU about "Don't ever do that to that beautiful animal ever again! You don't deserve to have pets!" when it's clear the animal is not in danger and it's just good fun. You're a dumb shit and you know nothing about how well they care for their pets or their bond and simply judge them because some guy sneaked up behind his dog, yelled and made him jump or some shit? Gimme a break ya little bitch...

- Did you assume my/that person's gender!!!!? No shit stick, I don't assume when facts are concerned, I just go by said facts. Chances are if you look like a dude, you're a dude. If you look like a chick, you're a chick. If it quacks like a duck............. It probably calls you a cuck. Look, nobody cares if you identify as a woman, if you've got a 5 o'clock shadow, adam's apple and a penis taped to your thigh behind some dress, wig, and makeup, you're still a fuckin dude..... I'm not gonna call you a woman cause you identify as one "inside". I'm also not going to say a white guy is black because he identifies as a black man. I won't call you a cat because you're a human who identifies as a feline ya nutty bitch. Funny how that works eh? Gender is not fluid and it's not a choice. Nor is race or friggin' species. Lol....

You can turn yourself from male to female aesthetically and call yourself a woman, sure, and I'll most likely call you a woman if you actually look like a woman, but you're still factually not a woman. You don't have milk producing breasts or possess a real vagina or womb..... You can never get pregnant..... Never have a period...... Not a real woman..... Deal with it. "But Cuck Killer, some women can't get pregnant!" blah blah blah.... Yeah, we are all aware of this. It's also not the norm, and obviously even for women who can't get pregnant and whatnot......... Their vagina is still real/natural from birth soooo..... Yeeeeaaahhhhhh...... They are real women still...... Because..... ya know..... their vagina's weren't fashioned from half a mutilated penis..... This also applies to the cancerous "he/him" or "her/she" bullshit on some people's social media profiles. You don't need to proclaim your gender like that, nobody cares. This wasn't something people ever put in profiles to "clarify MY gender" up until a couple years ago. I go out of my way to call them the opposite gender of what they shove in your face to refer to them as just to see them blow their shit. Lol

It's also clear that when someone addresses a group of people and says "Hey, guys!" even when women are present, it's just a common greeting and "guys" in this context just means people.... Not literally calling the women males.... So relax and stop throwing a bitch fit when people say that. It's not always about gender specifics for crying out loud.

- LGBTQXYZSDL blah blah blah whatever it's initial count is up to at this very second of this minute of this hour. Look, I'm not against gay people, nor do I dislike them generally speaking. I am for gay marriage and all that jazz, so this isn't so much about the gay community but more so the people (not all of them are even gay, but they are snowflakes) who raise a big shit when you say "LGBT" but leave the Q off, or worse yet just say "gay/transgendered community" instead of the initials. They act like you just killed a baby right in front of them, calm down faggot, it's not that big of a deal. (Again, snowflakes, me saying faggot there doesn't mean I hate gay people, read above and note that I have no hate for homosexuals and faggot in this case simply means "dumb shit" lol).... How long will it be before they add a new initial to it and people shit their pants if you don't say "LGBTQBSHSKSBDGSN" in one breath without pausing to catch your breath in between? I cringe to see the day. LMAO

And more than likely more ridiculous shit as time goes on. Sure this list will be updated over time as dumb shit keeps happening.... But that is the gist of what this account will be about. Basically people getting offended and raising a stink over every little thing.

If you're still reading you either agree with me or you're a glutton for logical punishment. Either way, get those seat belts on!

[midnight-fox-boy]

Andro- and gyne- are NOT transphobic

Without understanding the definitions they can seem that way. Andro as in "male" and gyno as in "female" but they're used more broadly than that.

Androsexual means attraction to men, nonbinary masculine folks, and/or people who present as masculine. It is in no way tied to genitalia.

Gynesexual is the same but for women/nonbinary feminine/presenting feminine people

However, just like any term, they can be used in reference to transphobia. A gay man can absolutely despise trans men and refuse to even consider them attractive (even though one cannot know if a trans guy is trans or not if they are on HRT)

A bisexual person can be enbyphobic, and so forth.

The concept behind gyne/andro- is to give language to nonbinary people to describe attraction that is monosexual or in relation to a specific gender/presentation "type"

An androsexual person may be attracted only to men, no matter their genitals, or to anyone whose masculine or has masculinity within their gender identity.

Or it can be used to say "I'm only attracted to penises" which is where it can be problematic, but that isn't the true usage of the term.

A lesbian could say they're only attracted to vaginas, but many people don't see others for their genitals, since 9 times out of 10, we don't ask people "what's ur genitals" if they appear to be binary one way or the other.

With that said, a lesbian who "only likes vaginas" could fall in love with a pre-op trans woman without knowing she's trans.

Our orientations aren't tied to genitalia. However, we shouldn't fault someone who can't get turned on when seeing genitals they aren't attracted to. We can't expect a straight man to see a penis and get turned on, even if it is a possibility as many straight men do date trans women. (I'm not saying in the fetish sense)

So anyways, gyne and andro aren't necessarily tied to genitals, they're tied to how someone presents or identifies.

A gynesexual person may be attracted to a non aligned nonbinary person who simply presents feminine.

These terms are diverse, like any other. And like literally every orientation can be used in problematic ways. We don't say that being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or straight is transphobic, but they can be used as such

Some examples:

Transphobic

Gay guy: trans men aren't men so I can't be attracted to them

-

Not transphobic

Gay guy: trans men are men, but unless they have bottom surgery or plan on it, I don't see myself sexually with a trans man as vaginas gross me out, no matter who they're attached to. Maybe romantically but I usually like sex in a relationship.

