#not the 'chosen name starts with the same letter as the birth name' stereotype. and swag | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

crispipaper · 4 years

Text

A polite letter to J.K. Rowling By a transgender fan of Harry Potter (TW. Suicide and trauma)

Dear JKR,

My name is Alex Hernandez, and I have identified as a Harry Potter fan since I was six years old, and a non-binary/ transgender individual since I was sixteen. I recently read your essay concerning your opinions about transgender individuals, and your claim that by providing information you were ‘protecting natal girls and women.’ I was extremely disappointed when I read your piece, both as a queer person and as a Harry Potter fan. The factual information you provided was ill-informed and often taken out of context. The opinions you shared were harmful to many members of the trans community, and perpetuated stereotypes that we have been trying to dismantle for years.

What stood out to me most in your essay was the insinuation that the only way a person could truly be considered transgender is if they underwent hormone replacement therapy and/or gender confirmation surgery. This is simply incorrect, as there are many people (myself included) who happily identify as trans that have chosen to or cannot undergo those types of treatments. It also completely leaves out the identity of non-binary, a-gender and gender fluid individuals, who do not subscribe to the binary gender identities that accompany these types of treatment. It is also not as simple to gain access to these procedures as you seem suggest, even within your home country of the United Kingdom.

In your writing, you state that “a man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law.” According to the official website for the government of the United Kingdom, a person who wishes to obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate must be over the age of 18, have documented proof of a diagnoses of gender dysphoria, have lived as their intended gender for at least two years, and intend to live as this gender for the rest of their life (https://www.gov.uk/apply-gender-recognition-certificate). This clearly shows that a person must provide more than just their word in order to gain legal recognition of their gender by the British government. You are correct that surgery and hormones are not prerequisites for obtaining a GRC, however, medically transitioning is not a prerequisite for being a trans person.

You also cited a very controversial study performed by Doctor Lisa Littman the supports the theory of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria. According to this study, children and young adults are more likely to come out to their parents as transgender after engaging online with other trans individuals. Dr. Littman claims that according to the survey she conducted (which was directed at parents of children who had recently come out as trans), gender dysphoria can just appears out of nowhere during puberty, and that internet forums and peer pressure is a large contributing factor to this. However, there are several things wrong with her writing. To start, the survey she conducted in order to obtain her data was targeted at parents of children who had recently come out as trans and only posted to websites that were about parents questioning their teen’s recent coming out. She asked irrelevant questions about the child’s mental health, including whether or not they had been diagnosed with a mental illness prior to coming out, or if they had experienced trauma at some past point in their life. Although I understand that the article was taken down and re-reviewed, the author did not rescind her findings, and simply used the republication as a way to clarify what she had previously stated.

The other aspect of your writing that stood out to me as particularly harmful to the trans community and those questioning their gender identity was the supposition that one could just “choose” to be trans because they have experienced trauma. Your experience as a survivor of domestic and sexual assault are real and valid, and your trauma regarding these situations is real and valid. However, this does not give you the right to suggest that you might have chosen to transition during these times in order to escape abuse. Transitioning (in your case) from an Assigned-Female-At-Birth (AFAB) individual to a male identifying individual does not automatically exempt you from abuse and violence typically experienced by cis-gendered women. It is not a choice people make because they have experienced a trauma. It is a recognition of what has always been true to them, that they were previously unable to freely express.

Here’s where you seem to be missing the point. People who choose to transition from a female to a male are not trying to “escape womanhood.” What they are doing is finding ways to freely express themselves in the most authentic and truest way. For example, say you were born with red hair. But for years and years your family was dying your hair brown because it was more “socially acceptable” to have brown hair. You knew that you had red hair, and that wasn’t something that anyone could take away from you, even if they were trying to cover it up or pretend like it was brown. And one day, you meet a group of people who have naturally red hair, who are flaunting their red hair and making a point of not dying it to fit societal standards. And maybe you don’t agree with what these people are doing, and you continue to dye your hair. Or maybe, you realize that you’ve always preferred having red hair, and now you’ve come across a space where it’s ok to be a red head. These people understand what it’s like to have their hair dyed for years and years, and want to embrace their naturally red hair. That’s how it is for trans people. A trans man was always a man, he was just born into a woman’s body, and socialized as a woman. But once they encounter other trans people, and realize that these people will accept and love him for his true self, then he will “come out” because he realizes that he was always a man and now finally feels comfortable expressing that.

I also want to take this opportunity to share with you my own personal journey of gender exploration, since the stories of non-binary trans people are often overlooked and rarely heard. I was assigned female at birth. I was given a traditionally female first name, and socialized as a girl for the first sixteen years of my life. However, even as a little kid I had a sense that something wasn’t quite right. When I was younger, I really didn’t like my name, and always wished I could have been called Amber or Ashley. I knew that I was not the person I wanted to be, but I didn’t have the language or understanding to really figure out how I was feeling. As I grew up, I came to embrace my feminine name, and to enjoy traditionally feminine things such as princesses and makeup.

Fast forward to high school, when I was beginning to learn more about the LGBTQ+ community. Before I got to high school, I didn’t know a single queer person my own age. Existing on the internet at the time, I encountered many stories of trans people, but the only ones I ever saw were of binary trans individuals. I knew that I didn’t want to be a man, but I also knew that I didn’t really want to be a woman either. So I cut my hair short and started wearing clothes that showed off less of my figure and that attempted to obscure my female form. When I was fifteen, I was doing a presentation on LGBTQ+ identities for school, and came across the term “non-binary individual.” At the same time, I was taking a class where we were learning about the history of feminism, and how many ancient cultures saw femininity and masculinity less as physical forms and appearances, but rather as energies that a person could embrace. Both of these streams of information collided, and I suddenly realized I had words to describe how I’d been feeling this whole time. I didn’t want to identify as a binary woman, and I didn’t want to identify as a binary male. Instead, I wanted the language that would allow me to feel comfortable traveling between these two energies.

My personal definition of what it means to be a non-binary individual is a person who embraces both masculine and feminine energies, and can express themselves as one, neither or both. I keep my hair long and have chosen not to go on hormones or have reconstructive surgery partially due to trauma I experienced as a child, but also because I want to keep these aspects of feminine energy close to me. There are days where I feel more masculine, where I wear “mens” clothes and attempt to present as a more masculine individual. There are days where I want to feel more feminine, and I choose to wear skirts and makeup because that is what helps me to embrace my feminine energy. And there are days when I want to combine energies, so I will present myself as some combination of masculine and feminine presentations.

All of this is just to say that when you, a person who has considerable influence especially on younger children, make these inflammatory statements and harmful claims, you are effectively telling children that this is not a world where they can be as authentic to themselves as possible. You are creating a hostile environment that encourages other people who share your ideas to be more vocal, which honestly does more harm than good. Many of those statistics that you quote about rising rates in teen and transgender suicide are often because people who feel forced to conceal their true identity would rather not exist in a world that won’t allow them to be who they really are. So if you are truly interested in changing public perception of transgender individuals, while continuing to support the education of children and the protection of women, I would suggest reading literature that directly opposes your view points, and having conversations with people (particularly trans people) who have real experiences and are willing to share them with you.

