#none of these people are cis and it's great

[merrysithmas]

lol i literally couldnt care less about fandom drama but i will i say i saw an entitled cishet say "NO ONE BETTER START SAYING MIZU IS they/them!!" and if you cannot consider Mizu, an outwardly gendernonconforming character who shows a distaste towards 'feminine' dress/makeup/roles and penis-in-vagina sex as potentially nonbinary, trans, or otherwise ... then like who is ok for the trans fans out here to imagine as trans??? like who will you give us permission for, Your CisMajesty?

lmao kiss our collective trans azz tbh

[ban-joey]

some women in my grad program made a group chat for the school and i am straight up not having a good time lol. lmao, even

[comicaurora]

I'm sorry that the terfs made their way onto your blog but it does feel good to see you support trans people. Thank you for that

Always.

I think, charitably, that the discourse going down on that post is an extrapolation and over-focus on one element of the point I was making: that for me, determining with certainty that I was cis was a rather fraught process. I was presented with many alternatives, but underlying their imposition on me was the oddly regressive idea that the things I liked, the principles I valued, the parts of myself I was proud of were not permitted of women. My whole life I got smacked with the background radiation that I couldn't like being strong because women aren't allowed to be stronger than men. I couldn't like being loud and boistrous because women aren't allowed to take up space. I couldn't be a math geek because women aren't smart. It was all deeply regressive misogyny from day one, but I started getting hit with it slathered in a fresh coat of paint - all those assumptions still held to be true, but now there was the out that I could do all those things if I just wasn't a woman.

Concluding that the underlying bioessentialist premise was wrong was very important. Absolutely none of those statements were true, and were only ever maintained by cultural saturation, goalpost-readjustment when they were actively disproven, and the occasional bout of lying with statistics to pretend they weren't just Shit All The Way Down. The core premise that certain things were only permitted of or possible for men was bullshit, and I didn't need to surrender the gender I liked best in order to play in the spaces I wanted to. I could simply exist the way I was already existing. I didn't need anything else.

The misinterpretation is the assumption that this being true of me means this is everybody's relationship with gender. I turned out to be cis, so for me, feeling that holding onto my assigned gender wasn't allowed was distressing - just another invocation of the same bioessentialist bullshit I'd been dealing with since the preschool playground. This is because misgendering is fundamentally denying that a person has the right to express themself the way they want. When aimed at me, it says I'm not performing traditional femininity well enough to deserve my pronouns. The same disrespect is the root of misgendering when aimed at trans people. "Perform your gender to my satisfaction or I will confiscate it."

The problem is, bioessentialism is 100% ingrained into the terf playbook, which is why, for instance, all their shitty talking points about trans athletes eventually boil down to "no woman can ever defeat a man in any contest because we are simply naturally weak and stupid and there is nothing we can do about it" and quite frankly nothing disgusts me more than the defeatist acceptance of the very lie that feminism is dedicated to overcoming. Instead of accepting that the paradigm of bioessentialism is a false dichotomy right from the jump, they embrace and weaponize it against the people whose existence proves the dichotomy is a lie. If gender essentialism is fundamentally false, then it is nobody's fucking business what anybody does with their gender. If the lines don't exist, nobody needs to enforce them. And yet there the terfs go, hunting down people whose lives are none of their business and trying to argue that they represent some great and terrible evil, some downfall of society made flesh, something that makes it totally correct and normal for them to spend so much time thinking about strangers' genitalia. They want this to be a noble crusade so badly they won't even examine what flag they're flying.

I love and support the trans people in my life and will always, always stand on the side of your right to exist, but alongside that, terf rhetoric especially disgusts and infuriates me because it is, at its heart, utter cowardice. The world told them they were weak and stupid and inferior and they fucking believed it. And now they think Fighting The Good Fight For Women means turning around and using the same paradigmatic weapon that hurt them to hurt the people whose existence outside the binary proves the weapon is a lie. They're the same shithead schoolyard bullies who made me believe my entire existence was foundationally wrong for years of my life and I will never, ever side with them or the shitty, cowardly rhetoric that contributed to the loneliest years of my life.

Figure out who you are and do it on purpose. Find the real source of the misery in your life and try fighting that instead of the other crabs in the bucket. Trans rights.

[homunculus-argument]

One of the most unexpectedly and unintentionally amusing interactions I've seen on reddit was while browsing through the comments of a very predominantly female community. Not being specifically LGBT-focused, it was also naturally predominantly cishet just because that's how population statistics work. There was a conversation there about how men just don't understand how dangerous life can be as a woman, they've never had to play russian roulette with going out on dates and hoping they'll have a great night instead of ending up on a missing persons list.

Someone lamented how draining and exhausting it can be, starting a new relationship always means having to explain to another guy about why she needs to know where the security cameras are in places where she'll have to go alone at times when there aren't any other people there, and sometimes they just refuse to get it, because the only part of "sometimes men assault people" they hear is "men", and they'll immediately start defending themselves, that he personally would never assault anyone.

Then someone suggested to her, has she tried dating trans guys? Plenty of them are straight, have about the same range of personalities and interests as cis men do, and depending on her preferences essentially the only difference is that they get it. The original person hadn't considered that, and thanked for the suggestion.

And I know none of this is funny in any way, but it was so hilariously unexpectedly neutral. Neither fetishising nor invalidating, just a casual "have you tried this other type of dude", like someone had lamented how they want a dog but wouldn't want dog hair everywhere, and someone else suggesting dog breeds that don't shed.

[tocomplainfriend]

I am mad

Yup!