-

Transphobic

Pansexual lady: I'm attracted to boys, girls and transgender people! So that makes me pansexual

-

Not transphobic

Pansexual man:I'm attracted to all genders, genitals aren't a factor in my attraction and I can see myself with any gender

-

Transphobic

Gynesexual person: vaginas are the only thing I'm attracted to, if you got a penis don't even try with me

-

Not transphobic

Gynesexual person: as long as someone is feminine in some way, I can usually find myself attracted to them.. a lot of masculinity just isn't attractive to me

[wtffundiefamilies]

fiftiesdoll

Jesus isn't transgender because he is called the Son of God and our King. It would be called heresy to say otherwise. And they will most likely tell them it isn't good because we (well not exactly we because I'm catholic, not fundie but ok) believe God created everyone in His perfect image and that He makes no mistakes. Which is why Christians usually want transgender people to go to therapy in order to accept their gender dysphoria and not transition. Just explaining!

1a. A transgender man is still a man.  He would still be Son of God and King of Kings.  

1b. Philosophically all genders, but not physically.  I suppose nothing is physically impossible for Jesus, but the people making that argument are philosophers, not historians.  (As far as I know.  If there are people out there who think that Jesus physically embodied every potential expression of gender, I don’t know about them.)

2. There’s literally no reason for God to not make trans people beyond “Other people will be assholes to them.”  And, well, that’s hardly God’s fault, now is it?  People are assholes to black people; God still makes them.  There’s no Bible verse to back up “men = penises/girls = vaginas.”  The only thing that comes close is “God made man and woman and nothing else” (paraphrasing), and that still doesn’t apply to this situation, because trans men are men and trans women are women.  They’re not “something in between.”   There’s no reason to view them as “mistakes” because there’s no reason to think they weren’t intentionally created that way, unless your argument is “Why would God do that to someone?” which I’ve already addressed.  The Bible clearly addresses two sexes; it only mentions two genders, but doesn’t outright state that there are only two.  It seems clear that in those times people were expected to choose one or the other.  But for all the traditional gender roles enforced, there are also quite a few gender-role-defying characters within the Bible.  As far as I know, God never told Deborah to shut up and go make her husband a sandwich.  So I’d say the Bible is pretty inconsistent on societal roles dictating gender as well.  But even if one adheres strictly to traditional male/female roles, that has less than nothing to do with transgender people.  Trans men and women often adhere to traditional manners of dress and behavior for their gender.  Cis men and women often do not.  

For example, trans man Chaz Bono:

He presents himself in the “traditional” male way.  Facial hair, short hair, suits and other “masculine” clothing.

Meanwhile, cis man Brian Molko:

chooses to express his gender in this fashion.  He is a man in the sense that everyone would accept; he has a penis.  But if you put Brian and Chaz side by side, which one would make you question their gender?  LBR, Brian is prettier than all of us.  

Or compare trans lady Laverne Cox:

To cis lady Kristen Stewart:

Of course there are femme trans men and butch trans women, and there are femme cis men and butch cis women.  How we present our gender has nothing to do with our genitalia.  So Biblical gender roles, however one interprets them, have nothing to do with being cis or trans.

3. Transgender individuals have brain scans that reflect their “perceived” gender rather than what their genitals dictate.  Their minds, their selves, literally do not match their bodies.  Who, if not God, is forming them in their mothers’ wombs just like this?  

4. Transgender individuals can’t change who they are.  It’s like telling someone not to be left-handed.  Sure, you could live your life using your non-dominant hand to do everything, but it would make everything a lot more difficult.  People have been trying to find a way to “cure” being transgender for a very long time.  Ultimately, the only thing that’s been proven to “fix the problem” is reconstructive surgery.  You can change the body; you can’t change the soul.  Trying to do so leads to misery.  41% of transgender individuals attempt suicide at some point in their lives.  The Bible says nothing about being transgender, but it sure as hell loudly says “Thou shalt not kill,” and that’s what conversion therapy and similar programs do to children.  People like Derick are literally killing their children.  Purely for the reason that they don’t want to think that their interpretation of the Bible is wrong.  

5. Jesus was down with people who castrated themselves.  Effectively a primitive form of a “sex change.”  Jesus acknowledges that some are made eunuchs by the hand of man (themselves) and some by the hand of God.  Jesus is literally acknowledging that some men are born either literally without testicles, or figuratively without interest in being a man, or without interest in sex (so asexuality was also valid according to Jesus).  Or one who has chosen to deny themselves a sex life to honor God.  OR one who has had his testicles removed by choice.  (The word “eunochoi” has several meanings and Jesus pretty clearly refers to ALL of them when he says:  For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.)  

“He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.”  In other words, accept it.  

[patronsaintofprincesses]

every sexy ask with a 4 in it!

OKAY sorry it’s taken me so long, first day of classes had me in an absolute tizzy!  So this is Ask Me These Probing NSFW Questions because i’m bored, starting NOW! (:

4. What’s the best sex you’ve ever had? honestly er well, the best sex i’ve had to-date has been angry break-up sex with my ex-fiance. i have never felt as deeply emotional and connected to one person as when i was pissed off and kissing our engagement goodbye.

14. How and when did you realise you weren’t straight? i think i was nine or so, perhaps younger, when i saw The Mask of Zorro and absolutely fell in love with both Zorro (Antonio Banderas) and Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones). 

24. Do you have stretch marks? Where? mm i don’t have stretch marks but honestly it’s only a matter of time with the way i lounge about

34. Do you ever find yourself fantasising absent-mindedly, or is it something you do on purpose? well I’m definitely a daydreamer, but i’m going to go with the fact that this is an NSFW ask lol i definitely fantasize at the most inopportune of times.,,,,,i’m real thankful i’m not a man because i’d probably have random boners all over the place. I am gifted with being able to call a fantasy at will and also to be bombarded whenever/wherever. I’m not really a sexual being but i have a wicked imagination and i love to explore intriguing situations.