Sincerely,

Alex Hernandez (they/them)

#tw suicide #tw trauma #tw transphobia #Harry Potter #HP #JKR #JKRowling #trans #lgbtq

51 notes · View notes

twentiethcenturymoviesandtv · 4 years

Text

Movie Criticism in a Modern Era

In 1904, near the birth of film itself, a paper was published called: The Optical Lantern and Cinematograph Journal. This paper was a one-of-a-kind at the time, full of interviews, analysis of equipment and methods, letters to editors, and even cartoons that made fun of stereotypes in the movie business that we can recognize today.

But that’s not the most interesting thing about this paper.

What was the most interesting thing is that, amongst all of that content, there was also a series of critical reviews of upcoming films, describing a handful of plots of a few films.

The journal would continue to do something like this for the eleven months before it was cancelled, but not before starting something that we are extremely familiar with today: film-criticism.

All through the 1920s, movie critics were becoming more popular, with newspapers hiring them to start analyzing and reviewing upcoming films. This continued into the 1930s, where the obsession with stardom boosted not only the movies and actors, but the critics, as well. More and more film critics were showing up to red-carpet events, but even with this rise in fame, it wasn’t until the 1940s where movie criticism really took off: when the analysis essay was born.

Movie critics started to write essays full of personality, persuasive papers designed to convince audiences of their argument. During this time, something else major happened: movie criticism went mainstream. Critics began working for newspapers, magazines, and, as time went by, even on television, becoming household names. There is perhaps no better example than the famous duo Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, although others, such as Pauline Kael, Leonard Maltin, and Judith Crist are also contenders for some of the best-known movie critics of all time.

The words of these critics was often highly valued in the film community. They are professionals, well-qualified to study and examine both new and older movies, typically possessing academic backgrounds in film. And then something happened that put an entirely new spin on movie criticism: the internet.

Blogs. YouTube channels. Websites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, began to rise in popularity, and channels like CinemaSins, Cinema Snob, and Nostalgia Critic, began popping up all over the place. Even now, there is a vast ocean of movie review blogs and analysis, not to mention YouTube channels and community review websites. In other words, the ‘power’ of film criticism shifted: from the academics to the amateurs.

While there are still qualified critics who post their reviews, more influential by far is the score on Rotten Tomatoes, or the opinion of a favored internet personality. Once that Metacritic score is set, so, it would seem, is the movie’s reputation. We are living in an age where the average joe can make a blog, a YouTube video, or review on Flixter. Even I could be considered an amateur film critic.

The question is, is this a good thing or a bad thing?

On one hand, those of us without degrees in film are being listened to, and can influence how movies are made and how they are received with our opinions. There are more and more avenues for us to explore our opinions, and more resources for us to back our own opinions up by listening to analyses and arguments from a variety of different places. The movie industry is no longer in the hands of the ‘chosen few’, the ‘elite’ and educated. Now, the power is shared equally, if not disproportionately with the audiences, the average movie watchers. You and me.

On the other hand?

Without a level of objectivity about film, some of these movie watchers who post their opinions online do so without reserve, leaving sometimes vitriolic reviews with little to no reason for their hatred beyond personal preference. It is thanks to this modern phenomenon that has left the paths open for raging, ranting reviews against various films that simply don’t appeal to them, without rhyme or reason. Alternatively, other resources choose to look at films and nitpick them endlessly, adding up minuscule details and ‘plot holes’ and claiming that these make a film good or bad.

It is this type of thinking that leads to the Oscar viewership dropping. It is this phenomenon that leads people to value the score on Rotten Tomatoes over that of the critics.

Once again, it leads one to wonder: is this a good or bad thing?

With this decline in interest in the critics relatively objective verdict of a film due to claims of the critics and audiences never agreeing, all that’s left is to look at what the audiences have to say. Many movie goers point to the box office, or popularity of a film to decide whether a film is good instead, but by that logic, Transformers and The Fast and the Furious are on a level similar to The Lion King and Mission Impossible.

In other words, objectivity can very easily be lost if you pay attention to a movie’s popularity over its quality.

The balance between popularity and quality is not a strange one, especially on this blog. Also familiar to us is the struggle between the word of the critics and the word of the audiences. In an era where anybody can influence how a movie is viewed, it can seem like it’s more important than ever to choose a side, to figure out whose advice they are going to take. Who we’re going to listen to. Does the word of the critics mean anything, or do they simply laud ‘artistic’ films, looking down their noses at the more comprehensible fare that the viewers are more likely to see? Do audiences know an objectively good film when they see it, or will they go down defending popcorn flicks as Oscar contenders?

Which side are we to pick?

As an avid moviewatcher who both enjoys film, and wants to be objective about it, my argument comes down very closely to the same opinions I held in the ‘objectivity vs. subjectivity’ article I posted: a little of both.

Is the word of the critics valid? Yes. Critics are people too, and their opinions are (supposed to be) founded on academia. Critics can tell us if a film is objectively good, if the production quality is up-to-snuff, if the performances, pacing, cinematography and story are, by the standards of ‘good filmmaking’, good. By the same token, they can only get you so far.

Any consumption of art is subjective, and the same goes for film. We can search for like-minded reviewers and analysts who we can determine our own judgements over whether or not to see a film, or try to figure out what you liked about it. In other words, there doesn’t have to be a one-or-the-other argument.

So, to answer our previous question, is this new era of the everyman film critic a good thing or a bad thing?

Honestly? I’d say it’s a good thing.

Right now, there are a plethora of opinions that are more likely to match up with the opinions of the audience because they are the audience. By applying analysis and critical thinking to the films that people are interested in, more people are encouraged to think about the films they are watching instead of simply discounting the opinions of the critics, thinking of them as the ‘Hollywood Elite’. Now, there are more resources than ever for finding arguments for and against specific viewpoints or analyses of certain elements of certain films, genres, even directors and actors. We are living in an age where I can type in the name of a film and find more analysis than I know what to do with.

Yes, that’s a good thing. We have more viewpoints to compare, more things to think about, and we can even more easily spot when the critics and the audiences’ opinions do match up. Cases like Star Wars, Dead Poets Society, and Forrest Gump prove that it is possible for the two to agree, and the increase in access to a wider variety of opinions and reasons for opinions can help up-and-coming film critics and movie-goers alike think about what they’re watching, whether they agree with the reviewer or not.

In the end, the purpose of film criticism and analysis is to inform an audience about movies, and point out elements that casual movie-goers might not be paying much attention to. They exist to summarize, highlight, and explain what was good about a film, and what was bad about it. This serves as an excellent aide to our own thought processes as we watch movies ourselves, helping us figure out what we liked or did not like, and why, whether the critic has a degree in film or not. Film critics are there, especially in multitude, to add to the movie experience, to help us think, and to provide information about movies.

In an era where anyone can create a YouTube account or a blog and start reviewing, there are dangers of oversaturation and, of course, there’s always the possibility that you simply won’t agree with any of the opinions out there. There are those who base their reviews solely in subjectivity, and those who do the opposite. But these are problems easily solved, once again, with critical thinking, and using the feedback of others to help us formulate our opinions about whether or not to watch a film, or even to help us think about one we’ve already seen.