Bro shut up, she is white - being Latina is not a race, is an not the same as color skin. And she is a second generation immigrant too. So like... this isn't like a Salvadorian person doing a cartoon, is a daughter of Salvadorians... That grew in the USA. Being Latino doesn't mean you aren't white, you can be any race and Latino. Still wouldn't make up for the lack of representation or the existing racism. In the piece of media that's "diverse".

Salvadorian is not a race, LMAO. That's crazy- you think someone from Argentina who is white, is not white cause of their nationality??? Being Latino and having that culture does not equal a race. It's in itself a racist thing. This Latino = Race is terrible, It also comes from the idea of the "You are not Latino because you are not brown", assuming all people from Latino America are brown by default. You know how much has that happen to me? -AND MANY OTHER PEOPLE.

(I'm Latino btw)

I already have an older post about it, but - you can really see the lack of diversity in the show a lot. (Will talk about it even more other day).

Again the main thing you get is MEN, hypersexual skinny queer men (cis). You won't get to see female characters being well written, thought all the season 1 and all the episodes we got rn of season 2. All characters are skinny and similar body types and repetitive design choices. Funny enough, shows that lack of human characters still have better race-coding that helluva. (and well in hazbin you'll get POC characters that are gray, lack all ethic features... even when they are humanoid. So that is great.)

Bro you could, you imagine a character being black and having different textured hair, and you go to hell... AND EVEN THO YOU ARE HUMANOID- your hair became straight and spiky, and you are now a light gray? If you build a world like that... it just seems like the perfect racist excuse to delete ethic features out a POC character because you don't want to draw them. "Not going to a single hint of their race/culture unless it revolves on their death"... If the character became a fucking coin with dot eyes, maybe (not really, shows with no human/humanoid characters still are capable to race-code their characters). But all of these characters are humanoid- why do none of them have their different characteristics? Also, this is about a real person in the real world choosing how to design a character.

This tweet also implies that a black character when they were a life they had ethic features, but lose them when they go to hell. Which is even more fucking stupid.

If a white person with straight hair goes to hell, and their hair remains straight (assuming it has nothing to do with their death), why wouldn't there be black people with textured hair? This is dumb. This goes back to the fucking thing of "No black people in fantasy media", In the same way, it's stupid for fantasy stories to revolve around white people characteristics in fictional species and people in that world- not including all the rest of diverse human characteristics POC people have it's crazy. The biggest problem here is why the fuck all Viv's sinners characters (main characters designed by her) that are supposed to black (or mixed like Alastor) have 0 characteristic. THEY ARE HUMANOID, THEY AREN'T EVEN ABSTRACT OR AN ANIMAL OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT. She didn't want to draw that nor change designs, and wanted to justify the whole concept of Alastor even using Voodou.

HOW ARE ALL THE ANGELS THAT VIV WANTS TO BE BLACK (black voice actors specified, or are race specified) HAVE NOTHING??? LIKE HELLO THE 'I'm such a nice angel character girl' HAS SPIKY STRAIGHT HAIR??? SHE IS AN ANGEL AND BLACK, WHY DIDN'T YOU DID HER HAIR TO BE CLOUDS- It's THE EASIEST SHIT YOU COULD’VE DONE.

BOOM! A FUCKING TROLL FROM A KIDS MOVIE WITH DIFFERENT HAIR. BOOM! THE FUNK TROLLS ARE SO EXPLICITLY BLACK CODED.

---

-

Bro, you know this whole thing of people with textured hair have to forcefully straighten their hair or wear wogs to a job... because people consider it ""Unprofessional"" cause racism? The erasure and discrimination of POC people and their features is a problem. That's why it is important to people represent all of those things:

(Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur)

The only reason of why Alas tor is even mixed is purely cause Viv used the Voodou symbols because she thought they were creepy and edgy. It's sucks that all the angels and sinners that are supposed to be black have nothing.

[doberbutts]

You mentioned in response to another ask that you don't use "transandrophobia" because the trans theory you were taught by trans women told you that "transmisogyny" covered those things and that is a total revelation to me. I've been thinking for a long time that it seemed to me that the idea of transmisogyny *does* cover transandrophobia, it just impacts trans femmes and trans mascs differently a lot of the time. But I had no idea that there has been theory/discussion that says this. I'm more used to the idea of "TMA" with the implication that only trans women are affected by transmisogyny. Is that more of a new thing and transmisogyny used to be considered as a more broad term? And would you trace that change to the same issue you're talking about with a lot of current feminism forgetting how feminism is also a "men's issue"?

Idk if I would call it "new" per say. The word trans-misogyny was coined in 2007 and did not include trans men, but the book in which it was coined did mention that language was likely needed to describe the trans man experience as well. There have been a number of different attempts, but none have really stuck.

I went to college starting in 2010, so roughly 3 years after Serrano coined the word. While in college, my school's GSA wanted LGBT elders to come and talk to all the scared freshly-minted adults who were trying to figure out this being gay thing. The woman who ran my GSA found a Trans woman who was willing to be my mentor and sponsor, she wrote my letters for me back when that was still necessary for medical transition, and we met frequently for her to teach me more or less how to be trans safely. Some things she did not know- how to bind safely, how to attach a semi-permenant packer, etc. But others she knew very well, because she herself dealt with both being seen as a man by society as well as the effects of testosterone on her body for decades before she transitioned.

Anyway. This woman was great, and is a significant portion of the reason I'm still alive to this day. And she is who taught me the word transmisogyny, and that it should really cover all trans people because all trans people experience an intersection of transphobia and misogyny. Whether that was popular theory at the time or not, that is what us young kids learned directly from the mouths of trans women at my college, which to me means that others were also learning this particular version of transfeminist theory.

