#like people being lgbt or racism existing or disabilities

[red-revival]

Honestly one of the biggest like. Cues that tells me how chill ppl are is how they talk to kids

I think a lot of people forget that children are. Yknow. Small, developing people. Not animals, not idiots. Small people who are still growing up

Yeah there are subjects or situations not appropriate for kids, and you probably want to try not swear a lot around them, but they’ll be better off and grow up a better person if you’re willing to treat them like people instead. Its OK for a kid to know what trans means, its ok to talk about disability with kids nearby, its ok to talk about most difficult topics like racism, you just gotta be honest and considerate and phrase it well

[sweatermuppet]

What is it like being trans in New Hampshire? I'm trans in Maine and generally consider NH the black sheep of New England when it comes to queer politics. Some of my trans friends consider it a no-stop zone on our roadtrips.

uh it's pretty fine for me. i get kinda sad when people say NH isnt trans friendly (a sentiment ive seen a lot lately). i had an openly transitioning teacher in high school. i had many gay teachers in high school. i was one of the first kids to transition openly at my school & there were a lot of struggles but it was also 6+ years ago & mostly teachers were under-educated & didn't know how to protect me. i got in a fight & suspended over a kid who was transphobic toward me, but i was allowed to use the boy's bathroom & locker room & all of my core teachers were pretty good about using my name & pronouns

i have multiple trans friends, just locally, & know other trans people a little further out in NH from following them on IG. some pretty decent art scenes in various towns & those are LGBT-dense. one of my trans friends started estrogen yesterday (prescription thru informed consent). i will say in my experience, NH healthcare is lacking for transsexuals—it's been easier for me to go thru Massachusetts or NH planned parenthoods, but ive been able to receive treatment fairly easily (cost being one of the only major negative factors)

as for people, a lot of folks kind of don't care? there are of course republicans & conservatives & a disheartening amount of libertarians, but in my day to day, it's mostly "live free or die" & if you're not hurting anyone, it's not too big of a deal. some of the republicans in my life (like friends' dads) have the attitude of "well i don't get it" but they still call me silas & are generally alright with me, aren't hostile towards me

i see trans flags pretty often. i saw a bumper sticker last month that was the shape of NH completely colored in with the trans flag. there are a bunch of coffee shops & bookstores & artsy places nearby i can think of that employ trans people, house trans art, etc

recently, anti-trans & anti-LGBT bills have been introduced & passed in NH. two passed last month, which can be read about here. i saw some pretty disgusting sentiments shared about those bills on twitter when they were introduced. those make it harder to exist here, but it's not impossible & it does not immediately make all residents hostile toward transsexuals. i don't want people to abandon NH because they think it's too far gone or too hopeless. trans people will always exist in every state & every country & every corner, no matter how hostile those places become

people here love me, regardless of how political parties view me. people here fight for me. there are trans people & Black people & disabled people here who are more vulnerable than me who i want to stay & fight for & protect. if you'd like to learn more about diversity in NH & how to protect various human rights, here are some orgs i am familiar with:

NH PANTHERS (anti-racism advocacy & education)

Queer-Lective (art, education, & connection)

Black Lives Matter NH

GLSEN NH (LGBT resources & education for schools/teachers/students)

Reproductive Freedom Fund of NH (abortion fund, sex ed, LGBT advocacy)

603 Equality (LGBT advocacy & education)

Lovering Health Center (reproductive care, LGBT education, gender affirming care for NH, MA, & ME)

Black Heritage Trail of NH (Black history)

ACLUNH (civil liberties + human rights)

[neotrances]

i’m mostly focusing on race here bc the main people who push “gen z will save us” shtick r white, and u can tell bc their idea of oppression is so childlike, they think progress is just being polite and just existing in the same room as minorities, they consider activism to be a handshake and a retweet of a mlk quote here and there, racism is one of the biggest forms of oppression in our world and when white ppl r the dominant group they often “control” the conversations, they have no idea what it’s like to be othered by your peers before even learning to read, to be considered an animal before learning to walk, to be looked at with disgust when talking to white kids and never understanding why, they don’t get how deep racism runs, and some might experience other forms of oppression later on in life if they realize they’re lgbt or r disabled yadda yadda but most don’t, and bc of that most r completely blind to how fucked up our world is on every level, i never once believed “gen z will save us” i grew up getting told by 11 year olds in my school that i should be lynched, u start to realize the problem won’t be fixed by youth when u experience shit like that ur whole life

[colorisbyshe]

Feel very weird by people framing the fundamentalist right's attack on “sexless marriage” as an ~attack on asexuals~ to prove ~ace oppression when it’s... very clearly not?

Because it’s part of the same group that is trying to ban LGBT marriage (and therefore DOES NOT want sex filed gay marriage or sex filled marriage between cis men/women with trans women/men respectively). The same group that tries to limit the rights of disabled people so that they cannot marry (or they have more limited rights upon marriage), making it clear that they do not want disabled people to be having sex filled marriages.

The fundamentalist groups releasing this decree against hte “wrong” marriages specifically said “platonic marriages” (which ISN’T what asexual relationships are, asexual romantic relationships exist) which is clearly part of a larger framework where they consider some marriages to be “scams” to get benefits. See the harmful rhetoric around “marrying for green cards” or military benefits or any other forms of welfare.

This is ALSO part of extremely racist rhetoric around the Great Replacement Theory where they want to force white (well off, able bodied, cis, etc) m/f couples to breed to stave off the rise of minority populations. This about reproduction, the nuclear family, and all of the baggage that comes with that. Which is coupled with state sanctioned sterilization and incarceration (which tears apart family units and keeps them from having kids during this period) of “less desirable” groups.

Marriage is about sex and reproduction and keeping the white race alive. Marriage is not for marginalized people. Reproduction is not for marginalized people.

None of this is targeted at asexual people who can and do have sex. Who can and do have children. ANd romantic marriages.

This is about state control of marriage after the state exerted control over reproduction (with the destruction of roe v wade).

Before this is ‘aphobia’ this is misogyny, racism, classism, and, yes, still homophobia and transphobia (because the same people are ALSO trying to destroy lawrence v texas to bring back sodomy laws and if gay/trans sex is ILLEGAL, all gay/trans marriages can only legally be sexless).

I am actually sick to my stomach around the framing of this as just “AN ATTACK ON ACES DURING ACE WEEK” when its very VERY fucking obvious the fundamentalist groups pushing for the attack “platonic” marriages (which, again, would not how a romantic asexual marriage is described) do not give a fuck about what the ace identity even is. Just like religious groups aren’t being incel-phobic when they demonized masturbation and sex outside of marriage.