40. Describe your most sexy fantasy. oh my okay ahem so, i really like scent, bear with me, in my fantasy, they wore this cologne by Pitbull called Man that i really enjoy and would often go running in the morning with it barely clinging to them. i love the smell of hard work (lol sweat) and Man by Pitbull together it just gets to me so, they would run at a sinful hour, i’d still be in bed in a big tshirt or a corset depending on how the night went and they’d get up to run and i had the bed to myself. it’s early, the sun has not yet risen when they return and i can smell them when they come into the room to get to the bathroom. i’m warm and pleasantly aroused, still sleep mussed and my eyes have a hard time opening, mm but my heart is in my throat already because they’re there with their shorts kind of slung on their hips and sweat at the nape of their neck so i kind of detangle myself from the nest of quilts not gracefully and crowd them and just kind of inhale the way they smell, like lingering cologne and darling and you know natural earthiness yes sweat lol and it’s early so i’m still sleep heavy and all i want are kisses and to bite their face a bit mm so i do. i nip their lips and lick the shell of their ear and then have my way withthem lol preferably held tight skin close and joining them in sweating. that’s honestly the sexiest thing i can think of right now  

41. How do you feel about BDSM? love it, learn it, live it. i think that like everything there can be too much of a good thing mm but i really enjoy the nuances of it and of course safety is queen. i think that done right, practised and enjoyed, it can be something that nourishes the soul after all what is pain without a bit of pleasure and what is pleasure without a bit of pain? even yin and yang have a piece of the other within them.

42. What’s your most unusual kink? well i’d say corsets but really thinking about it mm i really enjoy breeding sex lol sans condom, dirty talk about being filled up, etc.

43. In an SM context, do you prefer giving pain, or receiving it? both. i can be kind of a brat and sometimes i need a good bit of punishment but i’m also a princess and i get a lot of pleasure from dominating someone i really care for. it’s wonderful to be so loved that you can be a bit dark from time to time

44. Do you consider yourself to be dominant, submissive, both, or neither? both i think im a switch. i can be a sub online pretty easily mm but in-person i have a hard time really tapping into that side of me, whereas in-person im bossy and willing to play the long game. i treasure my imperfection and as is the case with everything, if you’re not failing, you’re not learning. 

45. Describe your most recent bondage experience. god it’s been years since i’ve been actively bound, but the last time i had yards of red ribbon that held my arms above my head, crossed at the wrist and my not faux boyfriend had me belly-down and gasping 

46. In a BDSM context, have you ever referred to anyone as “daddy,” “mommy,” or any similar term? no mm i mistakenly referred to someone as ma’am for a few years ahhh it ended badly, i’m childish and terrible with dealing with other people’s issues. mostly i just call people darling and thats about it  

47. Do you have a kink for any bodily fluids (pee, saliva, blood, 😢, cum, etc.)? i love tears and occasionally i’ll fantasize about bloodplay mm i don’t think i’d actively engage but let’s say my stint with S left me a bit darker than i started off being. 

48. Have you ever revealed a kink to someone and had them react negatively? not that i can think of. i treat others as i wish to be treated LOL or at least i thought i did FYI i’m still so bitter about her, i’m probably going to be so until the end of my 20s 

49. Do you have any kinks that you’re ashamed of? yeah i love roleplaying being a sex object/sacrifice/arranged marriage bride so there’s definitely some dubious consent play going on. never full on non-consensual play but i do love being held down and/or tied up. 

54. Describe how you like your genitals to be touched. well, i’m definitely a tit/ass kind of gal, i love to be groped and rubbed up against mm i prefer a steady circular motion against my clitoris, a come hither gesture with two fingers against my gspot and a scissoring motion in my ass. i will literally clench down upon a n y t h i n g inserted so i love plugs, fingers, dildos, etc but i’m also not really a sexual person.,..,,,, i’ve slept with four men and two women and that was within a ten year span, four of which were spent with my ex-fiance. 

64. Do you find it easier to give oral to someone with the same genital configuration as you (eg., you both own vaginas/both own penises), or different? mm i love vaginas, i love performing oral sex on women because i’’m definitely far more comfortable with the parts lol penises are....strange to me and i find myself being kind of bad at fellatio. like no one has complained but im pretty sure they’re just being nice. 

74. Can you take a lot in your butt, or just a little? it depends, like if i’m properly stretched then i can take a fair amount and if i have a plug and generous amounts of lube i’m usually soft and sloppy open the morning after. so yeah um a fair amount 

84. Do you enjoy 👀 your partner(s) having sex with others? sure um i’m not a jealous woman and i’m poly and a voyeur and an exhibitionist (as long as i feel sexy that day lol if not then no, i’ll be in my room in my pajamas reading).

94. Post your follower count. so many porn bots @---@ oh my god but there’s 400 and i think 12 are actual people *sad violin*

THANK YOU for asking um i hope these are the right ones otherwise i’m going to feel so awkward lol 

[freedom-of-fanfic]

my favorite thing is when someone insists The Discourse isnt about shaming and policing women's sexuality, while at the same time using the word "fujoshi", which was coined to shame and police women's sexuality. (i forget if you said this in your post on the subject but it doesnt even refer to just BL fans, but any woman who openly expresses sexual attraction to male characters)

(here’s the post where I talked about ‘yaoi’ and ‘fujoshi’ being adopted as pejoratives in colloquial English-speaking forums.)

it’s also my favorite thing. 8)

(side note about gender stuff:

 ‘fujoshi’ is a gendered word in Japan that refers to women (and, though I’m not familiar with Japanese LGBTQ spaces, possibly people who don’t identify as a woman but relate to ‘fujoshi’ anyway.) positive usage of ‘fujoshi’ as a badge of honor for BL fans is specific to this gendered usage, with ‘fundashi’ being adopted by men (etc).

‘fujoshi’ as a pejorative in English-speaking spaces still carries this gendered connotation, but is aimed at anyone who isn’t able to be an mlm: literally anyone who isn’t a man, and often at anyone who isn’t a cis man. (and yes, the implication is that if you’re not a cis man, you’re a woman. and yes, that’s accidentally-on-purpose.)

b/c ‘fujoshi’ as a pejorative is aimed so widely in English-speaking fandom I’ll be using ‘non-(cis)men’ most of the time to refer to its targets in this post.  however, gender is VERY complicated and I realize that this post may not properly capture all gender identities affected here. I am doing my best and am open to concrit.)