Unfortunately by the time I dropped out of college in 2013/2014, online trans spaces were having stupid arguments such as "transtrenders are bad" and "neopronouns are bad" and "nonbinary people are cis people who want to feel special" and "trans men should be hunted for sport" and "trans women are incel nazis" and. Well. I went "wow this place is a cesspit and I feel like no one here has actually talked to another transgender person face to face" and then did not engage with the online community. So I don't really know how common or popular the understanding I was taught was at the time, though it certainly seems quite rare now.

(As a caveat I don't really think trans people of any gender have anything that isn't similar with each other when it comes to oppression, outside of certain bodily things that can't be helped because that's literally the thing we're transgender about, and I think we all experience very similar oppression but sometimes with a different hat)

As for what caused this particular defining to fall into obscurity? I really can't say. I don't know how popular the transfeminist theory the trans women who spoke at my GSA meetings taught us actually was in the broader world. Every once in a while I meet someone who lived through that same time who remembers that theory, which tells me it had gained at least some traction if it was being discussed in multiple parts of the country, but... that's really it. And it's pretty unpopular theory nowadays, I get people calling me a scumbag and claiming that I say transmisogyny doesn't exist just for mentioning that the theory I was taught includes trans men in the discussion.

But I don't think it's specifically the whole TMA/TME thing. I think it's a lack of understanding of what oppression and what intersectionality are, how they operate, how they work, how we define things through them. There are many people who believe that men do not experience misogyny. But, they do, that's why it's an insult to a boy to call him a girl during a moment of femininity or vulnerability, as a means of calling him weak because girls are believed to be weak. There are many people who think intersectionality turns oppression into additives, as though stacking marginalizations like dnd buffs. This also falls apart because oppression is not like quick math where you add a +5 to every roll if any part of your identity is privileged and a -7 if any part is oppressed.

I've had people get mad at me for saying that straight people experience homophobia while we also have sitting politicians that make jokes on live TV about how they'd drown their (presumably straight) children if they found out their kids were gay. For saying that GNC cis people experience transphobia when butches are getting kicked out of bathrooms and drag queens are getting jumped in bars. For reminding people that when Sikhs are killed due to being mistaken for Muslim in this country that hates Muslims over a national tragedy our Muslim population did not cause, it's still considered and called Islamophobia, because just because Americans are too stupid to tell a Sikh from a Muslim doesn't mean they weren't spurred into that hate crime by their rampant hatred of Muslims and the sight of a turban and long beard.

[turtleybeachin]

The Boys Trying to Help with a Menstrual Cycle

Has this been done? Sure. Am I writing it anyway at 2:30am with a mug of mulled wine? Hell yes I am.

(content warning: discussion of menstrual cycle products. MC has a menstrual cycle and vagina but no gender assigned. involves demon men being pretty oblivious but honestly not worse than human cis men.) *edited, thank you to the anon who pointed out my mistake. ♥

Mammon's the one texting to ask "yo human what size is. ... hey what size your ... ... ya know. ... how big is your ... ... it's cool no matter what size ya know all sizes are great you're perfect no judgement just. .... small medium or large????"

Satan is like "You can't ask a person what size their vagina is you moron." He's read enough about the issue at hand to know these are flow levels not vagina sizes anyway. Still not sure which to get though. Buys one of everything better safe than sorry.

Lucifer rolls his eyes confidently picks up the most expensive package of regular pads and regular tampons. Looks like he knows what he's doing. Is 100% faking it.

Beelzebub's worried about the flavor of the tampons. Won't lemon be unpleasant when they're already in pain? Those look like probably key-lime pie which sounds good. He'll buy two packs, one to sample on the way home. (he's distressed to report they don't taste like anything the colors are lies.)

Asmodeus goes straight for whatever has been popping up the most ads or getting the most discussion on DevilGram. Only the cutest and trendiest for his favorite human!!! Also gets you some cute underwear gotta dress up your time of the month~

Leviathan's just having a complete panic attack feels like other people are staring and judging him THESE AREN'T FOR ME, THEY'RE FOR MY-- errr, I mean, not my r-really, but... m-maybe sorta my-- OH MY DIAVOLO I'M BEING SUCH A NORMIE I'M BUYING PADS FOR SOMEONE THIS IS LIKE IN THAT ONE ANIME--

(Don't worry, after a text from them cheering him on and thanking him for being the perfect Lord of Shadows to their Henry he Demons Up and buys five of everything because DAMN STRAIGHT HE'S TAKING CARE OF HIS HENRY BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE.)

Belphegor just picked up the squishiest package and that's what they're getting. If these don't work for them, at least it'll be a decent pillow in a pinch.

Bonus:

Solomon is the one competent man in the whole gaggle. He actually knows what menstrual flows are and whether MC prefers pads or tampons, because he asked, because he knows these things. Is the only one to actually know what he's buying.

Diavolo has Barbatos send them a year's supply of absolutely every menstrual product either of them could find anywhere in both the Devildom and Human Realm. Congratulations on the storage facility now in their name that has two lifetimes' worth of menstrual supplies.

Simeon just asks. That's it that's the whole shtick. He just asks specifically which they need and admits he doesn't know much about these products but is willing to learn. He'll text them photos from the store but also offer to go somewhere else if none of that looks right.