It’s about forcing reproduction and the nuclear family into state control. Not about demonizing lack of sexual desire.

This affects non-ace people and doesn’t affect a shit ton of ace people who love to brag about ho wmuch sex they love or how gray-ace they are or whatever.

Co-opting the right’s more obvious moves into the extremist goals they’ve always coveted to make discourse points is fucking bizarre and makes it clear that some of y’all do have victim complexes you want catered to and you aren’t actually interested in the impact of this rhetoric.

[cottoncandyopinions]

Like I know this can sound bad but like. I'm so so frustrated by how like.

There's a very vocal minority of trans women on tumblr and other websites with primarily leftist/progressive communities that just... Never unlearned their misogyny and other toxic shit.

And I know how people might take that, I'm not saying trans women are like "secretly men" deep down or something. But we know that, broadly, being raised as a perceived man vs a perceived woman passes on certain ideals because of society's focus on gender roles. White trans women in particular seem to get fixated on the realization of oppression and what that means in their life, with a self importance that gets used to overshadow others.

I'm talking about the trans women that are eager to shout down any other axis of oppression, the people that treat transmisogyny as the end-all be-all of oppression, and that your thoughts and pains are irrelevant if you don't experience it. Obviously, this mostly comes out against trans men as a lateral aggression thing, at least from what I've seen.

I've seen it play out irl and online so much, and I'm just baffled as to what to say when I see it. I have an irl ex-friend that, not long after coming out, began to belittle most of her friends struggles such as housing insecurity and money on the basis of "Oh and you're complaining about this to a TRANS WOMAN?"

Mind you, that wasn't someone just randomly dumping this. She was very invested in lending an ear to friends, and this exchange happened in a dedicated vent channel in her discord server for close friends. She's white and working a lucrative tech job at a progressive company, so when I saw her pull out the "why are you complaining when as a trans woman I have it so much harder" to an 18 year old trans man constantly on the verge of homelessness due to reliance on his abuser, that lives in the rural deep south where he's both constantly in danger and non-minimum wage jobs don't exist. I disagree with making this kind of comparison in general, but I have no issues noticing the hypocrisy when someone starts that shit. You made the comparison, so let's break it down.

It's just so frustrating. More and more I see this weaponized "um but my oppression is worse" from trans women who refuse to educate themselves on progressive politics beyond what directly impacts them.

Just the casual misogyny, racism, ableism, classism and just plain one-upmanship isn't conducive to any positive community ties or activism. It spreads division further and makes everyone outside of the in-group feel like shit, while the in-group never grows their politics in a way that even benefits themselves.

I'll reiterate that I'm specifically talking about the impression I get from a very loud and aggressive minority that seems to dominate and get little good-faith criticism from within the trans and broader LGBT community.

I say this as someone that's chronically ill, disabled, and intersex. I'm constantly dealing with bigotry and belittling that most people even in activist spaces don't care to call out or acknowledge. I'm used to being on the "lower rung" where other intersectional issues are prioritized. So it especially fucking grinds my gears to see people we should be able to stand with and have solidarity with pushing toxic attitudes and intensifying the race to find who has it the "worst."

TL;DR let's be nice, be kind to others struggles, and read shit pertaining to someone other than yourself

[epiceneandroid]

iifor day 2 of my dan coining extravaganza, here’s a gender i’m sure dan would identify with if he knew it existed: maximatrois.

MAXIMATROIS: a leptrois-spectrum xenogender that is undefined but specific, and can be described as a gender that overflows beyond a certain container, whether it be a cup, a container, or even a body, and flows out of the container, filling the area with gender elements around it. 

imo, it’d fit him because he’s so full of overflowing energy that it spills out of him sometimes and infects other people, so i feel like his gender would be that way too!

the top rainbow symbolizes the expansive spectrum of gender, the middle stripe symbolizes both genderful-ness, gender neutrality, and genderlessness, as well as the undefined and specific feeling the gender gives, and the bottom symbolizes the general expansiveness and maximalist vibes (where the “maxima” in maximatrois comes from) the gender gives off.

once again: anyone can use this gender, but i’d prefer if the people under my DNI wouldn’t use it. DNI includes:

-do NOT use this gender if you are transmisogynistic or “reclaim” transmisogynistic terms or slurs while being tme (this is a personal boundary mainly because i have a transfem partner and quite a few transfem friends that have stated in the past they feel uncomfortable with certain lgbt and mogai communities that do certain things like that, and thus, i feel similarly uncomfortable knowing their boundaries)

-do NOT use this gender if you are pro harmful kink. i’m talking cnc, raceplay, ageplay, “brocon”, “siscon”, “ddlg/mdlb/ddlb/mdlg” (and any of its variants), that kind of stuff. i have certain traumas associated with certain types of kinks like that and i won’t get into them but PLEASE, for my sake.

-if you’re “transid/transx/trans-age/trace-disabled/trans-race”. why are you using terms that are meant to make the trans community look like predators, wtf. biid and xenomelia are fine, those are actual disabilities, as well as people who self diagnosed or are professionally diagnosed with proposed disabilities (obsessive love disorder, schizo obsessive disorder, stuff like that). schizo ocd and dissociative ocd and obsessive love disorder and stuff like that are REAL phenomenons and so is xenomelia and biid, not “legitimized” racism.

-i am fine with any sort of system using my terms. just don’t be a dick to other systems. i would prefer if people who are anti-endo wouldn’t use my terms but i don’t mind on this one.

tumblr’s being weird so i can’t provide the image description for the flag under the cut, but when i get that up in running you BET i’d provide an image description eventually.

[useless-englandfacts]

A few years back I read that the boards of failing companies often put women and people of colour into key positions, because it was a cheap way of seeming diverse whilst maintaining the status quo idea that white dudes are best in leadership positions (because look how many companies went down after appointing a woman/person of colour as CEO! Just ignore the fact it was teetering anyway.)

