#queerness doesn’t exist within a box

[tosahobi-if]

if ??? is aro then how come they're a romance option? not saying there's anything wrong with being aro, I'm just confused how that's gonna work. does that mean that their route is more of a platonic route and not really a romance?

??? doesn't have a specific label for their sexuality, they'll find people attractive and experience sexual attraction but hardly ever experience romantic attraction.

is what i said while talking about their sexuality! being aromantic can refer to a spectrum—it doesn’t necessarily equate to never having any romantic feelings, it just means that in ???’s case they hardly ever experience romantic feelings and thus was the closest label i felt described them.

their route is a romance!

[twopoppies]

x

[…] We’ve read so much about it, heard so much about it, yet somehow people like Billy Porter pop out of the woodwork every 6 months to accuse Harry Styles of exploiting queer people. Aside from being so utterly boring, these bad faith criticisms have lately taken on a malicious edge.

[…] Clearly, attempting to fit his sexuality into a precise box and be defined by it did not serve Bowie well. He later called his coming out “the biggest mistake I ever made” and that by being reduced to his sexuality, “it stood in the way of so much I wanted to do.” To me, it’s clear that Harry Styles, who is often discussed in the same breath as Bowie, is simply treading more carefully. He says he doesn’t label himself, he loves who he loves at his own discretion, and his fashion is extraneous to this. For some people Styles’ firm refuting of labels isn’t enough, which takes this discourse onto the slipperiest of slopes.

Putting pressure on a celebrity to address their sexuality in terms more suited to their fan base and the industry is depressingly familiar. Kit Connor of Heartstopper fame came out last Halloween, tweeting, “back for a minute. i’m bi. congrats for forcing an 18-year-old to out himself. i think some of you missed the point of the show. bye.” It was a full-throated indictment of the toxic side of the Heartstopper fandom, who interpreted the show’s warm message of inclusivity as the green light to go on a merry witch hunt for any potentially straight cast members. The entire affair hurt Connor, as would any induced coming out, and it’s an example of what happens when the Internet insists upon knowing who’s shagging who.

Porter’s recent comments are not the first time he’s criticised Styles and they espouse exclusivity in the name of inclusivity. He refers to Styles “using my community”, as if queerness or gender nonconformity is a members’ club Styles is gatecrashing. His point about Styles’ whiteness and beauty playing a prime part in his position as the first man to cover American Vogue is obviously correct, but it is not for Porter to proclaim who is in the ‘community’. There is no hierarchy within queerness or gender nonconformity and Porter is wrong to claim there are “leaders of this de-gendering of fashion movement” because the de-gendering of fashion is something that has existed since fashion began. It has no leaders because it’s literally just clothes.

This article is about far more than just Billy Porter (as the video above addresses very well). But this part stood out to me and I thought was worth highlighting.

Full article here

[billfarrah]

I don’t think Young Royals gets enough credit for it’s portrayal of sexuality. Obviously we in the fandom appreciate it all the time, but I feel like outside the fandom I’ve barely even seen it mentioned, and it’s such a shame because I really do feel like season 1 was very quietly revolutionary in its very matter-of-fact portrayal of teenage sexuality and desire.

It’s so refreshing to have a character like Simon, who clearly figured out he was gay a long time ago and is completely unbothered by it. There’s no big reveal where the other characters find out he’s gay, he doesn’t announce it to the entire population of the school as if it’s their business. His family knows, his close friends know, and they tease him as anyone would their friend or family about his crush. He’s most likely not out at Hillerska but that’s not because he’s intentionally hiding it; he just doesn’t feel the need for anyone to know because ultimately it’s only important to him and those close to him. After he reminds his dad of his sexuality, it’s never mentioned again, and we able to visually see that he is interested in boys based on his chemistry with Wille, the way he looks at him and acts around him, and obviously their intimacy. When the video comes out, nobody is going around saying, “oh wow, the non-boarder is gay?” in surprise, because there’s no reason for them to be surprised.