[ftmtftm]

on the subject of trans men being treated differently by their peers after coming out: when i transitioned i worked in a profession that was mostly dominated by women, and all of my coworkers at my workplace were women. most of them were my friends, and we had a great time working together.

i came out as trans and they were all gracious and cool with it, and a few months later after being on T for a little while, i started living as a man at work. within a month three of my coworkers whom i had considered work friends came together and accused me of sexual harassment for bumping into them (i should clarify this was a job where you work in close physical proximity on the regular)

all of my coworkers also stopped including me in teamwork immediately after transition as well and left me on my own, i had to do a lot of lifting by myself to the point where i injured myself repeatedly at work and my back is now permanently damaged, and my workplace became overall extremely hostile to me.

all this while all of them constantly joked about wanting more male coworkers (there were a few cis men as well) who could do heavy lifting and saying that i "didn't count" as a man in their eyes

none of the cis men we worked with dealt with any of this and were welcomed with open arms by everyone else

Commiserating very strongly with the way cis women will joke about needing men to do heavy lifting right in front of you because you "don't count" - that's happened to me so many times as well as someone who has also predominantly worked jobs/in fields where cis women are the majority.

At one of my old jobs the only men were myself, the marketing guy, and the maintenance guy. The two of them, the cool butch woman, and the two women who'd known me since I was a kid were the only people who didn't treat me weirdly for being trans. Everyone else in that workplace was an older than middle aged cis woman who was extremely uncomfortable with my existence because it was a very Liberal™️ workplace and I directly upset their second wave "women can be masculine without being men" sensibilities.

All of that's to say, the maintenance guy and I actually commiserated a lot because he was getting older and more disabled and there were a lot of commonalities between the way he and I were both being treated by that group of older Liberal cis women. Our manhood was often contingent on our usefulness and the more elderly and disabled he became and the more outspokenly trans I was the less useful we became and the less Man™️ we became as well.

For me that manifested in literally being named (with my actual, masculine name thank god no one had access to my deadname there) and being misgendered in the same sentence by my boss to patrons regularly - putting me in direct jeopardy with those patrons because it effectively constantly outed me. For him it manifested in the ways he was treated, slowly more and more degradingly by that group. It was awful.

It just goes to show gender as a whole is conditional.

[code-es]

The women who laid the foundation of tech

EDIT: I noticed that this post ended up being reblogged by terfs. If you're transphobic this post is not for you to reblog. I want to celebrate everyone who is not a cis man in this industry, including trans women and nonbinary people in tech, and it was my mistake to only include cis women in this post when there are so many trans women and nonbinary people who have done great things in tech as well. Trans women are women and just as important.

Here you can read about trans ppl in tech, and please do:

https://www.thecodingspace.com/blog/2022-03-01-six-trans-programmers-who-shattered-the-lavender-ceiling/

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/transgender-tech-visibility-obstacles-remain/story?id=76374628

The morning of women's day i attended a super inspiring seminar about being a woman in tech at a large tech company in my city, and now I'm inspired to share what I learned with all of you!

I didn't have time to finish this post on women's day, but it's not too late to post now: every day is a day to celebrate women!

Women actually laid the foundation for a lot of the tech industry.

For example, the first computer, ENIAC, was programmed completely by women! While men were the behind the scenes engineers, it was women who did all the actual programming of ENIAC.

The women who made up the team responsible for programming it were called Jean Bartik, Kay McNulty, Betty Holberton, Marlyn Wescoff, Frances V. Spence and Ruth Teitelbaum.

I think one woman who is finally getting her overdue recognition is Ada Lovelace. She was a mathematician (also often referred to as the first programmer) who created the first algorithm in 1842, which wasn't recognized until 1953! However, since none of her machines were ever completed it was never tested in practice during her time.

She has since been celebrated by giants such as google, and she has given name to a programming language (Ada). She was also the first person to write about what is today known as AI. Back when she was practicing, computers were simply thought of as calculators. But she had an idea that if computers can understand numbers, then that can be translated to letters, and in turn that can lead to computers being able to handle words, and eventually even write, draw and create music.

Hedy Lamarr was a famous Hollywood actress in the 40's, but she was also an inventor who laid ground for what we use today for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS services.

During WW2 she wanted to contribute positviely to the military efforts against the Nazis, and she tried to figure out how to radio control torpedoes. In 1942 she patented her technology "Secret Communications System", also known as frequency hopping, which laid the foundation for the technology we use today for Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth. It wasn't until 1962 that it was first used for its intended purpose, during the cuban missile crisis.

Grace Hopper invented the first compiler, called A-0, in 1955, and was also part of the Univac team, which was the company also responsible for building ENIAC. She also initiated work on the COBOL programming language.

She was also the one to coin the term "bug" in 1947. Computers back then had lights to visualize their working process (which was also a womans idea to implement btw) and bugs would be attracted to the lights, but usually that was no issue - until a bug made its way into a tube which caused the computer to stop working. Hopper taped the bug to a piece of paper and logged what caused the crash - a bug.

Dorothy Vaughan (left), alongside colleagues such as Katherine Johnson (middle) and Mary Jackson (right), was a mathematician at NASA (called NACA when she started) who worked on the orbit for the first ever manned spaceflight and later also on Apollo 11 that would take humanity to the moon!

When Vaughan started at what was then called NACA, segregation was still prevalent in the US and she was not allowed in the same areas in the office as her white colleagues. Another department was formed for the black staff, and when the director of said department unexpectedly died, she was appointed as the new director and thus became the first ever black woman at that position at NACA/NASA. In 1958 when NACA becomes NASA segregation is forbidden, and that is when Vaughan and her colleagues Johnson and Jackson started working on programming the orbit and later also Apollo 11.

Continuing on the same track of NASA and space, Margaret Hamilton was the Apollo project's first actual programmer. Hamilton became the director of software engineering at NASA in 1965, and she was also the person to first coin the term !