And like, I'm not that much of a conspiracy theorist, but I can't help but notice that the Tories, a notoriously racist and sexist party, have also put a fair number of women and POC into prominent roles during their various fuckdowns.

interesting...

though i would also argue the opposite for the tories? having a diverse front bench works in their favour because they can then say "racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, etc. doesn't exist because look! we have a south asian prime minister!" and that reinforces their individualist ethos. there are no systems of oppression, it's down to the individual to get one and forge their own path - with no help from the government. thatcher is the other obvious example of this mindset.

this is more tangential, but there is also a long-standing argument on the (economic) right that in order for capitalism is to truly flourish, we need to get rid of any form of discrimination. or, to put it another way, people should be able to participate in the market and consumption regardless of their race, gender, age, disability status, sexuality, or what have you.

racism, sexism, ageism, etc. acting as barriers to spending s actually bad for the expansion of unfettered capitalism. for example if a company doesn't want to be associated with the lgbt+ community, or if african americans aren't allowed in certain public spaces as was the case during jim crow, that then takes those groups out of the market and restricts capitalism - which, in the minds of most conservatives, is a bad thing.

i know the political reality of this is a lot more complicated because we're adding human beings with all their inconsistencies, biases, and bigotry into the equation, but i'm not going to sit here and write a nuanced 5000 word politics essay with footnotes. hopefully you get the idea anyway.

at any rate it will be interesting (and probably awful!) to see how the conservative party grass roots in particular respond to having a leader who is at once very right-wing but also symbolic of everything they supposedly hate about modern britain.

[t3chkn1ght-blog]

Why don't we just kill the GOP?: World's easiest trolley problem.

I don't mean to sound like a tankie or a conservative or anything, but if Trump and the GOP are such big threats to democracy, beings of pure evil that have never done anything good for the world, only existing to lie, cheat, kill, and rape, then why don't we just kill them? It's the easiest trolley problem ever! We could either let them live, and risk America turning into a white-supremacist patriarchal ethnostate (even more than it already is), or we could pull the lever, and every problem women, ethnic minorities, LGBT+, disabled people, etc. have would be solved, as the people who cause those problems would be dead.

Imagine a world without the GOP: No bigotry, no racism, systemic or otherwise, no climate change, no capitalism, no greed, no war, no rape, no poverty, nothing terrible! It would be a utopia. Sure, it would have to be built on the graves of a couple-hundred nazis, but that's a small price to pay for trillions after us to live in a utopia.

It just seems so obvious, so why don't we pull the lever?

[weareuniqueandimportant]

We Played More Of Unicorn Overlord That Was Fun Aswell Omg. So Many New Things. Alain Is An Even Bigger Beast Now With His Horse He's So Cool And Powerfull And You Can Ride In The Overworld Now... We Got To Very High In The Arena Perhaps Super Lesbian Will Soon Be Ours... We Promoted Alain And Lex That Will Be Pretty Epic. I Want To Promote So Many Of Them... Especially Yellow Woman And Black Woman. But There's Also Elf Woman And Omg Super So Many Characters... This Better Not Be A Fire Emblem Thing Where Everyone Can't Be Promoted And All Units Can't Be 6 Members Long In The End... Evil... We Made Yellow Bird Lead Josef's Group He's So Funny Being Reduced Because He's Boring And Stupid. Every Time He Speaks He's Comfirmedally Wrong. Yet He's Supposed To Be Soo Wiise!! He's Only Alive Because He's A Man And He's Only Stupid Because He's Old. Btw In These Games The Villains Are Always Super Crazy Super Personality Disorder. That Is So Cringe How They're Killed And The Ones Spared Literally Say Words Like Good They Want To Do Good. What Is Evil And Good? Clearly Empathy Vs Apathy Case. Guess What. People Are Both And Both Are Okay. True Good Is Acceptive Of Evil. They Should Spare Bad Characters That Do Bad And Want And Will Do Bad And Accept Them That Way. Fire Emblem Three Houses Is Supposed To Be About How Everyone Has A Point Of View Only To Be As Shit As They Always Have To The Thief Characters The Enemy. Only Making A Church And A Conservative Police Abuser "Deep" And "Justified". Nothing But A Conservative Narrative If Anything. This Game Aswell Doesn't Accept The Evil Characters Unless They "Want To Do Good" And When They "Can No Longer Go Back Their Sins Are Too Heavy" They Die. In Both Games. Always. Evil. Allow Them To Exist. That Guy That Tatiana Worked For Was Fire. Allow Him To Live And Let Us Play As Him. Both Games Have Badass Villain Designs. Let Them In The Party. Villains. Not The "Bad Guy That Wasn't Actually Bad And Was Probably Bullied And Insulted By The So Evil Boss Of The Level While This Lower Boss Turns On Them". Absolute Evil Characters Should Be Rare. And Absolute Good Is Absolutely No Different From Absolute Evil. There's A Reason Abuser Waste Calling Themselves "Empaths" Are Attacking All Apaths. Do This. Present The Absolute Good As "Too Far". Not "Good Character That Was Actually Crazy And Sadistic And Lazy And Didn't Care About Anything Besides Status" No. The Absolute Moral Good. The Representation Of All Good Things. Is Actually Too Unhuman Of A Standard And A Brutal Murderer Of All The Bad Characters To The Point They're Wiping Out Personality Disorders Crazy People Oppressed People And Will Kill Minorities These People Are Part Of Aswell. Also. "Black Culture" Is Evil And Bigoted. Conservative Nonsense Garbage Used To Justify Bigoted Things Even Racism. Only A Bigot Would Think In Such Shallow Terms. We Have Been Abused By So Many Supporters That Love Such Nonsense They Support All The Bigoted Things Even Racism. They're No Different From The 1000 Million Fake Feminist Fake Lgbt Fake Crazy Acceptance Fake Disability Acceptance They Don't Care They're Machines They're Companies They Just Want A Good Face They Don't Care They Don't Care. Only A Racist Would Oppose This As We're All The Skins At Once Making Us The Most Racially Oppressed.

[mr-erik-viking]

Blog 9: Representation - A Study of Visual Culture and Identity

Representation has existed in the world throughout history and as of the last few decades, exists in most, if not all forms of media. Representation could be seen as a strictly cultural phenomenon, where different cultures through time have established unique ways of representing themselves to others. For example, Muslim countries within the last 50 years introduced the hijab, which is how the Muslim religion represents women. Or how in all countries that do not share the Muslim views do not have hijabs.

Within the last two decades, individual representationalism has become more pronounced in the video game industry. The only group included has been the 'LBGT...' movement and all their variants in video games recently. With the significant shift in societal standards, which some may argue is a forced inclusion, video games such as Forza Horizon 5 are a great example of where this is represented. Within this racing game, a person is able to customise their human avatar in a number of ways. A person is able to change the race, gender, physical disability, and aesthetic appearance of their avatar. In modern times, this is not necessarily a bad thing. One may ask themselves why such a feature is present in a game about racing cars, where the avatar is only shown on loading screens.