A degree in film is not needed to smartly evaluate a film. What is needed is fairness in judgement, and a keen eye. Knowing what to look for certainly helps, but in the end, it’s about offering a thoughtful opinion on something in order to inform and persuade, the same as it has been since 1904. Everyone has their own thoughts to share.

Movie criticism hasn’t changed fundamentally. The things that make a movie good are the same: story, characters, cinematography, performances, and all the rest. What has changed is the number of people, and the number of ways, that those things are analyzed. What we have now that we didn’t before is, primarily, variety, and the technology to spread our ideas.

All in all? This new era of media analysis is far from bad. What matters now is making sure that it’s used well. And that’s what this blog is all about.

Thank you guys so much for reading! Please, don’t forget that the ask box is always open if you have any ideas, suggestions, discussion topics, questions, or just want to say hi! I hope to see you guys in the next article.

#Movies #Film

3 notes · View notes

pandemonshq · 4 years

Photo

Welcome, Kate, please grab your stake on your way to your tumblr to play Ginny Potter here at Pandemons. There’s always a great spunk in Ginny Potter (Weasley) and we found that here in your app. With all your great ideas on plot and potential reaction we just know you’ll have a lot to bite into here.

Your request for Jessica Chastain // Luca Hollestelle (past) FCs have been accepted.

Out of Character Information

NAME — Kate PRONOUNS — she/her AGE — 26 TIMEZONE — EST ACTIVITY — currently I’m not working, just playing the part of stay at home trophy wife (lol, jk), so I’m able to be on most days. I’d say I tend to do replies every 1-2 days. Weekends I spend more time with my husband so I’m a little less around, but I pop onto discord fairly often.

In Character Information

CHARACTER NAME —

Ginevra “Ginny” Molly Potter (nee Weasley) — the youngest Weasley and the girl that her mother had dreamed of for so long, Ginny was named for two strong women — her grandmother Ginevra and her mother Molly. In her name, she carried a heritage of Prewett and Weasley. Making the decision to give up her maiden name (especially after she was already a successful and well-known Quidditch player) wasn’t as difficult as Ginny had always imagined it would be — Harry deserved to have someone he loved who was alive share his last name.

BLOOD STATUS —

pureblood — blood status has never been something that Ginny cared or noticed about her own life; she was proud to be considered a blood traitor. There was definitely a certain privilege that Ginny had and continues to have in her blood status that she can tend to be blind to.

BIRTHDAY —

11 august 1981 — a happy day for the Weasley family; finally a baby girl to fulfill all of her mother’s dreams of pink and frills, though it became quite clear by the time she was a toddler that Ginny was more like her brothers than the stereotypical girl Molly had dreamed of. Still, a daughter was a gift, and Molly didn’t mind that Ginny cared more for playing in the mud than playing house.

GENDER & SEXUALITY —

cis-female (she/her), pansexual — gender has never been something that Ginny really pays that much attention to. To her, it’s all about personality and heart. She falls in love with people – the fact that all of her serious relationships are with men is purely coincidental.

FORMER HOUSE —

Gryffindor — there was never another option for a Weasley, nor for one with the firecracker and stubborn personality that Ginny had. She was proud to join the rest of her siblings in Gryffindor house, and it was clear from the start that she belonged there.

INFECTION —

No, at least to start out. I’m completely open to see what develops and whether that might include Ginny becoming infected.

FACECLAIM —

Jessica Chastain (present); Luca Hollestelle (past)

SHORT HEADCANON TOPICS (PLEASE PROVIDE AT LEAST ONE PARAGRAPH PER TOPIC)

OCCUPATION —

During her time at Hogwarts, Ginny didn’t think very much about life after school. Sure, she had dreams and passions, but her family was pulled into a war when she was fourteen, and from then on, her main focus (outside of typical teenage woes and worries) was preparing for the fight. But when the war was over and Ginny returned to Hogwarts for her final year and wore the badge of Gryffindor Captain, she was free to dream, and all of her dreams included Quidditch. Upon leaving Hogwarts, she was recruited to the Holyhead Harpies and played for them for many years, even through her three pregnancies, eventually even making team Captain. Upon nearing her 35th birthday, a terrible injury to her rotator cuff pulled her out of the action, but her love for Quidditch was too strong for her to walk away from the sport, so she took on a position as coach, which she still holds to this day.

MARITAL STATUS/SHIPS —

Married to Harry James Potter. I definitely super ship hinny. I think they’re perfect for each other — Ginny is warmth and love that Harry grew up longing for; Harry is steady and rational where Ginny is fiery and headstrong; Ginny is laughter and light where Harry has known so much darkness and terror. Harry is home for Ginny who has always known what home felt like and Ginny is home for Harry in a way he’s never experienced. In all, Ginny is made of the sort of strong stuff you need to be married to the Chosen One.

But also, chemistry is fine too LOL.

MULTIPARAGRAPH OR MULTI POINT TOPICS

FAMILY —

Ginny was born the youngest of the Weasley family, and the only girl. As much as her parents delighted in her birth and her family was tight-knit and warm, Ginny’s childhood wasn’t perfect. Their poverty made all of their children uncomfortably aware of a kind of stress that those with wealth never encounter, and it manifested in each of them in different ways. Ginny wasn’t ashamed of her second-hand possessions, and she never went hungry, but she knew what it was like to hide her desire for something because she didn’t want to upset her parents who could never afford it. A watchful child, Ginny saw early on what this poverty did to her brothers – Charlie and Bill were always so much older and already off at Hogwarts that it didn’t seem to affect them that much, but Ginny saw the greed and shame in Percy, Fred, George, and Ron’s eyes, a fact that only grew as time went on.

It was also hard to be the only girl and the youngest child – Ginny sometimes felt that she was always running behind her brothers, unable to keep up with their antics, unable to convince them to slow down so that she could be a part of the fun too. They saw her as the pesky, annoying sister, which meant that a good portion of her childhood was spent alone. But instead of making Ginny into a shy soul, these periods of isolation made her strong. She had a thirst to prove herself and a nerve that meant she always succeeded, whether it was climbing to the highest part of the tree to beat Ron or breaking into the broom shed to steal Fred’s broom when he wasn’t looking. She devoured books and longed for adventure, and got herself into many scrapes with her parents with her tendency to wander off and explore the world of Ottery St. Catchpole outside of the Burrow.

Charlie and Bill were the brothers she looked up to the most, Fred and George were her favorites, and Percy had a way of tenderness about him that was reserved just for her, but Ron was her closest companion. They bickered and fought, played pranks on one another and got into trouble when they took turns tattling to their parents, but Ron was always there, and close enough in age that he couldn’t force her away from his plans like the rest of them did. Ginny knew his heart better than anyone, saw his desire to be different, unique, special, and tried to prove to him that he was enough for her. Her parents were happily married and in love with each other and each of their children, and though Molly had a fiery temper (that Ginny inherited) and Aruthur a few odd quirks, Ginny couldn’t have wished for better parents. Though they were poor in resources, they were rich in love, and Ginny learned the lessons that her brothers failed to see — money doesn’t bring happiness, people do.