With Wilhelm, I love that he’s never pressured by anyone to come out, and is not portrayed as weak or invalid for his desire to keep his sexuality to himself. Wilhelm’s story is not a coming out story but one of discovery for his entire identity; who is he, what does he want, does he want the life that was chosen for him that he has no say in? His attraction to Simon doesn’t symbolize him coming to terms with his sexuality, but realizing what it is that he wants in his life (freedom, something real and raw and honest in a world he perceives as fake). Wilhelm may have those few moments of panic where he claims he’s “not like that”, but I don’t think there was ever any doubt in his mind what his attraction to Simon was. To have a teenage queer main character whose journey within the story is not limited to discovering their sexuality and coming out is still quite rare, and I love that he isn’t even the slightest bit concerned about labelling himself; he’s just in love with a boy. That’s all he knows and that’s all he needs to know. Labels can be wonderful and comforting for some people (as we see in Simon who is very comfortable identifying as gay), but they don’t provide that same comfort for everyone, and I’m glad a character like Wilhelm can exist outside of a box. Whether he’s interested in just boys, just girls or boys and girls isn’t relevant; what’s relevant is that he’s in love with a boy and unfortunately that Carrie’s greater implications for his very specific path in life.

I love that Wille and Simon are not shy or ashamed of their desire to have sex with each other, and that their relationship is not portrayed as any less pure or wholesome because they want sex. I’m so used to queer relationships in shows where sex is such a huge topic and the characters are so anxious about and want their first time to be perfect and want to make sure they’re “ready”, and if often kind of turns into something a bit preachy and watered down, and while I’m not saying at ALL that it’s bad to talk about sex this way, I think it is just as important to portray characters that are not nervous about sex, and just embrace their desires and go for it. I’ve seen so many TV shows where entire episodes are based over characters working up to having sex for the first time, and it’s so dramatic (not just with queer couples) and full of doubt on whether or not they should or if it’s a good idea, and there’s this undercurrent of shame to it, and it was just so nice to see queer characters have total conviction in their sexual desire and just act on them without needing to discuss consequences. Although them having sex did have consequences, the show makes sure to tell the audience it wasn’t their fault and there was nothing wrong with them doing it. We see how euphoric, happy and connected they felt toward each other afterward, and it was portrayed as fucking beautiful and romantic.

The best way I can describe YR’s approach to sex and sexuality is matter-of-fact, and it’s so important and I wish it was discussed more outside of tiny fandom spaces, because I think it’s so important for queer storytelling going forward and should be held on equal standing with other popular queer teen series.

[andreablog2]

I love when gay men refer to themselves as like a gay almost implying a third category bc tbh in the world of patriarchy all queer people are really in this third category that even the most queerphobic people agree is a separate category from cisheterosexuality. I feel like the expectation of all queer people to fit into binaries of masculine and feminine has caused division amongst lgbt people that should have never have happened. As a trans woman I see myself in gay men and I see myself in trans women/trans men/cis het women/cis lesbians etc and I know a lot just in the way we truly exist in the world and there are margins of privilege of course but it’s not clear cut like there’s plenty of self identified lesbians and gay men who experience far more queerphobia than you know like a person that falls under the trans umbrella bc they identify as non binary and their struggle doesn’t define their experience however in modern era where queerness is becoming more accurately anticipated & defined within people…this idea of like gay men experiencing masculinity in the traditional way or belonging to this socially homogeneous group of men is foolish and same goes for trans women like I am not very open of my past yet plenty of people identify me and know me as trans enough to have unconscious bias and socialize me differently and even if they didn’t I have experienced male socialization tbh in the future everyone is going to experience completely agender socialization and that’s going to suck in its own way but right now I feel like all queer people are really being put into this box of queerness and I have no thoughts on it other than that but it’s happening and it’s interesting to see what’s going to happen.

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

A queer reflection for Trinity Sunday

There’s something queer about a Triune God. 

How can one Being also be three Persons? The math doesn’t seem to add up! Some spend years attempting to articulate this theology in a way that doesn’t fall into “heresy”; others give up with a laugh and accept it as a Mystery. Ultimately, the God of the Universe is ineffable, beyond our understanding — yet we are called to seek ever deeper relationship with God, and promised that if we seek, we will find.

When people decry queer identities as nonexistent, overly complicated, or paradoxical, I can’t help but think of our impossible Three-in-One God. I think also about my own gender journey: how I struggled as a child to name what I was feeling because I had no language to describe it; how once I discovered others had words for what I was experiencing, I delighted in every one I could uncover; and how, ultimately, even my favorite words I’ve found to describe myself fall short. 