In the image above, she stands next to all the handwritten code that was used to send humanity to the moon. During the early stages of the project when she would speak of "sofware engineering", software development was not taken as seriously as other forms of engineering, and it wasn't regarded as a science, either. She wanted to legitimize software development as an engineering discipline, and overtime the term "software engineering" gained the same respect as any other technical discipline.

And lastly, if you're a woman in STEM, I want to highlight and celebrate you! Being a woman in a male dominated industry is not easy, we often suffer from sterotype threat and are not seen as our own individuals, but rather "the woman" in a room full of men. But just as these women, I'm sure you will achieve greatness!!

Here are some additional resources if you'd like to learn more:

https://www.history.com/news/coding-used-to-be-a-womans-job-so-it-was-paid-less-and-undervalued

https://digitalfuturesociety.com/programming-when-did-womens-work-become-a-mans-world/

And this was mainly my source for this post, but it's unfortunately only available in Swedish:

Thank you for reading ✨

[fandomsandfeminism]

So, this is going to be a little meandering and all over the place. But I'm trying to express this...web of thoughts I've been having lately around this issue of queer, and labels, and the way we talk about our history and the way the community conceptualized itself in this very digital age. And it's still kind of half formed, so...let's see.

So. OK.

One thing I see a lot online, especially with people who are just now coming out, is a sort of...overfixation on increasingly niche labels. Im not saying that having a very specific or newer label is bad, to be clear. Labels are rhetorical tools, use what is useful. They help with visibility and discussing specific issues. No issues there.

But watching people quibble over bi vs pan vs omni vs abro or non-binary vs genderqueer vs demigender vs genderfluid vs agender vs xenogender vs bigender vs gnc. Asexual or gray ace or demisexual or queerplatonic. And whether they are a biromantic lesbian demigirl or bisexual greyaromantic genderuid. And it's always just a little exhausting, ya know? Again, if those labels are meaningful and useful, that's great, but I see people *agonizing* over which they "really" are. Like if they pick the wrong word to describe themselves, they are coming out the wrong way, like they are wrong about themselves if they can't find the exact correct word on an FAQ list of lgbt vocabulary.

And how I think that relates to the way people talk about our CURRENT labels as though these labels have always been there and like the people described by these labels now have no common experiences with other labels. Like lesbians and bisexual women have absolutely nothing in common. Like butches and trans men have no shared history. As though trans women and drag queens have always been completely separate and unconnected groups. As though ace folks and nonbinary folks are somehow new to the scene, and not community members who were always here and just didn't have a separate label until more recently.

I *remember* watching the community make the switch from transvestite and transsexual, to differentiating between transsexuals and transgender, to basically just using transgender/trans. Those labels are not stagnant. None of our labels are some ingrained biological unchanging objective truth. Labels are rhetorical shortcuts to summarize this facet of our identity and lives and experiences- but they are just words.

And maybe this connects to the way people get really...weird about historical figures too. Like whether Sappho was a lesbian or bisexual, as though either of those words would have had any meaning to her. About whether Shakespeare was gay or bi, like he would have conceptualized his own identity that way. About what modern label Dr. James Barry would have used for himself if anyone could travel back in time and ask him.

And then I think about why queer feels so much more affirming, so much more a place of strength, than LGBT+. Not that LGBT as a label is bad, and I honestly probably prefer it for allies and outsiders to use. But as a community label- Queer, to me, says that all our experiences are queer experiences. Queer can be many things, but they are all queer. Regardless of how many genders or which specific genders you like, whether you have a romantic and or sexual attraction to whatever collection of genders, whatever thing your gender is doing today- all of it, ALL of it, once you step outside that cis, straight mainstream sexuality and gender norm- is queer. Equally queer.

Lgbt+ feels like we are still keeping all those labels separate, little boxes all lined up next to each other- different but a coalition. And while that isn't bad, I also think it isn't totally true.

[A caveat here, that there are times when more specific labels are very helpful. We don't want any specific kind of queer experience to be overshadowed or erased, and having more specific labels facilitates those discussions. Again, I'm not saying that we should eliminate or erase our more specific labels.]

But I think imagining our community as a collection of wholly separate groups that are just allied together, instead of one group that we are all equally in, can make it far too easy for exclusionists to sneak up and say "well ___ isn't REALLY lgbt. THEY aren't REALLY one of us. ___ dont belong."

If we take all the labels off all the crayons- red and pink and purple and blue and teal and green are not hard and fast divisions. They are artificial distinctions we have made- all of them are light, all of them the rainbow.

Anyway. I just think that, while everyone should use whatever labels bring them joy and are useful for them, we might be better off if more folks were ok with ALSO accepting the vast ambiguity of being queer.

[ahollowgrave]

-- Odette Hollows [B A S I C S]

B A S I C S

Name: Odette Hollows Nicknames: None commonly used. Yein calls her their ‘Moonlit Friend’ and Marlow refers to her by title; Sister. I don’t know if any of these are ‘nicknames.’ Age: Early Twenties Nameday: 9th Sun of the Fifth Umbral Moon Race: Mostly Hyur; technically Ashkin. Gender: CIS Female Orientation: Demi Lesbian Profession: Nun Errant, Psychopomp, Shepherd

P H Y S I C A L     A S P E C T S

Hair: Strands of spun moonlight are cropped just past her jawline; styled with a few braids with occasional charms or ribbons woven throughout. Likely her most recognizable feature. In dark enough settings, it can shed low light.   Eyes: Like frozen pools; her right eye is a sharp blue, and her left is a clear lavender.  Skin: Ghostly pale, dotted with occasional beauty marks.  Tattoos/scars: Graced with stretch marks but beyond that no notable scars. 