HOGWARTS & CHILDHOOD —

Going off to Hogwarts was a dream come true for Ginny. Every couple of years, she saw another brother (or two) sent off to Hogwarts without her, until finally it was just her alone at home. She loved her parents, but the Burrow was always eerily quiet without her brothers stomping down the stairs or bickering with one another. The year between when Ron left and it was Ginny’s turn was the loneliest year of her life, and she reread all of her brothers’ letters home until the pages were soft and worn, longing for the day when it would be her turn.

When it finally was Ginny’s turn to go to Hogwarts, she was ecstatic. Proud in a different way than her brothers, Ginny didn’t care that her belongings were all second-hand, and the way she carried herself dared anyone to mock her for her family’s poverty. Ginny had such a vivacious and open personality that it should have been the best year of her life, but a last minute switch on the part of Lucius Malfoy turned Ginny’s dream into a nightmare. The year passed faster than any other ever had, with large chunks of it missing, and Ginny turned in on herself, becoming pale and quiet. Her brothers should have noticed that more was going on, but they were all too wrapped up in their own pursuits to see that their sister had disappeared, to be replaced with someone who was meek and fearful. Instead of making a close group of friends around her, Ginny isolated more and more, until that fateful night when Tom Riddle made her lock herself in the Chamber of Secrets.

When Harry destroyed the diary, Ginny was free, and that summer, she began to regain more and more of her typical personality (though for a couple more years, she reverted back to shy and quaking in the presence of Harry). The next few years were the dream that Ginny had always imagined Hogwarts to be — she excelled in her classes, made an excellent group of friends, found that she was quite popular with the boys, and even made the Quidditch squad, proving to all of her brothers that she was made of more mettle than they gave her credit for. She took the brewing war and darkness seriously, but it didn’t make her turn overly serious, and she faced the future with a grim knowledge that she would fight until they won or she died. Once she had that knowledge, she didn’t obsess over it, accepting it with her matter-of-fact personality.

What Ginny didn’t plan on was falling in love with Harry, this time for real. The few weeks that they spent together were the happiest of her life — it finally felt that someone knew all of her and understood her in a way that went deeper than anything verbal. When he broke things off with her after Dumbledore’s death, she faced it with the same determination she faced everything else in life — she would always love Harry, but they each had their role to play in the war, and some things were just bigger than love.

Ginny fought every way she could in the year that followed — joining Neville and Luna in sowing dissension to Snape and the Carrows’ reign, protecting more vulnerable students when she could, rebelling against the darkness other classmates seemed to thrive in. When the battle was finally upon them, Ginny followed the rest of her family to Hogwarts, unable to stay behind and wait while they all flung themselves into danger. Ginny’s quick thinking and bold fearlessness kept her safe throughout the battle, but the horrors she saw that night changed her for good. After losing Fred, there was a seriousness about Ginny that she had lacked before, one that only comes from knowing deep sorrow. In the months that followed, Ginny did everything she could to hold her family together in the midst of their grief. She returned to Hogwarts because she knew she owed it to her parents to finish her education, and she enjoyed her last year of school, but not with the same carelessness that she had once known.

POST HOGWARTS —

DISCLAIMER — I’m keeping some things a little vague because I don’t know where the harry player stands; I’ll definitely flush it more out later at least for myself

It was a relief for Ginny to leave Hogwarts, to be able to be with her family again and learn what it meant to live in a world with no Dark Lord. Light entered back into her world, but it wasn’t the same untainted light that she had once known, and Ginny knew that she would always carry with her the horrors of that battle. Even if she could choose to wipe them from her memory, she wouldn’t — it would be a dishonor to Fred’s memory.

Still, Ginny experienced much light and joy in these next years of her life. She was recruited to play for her favorite team, she grew ever closer to her family, her world began to fill with nieces and nephews, and she fell back in love (as if she had ever fallen out of it) with the man she wanted to walk beside forever. Eventually, she and Harry were married and started a family of their own. While Ginny kept doing the job that she loved, she found a part of herself that she didn’t know existed in becoming a mother. Her fiery temper and reckless streak didn’t disappear, but were partnered with a tenderness and sense of fear that became constant companions. She discovered that dueling Bellatrix Lestrange wasn’t half so frightening as having your heart walk outside of your body, which was what motherhood felt like for her.

The Potter family settled into a happy little life, finally free from darkness and fear, full of light and life and love. Little did they know what was coming to threaten all of that.

Current:

Ginny was like any child raised in the wizarding world — excitedly fascinated with the idea of vampires, but not really that fearful. They were so rare that they were almost like a fairytale. She never imagined that they would be something that would haunt her adult life, or that her idyllic life would once again be disrupted by darkness, this time a much more unknown and therefore terrifying one.

Ginny is fiercely protective of those she loves and desperate to keep darkness from spreading back into their world — she still feels so keenly what darkness cost her family once before, and she’s determined that there will be no more casualties or suffering among the Potter/Weasley clan. She knows and understands very little about the pandemic that is striking her world, but she desperate to keep it from spilling over, and ready to fight if that’s what it takes to protect the ones who are dear to her.

Plots

— MORE THAN JUST A SCARY STORY — It’s really exciting to explore what Ginny’s feelings are on vampires. There’s so little that’s known or understood about them and I can tell that the plot is very mysterious on purpose, and I’m just really PUMPED to see how Ginny reacts to the darkness converging on the world once more. Obviously she’s going to go into mama bear mode and want to do everything she can to eradicate the darkness, but what does it look like to go up against a threat you don’t understand? This kind of conflict makes blood purity look completely black and white, and how will Ginny fare in a darkness that’s more shades of grey?

— CASUALTIES OF WAR — I would LOVE to explore what would happen in Ginny’s heart and world if one of her family members was infected (which, considering how many of them there are, seems likely). Ginny long ago took it upon herself to be the glue that held her family together, especially after Fred’s death, and she loves her family with a fierce determination not to lose anyone else. What will happen when another Weasley/Potter family member becomes a casualty of a darkness that is somehow more terrifying than the one Ginny has known before?

— SOFTENING THE HEART — I’d also love to see how Ginny’s view on the threat of vampires would change if she came to know one who was good. This is not the same as Death Eaters vs Order members, and not everyone who’s infected has a choice in the matter. Are vampires really that much of a threat, or is the world just afraid of that which it doesn’t understand? What might change in Ginny’s heart with a little understanding?

— THE INFECTION SPREADS — OMG not entirely sure whether this is a set plot I want someday, but what would happen if Ginny is infected in some way? Ginny has definitely got some serious issues when it comes to control — she’s the one who wants to be in control of her life and she thrives in that ability; what angst would it be for her to lose some of that control from an infection she didn’t ask for? Or what if something changes Ginny’s mind and she does seek it out? What would have to happen for that to be the case?

— THE SAME SIDE — I’d love to explore what it might look like if fighting against this darkness puts Ginny on the same side as someone she used to consider an enemy. Will she join Draco in becoming a vampire hunter in an attempt to protect the people she loves? What would it look like for her to put old grudges aside and learn to forgive for the sake of fighting against the darkness? Ginny has some real self-righteousness when it comes to those who fought on the side of the dark — what will her response be to them fighting for the “light”?