To find out why the emphasis on customising avatars in a racing game is so prevalent, I believe we must look at the root cause in modern times. (Side Scrollers, 2023) attempts to describe the reason why modern video games appear to be pushing certain agendas more forcefully than others, where the host of the video mentions a company called "Sweet Baby Inc". According to their website, Sweet Baby Inc.

"is a narrative development and consultation studio based in Montreal and working around the globe. Our mission is to tell better, more empathetic stories while diversifying and enriching the video games industry. We aim to make games more engaging, more fun, more meaningful, and more inclusive, for everyone." (Sweet Baby Inc. p1. 2018)

The company acts as an intermediary for companies to look for help when it comes to writing content that is not offensive towards people affiliated with the 'LGBT...' movement and its variants. I am hesitant to say that it only applies to such communities in particular as it is not something I take particular interest in within my profession, however, this is further corroborated by the majority of consumer voices within the games industry who are not affiliated with any movements in their opinions that video games today are forcing certain views over others in what people may consider to an obnoxious degree.

So, why is there this kind of representation in Forza Horizon 5 in this way? It most likely boils down to societal norms. As times change, so do ideas and concepts. Where blatant racism at some point was considered acceptable, it is no longer so, and any inclusion of it is shunned, which is why the intermediary diversity writing company is such a popular choice as of recent. Nevertheless, the inclusion of modifications in the video game is not bad. I gave my character robot arms because it looks awesome to walk around and look like a cyborg. More so, characters are not the only customizable thing that is that this video game has to offer. Being a racing game, you are able to play around with the appearance of any given vehicle you may have access. Some examples of what can be done with a vehicle are the colours, complex tuning of the entire car and its parts, custom body wraps, nitrous, turbochargers, wheels, etc. The community surrounding the game series have also banded together to create custom skins that the developers then add to the game for free. There is, however, a downside to this as many of the custom skins are highly sexualised with cartoon pornography, pornography logos from various real websites, and much more. None of these custom skins have been officially added to the video game, but can still be seen in private racing matches hosted by the community.

The question of whether or not this is a good form of representation will most likely come up in discussions similar to this, so why don't we look at how this is affected. In an article (Chitty, 2020), she looks into whether modern video games similar to that of Forza Horizon 5 are handling the representation of various groups well. In the article, Mia Chitty suggests that representation in modern video games is not always handled well, implying that it has been a mixed bag. Mia Chitty also suggests that in Asian video games, representation fluctuates highly with stereotypes emerging and disappearing bi-yearly. Such titles would be that of the Persona franchise, Fire Emblem, Undertale, and The Last of Us Part 2. In another article written by Kristina Reymann-Schneider titled

"A mixed bag in the portrayal of LGBTQs in video games",

the subject of LGBT+ representation in video games is causing a major uproar within the larger video game community. To find out why this is, I had a look at some statistics to find out a rough idea of how many LGBT+ identifying individuals make up the industry, as chances have it that the industry is catering towards the minority and then complaining when the majority stops spending money. After researching the topic, I came across an article by (PinkNews, 2020) that stated in their article that LGBT individuals account for 21 percent of the UK games industry. Video games have for the past decade begun catering towards minority groups to increase their representation in all kinds of video games. This usually takes the form of non-heterosexual white male lead characters, and casting more females and black people to play side characters. What scares me, in particular, is how this can affect the quality of video games if the story elements on them begin looking closer at how the character is not traditionally heterosexual males, which leaves the story lacking in other areas. A great example of where the heavy representation of other groups of people has already taken place is the 'Battlefield V' video game from DICE. The Battlefield games have traditionally been seen as a down-to-earth and realistic first-person shooter. With the 12th release, DICE advertised the video game as a true-to-life, history-accurate video game, showing disabled amputee women on the front lines with face paint from 80's action classics. This caused a major uproar within the community of people who were expecting and told to expect another historically accurate addition to the roster of Battlefield games. The developers rightly argued that women fought in WW2. However, it was pointed out that the women who did fight on the front lines were in the Soviet army, and not the American army. Lastly, the soviet women who fought in the war were most likely not LGBT or disabled amputees, given the circumstances of the Soviet Union and the supposedly elite female squadron that DICE referred to.

Furthermore, the people who wanted the game to be truly accurate, or be rebranded as a fantasy or an alternate reality style story were shunned as homophobes and for suppressing LGBT rights. I do not agree with this notion, as the advertised product was true to life and historically accurate, which is a misrepresentation and a diversion of expectation. I believe the inclusion of LGBT is a good thing in moderation and in the right places. A great example of a terrible inclusion of diversity, or forced diversity as it has come to be known, was the Netflix documentary on Cleopatra. The documentary centred around Cleopatra, however, the documentary made white males exclusively the evil people and the enemy, while turning Cleopatra from white to black, including the alteration of historical events that played out throughout the documentary itself. Lastly, the lead actress from the documentary claimed bigotry, and homophobetry, among many, many other derogatory generalisations towards individuals who disliked the altered history from a factual documentary. This catastrophe led Netflix to lose millions, as well as a class action lawsuit from the entire country of Egypt for defacing their history.

Nevertheless, not everything is bad in the world of representation. A case of a successful video game release with diversity as the main selling point would be the likes of Horizon Zero Dawn, Zero Dawn's sequel, and The Last of Us: Part 2. These games feature LGBT characters and are widely regarded as great games in terms of storytelling.

Conclusion:

Modern video games have been subject to what many call forced diversity for the sake of pleasing the vocal minority. Video games have included unique characters that adhere to groups of people and their identities. Great examples of this are 'Forza Horizon 5' and 'The Last of Us: Part 2'. There are negatives towards force diversity in the terms of ticking a checkbox which the movie industry can confirm is real as or recently with Marvel releases. I believe that diversity and representation of individuals' identities and cultures are great additions in the right place. As they say, everything has a time and place.

Sources:

Anon (2023). Countries Where Hijab Is Mandatory - HijabO. [online] hijabo.in. Available at: https://hijabo.in/countries-where-hijab-is-mandatory/#:~:text=Ever%20since%20the%20Islamic%20Revolution%20that%20took%20place [Accessed 14 Nov. 2023].