F A M I L Y

Parents: Unknown to her, deceased. Perfectly nice people who, through no fault of their own, died. Siblings: N/A Grandparents: Unknown to her, deceased. Also perfectly nice people.  In-laws and Other: A great-many-times-over Aunt named Odile. A not-so-nice person.  Pets: Rou, a large Karakul who often travels with Odette. Three ewes: Pomme, Poire, and Peche.

S K I L L S

Abilities: - Odette is a beacon to lost souls, ghosts, and spirits. They flock to her and under the umbrella of her influence their forms are altered into that of moths. They cling to her, calling for aid which she lends as best she can. Odette is a psychopomp, she guides the dead without judgment. She can see, hear, and otherwise interact with these lost and stuck souls. She has a custom job fusion of WHM (Conjury)/PLD.

- A strong defensive fighter, Odette prefers her shield and conjurer’s cane to the sword that hangs at her side. She wields her shield well, trusting in it fully to keep herself and her loved ones safe. When she plants her cane, the river rises. 

- Kulning is an ancient form of herding calls used over long distances. Odette learned the skill in her youth and uses it still, calling in her small flock of Karakul at her home. Is this important enough to put here? Probably not, it’s just an additional fun fact! For you!

Hobbies: Reading, gardening, knitting (badly), and exploration. She also plays piano and harp.

T R A I T S

Most Positive Trait: The warmth of her personality, her willingness to meet and love people as they are and as they change. Her curiosity about the people around her.  Most Negative Trait: Her inability to trust herself, her eagerness to trust others above herself. People don’t care for the stealing, either.

L I K E S

Colors: Blues, Purples, Silver, and a pop of red.  Smells: Rich, damp soil; Cedar; sun-ripened peaches; sweet, warm vanilla. Textures: The warmth of hand-spun wool, wood worn smooth with use, the delicate touch of petals against skin. Drinks: Hot chocolate with marshmallows and butterscotch, lemonade infused with different fruits and flowers. 

O T H E R    D E T A I L S

Smokes: Not cigarettes. Drinks: No.  Drugs: Yes, pretty heavily. She cannot sleep so she takes drugs to sort of  ‘float’ in a resting state. It doesn’t work but it is better than nothing.  Mount Issuance: Odette is not insured to ride anything. She walks most places, or takes ferries and airships where she can. She owns a Chocobo, named Beauty, who was gifted to her by her friend None. Most of the time if she is riding, she rides Rou, her most loyal Karakul.  Been Arrested: No, but she should have been.

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[dykefaggotry]

not to say u shouldn't get on testosterone but I feel like. many young transmascs or just transmascs that haven't hung out around many other transmascs already on hrt. have this notion of t being like this magical hormone that will change all the things you dislike about yourself and make you hot and masculine in all the ways you want and none of the ways you don't and that after a year on t you're going to look Exactly like that man you keep tagging #genvy on

and the thing is. being on t is great and it's been wonderful for my mental health but if I'd gone into it with those expectations I would've been wildly disappointed. and I can kind of see why so many people stop hrt and detransition when they were expecting to wake up and look like tamino or something and instead realize they're just themselves with more hair, a slight change in body fat distribution, more acne, and a libido

like I'm sorry to tell you this, but you're not going to suddenly lose all the things you dislike about yourself. and dysphoria is an ongoing battle, you're still gonna look in the mirror and won't understand how others see a man. you're still going to look like you. and I just wish more people prepared transmascs for that and were honest about it bc like... most of the guys you see that look radically different are like 5-10+ years onto testosterone, in their 30s and 40s, and actively working out consistently. and even then, that's just not how everyone's body is going to react to testosterone.

again this is by no means discouraging it. I'm much happier on it than off. I like how I look most of the time and I definitely prefer it to how I looked before it. but it wasn't magic and 3.5 years in and I still can't grow a full beard or mustache bc that's just something that'll either come with age or my body won't do. and I'm okay with that. but yall have gotta either get okay with results like that or reconsider. bc too many ppl lately have been getting on t, hating that they don't immediately look like a cis man, and deciding that means they must not really be trans.

[breadvidence]

Please mind the #wineposting tag. Regardless: are you asking, "Should I watch this adaptation of Les Misérables?" I'll give you advice, though I suspect if you are reading this blog post you have watched all of these anyway (and quite possibly a few more, besides!).

'25 (Fescourt): Probably! If you are a Brick fan none of the adaptation choices will startle you, but having visuals to go with key scenes is a treat. This is a loyal piece. Toulout as Javert, Gabrio as Valjean, Milovanoff as Fantine, and Nivette as Éponine all give excellent performances. Be prepared for a lukewarm Cosette. You might struggle with silent film conventions, length, and French intertitles.

'34 (Bernard): Probably! This is a fairly loyal adaptation of the Brick that makes internally consistent choices where it deviates from its source (sometimes it has goofy continuity errors—politely ignore). Baur as Valjean and Gaël as Cosette give fabulous performances. Moments of silliness do not detract from the quality. Another long haul.

'35 (Boleslawski): Probably not. As an adaptation of Les Misérables this film is bad. That being said, Charles Laughton is a lauded actor, and you can't say he didn't put his whole laughussy into his performance. Because it is accessible and prominent, a lot of LM fans will have seen this film, and you might benefit from shared context if you're in fandom. Speaking personally, I'm glad I saw it, but I'm not sure you will be.

'52 (Milestone): No. Most likely based on '35 rather than on the book, this film is also a bad adaptation of Les Misérables. There are no notable performances. Because it is accessible, this is another adaptation many fans are familiar with, but understanding jokes about Valjean's boyfriend Robert and Javert's sentient hat probably don't justify sitting through the movie.