Now I get that there’s some confusion over the use of ‘fujoshi’. It didn’t really reach English-speaking spaces until Japanese fen picked the word up and turned it into a badge of honor; before that, it was a derogatory word coined by 2chan (Japan’s 4chan. 2chan inspired 4chan.) as a result, some people unironically use ‘fujoshi’ to refer to themselves/BL fans in a positive way, and I can see a positivity post using ‘fujoshi’ that way.  But the use of the word ‘fujoshi’ in English-speaking spaces with a positive connotation is ironically the exact reason it’s often used in a negative way now.

If someone is making a positivity post for women or nb people or afab people (etc) that uses ‘fujoshi’ in a negative light, they’re hideously missing the point. It’s playing into the narrative that anyone who isn’t a (cis) man isn’t allowed to own their enjoyment of erotic material that involves (cis) men - even if that erotic material was created specifically for them, and without exploiting any real (cis) men, mlm or not - without feeling shame.

fandom has been fussing over whether or not non-mlm people are allowed to create or consume fictional mlm works for literal decades. Policing what non-(cis)men get hot and bothered over is an international pastime, with advocates on all sides of the political spectrum*:

conservative/purity groups are opposed to erotic/explicit material existing in the first place, especially aimed at people-they-categorize-as-women (because ‘women’ shouldn’t experience sexual desire for anyone but their husband). even mentioning sex in an educational context to people who aren’t 18 is a dangerous promotion of promiscuity. and anything that features LGBTQ content of any kind is promoting sin

misogynists/MRAs are deeply disturbed by the idea that anyone who isn’t a cis man is owning and controlling their sexual enjoyments in a way they didn’t personally condone (especially if that expression doesn’t involve actually having sex with them). they therefore deride non-cis-men who enjoy fictional mlm as ugly ‘old women’ who couldn’t get with them even if they tried

radfems are alarmed that people-radfems-categorize-as-women create, consume, and openly enjoy erotic content, as porn exploits people with vaginas (except under very narrow circumstances). it’s particularly bad when people with vaginas are sexually enjoying bodies with penises because that’s essentially sexual desire for your oppressor, which is kind like self-abuse

and now antis, who take a little from all three of the above columns, are stressed about non-(cis)men creating and consuming explicit fictional mlm content because nsfw content will make minors have sex, and it fetishizes real mlm, and non-(cis)men who like it are gross and also old people who really just want sex with young people, and it’s weird that non-mlm want to fantasize about sex that they can’t have anyway, isn’t it?

(none of these groups have clued in that non-(cis)men may have many reasons for enjoying explicit fictional mlm content other than sexual enjoyment, but hey.)

*let me set aside a note for mlm who are bothered by fictional mlm content created by non-mlm. unlike the groups above, there’s a legit claim to feeling exploited because irl bi/pan/gay men are attacked and ridiculed for their sexual orientation. Understandably, having fictional versions of mlm relationships by-non-mlm-for-non-mlm can feel particularly objectifying. (nonetheless I would argue that on the scale of objectification and harm, slash fic written by majority-LGBT/queer transformative fandom is a drop in the bucket, and there’s plenty of places on the net where fictional mlm-by-mlm-for-mlm dominates.)

anyone who isn’t a cis (straight, white - yes, as usual, race heavily intersects with all this!!) man owning their sexual interests is threatening to a status quo that put those cis-straight-white men at the top of the list of people who get to choose who to sleep with and sexualize with impunity. 

there’s absolutely no reason for us to help the power structure out by attacking each other.

[mireios]

we get it. yall are disgusted by us and will never view us as real men, women, or anything we identify as. we dont CARE that youre a lesbian only attracted to vaginas and could never accept any kind of trans woman (even post op). but lots of lesbians do include trans women in their sexuality, and they arent bi nor are they traitors "attracted to males". yes, sexuality has many facets, or else being a lesbian would mean youre attracted to literally every single woman alive. there are certain things about a person that attracts us.

but for gods sake why the hell do you make it your mission to tell us to our faces our bodies arent right for you? i know many cis gay men dont want trans men. we already know. you can simply leave it at that, instead of adding salt by constantly saying "I only date REAL men/women!"

Like fuck that. i can accept being attracted to physical attributes but i cant accept this pointless and unnecessary bullying of people who are already rejected by others. you arent advocating for anything at this point, youre just seeking to make your disgust at innocent people public.

not wanting to date a trans person because they dont fit your needs in a relationship isnt transphobic (just like not dating an ace person if they cant fulfill your needs isnt aphobic). but making comments like "neo-vagina," calling trans women men, referring to trans people as rapists and supporters of conversion therapy (which is goddamn absurd as probably most trans people are gay/bi), and calling straight trans men "lesbians" ....yeah. that makes you irrevocably transphobic.

(Also i dont care if you believe its the 'right sex' please STOP calling trans women males and trans men females. most of our bodies are no longer male or female bodied due to transitioning, since there is way more to biological sex than JUST genitals. And even then, so many trans women have vaginas and trans men have penises. So just stop forcing untrue labels on us in a generalization. if yall think its okay for trans men to ID as lesbians, or cis lesbians to use masculine pronouns, then you cant turn around and say we HAVE to adhere to your binary labels either.)

im keeping this post civilized. if all i get is the same ignorant "but fake science!!" argument i will happy guide you to a master science post and then block you. there is no open discussion. start respecting trans people, and other gays/lesbians while youre at it, and focus on a movement to improve all our lives instead of obsessing over tearing a minority down like the rest of the cishets. It is NOT hard to care about others outside of your niche.