Words like trans, nonbinary, and genderqueer certainly help others understand and relate to me better — but I’ve learned to be okay with the fact that they might never fully know me, just as I may never fully know them. Turns out that the children of a Mysterious God are micro-mysteries in ourselves!

What I’m left with is this: if we worship a Triune God, why do we try to squeeze the humans made in that Infinite, Ineffable Being’s image into two narrow boxes? And if we celebrate how, in the Incarnation and Resurrection, Divinity burst through the binaries between Creator & Creation, Life & Death, surely the binary between male & female isn’t so insurmountable!

Together, let us pray:

Holy God, whose very existence is relationship, we marvel at your mystery. Protect this day and always those of your children who, like you, defy easy definition and resist restrictive categories. Teach us to recognize your wisdom and holiness shining within them, for only together in all our diversity do we reflect your image. Amen.

___

Further reading:

An opening worship prayer to the queer God with diverse children

An affirmation of faith in the God whose very existence is relationship

Some more cool queer posts about the Trinity

Envisioning the Trinity as a divine dance

A lovely excerpt about what it means to be in the image of God

[exilley]

i am back with more utena thoughts... specifically about the meaning of the orange, yellow, and green roses because they're very unclear in contrast to red, blue, pink, and white. butttttt uhmm so i think orange is supposed to symbolize romantic love, yellow is supposed to be affection, joy, or idolization, and green is about harmony or balance between identity (the self) and others (predominantly friendships and romances)

probably the most damning evidence i have for my interpretation of the color symbolism for orange is it being almost exclusively related to Juri and her deal with not wanting to confront her feelings for Shiori; also, in scenes where romantic love is implied or a strong thematic focal point, the lighting is washed out in orange.

yellow is The Nanami Color, which comes with her whole thing with wanting emotional validation and acceptance from (mainly) her brother as well as her peers. also very notably, in a specific moment in eps 13(? idk it was at the end of the Student Council saga though) Utena is shown experiencing flashbacks of Anthy where the frames are bordered in yellow. like hmmmm.... because in the final duel, as she reaches out to Anthy to pull her out of her coffin, she says “You have no idea how happy I was with you”..... HMMMMMM....

green is the color that occurs least often in the series and probably for good reason, since RGU's whole thing is about how unrealistic constructs of identity and expectations attached to them exist to serve a dysfunctional hegemony that alienates everyone who doesn't neatly fit into boxes and can only cause self-fulfilling prophecies for those that are in power. Saionji's character comes up once again as a parallel and foil to Anthy in this respect: he was presented the notion of a fantastical, "revolutionized" ideal about the world, had it immediately shot down, and henceforth submits himself to a hierarchy in which he'll never be able to realize his full self as an individual whose existence is condemned and rejected by the very system he's committed himself to enabling (if you go the queer reading route! which i am personally a big fan of). in short, something something Saionji forces himself to play a role for Touga because he both admires and detests what he represents and projects his own insecurities onto Anthy which ties into the greater message about how nonconformity is inextricably linked to conformity and can only be understood within the confines of assimilation.

[navarice]

A Box of Pictures in Ma's Attic

//@desi-lgbt-fest // Day 18 Fest Submission

Sometimes when I look back at my childhood photos I wonder how such a sweet little girl could ever become someone like me. It’s not a feeling that’s purely negative, though. It’s just a thought. I see the little me holding dolls and hugging her family and then I wonder just when did I stop feeling the joy of existing and start worrying about the space I occupy in this world. Every person stands at their own crossroads, yet mine feels like standing right in the middle of a roundabout of identities. A Muslim girl that isn’t particularly devout, a Bengali who’s lived in America more than her own homeland, the eldest daughter that disappoints her family more than makes them proud, a fraud in her educational institution and workplace, a fat girl (really that’s just the reality of it), just a general person who is easier to let go of then to hold on to. Most importantly, however, a person who doesn’t understand all these identities she grapples with. 

When I do ponder on this, I remember that little girl in the picture, so sweet and so innocent, somehow knew back then that something about her was different from what she has known her whole life so far. There was never a dawning horror or a sudden shift of the universe, but something more quiet and sure…almost as if it was just a truth born within her. Now, innate acceptance is different from the reality of seeing it. Truth be told, learning about the queer community at 11 years old was absolutely overwhelming. Queer culture in 2014 was far from the progressive as it is today, and the passing of the Marriage Equality Act began a sort of Rennaissance of new identities, definitions, and cultures. Yeah…quite overwhelming. 