— FAMILY DYNAMICS — this is a more lighthearted one, but I’m excited to explore the weasley/potter dynamics at this point in these characters’ lives. Certainly the last 20+ years haven’t been all sunshine and daisies, there had to be a fair bit of suffering and conflict because that’s life, especially in a big family. Which relationships have healed over and which are threatening to break apart? What does Ginny’s marriage with Harry look like, especially now that darkness is threatening their world once more?

OTHER

Random little headcanons I have for Ginny

✨Ginny has a notorious sweet tooth; she needs to eat something sweet at least once a day ✨ Harry does most of the cooking, but Ginny has mastered the art of baking bread, and the smell lingers around their house because of how often she has to stick a new loaf in the oven after her family devours the latest one ✨ If Ginny had her way, she would go barefoot all the time, but since she can’t, she wears sandals whenever she gets the chance ✨ Ginny prefers muggle jeans to wizarding robes, and now that she doesn’t have to basically live in her quidditch robes, she’s most often found in jeans, a sweater, and her birkenstocks – with or without socks (she’s very hip in muggle fashion) ✨ Ginny is not a morning person. Harry has to lure her out of bed with the smell of freshly brewed coffee. When she has to be out of the house really early for morning practices, Harry wakes up to brew her coffee and then goes back to bed once she’s up ✨ Ginny doesn’t really drink. When she was pregnant with Albus, she realized that she actually preferred butterbeer anyway, so she sticks to that. ✨ Ginny has one on one tea with her mum every week, and always stops by her father’s work shed on the way out to see his latest project. ✨ Ginny convinced Harry to let them get a cat, and she promptly named it Minnie (after Minerva McGonagall, of course. Minnie’s become another member of the family. ✨ Ginny loves the ocean, and spent as much time as she could at shell cottage when the kids were all young. Now she makes the family go on vacation to the coast every summer. ✨ Ginny found that after Albus was born, she wanted a daughter just as much as her own mother had wanted her. When Lily was young, Ginny would dress them up in matching outfits and stick her tongue out at Harry whenever he made fun of her for it.

here’s a pinterest board here’s a mock blog here’s her mtbi type here’s her enneagram

#urinfected

2 notes · View notes

g-pctter · 4 years

Photo

character biography.

CHARACTER NAME —

BLOOD STATUS —

BIRTHDAY —

GENDER & SEXUALITY —

FORMER HOUSE —

INFECTION —

No, at least to start out. I’m completely open to see what develops and whether that might include Ginny becoming infected.

OCCUPATION —

MARITAL STATUS/SHIPS —

FAMILY —

HOGWARTS & CHILDHOOD —

POST HOGWARTS —

DISCLAIMER — I’m keeping some things a little vague because I don’t know where the harry player stands; I’ll definitely flush it more out later at least for myself

The Potter family settled into a happy little life, finally free from darkness and fear, full of light and life and love. Little did they know what was coming to threaten all of that.

Current:

Plots

OTHER

here’s a pinterest board here’s a mock blog here’s her mtbi type here’s her enneagram