[urls-are-hard]

I really want to understand

has anyone else struggled with fully comprehending some really big things about queer theory/etc? I want nothing to do with terfs/radfems or terf ideology but the only things I’m ever able to find that address my confusion seem to come from that side of things. I know that might sound like a cop-out - I’ve definitely seen people roll their eyes at posts like this “oh I don’t *want* to having anything to do with terfs, but-- [insert rad-fem adjacent “just questions,,.,.,.,.”]” - but I really really am trying to research and understand things and I have Shinigami Eyes on my computer so I steer clear of red-marked links, but it leaves me with so many unanswered questions.

like, the biggest one that gets me is that like - when people talk about “don’t refer to being lesbian as synonymous with not liking dick” or “don’t refer to being gay (specifically a gay man) as being synonymous with not liking pussy” - I understand where that’s coming from. but at the same time, it’s literally hard for me to fathom the idea of how monosexual orientations can possibly exist under the gender anarchist framework that a lot of modern queer theory supports?

so like. say I’m a lesbian. I proclaim that I am only attracted to women. great. “that includes amab trans women?” “yes, amab trans women are women.” “that includes trans women who haven’t had bottom surgery?” “yes, trans women who haven’t had bottom surgery are still women.” “that includes butch trans women who haven’t had bottom surgery?” “yes, butch trans women who haven’t had bottom surgery are still women.” “but that doesn’t include afab trans men?” “no, trans men are men, and I’m only attracted to women.” “and it doesn’t include afab trans men who haven’t had bottom surgery?” “no, even if they haven’t had bottom surgery, trans men are men and I’m not attracted to men.” “and that doesn’t include femme afab trans men who haven’t had bottom surgery?” “correct, they’re men and I’m not attracted to men.” 

I don’t understand - how can attraction be so separate from physical appearance/bodies in that way? if I see a person, my body/mind isn’t going to wait to react with attraction to that person until I know how they identify?

and that doesn’t even touch on the question of non-binary/genderqueer people, whether afab or amab - some monosexual people seem to include *some* non-binary people as part of the group that they identify as being attracted to - but how does that work!! is it only “woman-aligned” non-binary or agender people that lesbians are/can be attracted to??? I’ve heard some discussions in the past about how the definition of lesbian shouldn’t be as restrictive as it tends to be - is this part of that??

all of this comes down to - if genders are socially constructed, and womanhood/manhood are these foggy, undefined *things* that are unique to each person and have nothing to do with the physical sex/assigned sex of the person (though I know that intersex people play into this as well) then how do we rectify that with having these lines of division that are just----so blurry. how can a person say “I identify as being Not Attracted To Women” when that’s just such a fuzzy line in the first place???

the frustrating thing is that when I look at it like this, the question comes to me: “how else are we supposed to understand categories of attraction/etc besides divisions based on genitalia/secondary sex characteristics, as opposed to gender” (i.e. “I *am* attracted to people with vaginas”, “I’m *not* attracted to people with penises”) which I feel like is just,,,,,an *incredibly* reductionist perspective to have, but I keep batting it away and hoping I’ll find some other framework to replace it with that will actually be something that I understand. cause at this point, I identify as bi/queer *mostly* because I’m pretty sure that I’m attracted to both cis men and cis women (I also have toyed with identifying as grey-ace because of how little attraction I experience, period - thus the “pretty sure” and the lack of specification regarding knowledge of my attraction to trans people - attraction for me is pretty sporadic and random on the best of days) - but I also partially identify as bi/queer because - beyond being pretty sure that I’m a woman attracted to women (making me queer) I don’t know how to further “draw lines”, if you will, to say what my label would be even if I wanted to consider something more exclusive like lesbian (not saying I am, just saying I wouldn’t even know how to start thinking about that).

I know this is long and you may not want to spend all this time debating specifics of queer theory to a rando on the internet. I’ve just been sitting on all of this for months and have yet to find a space where I can actually discuss it - it feels like in all the spaces I’m in, it’s Already Established what the Right Dogma is and it would feel incredibly awkward to openly question any of this.

[daxcourse]

I don't think cis/AGAB-aligned nb gay people fully understand just how alienating the language we use to talk about gay sexuality is to trans people. I'm not just talking about saying stuff like "I love dick/pussy" or whatever. It goes a lot deeper than that. The fact is to most gay people who aren't trans, we're an afterthought and it shows. I wonder how many cis gay people even know the common ways that trans people have sex, or if they assume it's how cis straight people have sex. How many know the common terms used to refer to our bodies? How many have really, truly interrogated /their/ relationship to sex independently of their genitalia? "Not all men have penises/not all women have vaginas" isn't enough. What about us? Do you actually know anything about how we relate to our bodies? How about trans people who have had surgery and /do/ have cis-looking penises/vaginas? Trans people having gay sex shouldn't just be something you make an effort to be inclusive of in spite of it being uncomfortable for you— it should be the /norm/. The gay sex that trans people have is gay sex. Normal gay sex. Things like muffing, or going down on a t dick— that is normal, standard, default gay sex. How many cis people actually know how either of those things work though? And I know to many people this just sounds hollow, like I'm expecting that just because I repeat these words a bunch of times that'll magically make it true. But consider: that's how I feel reading literally every post about cis gay sex. Every short story, every thinkpiece, every shitpost on tumblr. That's not true for everyone, obviously, transness is incredibly individualized and encompasses a huge swathe of sometimes conflicting experiences, but it's true for many. The point of this post isn't to say "you as a cis person should go have sex with more trans people or else you're a big bad transphobe." The point is to say, consider that although it feels important to you to be able to talk about gay sex in terms of specific sexual acts or body parts, although that may feel like an important part of your experience— that's not what it means to be gay. Don't be passive about normalizing transness, don't just reblog trans people's posts and then sit back and expect that (acknowledging the work trans people are doing) to be good enough. /Learn from trans people./ Bring us into the discussion, solicit our thoughts and experiences even where they're not otherwise mentioned. Do the research and the personal work to help equilibrate the years all of us have spent steeping in cisnormativity. All of that should be the absolute bare minimum, the baseline of even talking about gay sexuality. Only then can we try to engage in more complex discussions of sexuality and sex-repulsion and bodies.

[gcintheme-blog]

Debunking Serano’s “Debunking”

Julia Serano believes he has “debunked” radical feminists in this article published on his blog yesterday. I would like to take some time to deconstruct Serano’s arguments and debunk trans activism’s “debunking.” Because of all the fallacies and straw men in the article, this post will be a long one. Grab a snack and join me. Serano, this is rhetorically addressed to you.