'58 (Le Chanois): No. Not the English dub, at least. "Bland" is the word of the day. Contemporary French audiences wildly disagree with me per Wikipedia.

'72 (Bluwal): Strong maybe. If you are an intense fan of the Brick, yes. Its use of a narrator to draw from the novel directly and its focus on the Amis makes this adaptation unique on this list. You might not end up liking it but you will have had an experience. If you have zero investment in Les Misérables but are still reading this post for some reason: no, do not watch this.

'78 (Jordan): At some point I will talk about this film and not make a gay joke but today is not that day. If you are not queer, get off my blog, you cis straight, begone. Everyone else: yes, watch this movie, c'mon. Perkins. That performance. At some point I need to make a serious post about queerness and '78 but right now all I've got is Javert's literal on-screen boner. Jesus Christ. Not a great adaptation of the novel but a virtuoso example of unintentional homoeroticism.

'82 (Hossein): No. This is an odd little adaptation without the charisma of a '35 or '78, somehow not as bad as either of those but not as good either. The GIF of the Amis walking in heavy wind is the best this film has to offer.

'98 (August): No—but I stared into my wine glass for a long, long time before typing those two letters. If we are judging adaptations by how they handle the source material, this is a disaster. As a film? I'm sure entertained. I call it bitchslap Les Mis. I should note here I am also a huge fan of Uma Thurman. Possibly I should recuse myself. I don't know, pal. IDK.

2012 (Hooper): I dwell bitterly on the fact that this is our film version of the musical. Brick fans are restless, musical fans are restless. People who first encountered Les Mis via this version are making feral noises. I'm afraid. I'm moving on.

2018 (Davies): It's really unfortunate that I am at my most drunk while commenting on this adaptation. Sure, watch it, it's one of those BBC series that has watchability sheerly because of production value and proximity to contemporary narrative/film expectations/standards. Personally I hate it. My partner is so tired of the tone in which I utter the syllables "Oyelowo".

The Musical: yes c'mon. Bootleg that good bitch.

[wolfnanaki]

I've been thinking for a while now about the decision in Goodbye Volcano High to reveal and use Fang's deadname. And while it's definitely an uncomfortable moment for us trans/nonbinary people in the audience, and there's been a suggestion that there should be a deadname filter so people don't have to see or hear it (and I've censored it in this photo), regarding the game's narrative about Fang's life and the lives of trans/nonbinary people, I think it was the right call.

For one, it's not just the deadname in its own right, but who says it. Everyone else in the game - from Fang's friends, to their fellow peers and teachers, LJ, and even Fang's brother Naser - all use Fang's correct name and pronouns. The only character that doesn't is Fang's mother. She writes the deadname on a sticky note, she texts it to Naser, and she says it during the video call. And each time, we see Fang's reaction.

I think lots of online discourse about trans/nonbinary people has this idea that if you deadname or misgender a trans person, you're going to be on the receiving end of a whinging verbal attack by someone with rainbow hair or whatever. That all it takes to send someone into a flying rage is by ruffling their feathers in what seems to be an innocuous way to cis people. But Fang's reactions are much more true to the lived experience of trans/nonbinary people; they're visibly uncomfortable and upset, but they endure it.

Fang's parents' inability to name and gender Fang correctly ties in to their perception of Fang as a whole, which is a running theme throughout the game. In the roof scene with Reed in episode 2, Fang tells this to Reed:

"They don't... take me seriously. Like, anything. Music, the band, my name... none of it worthy of respect to them, I guess. Or... at least acknowledging that it's important to me."

This is echoed in Fang's conversation with Sage later, who's facing the same issue; with him being a trans man who chooses to act and dress feminine, he feels like his parents have given up any serious expectations from him, both regarding his career and gender.

What is of interest to me here is that the game highlights how harmful it is to deadname and misgender trans/nonbinary people, but does it in a way that isn't aggressive or preachy. Instead, it shows the reactions of the people on the receiving end, showing how much it hurts them, and asks the audience to take their feelings seriously.

On a related note, I want to give huge props to Naser. Despite him being the favorite child of the two, he never entertains his parents' inability to grasp Fang's identity. During the video call moment, he makes it a point to use Fang's correct name and pronouns. He stands up for his older sibling, even in a situation where it may be uncomfortable to do so, and that's cool as hell of him.

And finally, on the suggestion of having a "deadname filter" option in the game that censors its audio and text. I get that. I think it'd be great, especially since this game does such a great job at making you feel for these characters that you'd share Fang's pain in those scenes. I'm sure Fang would love to have that filter too, though. And I'm sure many trans and nonbinary people would in real life. My life's audio would be full of lots of censor sound effects. Good idea to add the filter to the game, but remember why it's not there initially, and what the message is trying to portray.

Besides, the kind of people who would deadname Fang would never call them by their canon deadname.

They'd call them Lucy.