Chitty, M. (2020). Do Games Ever Handle LGBT+ Representation well? | the Bubble. [online] The Bubble. Available at: https://www.thebubble.org.uk/lifestyle/gaming/do-games-ever-handle-lgbt-representation-well/ [Accessed 17 Nov. 2023].

Deutsche Welle (www.dw.com (2018). A Mixed Bag in the Portrayal of LGBTQs in Video Games | DW | 13.12.2018. [online] DW.COM. Available at: https://www.dw.com/en/a-mixed-bag-in-the-portrayal-of-lgbtqs-in-video-games/a-46699812.

Gritten, D. (2023). Netflix Cleopatra Controversy. [online] Bing. Available at: https://www.bing.com/search?pglt=673&q=Netflix+cleopatra+contravercy&cvid=28db7475ca2c4db7966f270ecac360be&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCTEwODM2ajBqMagCALACAA&FORM=ANNTA1&PC=LCTS [Accessed 17 Nov. 2023].

Heritage, F. (2021). The ‘gay button’ in gaming: LGBTQ+ Representation in Videogames Is Often Hidden – It Shouldn’t Be. [online] The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/the-gay-button-in-gaming-lgbtq-representation-in-videogames-is-often-hidden-it-shouldnt-be-156694.

Kan, M. (2018). Battlefield V Faces Controversy over Including Women Soldiers. [online] PCMAG. Available at: https://www.pcmag.com/news/battlefield-v-faces-controversy-over-including-women-soldiers.

Maurice, E.P. (2020). LGBT People Make up More than a Fifth of the Gaming Industry, Landmark New Study Reveals. [online] PinkNews | Latest lesbian, gay, Bi and Trans News | LGBTQ+ News. Available at: https://www.thepinknews.com/2020/02/04/gaming-industry-census-report-lgbt-raise-the-game-uk-games-industry-diversity/ [Accessed 14 Nov. 2023].

May, G. (2022). How Far Has LGBT Representation in Video Games Come since the 80s? [online] Metro. Available at: https://metro.co.uk/2022/07/01/how-far-has-lgbt-representation-in-video-games-come-since-the-80s-16919798/.

Mullane, R. (2022). Video Game Representation Why It Matters. [online] Overclockers UK. Available at: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/blog/video-game-representation-why-it-matters/.

Side Scrollers (2023). This Company Is Why Your Video Games Suck | Part 1. [online] www.youtube.com. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VB-CGhTDvM&ab_channel=SideScrollers [Accessed 14 Nov. 2023].

Sweet Baby Inc (2022). Sweet Baby Inc Home Page. [online] www.bing.com. Available at: https://www.bing.com/ck/a?.

[decolonize-the-everything]

Not to be PoC on main but I'm thinking about that anon I got the other day where that person was like "are you implying yt people can't callout WoC even if the WoC is homophobic or transphobic and our oppressor?"

And I didn't really answer. But I'm thinking rn cuz I'm talking about how Absolutely annoying it is when yt ppl make the suffering of their oppression their entire personality and refuse to see how it could be Even Worse for PoC and...

Yeah.

That's wasn't my intention. But yeah, I don't think yt ppl should be calling out PoC.

You need to remember that your whiteness will ALWAYS supercede any kind of oppression you experience. So no, you as white people, should not be policing PoC for any damn thing. Yeah, sure maybe some PoC is being -phobic. But you know who they don't need to hear that from? Their oppressor. The same oppressor who is the Reason that homophobia and transphobia exist on such a huge scale on Native American soil anyway. Y'all know the first thing colonizers did was burn all evidence of our 2spirit people? Followed by forcing natives into residential and boarding schools to have the Indian in us killed? Shoving all that homophobia, abuse, and racism down our throats between beatings and SAs.

We are STILL recovering. And it's NEVER EVER gonna be okay for a white person to tell us to hurry up that kind of healing just because in 2021 you think the negative generational affects of our OWN trauma and oppression at the hands of white people somehow makes you our victim, that it somehow has made us your oppressor.

Take as long as you need to sit with that one.

So sure you may be LGBT but you are also white. And you Never stop having white privilege. That privilege exists even within LGBT spaces. You don't get to say "this PoC is my oppressor." You just dont. Even if they are cishet. Because at the end of the day it's Your voice that will be smothering that PoC's rights regardless of whatever other kind of oppression you experience; neurodivergence, a disability, being LGBT, etc.

You will always be white before you are anything else. Just like we are PoC before anything else. There is not a single universe that exists where a Black or Brown cishet person is being treated Better than an LGBT white person (even more so with a closeted LGBT white person, the closet too is a privilege. We can't hide our skin). Sorry not sorry.

Yes, I personally I think yt folk should stay out of PoC business. Our problems when they arise need to be handled 'in house' so to speak. I don't need some performative white person with a savior complex to come along and try checking me because they saw a single opportunity to do so and had the privilege of ignoring 500+ years of context to follow through.

Especially when it's white folk who are to blame for all the homophobic and transphobic laws anyway. Native people couldn't even vote til fucking 1924.

That wasn't us oppressing you and you're delusional if you think any cishet native is doing it now in 2021.

So you can go ahead and direct your anger to your own fuckin ancestors, white supremacy, capitalism, colonialism, and the patriarchy like the rest of us.

And I know some yt victim is gonna read this and think "decol identifies so much with victimhood that they're using it to justify being homophobic and transphobic" and No. That's not what I'm saying.

My point is simply that when PoC need to be educated and corrected it needs to be done by a fellow PoC. Not some white victim screeching "FUCKONG RACIST" in our asks.

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hi! I have a question regarding writing race & ethnicity, as a WOC who growing up consumed white media and saw characters that were displayed a certain way that was white I ended up writing fanfic and my characters were always white. As I’m growing up it’s becoming very frustrating for me, especially as my general knowledge and awareness of systemic racism, the patriarchy, etc. are brought to the forefront of my life and experiences. (& I just want to clarify, I’ve always known they existed but being a young girl I only cared about art and didn’t see how me being a queer WOC would be inspiring for me to write about) But now I am trying to write a story, in which the majority of my characters are black/POC and I’m finding it difficult to incorporate my own experiences into ‘fanfiction material’. Any advice?