Your second sentence in this article:

From pre-interview conversations we shared, I knew that my interviewer planned to ask me about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s comments from earlier this year wherein she claimed that trans women are not women.

And in the article you link to for a source:

Adichie, who is not transgender, responded: “So when people talk about, you know, ‘Are trans women women?’ — my feeling is trans women are trans women.”

Notice how you’re dishonest in the second sentence of this article? You begin by touting yourself and your interview for the New York Times, and then immediately, falsely, cast skeptical feminists like Adichie as the villains. While I wouldn’t disagree with Adichie if she had said trans women aren’t women, she didn’t say that and you begin your piece by framing “popular” feminists (Adichie and women like her) as a natural enemy.

Moving on, you talk about your own book for a while, and then:

Women who insist that trans women are not women often object to being called “cis women” under the false assumption that it somehow undermines their femaleness — this is not at all the purpose of this language....In other words, referring to someone as “cisgender” simply means that they have not had a transgender experience.

You do not get to determine other people's analysis of your writing, especially if you want to falsely put words in Adichie's mouth. If you are going to claim that trans feelings are what matter over other people speaking, then you cannot simultaneously tell anyone who feels undermined by putting a prefix on our oppression that we are wrong.

I could say "In other words, referring to someone as 'he' simply means he was born with a penis and has been treated accordingly by society" and you'd call me a bigot. You cannot support, for instance, the idea that misgendering a trans person is violence if the alleged offender meant no harm because according to your logic, the intent of words matters more than the effect.

How many times have women heard men tell us not to take their words negatively? “Calm down!” “Relax!” “It’s a compliment!” This is tired.

While some cisgender people refuse to take our experiences seriously, the fact of the matter is that transgender people can be found in virtually every culture and throughout history.

This is not an argument. Sexism has occurred in virtually every culture and throughout history. So has rape, murder, and child abuse. Longevity is not relevant. You cannot argue that it lends legitimacy or validates your claims.

While cis feminists who claim that trans women are not women obsess over questions of identity (“How can a ‘man’ possibly call ‘himself’ a woman?”), they purposefully overlook or play down the fact that we have very real life experiences as women.

Actually, we don't obsess over your identity. You do. Radical feminists are focused on material problems whereas you are the one constantly blowing about identity validation. I have never asked how a man can call himself a woman because society allows men to call themselves anything they want, including the biologically impossible.

You do not have experiences as a woman. You have experiences as a man masquerading as a woman. They will never be the same as our experiences.

Forcing trans women into a separate group that is distinct from cis women does not in any way help achieve feminism’s central goal of ending sexism.

Spaces free from men does help our goal by allowing us to organize women like you to come and tell us who we are and what our goals should be. Men forcing themselves into women's spaces is sexism.

Other common appeals to biology center on reproduction — e.g., stating that trans women have not experienced menstruation, or cannot become pregnant. This ignores the fact that some cisgender women never menstruate and/or are unable to become pregnant.

A man has never become pregnant. Where are women who do not menstruate or are unable to become pregnant complaining like you are? I have never become pregnant and never once did I doubt that I'm a woman. Society has treated me from birth as a female with the potential to become pregnant. You do not have that potential.

Women’s genitals vary greatly, and as with chromosomes and reproductive capabilities, we cannot readily see other people’s genitals in everyday encounters.

Women do not have penises. Diversity in vulvas and vaginas is not a penis. We can evaluate the sex of 99% of the people we come across at first glance. I PROMISE you that men know I have a vagina when they sexually harass me on the street even though they can't see it.

When I lived in Spain as an Iraqi girl, I was sometimes mistaken for a person of Romani heritage and treated as such. (One specific incident comes to mind where I was patiently waiting to use a cash machine and the current user tried to shoo me away, believing I would try to rob her.) While my phenotype might appear to be that of a Roma girl to some people and I have had “real experiences” of being an Iraqi mistaken for a Roma person, that doesn’t make me Romani. It doesn’t give me the history of the Romani people or the struggle of their daily lives and common discrimination.

And frankly, what could possibly be more sexist than reducing a woman to what’s between her legs? Isn’t that precisely what sexist men have been doing to women for centuries on end?

Possibly the idea that a woman is a collection of stereotypes rather than a biologically oppressed class? Acknowledging I have a vagina and my life has been a certain way because of it is not reductive. I never said it defines me; it makes my life significantly different from yours and as a radical feminist I am trying to fight against that. You're the only one using that argument.

So it is hypocritical for any self-identified feminist to use “biology” and “body parts” arguments in their attempts to dismiss trans women.

Biology is directly tied to our oppression. We need to point that out to fight the oppression. Is it a black person playing into racism by pointing out that she is black? Is a Jew hypocritical for pointing out that antisemitism happens to her because she is Jewish? During the Holocaust, people with Jewish heritage who self-identified as atheists were STILL murdered along with practicing Jews. They couldn't identify themselves out of the ghettos or the concentration camps because your identifarianism is made up.

The main thrust of this assertion is that women are women because of socialization and/or their experiences with sexism. But what about me then?

It's NOT ALWAYS ABOUT YOU.

You're not a woman. There is your answer.

Or what about young trans girls who socially transition early in life, and who never have the experience of being perceived or treated as a man?

Socialization literally starts in the uterus. There are cultures with superstitions that doing certain things will "curse" a pregnant woman with a female infant. I can see you don't spend a lot of time with children (alhamdulillah--thank god) because you would see how early that socialization begins and reflects in their behavior. I’ve already written about how society disadvantages female infants.

A young girl is forced against her will to live as a boy. Upon reaching adulthood, after years of male socialization and privilege, she comes out about identifying as female and begins to live as a woman. Do you accept her as a woman?

Children are not forced against their will to live as their biological sex because biological sex is natural trait for human beings . Children are forced to conform to gender roles but your insistence that womanhood is just a collection of those roles is actually upholding the problem.