#{ about ginny }

1 note · View note

devontabris · 6 years

Text

Soul

You never did ‘fit in’ as they say. Dolls thrown aside in favour of your brother’s toy cars. That’s nothing unusual. You’re just a bit of a tomboy, they thought. Still, as you grow older, the workings of a girl’s or woman’s mind remain a mystery to you. Even when people explain the how’s and why’s, that way of thinking seems so alien, so foreign. When your body starts to change you don’t mind it too much, at first. But the more it changes, the more it annoys you and the more you start to hate this thing called puberty. It began as only some light bleeding. The repetition of that process begins to annoy you. The red flow slipping from between that hole between your legs is the most hateful feeling, worthy of being called a nightmare. Through the years cramps, pre-menstrual boob pain and general emotional bullshit getting out of whack made the experience even worse. It gets more uncomfortable the longer you’re forced to wear a bra. The straps become loose all the time. When you jump those damn growths on your chest won’t sit still and they draw attention, way too much attention. Seeing how boys looks at girls and their… Ugh, ‘assets’, makes you vow never to wear anything that exposes more than your collarbones. Not that you could stomach wearing something like that even if you’d want to. How can women bear to wear such revealing clothing? How can they not feel uncomfortable in them? How can they view those things as any kind of ‘asset’ at all? You wonder this sometimes. They say it makes them feel sexy, but you don’t understand any of it. Those words sound as though they’re speaking a language you don’t understand. A complex language. One you feel no passion for and thus won’t bother to learn. Mid to late teen years another frustration sets in full force. One that’s been brewing in the back of your mind for a while now. You find your own lack of physical strength vexing and are slowly becoming tired of feeling so weak. Always needing someone else to turn the lid of the jar. People offer to carry things for you and you refuse as much as possible. You wish to be thought of as strong, someone others can depend on. Not someone who needs help moving a few boxes or carrying a few books. You wanted your aunt to also ask you to help her move to her new place instead of just your brother. So you start working out. Maybe if you grow a bit of muscle you’ll stop feeling so weak and people will stop acting ‘gentlemanly’ towards you. It’s something you’ve always hated, but as an adult that sort of behaviour especially annoys you. You hate it when people attempt to treat you as the lady you’re not. They do it more and more now. Holding open a door, letting you enter first with that stupid ‘ladies first’ crap and pulling the chair back. You want to scream: “Stop doing that! I have hands of my own! I can do all this stuff. I’m not some weak helpless creature that needs taking care of all the time!” But for some reason that escapes you, you hold your tongue and settle for a scowl instead. They do this in spite of your short haircut which you’ve had since the year you turned seventeen, the men’s clothes that you embarrassingly had to buy at the boy’s section of the store because your body is not big enough and the sporty shoes you chose specifically because while they’re labelled ‘girl shoes’, they don’t look the part at all. They do it even as you refuse to walk like a runway model and always sit with your legs spread wide apart. They do it even as you make no effort to emphasize your chesticles and even try to de-emphasize them as much as possible. They do all those things and more regardless of how you present and it irritates the heck out of you. Shouldn’t there be a rule, you wonder, that says that when someone actively tries to look and act as unladylike as possible one should not treat them as a lady? Eventually, you find the word or maybe it found you. Transgender. Trans for short. You read the word on a random website the first time around and something inside yourself called out to it even if the definition, the stereotypes you read on that page didn’t entirely ‘fit’. Oh, so there is a name for this out of place feeling. You know there were people born in male bodies who then at some point choose to live as women. You never knew the other way around also exists. That old documentary you watched a couple years back didn’t explain things nearly as well as it should have. You put the word in a search engine and look for more. Have to know. Need to know more. Suddenly, all those years of looking in the mirror, yet never seeing yourself made sense. How could you see the real you reflected when the shell, the package you’re wrapped up inside of, is wrong? If your body felt like a closed prison cell missing a lock and key before, then this is doubly true now. How do you get out? How do you shed this skin like a snake would to reveal the real you? How do you become who you were always meant to be? To change your life around so people see the correct shell standing in front of them. So they can stop making the wrong assumptions about who and what you are. It feels as though you’ve finally found a vital piece of the puzzle that had remained missing until now. You gather all the info you need. Where are you supposed to go to get this process started? What’s going to happen? What could happen? What could go right and what could go wrong? You take some time to figure out what exactly it is that you want and how to get it. You look up some videos to get inside knowledge of how this whole ‘transition’ process you’ve read so much about is supposed to go. Is the information on those websites still up to date, you ask yourself. The videos you watch of other trans men offer more than just information. Watching them gives you some comfort and courage that one day you could be at the same stage in transition as them. One day, you could be the one sitting there in front of a camera giving information and courage to others. You often contemplate coming out, but as freeing as the thought appears, it is twice as frightening. What if they don’t just react badly, but really badly? What if your parents throw you out of the house? What if several friend and family members insult the heck out of you then refuse to talk to you again and cut all ties? What if they’re disgusted by you, by the real you, just because you weren’t born with the correct parts attached? Just because the shape of your soul differs from the package it was shoved into. You are like the box to a point-and-click mystery adventure game with an action RPG disk inside. It’s not your fault whoever was responsible for putting discs in boxes put yours in one that wrongly describes the thing inside. Yet, people around you are angry and demand that you act like the mystery game they were promised, but your code simply doesn’t work that way. After much internal debate, you finally gather up the courage to tell your parents and brother. Your mother doesn’t get it. She tells you that you may have been a bit of a tomboy as a kid, but never to that extent. She says she doesn’t see that in you and that she thinks you’re making a mistake. You can feel the twist of an imaginary blade tearing your heart open. You love her, but the knowledge that she can’t see you, the real you, just hurts so bad that you’re amazed that you’re still breathing. Your father thinks it is a phase, at first. Something that will blow over. Occasionally, he humours you, but nothing more. Later down the line, when he’ll see the change, see that it’s real, he’ll make no issue out of it to your surprise and will simply go with it. Your brother can tell this has been bothering you for a while and tells you so. He’s always noticed that you didn’t act or react like most girls, but simply pegged you for a tomboy and possibly a lesbian. He says that looking back, it all kind of makes sense now. Still, he worries about you. He fears this transition process isn’t safe until you show him all your research. He’s also afraid of the scorn others may express. More than the possibility of getting hateful words flung at you, he’s afraid they’ll hurt you physically. Your face lights up the first time he calls you ‘brother’ instead of ‘sister’. It almost feels surreal to finally have someone call you by your true name and male pronouns, but a good kind of surreal. You’re so used to people calling you by your birth name, that having them use your chosen name is a little odd at first. A few weeks after your parents, you gather up the courage to tell other family members and friends. Some of them are confused. Others angry. Some a mix of both. Others hurl a list of insults at you and you try to explain, but they won’t hear any of it. Ties are cut and tears spilt. Some people you lose forever. Luckily, others stay and those are the ones you grow even closer to. You are grateful for their support and that they at least try to remember to call you by the correct pronouns. Having a few more people on your side makes you feel a little stronger. Your mother drags you to a psychologist who ends up taking your side, much to your mother’s dismay. She tries to take you to a different one whom she hopes will tell you to stop acting like a man and listen to your genitals. You refuse and even move out of the house after six more months of her insisting on and emphasizing her use of the words ‘she’, ‘her’ and ‘my daughter’ every chance she gets. Three months after you’ve fully moved into your own place, your therapist gives you the letter you need to start hormone therapy. Your brother congratulates you. At this stage, your father realizes that it’s real. “You’re really going through with it, huh.” He says. You nod. When you grow your first facial hair he teaches you how to shave. In the following months the testosterone you take lowers your voice slowly. When it cracks you suddenly feel like a teenage boy even though you’ve been an adult for about six years now. More hair sprouts all over your arms and legs. You think your face looks a little different, but maybe it’s just your imagination. Things that seemed heavy to lift before now seem a whole lot lighter. You see your muscles growing week by week. Gaining strength is a whole lot easier now. Things are changing in your lower region as well, aside from hair growth, that is. Your clit gets larger, not as large as you’d like, but it’s something. The next time you hear of your mother, you hear she’s held a funeral for ‘the girl you’ in the back yard a couple week ago. You think it’s ridiculous. You’re not even dead. You’re right here, alive and well, alive and feeling way better than you’ve felt in ages. That ‘female’ you was never even there. What did she even burry? Your previous physical appearance? Her own ideas of what you should be or should have been? She explains that she needs time to mourn. Mourn what?! That shell you’ve been so desperate to get rid of? Why mourn that? Heck, you’d throw a party! Finally rid of all the stuff you’d come to hate about yourself because it didn’t fit and rid of the stuff that made people treat you in a way you hated. She explains that she feels like she lost a daughter. You counter that maybe she never had one, but just didn’t care to see it. “Maybe.” She says she needs time to adjust, to get used to having a son instead of a daughter and that you don’t need to understand why the funeral helps her get over the fact that you’re transitioning, just that it does. You calm down, let it go and tell her you can live with that. For the first time in a long time, way too long, the two of you hug. Roughly a year after starting testosterone, you get a mastectomy. The breasts you’ve been binding for a couple years are gone now, cut away by a surgeon’s knife and thrown in the trash. That’s a load of your chest, quite literally, figuratively too. Finally, you feel whole. You’re not done yet. You’re still planning to have your name and gender marker officially changed, of course, and a year from now the womb and other internal reproductive bits have got to go in a hysterectomy. At least that much. Maybe more, you haven’t decided yet. At any rate, those are worries for later. For now, you’re okay even if your chest hurts and you’re groggy from the pain meds. But for the first time in forever you’re at peace with yourself and the face in the mirror and honestly? That’s more than you ever hoped or could have asked for.

— — —

An old piece of original fiction first posted on Deviantart in 2015. Thought I’d share it here too. This isn’t my own personal story, just the story of a character I made up.

23 notes · View notes

maadcolli · 4 years

Audio

CLEO

They say death is a slow process because in your dying breaths your entire life flashes before your face. Then I suppose holding your lover die is comparable to setting your soul ablaze. I struggle to muster any words, but swiftly pull you onto my lap. Applying pressure to your chest, but the bullet went cleanly through your back. The tears falling down my cheeks feel like glaciers mixed with sage. As my chest begins to compress,,, I don’t even know where to start.

You were only 17 when God decided that it was time to rain on your parade. How could they deem you to be the chosen before reaching second grade? How could expectations never seem to amaze, or overwhelm, your senses and lessons never phased - your vision, mental or thoughts; metaphysical or spiritual? A presumed still birth, but at the last second a beat presented a miracle like alchemist or Preme - maybe Dre maybe Deen - a December baby born from the forsaken blood on the leaves. I could never forget you, but the world could never say the same because the very fiber of your nature is what sent you to the grave. Tears currently overlay the letters on my Mac like concrete on the pave - the beginning of a sentence that I dread to reach the end of the page.