Eleven-year-old me didn’t know what to do with all of it. Neopronouns? Nonbinary? Genderqueer? Asexual? All I know is that I like to kiss girls sometimes. Maybe I liked boys too, but the more I get to know boys my age the less I like them to be honest. The more I learned new things, the more questions I had, and the more I felt like a failure because I didn’t understand it right away. The quiet acceptance was gone, instead replaced with new verbiage and cultural politics. Absurdly, I wondered if I was even doing this gay thing right. Should I be thinking about defying societal norms and change my pronouns? Should I hate sex? Love it?  Should I discard my religion and Bengali identity because it is not as progressive and denies my existence? For the first time in my life, I began to question myself. 

The best thing about being gay in the early 2010s is that you can shove yourself back in the closet as many times as you want since being open about it was so new. And that’s exactly what I did. Up until my senior year of high school, I didn’t bother thinking about any of it (other than consuming an insane amount of gay content because hey a girl’s gotta have an outlet somewhere). Perhaps it was a blessing rather than a curse that the pandemic made us experts in introspection because the next round of reformation felt akin to psychological warfare on my younger self. 

I look at the younger photo of me and I look at the me right now and wonder how, after all that, I still come back to a full circle to the place I once was: quiet and innate acceptance. I am not out to my family (I tried with my mom but that was a complete disaster). It doesn’t really mix well with me being Muslim-Bengali. However, I am out to myself. In other words, I gave up caring about definitions and what should or should not be, instead focusing on the painful, joyful, simple existence I lead, making a difference when I can wherever I can. I am still on that roundabout of identities, continuously faced with unprecedented uncertainties, but now, I take that little girl’s hand, and we face the future forward together. 

[zot3-flopped]

For the love of God, stop talking about Harry Styles’ sexuality

Is the pop star's private life really any of our business?

By Patrick Sproull

God, I envy Luca Guadagnino. The concept of queerbaiting was put to the Bones & All director last year and his response was to ask, “what is that?” The idea of floating above the 2020s’ most tedious discourse sounds roughly on parallel with Lionel Hutz imagining a world without lawyers. I’m exhausted by it. We’ve read so much about it, heard so much about it, yet somehow people like Billy Porter pop out of the woodwork every 6 months to accuse Harry Styles of exploiting queer people. Aside from being so utterly boring, these bad faith criticisms have lately taken on a malicious edge.

Over the weekend Porter aired his criticisms of Harry Styles, not for the first time, in an interview with The Telegraph. He said that Styles becoming the first man to feature on the cover of American Vogue “doesn’t feel good to me” and accused Styles, whom he identified as straight despite Styles never having confirmed this, of exploiting “my community.”

It’s hard not to consider the historical precedent for the obsession over who Styles sleeps with. At the height of his career, David Bowie was regularly quizzed about his sexuality. In 1972 he said he was gay. Then, in 1976, he said he was bisexual. Finally, in 1983, he claimed he was actually a “closet heterosexual.” Clearly, attempting to fit his sexuality into a precise box and be defined by it did not serve Bowie well. He later called his coming out “the biggest mistake I ever made” and that by being reduced to his sexuality, “it stood in the way of so much I wanted to do.” To me, it’s clear that Harry Styles, who is often discussed in the same breath as Bowie, is simply treading more carefully. He says he doesn’t label himself, he loves who he loves at his own discretion, and his fashion is extraneous to this. For some people Styles’ firm refuting of labels isn’t enough, which takes this discourse onto the slipperiest of slopes.

Putting pressure on a celebrity to address their sexuality in terms more suited to their fan base and the industry is depressingly familiar. Kit Connor of Heartstopper fame came out last Halloween, tweeting, “back for a minute. i’m bi. congrats for forcing an 18-year-old to out himself. i think some of you missed the point of the show. bye.”

It was a full-throated indictment of the toxic side of the Heartstopper fandom, who interpreted the show’s warm message of inclusivity as the green light to go on a merry witch hunt for any potentially straight cast members. The entire affair hurt Connor, as would any induced coming out, and it’s an example of what happens when the Internet insists upon knowing who’s shagging who.