Saying "you are a boy" is not the same as being told what “boy” socially entails, or that you cannot do feminine-labeled things because you are a boy. You were NEVER a young girl so don't act like a victim in that sense. I'm sorry society forces children to uphold gender roles but radical feminists are the ones out here fighting them.

More often than not, people who claim that trans women aren’t women make both the biology and socialization arguments simultaneously, even though they are seemingly contradictory (i.e., if biology is the predominant criteria, then one’s socialization shouldn’t matter, and vice versa).

Biology is the basis of that socialization. Radical feminists are not arguing conflicting ideologies. We acknowledge that socialization is assigned to us based on our material and unchangeable biological sex. This is not contradictory in any way.

Much like their homophobic counterparts who make appeals to biology (“God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”)

Creationism is not biology. You're trying to undermine biology and evolution with an example that you know is religious and not scientific at all.

The trans-women-aren’t-women crowd desperately throws the entire kitchen sink at us rather than attempting to make a coherent argument.

I think I've made a very coherent argument but trans activists ignore that argument and set up straw men, like you just did in the sentence immediately before this one. You're the one who has it wrong.

While gender socialization is quite real, all of us are capable of overcoming or transcending the socialization that we experienced as children.

So now you're acknowledging gender socialization but saying we can overcome it. This is blaming women for our own oppression because we cannot socialize or identify ourselves out of it. Even trans men cannot escape their socialization and the attacks against their female biology like anti-abortion laws.

If I could transcend my socialization, I wouldn't wear makeup, but my job requires me to look "presentable" and this means wearing makeup in my society. If I could transcend my socialization, I would be much firmer with men who interrupt me but I know they will likely react with more hostility and I have to prioritize my safety over shedding stereotypes. It's hardly an option really.

The "Male Energy" and "Male Privilege" Fallacies

The way you've put "male privilege" in quotation marks and followed with the word "fallacies" makes me extremely nervous for this next section because it sounds like you don't believe male privilege exists. But I will read and judge fairly...

In my many years of being perceived by the world as a cisgender woman, I have never once had anyone claim to detect “male privilege” or “male energy” in me.

This is because your male socialization means you are more likely to react with hostility or violence when being criticized, and our female socialization makes us less likely to criticize men, out of fear or concern for your feelings over ours.

Do you think male-identified males have these conversations with women or with each other all the time? I have never told a man he exudes "male energy." I've never even heard of this. It's bizarre. It’s also unrealistic to believe people tell you every thought they have about you. I’m sure people have thought things about me—both flattering and unflattering—that they’ve kept to themselves.

Male privilege is a very real thing. In my booking Whipping Girl, I talk at length about my own personal experiences of having it, and subsequently losing it post-transition.

Why do you have male privilege in quotation marks in every previous line? It's very obvious you don't think it applies to you as you've stated this directly. That's the same line of thinking I've heard from most male self-identified "feminists" who really just want to deny their own culpability. We've all heard it.

The fact that the trans-women-aren’t-women crowd constantly harp about trans women’s real or imagined male privilege, yet refuse to acknowledge or examine their own cisgender privilege, demonstrates that their concerns about privilege are disingenuous.

"Trans women's real or imagined male privilege." So which is it then? You aren't putting forth a coherent argument.

Cisgender privilege is not real. Women are not privileged more than men in the world, and accepting the reality of your body and how it means you are treated in the world is not a privilege unless you argue that being transgender is a mental illness, in which case those without that mental illness do have some advantages. But the trans lobby takes offense to that.

There are numerous problems with this line of reasoning [that trans males are caricatures of women]:

1) It relies on a highly negative view of feminine gender expression (that I have debunked in my writings) and implies that conventionally feminine cisgender women are also behaving superficially and/or reinforcing stereotypes.

If you do believe that women are an oppressed group, then naturally if follows the oppressed group cannot be blamed for their participation in that system to the same extent as the oppressors.

I have been socialized from birth to act feminine according to my culture’s standards. You haven’t. When you imply that acting out my oppression make you oppressed too, it’s insulting. First, it makes a joke of what I am forced to do to live safely, and second, it implies if I acted differently, I wouldn’t be oppressed as a woman, which isn’t true.

2) It ignores the many trans women who are outspoken feminists and/or not conventionally feminine.

Lots of men call themselves feminists but it doesn't make them feminists or make them women. Calling yourself a feminist doesn’t make you a feminist any more than calling yourself a woman makes you a woman. (It doesn’t make you those things at all.)

3) Trans women do not transition out of a desire to be feminine; we transition out of a self-understanding that we are or should be female (commonly referred to as gender identity).

If there is no discernible biological condition that defines someone as a woman, as you argue before, then what are you transitioning to?

You are just adopting feminine stereotypes (but picking and choosing, mind you) and saying that makes you a woman. It doesn’t. Womanhood isn’t a feeling or an inner identity and to imply this is anti-woman because it sets the foundation for blaming us for our own position within an oppressed class.

4) Trans women who are conventionally feminine are not in any way asserting or insinuating that all women should be conventionally feminine, or that femininity is all there is to being a woman. Like cis women, trans women dress the way we do in order to express ourselves, not to critique or caricature other women.

You are asserting that feminine stereotypes make you a woman instead of what you are: a feminine man. And, by your language “[imply that] femininity is all there is to being a woman” you are implying that femininity (which is a set of cultural stereotypes) is at least part of being a woman. This is in conflict with your “identification only” mantra and it is proven false by every proud gender non-conforming woman and man out there.

5) This line of reasoning accuses trans women of arrogantly presuming to know what cis women experience, when we do no such thing. In reality, it’s the cis women who forward this accusation that are the ones arrogantly presuming to know what trans women experience and what motivates us.

You literally said in your last point: “Like cis women, trans women dress the way we do in order to express ourselves.” I do not dress the way I do in order to express myself; I dress this way in order to avoid violence in an extremely patriarchal society where women are expected to be covered or attacked. You just claimed to know my experience and motivations and you got it completely wrong.

As a trans woman, I will be the first to admit that I cannot possibly know what any other woman experiences or feels on the inside.