When God created Earth, & when God created Adam, I am under the impression that in his thoughts he knew of a madam that was the true heir, but the sin of man would prove to be the ignition to the never ending cycle to the beginning of the end. Lilith, only if love wasn’t forsaken. Only if the world actually valued your attention. Caring for creatures that under your gaze you could have casted aside as peasants. Comparable to Mother Nature, but it’s by nature that in your heart you found it necessary to mother the helpless and feed those who were encapsulated with hunger; but violence tyrants and the defiant all tried to rain on your parade.

Men. Always men. Always with something to say.

Over the years you grew in more ways than just your hips. The dictation and command from every syllable that mustered out your lips became hurricanes to those familiar with living on the coast; and as your confidence grew, you found it hard to boast. You found it hard to express because every time you let, your emotions encapsulate your being that’s when society would reject - anything said after, imagine always having to keep your composure in a world where women are seen as only being the beginning and closer. Now add into the equation the color of your skin. Any person with an ounce of common cents could see that you couldn’t buy a win. Smartest kid in your class, but never invited to speak on the stage. Most athletic in the pack, but always omitted from the page and you would cry into your mothers arms and ask her why is life this way? And she would cry into your arms and tell you that the world by nature isn’t safe. And when you asked her what she meant all she could reply was to channel your rage into your being and everything you believe in; wipe your tears and turn the page; the second they see you stumble is the second they smear your name. To never give them a reason to believe in the stereotypes that accompanied your race. A black women dying to live, but living to die. Two steps forward just meant two questions of how & why? But still the caged bird sings. Still you found a way. Still you marched forward. ‘Still’ was a snapshot of everyday. I found the words ‘independent’ and ‘courages’ to be the perfect monikers for your name. If only man could have been created from the rib of women. More specifically a black woman. Only then would we understand what it means to be living in a world of emotional & institutional instability that is created from the difference between the organ between your legs.

Strength. I wish I could be half as strong as you.

For me life was different.

I’ve been gang banging before I came out of my mothers wound. I jumped off my mothers porch as soon as I could tie my shoes. Laws of humanity, the unwritten rules, code of ethics is respect - to realize that life was held together by pipes and screws and it was my job to make sure I always carried a tool; no exaggeration when I say at my brothers graduation caps were thrown into the air. As he was shaking the deans hands to watch him tumble down the stairs. I was only in the 5th grade, but that successfully set into motion, the trouble to come and the naughty by nature life that was made for me. I saw *** kill **** on 67th street, walk inside the bodega and order a chopped cheese. Walk out, look my way, and that nigga blew me a kiss. A warning that air wouldn’t be the only thing blown my way if I opened my lips. The morale of this story is gang violence was never rocket science. Never travel alone, your team should move like the Mayans. But you successfully convinced me that life was more than guns and butter.

Cleopatra, if only you continued working in the Pyramids. How I wish I could have taken every bullet for you. Living with the guilt that my decisions are the reason for you barely breathing has caused me to cast aside my pride in the shadows of the truth. Holding you in my arms as your parents run out the front door in concern. Your mother notices you first and she can’t even move or say a word. I hold you in my arms as tears glisten down your face. Blood leaking out of your smile as you muster the courage to tell me everything is going to be okay. I struggle typing these words because truthfully this should have been me. Watching the life leave your smile will forever haunt me to the grave. As the bronze pigment starts to lose its shade I plead with God to spare her and please allow me to take her place. If heaven was a mile away, I would sprint my ass to the gates just to demand for retribution and to ensure that her soul to be saved.

As you draw your final breath I can feel the soul leave your chest. God, I don’t understand what I did to deserve this, but please forgive me for my future sins. Innocent Colli has every reason to earn his wings.

0 notes

uprising-hqarchive · 4 years

Photo

WELCOME TO THE WIZARDING WORLD, KATE!

we’re glad to have you. don’t forget to check the current timeline of events, and send in your account within the NEXT 24 HOURS. most importantly; don’t forget to have fun!

OUT OF CHARACTER

NAME/ALIAS, PRONOUNS, AGE — Kate, she/her. TIMEZONE AND ACTIVITY — EST, I’m usually on most days and able to do replies every 1-3 days depending on what’s going on. I also tend to lurk on the ooc discord :) ANYTHING ELSE? — nope!

IN CHARACTER

— is that JESSICA CHASTAIN? oh, no it’s just GINNY POTTER. SHE is a 47 year old PUREBLOOD witch, whose occupation is a COACH FOR THE HOLYHEAD HARPIES. i guess that’s why her former house is GRYFFINDOR. she is prepared for the uprising, her alliance is ORDER SUPPORTING.

BIRTHDAY: 11 August 1981

SOCIAL MEDIA: @mrschosen-one

RESIDENCE: with her husband, Harry Potter

EXTRA

CHARACTER NAME —

BLOOD STATUS —

BIRTHDAY —

GENDER & SEXUALITY —

FORMER HOUSE —

OCCUPATION —

MARITAL STATUS/SHIPS —

But also, chemistry is fine too LOL.

FAMILY —

HOGWARTS & CHILDHOOD —

POST HOGWARTS —

The Potter family settled into a happy little life, finally free from darkness and fear, full of light and life and love. Little did they know what was coming to threaten all of that.

Current:

Ginny was not prepared for darkness and conflict to creep back into her life and rob her children of a carefree young adulthood, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t ready to fight in order to restore her world once more.

OTHER

Random little headcanons I have for Ginny

#uhq.accepted #this app is ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

0 notes

uncreativeartistworld-blog · 6 years

Text

My coming out letter to my parents (english version)

Dear parents,

I’m really not good at talking to you directly so I wrote this letter. It’s quite difficult for me to conceal it any longer so I just want to tell you that I’m transgender. To explain it properly, I don’t identify and never did with my birth gender; I’d always preferred being a boy. I just thought it’d be nothing unusual and didn’t know much about being transgender, but now I do and the more I knew about it the more I started recognizing that this is exactly how I feel. I know this maybe will be a shock for you, but it’s neither easy for me living with a body I don’t feel comfortable with. It’s okay for me if you’re angry now or disappointed, but I hope you’ll get over it and accept me the way I am or even support me. If you have any questions, just talk to me, I’ll try to answer them all. I know that it’s complicated for you too. I know it for a few months now but I felt this way for my entire life and I hope you won’t tell me that it’s just a phase, because it’s not and other people at my age know for sure that they identify with their birth gender so why should I not know that I don’t? You can’t change who I am. But I want to make sure that you know I’m not changing anything else than my body, I’m still the same person as you knew me before, just that you know I’m a boy now. I couldn’t really be myself at home ever because I always had to pretend I’m a girl and do all those stereotypical things but that made me realize even more that I really don’t like dresses and makeup. If it’s okay for you, I’d love you to use the name I’ve chosen, which is Ash, as long as you feel comfortable with it. That’s the name my friends have been calling me for a while now, it’s gender neutral and I can identify much more with it. Also he/him pronouns would be great. It would be very hurting for me if you would tell me it’s stupid or wrong to be this way, please take me serious once because this is really important for me. Also I’m sorry if I didn’t talk that much the last weeks or months or seemed to be kind of thoughtless, but I was really busy with thinking about a way to come out to you and knowing for sure how to deal with it so now I decided to give you this letter, because I want you to listen to me and don’t want to argue. I’m not at home at the moment because I want you to first think and talk about it and try to talk calmly with me when I’m home again. I spent a lot of time with thinking about what to write and even more time with thinking about who I really am so I hope you appreciate it. It’s nothing about you or somebody else’s influence, it’s just who I am. You don’t have to immediately call me Ash and tell people about “your son” but maybe you can try, even if you know me as your daughter for now almost 14 years and I know that it has to be hard to just change my name and pronouns but you don’t know how happy you’d make me for trying. I think that’s all I wanted to tell you first, when you talk to me after, I’m sure I can tell you even more if you want to know. I hope you’ll be okay with it.