Porter’s recent comments are not the first time he’s criticised Styles and they espouse exclusivity in the name of inclusivity. He refers to Styles “using my community”, as if queerness or gender nonconformity is a members’ club Styles is gatecrashing.

His point about Styles’ whiteness and beauty playing a prime part in his position as the first man to cover American Vogue is obviously correct, but it is not for Porter to proclaim who is in the ‘community’.

There is no hierarchy within queerness or gender nonconformity and Porter is wrong to claim there are “leaders of this de-gendering of fashion movement” because the de-gendering of fashion is something that has existed since fashion began. It has no leaders because it’s literally just clothes.

Accusing Harry Styles of queerbaiting in 2023 is like taking part in the ALS ice bucket challenge. It feels like the product of another time and doesn’t exactly hold water in such sexually fluid times. Most of us have moved on from viewing others’ sexuality with such suspicion and the idea that there currently exists a large portion of celebrities in Hollywood who desire to be seen as gay whilst secretly being heterosexual is pure tinfoil hat territory.

We are so culturally beyond queerbaiting as a concept. Styles, the tallest, shiniest lightning rod for this alleged crime, has never marshalled a Pride march or appeared in a Pride magazine shoot. He isn’t directly profiting from queerness, he simply wears the clothes he wears.

This desire to demarcate queerness serves absolutely no one because at this point ostracising a potentially queer person for their perceived straightness would do more harm than welcoming in a straight person in gay clothing. We saw what happened to Kit Connor and the harm it caused. It’s time to move on.

[hellomynameisbisexual]

The B in LGBTQ+ has long been invisible, erased, and maligned, both within the queer community and outside of it. People who identify as bisexual experience attraction to or have had sexual contact with people of more than one gender. However, misconceptions about bisexuals abound, from the ‘they’re just confused’ statements, to the idea that they’d be more likely to cheat on a partner, and the overarching argument that bisexual people don’t actually exist at all — they’re either gay, straight, or lying.

The consequences of these assumptions have a real, quantifiable impact on the mental and physical wellbeing of bi folks. A brief from the Human Rights Campaign showed that bi people face “minority stress,” commonly experienced by stigmatized groups, and have a higher risk of self-harm and attempted suicide than their gay, lesbian, or heterosexual counterparts. The stigma around being bisexual often stops people from coming out, seeking help, and exploring their sexuality. So, let’s parse through what these misconceptions really are, and what we’re getting wrong about bisexuality.

Myth: There’s no such thing as bisexuality.

Reality: More and more, we’re coming to understand sexuality and gender as fluid concepts. The idea that someone must either be attracted to one sex or the other assumes that our preferences are rigid and permanent. So, why put bi people in a box?

While it’s ridiculous that this needs to be said, studies have confirmed that bisexuals exist. Researchers from Northwestern University tested straight, gay, and bisexual men by exposing them to various erotic film clips and measuring their physiological responses, proving that people aren’t ‘just hiding that they’re gay’ or lying about their sexuality when they identify as bisexual. They really are attracted to people of more than one gender. (Of course, if we’re only going to use sexual stimulation as a marker of sexual orientation, a study also found that ‘straight’ women showed signs of physiological arousal when exposed to clips of masturbation, lesbian sex, bonobo chimps — everything except naked men. Hmmm.)

Myth: Only women are bisexual.

Reality: Women are not more naturally predisposed to identifying as bisexual. Rather, the lack of bisexual men who are open about their sexuality is due to the stigma attached to it. Our culture of toxic masculinity doesn’t allow men to explore their sexuality, whereas women have arguably more leeway, since their relationships with each other aren’t seen as a threat to their femininity in the way that such male friendships threaten ‘manliness.’

While 7% of gay men and 4% of lesbians reported that they were not out at work, 49% of bi men said they didn’t feel comfortable coming out, according to the LGBT in Britain – Work Report by Stonewall, an LGBT rights charity based in the UK. Bisexual men are also at a disproportionately higher risk of contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, because stigma and erasure make them less likely to seek medical care. The idea that only women are bisexual, a la some sort of Katy Perry music video fantasy, is not only ridiculous, but also actively harms the health and wellbeing of bisexual men.

Myth: Bisexual people can’t be monogamous/ will cheat on their partners.