I'm keeping this one intact because it's a question I'm sure many writers can relate to. ♥

When it comes to incorporating aspects of yourself into fiction, whether that's being Black, Cherokee, gay, ace, trans, having a disability, having mental illness, being overweight, being a trauma survivor, being neurodiverse--or anything else--being a writer doesn't make you obligated to explore the experiences you've had. You are not letting anyone down by not incorporating your personal experiences with being Black, or gay, or deaf, or autistic into your stories. If you are comfortable doing it, yes, you should absolutely do it, because there are readers out there who need your take on these experiences. But if you don't feel comfortable doing it, you shouldn't force yourself to. Because what's equally important to exploring these experiences is representing the people who have them, and showing that these experiences don't make up their entire identity. In other words, yes, it can be very helpful for a Chinese-American reader to read about someone else's experience growing up as a first generation American child in a Chinese household, but sometimes that reader just wants to read a haunted house mystery where the protagonist happens to be Chinese-American. And yes, you may choose to pepper little bits of your experience as a Chinese-American into this character--in fact you should--but it doesn't have to be a deep dive into microaggressions and racism, cultural conflict, struggling to belong, etc. It can just be incorporating cultural tidbits like food, parent/child relationships, holidays, etc. Because some reader out there is going to read this story and say IT'S ME!!!! And they're going to love that it's not a story about the trials and tribulations of being Chinese-American, but rather about being a Chinese-American teenager who goes off on a wild haunted house adventure with their three best friends.

That's my take, anyway. Incorporate your own experiences into these characters in whatever way feels comfortable, but don't feel like you have to do a scholarly exploration of what it's like to be you.

Also, you may want to take a spin through the following blogs as they may have answered similar questions:

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[bitchcraftmagic]

The whole Whoopi Goldberg thing is a really illuminating moment in popular culture. It reveals a lot about our ignorance when it comes to the Holocaust and our limited understanding of race.

The first thing I would like to point out is that the Holocaust was not an issue between two groups of white people. 22,000 Afro-Germans were victims of murder, sterilization, medical experimentation, and starvation. The Romani and Sinti people were also victims of the Holocaust and endured much of the same horrors that Jewish folks did. Not to mention folks with disabilities, LGBT individuals, and political enemies of the Nazi party. Russian POW were also victimized specifically for being Slavic. Poles and other ethnic minorities were targets as well. The Holocaust was first and foremost a racialized genocide of many ethnic groups, Jews making up the largest of those groups.

Whoopi Goldberg cannot be completely blamed for her ignorance on the matter (though doubling down and voicing that ignorance even after she was corrected is something she should be blamed for). The Holocaust is not taught with any type of nuance and not really at length. The majority of my knowledge came from an intensive college course I took as a religious studies minor. Within the American school system, very little actual context is provided. There are many reasons for this fact but I believe the foremost of those reasons is because to understand the complexity of the Holocaust would be to brush up against the American complicity. After all, Hitler and the Nazi party found inspiration in the American genocide of the Native Americans. These truths are uncomfortable to the American audience and any real understanding of the racial politics of the time would be to indict the American populace for their indifference toward the Holocaust. Whoopi is not alone in misunderstanding the Holocaust but she is a loud voice who should speak more responsibly.

To fully understand the nuances of this particular moment in pop cultural ignorance you have to look at the Nazi racial ideology through a critical lens. Goldberg’s comments were very much informed by her experience of modern American racial politics. Whiteness, as it is currently defined, includes Jewish people…to an extent. It is important to note that Whiteness, as it presents throughout American history, is defined not by what it is but by what it is not. Whiteness has no cultural specific markers, no identity besides its proximity to power. Whiteness at the founding of our country, for example, only really included English Protestants. 150 years ago I would not have been considered white despite the fact that now I am very much a white person who’s experience of the world is defined by the privilege that affords. Whiteness is defined by cultural context. It is defined by the need to shore up power, to reestablish the status quo. My family became white when it was convenient to adopt the hoards of Italian immigrants as members of whiteness in the lead up to the Second World War.

Something I see a lot is people assuming American racism and racial politics is universal. Racism, like all social construct, is culturally and historically specific. Anti-blackness certainly exists globally but the way that manifests is very culturally dependent. Like I stated previously, Whiteness in the American context exists only as an antitheses, there is nothing that defines it in specificity expect its proximity to power. In Europe during the first half of the 20th century many groups that would be absorbed into the modern “white identity” were racialized. Races were defined along national lines. Post the revolutionary period of the mid-1800s there was a global obsession with nationalism. Of course, this nationalistic fervor was not new but it was reaching a fever pitch. Concepts of national identity were redefined, reshaped, and refocused. A lot of this was, again, defined by what this identity was not. The colonial rush to partition Africa and Asia was as much a desperate grab for wealth as it was a desire to solidify national identity within Western Europe. The First World War was the violent crescendo of that nationalistic greed. But within these nations were “racial aberrations”, people who existed in its boarders but were never counted as its people. Jews, Romani, and Sinti were always considered a racialized other, people without nations. While they may have lived in France, England, Germany, etc. they were never French, English, or German. They did not belong to the national identity but were utilized to demonstrate exactly what the national identity was not. When convenient, they provided cover for cultural failings and strife. Convenient tools to utilize for prosperity and for national unity. By the time the Nazi’s rose to power the groundwork had been laid. Here were the scapegoats, the evil among us, the barrier to German prosperity and victory. And they were unique, for inherent to their being were traits reviled by the Aryan, the antitheses to the pure German spirit. It was their racial “inferiority” that marked them for slaughter and subjugation. It was their imagined essence that led to their demise. Please understand that this ideology was not unique to Germany but it reached its horrifying peak there due to a confluence of factors. It should never, ever be forgotten that many of the occupied nations were all too happy to hand over their Jews knowing full well their fate. And they did so with the same ideology in mind: these were racially deviant individuals effecting the purity of our nation.

Make no mistake, the Holocaust was about race. It was about the creation of the Aryan race, the ideology that drove a nation to genocide. To assume that racial politics can extend beyond cultural context and history is to admit to something that is rather dangerous. It is to admit that race is not an experience but a truth. It is to admit that there is validity in understanding race as a set of features, failures, modes of being that are inherent and not learned. To be critical of race is to understand that it exists only in the created and imagined. Again, it would be a grave mistake to assume that because race is constructed it has no bearing on reality, it does. Race, unequivocally, is a lived and real experience but it is unhelpful to assume that that experience is fixed. Race is slippery, Whiteness even more so. By its nature it evolves to survive. In its current evolution Jews have conditionally been allowed to exist under its protection but that could shift in an instant. We see it now. Antisemitism is on the rise and it’s violence is more pronounced. The veil of Whiteness has slipped. Whiteness only protects what is useful to it, it is always conditional. And conditions change. And it seems, for the time being, that Jews exist on a razors edge and are allowed into Whiteness on a case by case basis. Are they useful to the power structure? Do they uphold white supremacy? If yes, then they are useful tools. If no, then perhaps the Nazis weren’t so far of base, after all.