Then why have you spent this entire article constructing straw man arguments and insisting radical feminists believe things that we simply don’t? Your second sentence was a lie about something feminist and woman Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie said. How could you assume you have anything in common with us?

But the thing is, the trans-women-aren’t-women crowd cannot possibly know what any other woman experiences or feels either!

Actually, I do know what other women experience and feel because I am a woman. We have a shared experience as an oppressed class that you are not a part of. I’m glad you are acknowledging that you don’t know how we feel, but women around the world have the common experience of our biology and our socialization as the lesser sex according to that biology.

It’s the cis women who attempt to exclude us who seem to have a singular superficial stereotypical notion of what constitutes a woman, or of what women experience.

When you call the shared experiences of women under patriarchy “a singular superficial notion” you are arguing that sexism does not exist. Sexism has to have a definition in order to fight against it and that definition is the oppression of women as a class of people based on our reproductive biology.

Some cis feminists will extrapolate from this [trans people’s claims of sexed brains] that all trans people must hold highly essentialist beliefs about female-versus-male brains, and therefore that we are an affront to feminism. Often, they will make this case while simultaneously making essentialist claims themselves (e.g., regarding reproductive capacities) in order to undermine our identities.

The idea of different male and female brains is an affront to feminism because we know scientifically that our brains house our personality traits, intelligence, and memory and thus significantly affects how we act within society. Arguing that women have fundamentally different brains from men supports sexism by allowing men to argue our social circumstances are actually brought about by biological determination and that our lower place within society is valid because we are less intelligent or naturally drawn to certain tasks.

As a biologist, you should know that genitals serve a completely different purpose than the brain and does lead to different lived experiences for men and women. Even without the social construct of gender, women have pregnancies and men do not. To point out that male and female genitals are different is acknowledging material reality, whereas you are trying to construct your arguments upon subjective “identities.”

Radical feminists argue this material reality should not place women at a lower position within society or designate certain roles for us that have nothing to do with biology. Radical feminists accept our realities as people with vaginas and uteruses and the biological consequences of those things. What we do not accept is the unnecessary and oppressive social roles that have been created based upon them.

But here’s the thing: Rachel Dolezal is one person. In sharp contrast (as I alluded to earlier), transgender people are a pan-cultural and trans-historical phenomenon, and comprise approximately 0.2 – 0.3% of the population.

Prevalence does not make something good or healthy. A lot more than 0.3% of the population is sexist and that doesn’t mean sexism should be accepted in society. Since you can’t undermine that Rachel Dolezal acted out stereotypes and then called herself a black person and how this is directly linked to the trans phenomenon, you’re trying to argue that the problem is small.

According to the American news networks, white people “identify” as people of color to check those boxes on university and job applications to take advantage of affirmative action all the time. People confess to doing it. So the problem of people moving into spaces designated for certain marginalized groups—including people of color and women—is not small like you make it out to be.

I am Iraqi and I plan to study in the United States which means I have to require a special visa and still face possible rejection as a result of Trump’s travel ban on my country. (I’m not a Muslim, but the ban targets Muslim-majority countries and I live in one.) Still, I checked “white” on my university applications because it clearly states Middle Eastern people are white during that process. Marginalized Americans worked hard for those distinctions and I will not undermine their work by claiming to be someone I’m not. Maybe we can discuss a separate Middle Eastern category in the future, but I’m not going to claim to be black or Pacific Islander.

I have never once in my life heard a trans woman claim that our experiences are 100 percent identical to those of cis women.

Then what is your article even about? Why does the idea of women having our own spaces without trans women bother you? What is under threat here? Your “identity,” as you state above?

The problem isn’t that we (i.e., trans women) refuse to acknowledge any differences, but rather that the trans-women-aren’t-women crowd refuses to acknowledge our many similarities.

Feminism doesn’t focus on similarities because sexism doesn’t. “Why don’t we just all come together because we aren’t that different” says the person in a position of institutional power. Society tells people we are different and then as soon as you want something we have (that you have relegated us to) you claim to be just like us. Please.

There was a time in the 1960s and 1970s when many heterosexual feminists wanted to similarly exclude lesbians from women’s organizations and from feminism. The justifications that they forwarded were eerily similarly to trans-women-aren’t-women arguments: They accused lesbians of being “oppressively male” and of “reinforcing the sex class system.”

Lesbians are women and feminism is the movement to liberate women from sexism. Lesbians are biologically female and therefore women, whereas you are not. Many previous “feminists” have been racist and antisemitic as well, but people with common sense know black women and Jewish women are adult human females and therefore included in feminism. Biological males do not belong in feminism. Do not appropriate the struggles of lesbians.

Trans women are women. We may not be “exactly like” cis women, but then again, cis women are not all “exactly like” one another either. But what we do share is that we all identify and move through the world as women.

No, you are not women. You are biologically male and socialized as boys and then men. Not all women are exactly alike but we all have the shared experience of being biologically female and being treated accordingly. You do not have that experience. You do not move through the world as a woman, but as a man pretending he is a woman.

I said at the outset, forcing trans women into a separate group that is distinct from cis women does not in any way help achieve feminism’s central goal of ending sexism. In fact, it only serves to undermine our collective cause.

Sexism is rooted in biological sex. You are a biological male and in this way you are distinct from biological females and we do not have to include you in our mission to liberation ourselves from oppression by men.

What is our collective cause? What are your goals and how do you hope to achieve them? What are you doing to help women other than writing about how we exclude you because you are a man? How do you define sexism?

Your piece is riddled with incoherent arguments and you attempt to paint radical feminism as illogical when, in fact, radical feminism can be used to logically dismantle all your arguments and point to a clear foundation for women’s oppression.

This work starts with a falsehood and ends with a vague assertion that feminists, by asking for our own spaces free from men, are hurting ourselves when actually, you have only argued how these actions hurt you and men like you. You have blamed women for our own oppression throughout this article and yet you expect us to take you in with open arms and validate your identity because that is the only thing that you believe ties you to womanhood.

It doesn’t, and we’re not here to entertain you.