[sayitaliano]

LA NOIA | ANGELINA MANGO

Quanti disegni ho fatto How many drawings I made Rimango qui e li guardo I stay here and look at them Nessuno prende vita None comes to life Questa pagina è pigra This paper is lazy Vado di fretta I am in a hurry E mi hanno detto che la vita è preziosa And they told me that life is precious Io la indosso a testa alta sul collo I wear it head held high on my neck La mia collana non ha perle di saggezza My necklace doesn't have pearls of wisdom (perle di saggezza=> idiomatic, could also be used ironically "words of wisdom") A me hanno dato le perline colorate They gave me colored beads Per le bimbe incasinate con i traumi For young girls messed up with traumas Da snodare piano piano con l'età To slowly untie while growing older Eppure sto una Pasqua, guarda, zero drammi And yet I'm doing great, look, no dramas (stare una Pasqua => idiomatic and usually very ironic, "to feel/do great") Quasi quasi cambio di nuovo città Maybe I (should) move to another city once again (quasi quasi => idiomatic, when you think about a chance you say "Maybe...") Che a stare ferma a me mi viene, a me mi viene If I stand still I get, I get ("a me mi" is a colloquial grammatically wrong concept that translates literally as "it comes to me"; it should be "a me viene" but for lyrical/musical lyrics is okay to find this in songs) La noia Bored(om) (for translations reasons -aka the sentence construction in English- I'm using the adjective "bored" here but "noia" is a noun so the literal translation is "boredom") La noia Bored(om) La noia Bored(om) La noia Bored(om)

Muoio senza morire, in questi giorni usati I die without dying, in these used days Vivo senza soffrire, non c'è croce più grande I live without suffering, there's no greatest trial ("croce" here has a figurative meaning as in "portare una croce", idiomatic, meaning basically "to bring pain/affliction/trials *on your shoulders*") Non ci resta che ridere in queste notti bruciate We cannot do anything but laugh in those burnt nights (like the famous movie's title "non ci resta che piangere" but from a happier/ironic pov) Una corona di spine sarà il dress-code per la mia festa A crown of thorns will be the dress-code for my party Ah, è la cumbia della noia, mmh Ah, it's the cumbia of boredom È la cumbia della noia The cumbia of boredom Total definitive Ah, è la cumbia della noia Ah, it's the cumbia of boredom È la cumbia della noia It's the cumbia of boredom Total definitive

Quanta gente nelle cose vede il male So many people see the evil in things ("quanto/a/i/e" if not used as a question usually means "a lot", "there are so many...") Viene voglia di scappare come iniziano a parlare One feels like running away as they start talking E vorrei dirgli che sto bene ma poi mi guardano male And I'd like to tell them I'm doing good but then they look at me sideways Allora dico che è difficile campare So I say that it's hard to keep on living Business, parli di business Business, you talk about business Intanto chiudo gli occhi per firmare i contratti, mmh In the meantime I close my eyes to sign contracts Princess, ti chiama "princess" Princess, (he) calls you "princess" Allora adesso smettila di lavare i piatti Then stop washing dishes now

Muoio senza morire, in questi giorni usati I die without dying, in these used days Vivo senza soffrire, non c'è croce più grande I live without suffering, there's no greatest trial Non ci resta che ridere in queste notti bruciate We cannot do anything but laugh in those burnt nights Una corona di spine sarà il dress-code per la mia festa A crown of thorns will be the dress-code for my party Ah, è la cumbia della noia, mmh Ah, it's the cumbia of boredom È la cumbia della noia The cumbia of boredom Total definitive Ah, è la cumbia della noia Ah, it's the cumbia of boredom È la cumbia della noia It's the cumbia of boredom Total definitive

Allora scrivi canzoni? So you write songs? Sì, le canzoni d'amore Yes, love songs E non ti voglio annoiare And I don't want to bore you Ma qualcuno le deve cantare But someone needs to sing them Cumbia, ballo la cumbia Cumbia, I dance the cumbia Se rischio di inciampare almeno fermo la noia If I risk to stumble at least I stop the boredom Quindi faccio una festa, faccio una festa Therefore I make/hold a party, I make/hold a party Perché è l'unico modo per fermare, per fermare, per fermare, ah Because it's the only way to stop, to stop, to stop, ah La noia Boredom La noia Boredom La noia Boredom La noia Boredom

Muoio perché morire rende i giorni più umani I die because dying makes days more human Vivo perché soffrire fa le gioie più grandi I live because suffering makes the joys look bigger Non ci resta che ridere in queste notti bruciate We cannot do anything but laugh in those burnt nights Una corona di spine sarà il dress-code per la mia festa A crown of thorns will be the dress-code for my party Ah, è la cumbia della noia, mmh Ah, it's the cumbia of boredom È la cumbia della noia The cumbia of boredom Total definitive Ah, è la cumbia della noia Ah, it's the cumbia of boredom È la cumbia della noia It's the cumbia of boredom Total definitive

[magicspeedwagon7]

what does 'transmasc' mean?

this resurgence of the 'border wars' (trans men v butch lesbians then, trans men v transmasc now) makes me wonder, "what does 'transmasc' even mean?"

the short answer is that transmasc is a term more inclusive that trans men since it includes:

some non-binary people

some gender non-conforming women who don't refer to themselves as trans or non-binary etc etc

but which nb ppl ? which gnc women?

so, is there a way to precise the definition without gender essentialism? no, there isn't.

assuming that transmasc people are more androgynous than trans men is exorsexist

assuming that trans men medically while transmasc don't is transmedicalist

assuming that transmasc means afab is intersexist

maybe we're trying to find an essence where there's none (Wittgenstein has entered the chat). let's look at the problem from another angle: why did we coin the word 'transmasc' to begin with? why did we invent the "inclusive version of 'trans man'"?

in her work, Julia Serano makes a great distinction between transphobia (i.e. repression of any 'gender deviance') and cissexism (i.e. deprecation of trans genders seen as none authentic compared to cis genders). thanks to this distinction, we realise that people who don't refer to themselves as trans can experience transphobia. in the same vein, people theorising about transandrophobia realised that, even if they put trans men in the heart of their thinking transandrophobia does not affect trans men exclusively.

that's why, i come to the conclusion than the word 'trans masc' is not supposed to describe a shared identity but is more of a political call to solidarity between marginalised people who share common struggles