Whiteness is not something that has meaning. To be proud of it is to be proud of nothing, to be proud of vapor. There is nothing that it holds in value. It is not something rich with culture, held together in collective struggle, a beacon of joy, a thing of beauty. It is a Frankenstein’s monster of cobbled together vagaries that are, all together, meaningless. I suppose I can be proud of my Sicilian ancestors for their perseverance, their cultural complexity, their struggle under poverty but none of those things are a specific trait of whiteness. The songs they sung, the food they ate, the God they prayed to is not something that can be claimed by the ever evolving beast of Whiteness. It is not inherent to it. Nothing is inherent to Whiteness except it’s grasp on power, control, and domination. It paves over beauty like a road through a field of wildflowers. It neuters and flattens. Whoopi was right to be suspicious of Whiteness, it is insidious by nature, but she, like many before and after her, make the mistake of assuming that it is a fixed entity. And to assume this is to lose a battle against it. We must understand the shifting of Whiteness in order to loosen its grip on power.

[beemovieerotica]

I feel like it's impossible to address the racism that white trans women perpetuate as a trans man of color. It makes me feel like I'm going crazy but so often I've seen these ww admit to being former anti sjw or racist edgelords before they transitioned and they see it like a fucking joke. Sorry to rant in your inbox I feel like I'm going mad and it's impossible to bring up such a delicate topic without people accusing you of being a transmisogynist or something

I can see that this is coming from a place of distress, and I want to acknowledge that 100%. I do think though that it's short-sighted to pin this on trans women instead of confronting the reality that white people overall, even if they are part of another marginalized group, whether it be religion, sexuality, gender, class, disability, etc. do have a history of failing to transfer that knowledge toward their understanding of race.

I don't think I need to get into all the issues of racism among white gays and lesbians that gets perpetuated beyond the dating sphere, and how difficult it is just as people of color to exist in a lot of mainstream LGBT places that will assume a conformity of experiences and backgrounds, and that fail to address the unique issues that come with being LGBT and non-white.

It's something that needs to be addressed across the board, and all white people in the community have to step up and help each other learn, because so often the burden constantly falls on POC to educate others. And yes, it's exhausting.

I have close friends who are white trans women who are deeply respectful and have been doing everything to listen and learn. I've known white cis gays/lesbians who don't particularly care at all, others who are outright racist, and every stance in between. Remember that the worst voices often get amplified on the internet, and it's not representative of the whole. The greater concern is the collective silence from the rest of the white LGBT community when we are left to contend with racism on our own.

[joshuadunshua]

doesn’t the concept of “allosexual privilege” fall apart when applied to LGBT sexuality? it is quite literally illegal in many countries to have gay sex, we’re treated by conservatives like indecent and degenerate “groomers” just for existing, the representation/expression of same-sex sexuality in media is still heavily censored to this day… i could go on but i’m sure you get the point. the thing about “allonormativity” is that it isn’t “everyone should be having sex”, it’s “sex should be between a man and a woman, both white and able-bodied, in a monogamous and vanilla relationship”. and ANYONE who falls outside of that depiction of sexuality can feel alienated and punished by society, not just ace/aro people.

Respectfully, genuinely, two things.

The first being that you seem to presume I disagree with you on the concept that Allonormativity is bigger than “everyone should be having sex.” I’m assuming you didn’t take much of a look at my blog because I pretty specifically reblogged something like, yesterday, dealing with exactly that issue. Allonormativity and heteronormativity and amatonormativity and cisnormativity are all words picking out more specific pieces of the same concept—restrictive norms and normativity, general. I won’t go so far as to say that allonormativity requires that sex be with the “right person in the right way” (cisgender, heterosexual, PiV), because that’s very well addressed by heteronormativity, but there is something to be said about it requiring the “right amount” of sex (greater than 0, but less than a vaguely defined “too much”) and of course the expectation of sexual attraction and that attraction being acted upon. There are ways this entangles with aromanticism and alloromanticism, too, but I will focus here on the aspect I can personally speak to, which is asexuality. (But aros, know I’m formally including you in my analyses elsewhere.)

Which brings me to the second thing—intersectionality, it should go without saying (but never seems to when allonormativity is the topic) complicates things and compounds oppressions and changes the nature of oppression and oppressed experience. Just as a trans gay man experiences oppression differently than a cis gay man—no one would (no one who gets it, anyway) dare suggest the cis gay man isn’t oppressed. But his oppression will look different from a trans gay man. Allosexuality doesn’t magically override homophobia or something.

I will admit that a lot of people do have a hard time understanding how a “privileged group” can experience oppression uniquely according to their “privileged identity,” because for some reason we’ve taken intersectionality to refer only to those oppressed identities compounding on each other. But I would never even dare suggest that Black men do not experience oppression on the basis of their manhood—the racism they face is uniquely shaped by their being men. They still hold a privileged identity in the sense that they do not have sexism and misogyny to work against (assuming they’re cisgender—but that’s a whole conversation unto itself) whereas Black women do, but it would be entirely incorrect to suggest they see no oppressive forces that are uniquely tied to their being men—specifically Black men. We do not have perfect language to discuss this fact, so I hope I’ve explained my point here well enough to connect it to the question of allonormativity and allosexual privilege.

To bring that point all the way home, an allosexual gay cisgender non-disabled white man experiences homophobia, and that homophobia has been and can still be extremely deadly, and he is still absolutely oppressed for his sexual attraction to other men. I would never even begin to deny that. And, in the same way I described above, his experience of homophobic oppression will be inherently shaped by his privileged identities. This includes his being allosexual, and it also includes his being a man, and it also includes his being white, and so on. It’s not sufficient to point out that he doesn’t have to experience, for example, the compounded oppression of sexism and homophobia the way a lesbian woman does (this is true, but insufficient). The homophobia experienced by men is uniquely man-shaped. The homophobia experienced by cis men is uniquely cis-man-shaped. The homophobia experienced by allosexual cis men is uniquely allosexual-cis-men shaped. Ad infinitum. It doesn’t make it not homophobia.