Reality: The assumption that bisexual people are attracted to more than one gender and, therefore, won’t be able to stay in a monogamous relationship, or will cheat on their partners, just isn’t true. A 10-year longitudinal study, published in Developmental Psychology, found that 89% of the bisexual women studied were in long-term, monogamous relationships. The mere fact that someone is attracted to men, women, and gender non-conforming people, doesn’t mean they’re more likely to cheat or sleep with someone else; neither does it mean they’ll always be faithful. The likelihood that a bi person will cheat on a partner is the same as a straight person — it depends on the individual.

Myth: Bisexuals are transphobic.

Reality: Being bisexual doesn’t imply that a person is only attracted to two genders, it simply means that a person isn’t only attracted to the opposite gender. People might assume that bisexuals subscribe to the gender binary of either man or woman, but in actuality, bisexuals may be attracted to cis people, non-binary, gender non-conforming, and trans folks as well. In order to clarify this, people may also use the term ‘bi+’ to indicate that they’re attracted to more than just two genders.

Myth: Bisexuals face less stigma.

Reality: Bisexual people, if in a relationship with someone of the opposite gender, have the ability to ‘pass’ as heterosexuals. Because of this, they’re often told that they face less stigma than a queer person, who often has no choice but to be out about their identity in order to have a relationship. And data from the Pew Research Centre shows that 84% of self-identified bisexuals are in a relationship with someone of the opposite gender. But this isn’t a cop out — it might be more likely for bi folks to find straight partners, because they are the majority of the population.

However, being with a heterosexual person does not invalidate a bisexual person’s sexuality. And the risks have been well documented — bi people are at higher risks for experiencing mental health issues like anxiety, depression, substance abuse, as well as heart disease, cancer, and STIs. This is directly because of the stigma and simultaneous erasure and invisibility that they face. And if we don’t start combatting some of our assumptions, bi folks will continue to be affected by them.

These misconceptions about bisexuality are directly impacting people’s mental and physical health, causing them to feel isolated and delegitimizing an integral part of their identity. Only when we start breaking down these myths for what they really are — myths — can we begin the work of reversing the years of bi-erasure and fully accepting the B in LGBTQ+.

[ltleflrt]

Same anon as before - I’m glad because it seems that we are on the same page. As I said in my previous ask, if you want to define your experience in your relationships as straight or queer or what have you, that’s fine, good for you, do what you want - the same is true for nb people! I don’t give a fuck, people should label or not label themselves or their relationships however makes them most comfortable, it isn’t my business. I made the ask in the first place because when I read your original post, I interpreted it as prescriptive, as if Bi People™️ (the monolith that doesn’t exist) always categorize their relationships as either “straight” or “queer”, which I wanted to counter with my own experiences and the experiences of other bi people I know. My bringing up nb people wasn’t me saying I genuinely believe they are required to identify as being in a queer relationship, it was because I thought your statement was operating within the gender binary and I was trying to offer the idea that not all people fit within that binary, which makes the dichotomy of “straight” vs “queer” relationships harder to clearly define in an accurate way that’s everyone can agree on. Essentially, with your response to my first ask, it is clear to me that we both believe since gender and sexuality are very diverse and frequently fluid areas, we can’t use our language (which is often unfortunately too definitive or prescriptive) to make boundaries as to who does or doesn’t fit into whatever box, because that will never always accurately work, we just need to let people define themselves however they want.

So I'll make the joke again, hopefully it's funny this time; don't make bisexuals choose specific terminology, because it is the nature of bisexuals to be contrary about any and all binary choices.

(And yes, I'm aware I'm still defining bisexuals as a monolith, that's part of the joke.)

[girl4music]

If a bisexual person is “half gay/half straight”

Then a non-binary person is “half male/half female”

Now do you see how stupid that take sounds?

This is the shit you hear because people are far too used to the binary. They don’t ever think both or dual or in-between or outside the gender binary altogether.

They just think either one or the other or half of each.

The binary is a box. And that box doesn’t exist because sexuality/gender identity is not binary.

It’s not binary because there’s more than two parts.

That’s why people find it difficult to understand the concept of “non-binary” when it comes to gender identity. They expect an appearance or expression of male and female. But that does not have to be the case because gender identity isn’t about appearance or expression. How you present isn’t necessarily how you identify. It can be but it doesn’t have to be. So in the same way, sexuality isn’t about presenting either.