Ash

#trans #ftm #pride #coming out #transboy

0 notes

rtawngs20815 · 7 years

Text

Former Pro Tennis Player And Gay Dad Sounds Off On Margaret Court's Homophobia

This article originally appeared on Outsports

Brian Vahaly has two main points to get across to Margaret Court: When it comes to same-sex parents, she doesn’t know what she is talking about and her words hurt.

“I think if she met little Parker and Bennett and actually came into our home, she would understand why her words were so hurtful to so many people,” Vahaly, a former men’s tennis Top 100 player, told Outsports about the twin boys he and his husband, Bill Jones, are raising. Parker and Bennett Jones Vahaly turn 1 on Wednesday.

Vahaly, 37, who retired from the sport 10 years ago and was ranked as high as No. 64 on the tour, was reacting to the anti-LGBT comments made numerous times by the Australian Court, 74, a tennis legend who won 24 titles.

In addition to opposing same-sex marriage, Court is also critical of same-sex parents, saying a child raised without a male and female parent would be “deprived.”

In addressing the birth of a child to tennis player Casey Dellacqua and her female partner, Court wrote in a letter to a newspaper:

“If we continue to dismantle the traditional family unit as old fashioned, archaic and no longer even necessary, we will create a fatherless generation.

“Indeed, the lines are becoming increasingly blurred as the march towards such partnerships, even gay marriage, is fueled by minority voices rising in opposition to respected Christian beliefs which many cultures believe.

“I simply want to champion the rights of the family over the rights of the individual to engineer social norms into their relationships.

“I really want to see a society where traditional family values are still celebrated and every child has the best possible start in life.”

Court’s comments about same-sex marriage — along with ones that had her equating LGBT people to practicing mind control tricks used by Hitler, communism and the devil — have stirred controversy among current and retired players, with many urging Tennis Australia to rename Margaret Court Arena, site of the Australian Open.

Vahaly first publicly discussed being gay a month ago on a podcast with Sports Illustrated senior writer and tennis expert Jon Wertheim. After he saw my write-up of Court’s comments, Vahaly agreed to discuss her remarks in the context of being a dad. “It is my background as a father that makes the Court article so troubling,” he said.

Vahaly is a venture capitalist, while Jones is a real estate agent. They live with Parker and Bennett in Annapolis, Maryland.

Q: Margaret Court is against same-sex marriage, and says, “I have nothing against gay people but a child needs a mother and a father and the first two chapters of the Bible are all about family.” What would you like to say to Court about her views both as a dad and a gay man?

Vahaly: I would encourage Margaret to actually spend time with gay people who have families. Gay people do not just wake up with children. It’s a serious, intense, and exhausting experience that takes years and a lot money.

If there is one thing you must know — is that every child in the family of a gay couple is so incredibly loved and wanted. These kids have two parents who love them and are crazy about them.

Her insinuation about my little boys not being OK because they do not have a mother — well, I would ask her to share the data to support that claim.

In my experience, I have often found that most people who discriminate and stereotype people or families tend to lack first-hand knowledge. I think if she met little Parker and Bennett and actually came into our home, she would understand why her words were so hurtful to so many people.

Q: Do you think Margaret Court Arena needs to be renamed and if so, why?

Vahaly: I would be incredibly moved to see Tennis Australia take a stance on behalf of the gay and lesbian tennis players and remove Margaret’s name from the arena.

I would encourage them to think through the message they are sending if they allow this discrimination to stand. I will say that I have tremendous respect for what Margaret Court accomplished on the tennis court. But it’s a slap in the face to countless tennis players and tennis greats — Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, to name a few — who are expected to play on a court and be told their lives are equated to what Hitler did to children in Germany. It simply cannot be tolerated.

Q: Assume for the moment you were able to still be playing pro tennis — would you have an issue playing in an arena named for Margaret Court?

Vahaly: I played against Andre Agassi in the 2003 Australian Open in Margaret Court Arena. If I were still competing, I would have a difficult time playing on that court.

Q: Are you encouraged by current players speaking out about Court?

Vahaly: Seeing that the current No. 1 player in the world, Andy Murray, is speaking on behalf of gay and lesbian players is incredibly inspiring to watch. He has no reason to step into this discussion, but he is doing it because he knows it’s the right thing to do. Having the support of the No. 1 player speaks volumes.

Q: Had you always wanted children and was there a moment after realizing you were gay that you felt that being a dad was not possible and how did you cope with that?

Vahaly: Once I had come to terms with my sexuality in my late 20s, I did take the time to mourn that my life would likely be one without marriage or kids. Similar to sports, things do not always go your way and while its OK to be upset about it, at some point, you just have to move forward. I believe there is tremendous meaning to be had in a life, with or without children.

Q: How did you and your husband, Bill, come to the decision to have children?

Vahaly: Bill and I talked about having kids very early in our relationship. For Bill, it was non-negotiable and so it was always on the table. We tended to talk more about kids than we did about marriage, and began the long two-year surrogacy process earlier in our relationship. When we got married in Georgia in 2015, we found out on our wedding night that our surrogate was pregnant.

Q: How has your life changed since having children?

Vahaly: I believe the best way to say it is — our life exploded after having children. We relied on so much help from our family and friends, and we feel so fortunate to have so many wonderful people who love these little boys.

We certainly do not travel as much as we once did and certainly never get as much sleep, but it’s been so much fun. I will tell you having twins for the first four months can about drive you insane. But we got through it — and now it has been an absolute blast.

Q: What has been the most unexpected thing you discovered about being dad from the mundane to the meaningful?

Vahaly: These boys just bring a different meaning and sense of purpose to our lives. I finally feel I have a sense of purpose that I have not felt since my tennis playing days. You live for the moments where they rest their heads on your shoulder. You quickly learn that you don’t know as much as you think you do.

You realize someday that you will actually die — and these boys and this family will be the legacy that matters most.

I will say that having little boys provides a new sense of perspective for me, which even changed the way I even experienced my marriage. He was no longer a chosen partner and husband — he is now my family.

Brian Vahaly can be reached via email: [email protected]

For more from OutSports, check out these stories:

Transgender Muay Thai fighter makes history

Rise and shout, the Cougars are out

Did Christian soccer player Jaelene Hinkle skip U.S. women’s team trip because they wore pride jerseys?

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2rEX1Uf

#DIYS

0 notes

realestate63141 · 7 years