But let’s go ahead and consider an asexual gay cisgender non-disabled white man, and we have now added another deviation from the “norm” to this experience. And where allonormativity will open him up to all the same evils of homophobia as the allosexual man (because allonormativity—and amatonormativity—is the basis upon which people will associate his being gay with his having gay sex regardless of whether or not that is even on the table for him, and for many homophobes, it remains that gay sex is the thing they object so passionately to), his asexuality complicates things further as he additionally experiences further and different marginalizing and oppressive forces due to his deviation from the normed experience (bonus points if he’s sex repulsed). And yeah, for him, as a gay asexual, this will look unique and likely very frequently take the form of lateral aggression (and I currently would suggest that it’s lateral aggression) in his own gay community. His experience of homophobia will be asexual shaped, and his experience of aphobia will be gay shaped; intersectionality, remember, is not Oppression + Oppression = 2 Oppression.

You see, the thing that makes theorizing and describing Allosexual privileges and allonormativity so complicated is the way heteronormativity is inherently implicated in allonormativity.

As a side note, I’m just a beginner (maybe moderate level at this point... but I hesitate to call myself that) to theory in the grand scheme of things; I still would say I have a lot to read and think about and deeply consider before I even begin to write theory on a formal level. I’m not saying I’m gonna be 100% on all points, and in fact being challenged on details will only help me move forward in carving out this idea further. Flat rejection or the notion of its existence based on specious or surface level recognitions of how things work, however, won’t. Main reason being: I’m asexual. I’ve been openly asexual for more than half of my life so far. I have listened to all kinds of asexual voices. We are seeing things and patterns in society and the makeup of power relations that allosexual people are, like any group that doesn’t experience a specific form of marginalization, unable to and disincentivized from seeing (I think immediately of Peggy McIntosh’s White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack for insight on this). My personal experiences as an asexual queer existing in allosexual queer and non-queer spaces aren’t going to be written off just because it’s unpleasant to become aware of a way in which you might have been unwittingly participating in oppression and marginalization. I won’t, frankly, allow for that to happen to me or to any of us.

So that being said, the fact that heteronormativity is inherently implicated in allonormativity (as well as, again, amatonormativity and cisnormativity), leads me to put forward the notion that it, too, negatively affects allosexual people, even where they might have allosexual privilege. Because there’s this weird thing that’s happening where, to the heterosexual “normals,” many allosexuals who aren’t heterosexual can at times experience what I’m willing to provisionally call “Aheterosexuality,”where the homophobic focus is less on their having gay sex/sexual attraction and more on their not having straight sex/sexual attraction (this is oversimplified, but I hope it suffices). It’s not super common (again for most homophobic people the issue is being gay and having gay attraction and having gay sex), but I’m not going to pretend it’s not a factor worth considering.

However, at the end of the day, it comes back to these being different parts of identity and experience and different experiences of oppression. The reality is that the allo gay man doesn’t have to deal with aphobia while the asexual gay man does—it can be put forward as simple as that. Or to think of it another way, a bisexual man has to deal with biphobia and homophobia, whereas a gay man does not have to contend with biphobia but does have to contend with homophobia, and in fact may perpetuate biphobia either intentionally or not—this concept is the most parallel one I can think of. No one would dare suggest the gay man doesn’t experience homophobia or has an insignificant risk of violence or anything just because he doesn’t experience bisexual oppression. And no one would suggest it of the allosexual gay man either.

Earnestly speaking, I hope this is helpful. Thanks for the ask.

[colorisbyshe]

I feel like in a lot of circles including irl, identifying as ace is the cost of entry for discussions about things like a complicated or painful relationship to sex and rape culture. I used to identify as ace because I needed to pay that entry fee and hey I fit their very loose definition. But I stopped being comfortable with the infantilization (esp being autistic) that goes with the label and it's so frustrating to be locked out of those essential conversations now because people think I have a "normative" relationship to sex when I'm literally traumatized and stone. The current state of how people talk about asexuality is so counterproductive.

I don't know if it's a cost of entry thing so much as it is... an easier way out and also a part of a larger obsession with Facets of Who I Am Have Now Become Meaningful Public Identity.

I'll explain what I mean on both fronts.

It's an easier way out because asexual is no longer a neutral term, it is an empowering term. To acknowledge that you are ace is to empower yourself, reclaim your struggles, and exist defiantly against "normative" sexual desire, whatever that may be.

It means it is an inherent part of who you are, not something you can change or work on. Instead of having to reflect inward and address any possible trauma, internalized homophobia/transphobia/racism/etc, or sex shaming attitudes you have grown up with, you can just go, "I'm ace, the only difficulties I face are from outsiders who are aphobic, not my own experiences, beliefs, and traumas."

No more internal work is required. And then to say "Actually, I'm just on Zoloft and my libido is dead" or "Actually, I am just recovering from abuse" or "Actually, I just have very different sexual boundaries than is expected of me and maybe do not like penetrative acts done to myself," somehow becomes an affront of the community.

Nuance isn't allowed, just hegemony. Asexuality has become a broad, broad term (essentially meaningless) to encompass a lot of experiences... many of which contradict each other... and to vocalize that contradiction is to be aphobic. Everyone is stepping on each other's toes rather than admit that maybe, just maybe, they aren't actually sharing the same umbrella and don't belong under the same term.

Now as to what I mean by "Facets of Who I am Have Now Become Meaningful Public Identity."

I think there has been a weird shift to make EVERY part of you an indicator of your social standing. You don't have kinks, you are a Kinkster in the Kink Community. You didn't go through sexual abuse, you are a Survivor. You don't lack sexual attraction or only feel sexual attraction once in a while, you are In The Ace Community.

As people of color, LGBT people, disabled people, and other oppressed groups have gotten more mainstream recognition to talk about their oppression and represent their experiences, a lot of people see that sense of community and try to recreate it.

Everything is a community. Everything is a social strata. Everything is a part of an oppressor/oppressed dynamic.

You can't just have interests or nuances or hobbies. You have a Community that is supposedly monolithic and representative of a collaborative interest.

Fuck, it's even done to fandom where everything becomes a fucking sports team. It's not "I like this band," it's "I'm part of Fandom Name."

People have to list everything out like every part of their identity belongs on the census.

Because they saw marginalized people as communities get holidays or media rep or whatever and failed to see them as political coalitions against oppression. They just saw them as fan clubs or sports teams fighting for entertainment.

It's a larger social problem where everything needs a label and needs to be socially meaningful.

It's the same shit that gets people listing out their every mental diagnosis or kink in their bio. Like... nothing can be personal and everything is a status symbol.