It’s about what is felt internally. And we find it so difficult to understand this because of how we feel internally. What our subjective experience is. What our consciousness is most familiar with knowing or understanding. Anything outside of that is difficult for us to understand because it’s not within our box.

I find it difficult to understand how bisexuality excludes genders besides cisgender. Why isn’t transgender, non-binary or any other gender identity included? Why is that some other sexuality? There are things we find difficult to understand because we’re not used to what it is. So the goal is to get used to it.

We do that by doing research and expanding the box. I am now learning for myself why bisexuality is exclusive to anything but cisgender (male and female) even if I don’t agree. I am learning why when it doesn’t, it’s pansexuality. And it’s essentially because bisexuality is about the binary. As in - it was a term/label coined when gender identity was only recognized as male and female. When your gender was assigned at birth only.

It’s interesting. But I feel like the concept of it should be expanded to include gender identities that are not. We shouldn’t be making up new terms/labels and separating and segregating them to what already is.

We should just keep expanding the category instead.

I do think bisexuality should stick to dual attraction.

But not necessarily dual attraction of male and female.

Basically, I think bisexuality and pansexuality should be one and the same. Pan stands for “all”. You can be attracted to any gender identity or all of them at once. Bisexuality is named and phrased the way it is because it means “of two”. It means to have twice.

I think both sexualities should be combined together expanding on the experience of being attracted to two different gender identities now that we know that gender identity is not solely male or female and certainly not solely assigned at birth male or female.

In other words. I think we should lose the terms/labels “bisexuality” and “pansexuality” and create anew to include both sexualities into the same category. I don’t think they should be separated just because the concepts themselves are outdated based on ideas that either were flawed or just majorly misinterpreted.

A huge problem I have with LGBTQ talk is that new terms/labels keep being added to it and nothing being taken away. So we’re still keeping the outdated concepts while also introducing brand new ones.

And I just don’t think that’s the way we should be doing this as a community. I think it’s just more confusing for people to understand who they are.

I mean I was really walloped with the information that I can’t be bisexual if I can be attracted to transgender or non-binary people. I’m more confused than ever about my own sexuality and gender identity because there’s constant new additions being added to the alphabet soup that is LGBTQ. It’s too complicated. I still believe I’m bisexual but I refer to myself as queer more than anything else now because that’s at least a term/label that stands for everything. It’s an umbrella.

Nobody’s ever said to me that I can’t be queer at least.

I honestly think all of this confusion and complication would be cleared up if we just get rid of the concept of “binary” in sexuality and gender identity in general.

It’s why I’ve never resonated with the concept of “soulmates” as it is understood. Plato himself called it an immature notion because the “two half’s to a whole” idea implies that a person (or other conscious being) cannot be independent from the whole. Which is obviously absolutely bullshit. Of course they can.

What’s made us think of “soulmates” this way is the idea that gender and attraction to gender is binary.

We’re faced with the overwhelming truth that it is not.

Thinking of things as binary or as of dual nature has really altered our perception of how everything works as both independent of each other and not of. Pan (all) is much closer to the way things really work but we’re still missing the point of this if we’re still keeping outdated concepts and ideas instead of reworking them in with the newer stuff we’ve discovered that resonate better with the way we live and love today.

[thatonebirdwrites]

I'm low-key obsessed with this article. Mushrooms and fungi as queer theory? It's so well written and just so convincing, and I absolutely adore it. My Elivera worldbuild is an alien planet that's dominant species tend to be mycellium networks, so reading this made me extra excited. Fungi are absolutely fascinating. I mean just read the introduction: (Then go read the whole thing so we can chat about it please): Hasmik Djoulakian and Patricia Kaishian writes:

Clustered in supergroup Opisthokonta, fungi, animals, and amoebae share a more recent common ancestor than with plants or bacteria. The vegetated environment that enabled the transition of animals to land and evolution of amphibians, reptiles, birds, then mammals, was bound to symbiotic fungi known as mycorrhizae. Over 90 percent of plants form these associations (Smith & Read, 2008), and myceliated landscapes sustain cascades of nested biological systems, from which every evolutionary layer of our human biology is indistinguishable, arising and persisting in conviviality with fungi or fungal-bound organisms. As terraforming bodies, fungal transindividualism is our collective ecological history. Fungi are engaged in continual processes of renewal, interfacing with death, creating life through decomposition, nutrient reallocation, and the spectrum of symbiosis. Fungi can remediate environments by digesting fossil fuels and converting them into fungal sugars. Fungi can accumulate heavy metals and radioactive materials, and a fungus has even been found to metabolize ionizing Cesium-137 in the reactors of Chernobyl. Both single cellular forms and filamentous, hyphal networks of fungi can be found in almost any conceivable niche: of, on, within, and for human and nonhuman bodies.

Despite this dynamic profile of fungi complex social histories have influenced outcomes and trajectories of mycology, rendering it a marginalized science. Kingdom Fungi has been persistently maligned, feared, and misunderstood, and these cultural forces have directly sabotaged scientific understanding of this group for hundreds of years. In Western Europe and in the United States particularly, children are typically raised to fear all mushrooms, which are unilaterally viewed as poisonous, diseased, and degenerate. Although science, in its ideal form, should be an equal-opportunity investigative methodological tool, we know that the history of modern science has been disproportionately written by white, often Christian, men from Western Europe, excluding other voices. Consequently, dominant cultural lenses—heteronormativity, racism, sexism, ableism, and binaries inherent to them—have influenced scientific understandings.

Tiokasin Ghosthorse, a member of the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation of South Dakota and scholar at Yale Divinity School and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Science, explores relational and egalitarian thinking processes familiar to the Lakota people, as compared to rational, hierarchical thinking processes within Western cultures. Ghosthorse says that, for Lakota people, language is inherently relational and all things are bound together. Ghosthorse (2019) writes,

The rational mind is the human living within the hierarchy of a box that seeks to capture it through its own narcissistic addiction to the anthropocentrism of a society or a people who hold themselves up as somehow more grandiose than others in that box of conscience. It deadens the intuitive or non-dogmatic life. This is where the separation begins—with a concept and a word that doesn’t exist within many intuitive languages, such as Lakota. That word is domination. (paras. 10–11)

By invoking rationality over intuition to defend a viewpoint, a person makes the assertion that the intuitive—often feminized—lens is neither legitimate nor legible, with no footing in any discursive cultural space. Often with derision, it is written out of the conversation. Such disregard for intuition is part of the pathway toward domination that Ghosthorse describes. Dualistic thinking about life and non-life, male and female, and other categories Ghosthorse alludes to, permeate mycophobic discourse.

Western scientific thinking seeks security through objective assessment, but objectivity is meaningless when it comes to gender and queerness because attempts to determine the bounds of queerness are already exercises of power. Donna Haraway (1988) discusses the falsity of objectivity in her essay on situated knowledges, which describes the partial perspective any one person is able to have depending on sociopolitical factors influencing their gaze; these partial perspectives form a patchwork of messy, layered knowledge that inches toward some measure of shifting objectivity. This encourages rethinking scientific endeavors not as observations of subjects, but as interactions with them. Similarly, fungi defy objectivity and standardization. Specifically, sporadic, ephemeral, and unpredictable appearances of fruiting bodies complicates mycologists’ ability to obtain thorough population data. The complex biotic and abiotic forces that lead to a species producing a fruiting body remain unknown in many cases. While some fungi, like some species of morels, can be reliably found in the same place on more or less the same calendar day every year, other species, such as members of genus Ionomidotus, may be seen once in a given location and then never again. But is its mycelium still present in that spot? We often do not know. If so, does that count as being present? Then there is the issue of quantification of an individual. If you find a scattered grouping of mushrooms growing around a tree, are they one genetic individual? If so, do you quantify them as one mushroom? Or do you count the number of mushrooms, reporting them as individuals? There is not a clear and universally applied answer to these questions. This lack of conformity to quantifiable boxes has put many fungi at a greater risk of extinction. Their biological realities are not given necessary accommodations in our current conservation assessment framework, whose attempts to standardize data diminish many essential properties of fungi. Interrogating our dualistic, mycophobic view of fungi—and our often pathologizing attempts to understand them—can help make Science more accountable.

Mycology is a science that, by its very nature, challenges paradigms and deconstructs norms. Mycology disrupts our mostly binary conception of plants versus animals, two-sex mating systems, and discrete organismal structure, calling upon non-normative, multimodal methodologies for knowledge acquisition. Mycelium is the web-like network of fungal cells that extends apically through substrate, performing sex, seeking nutrients, building multispecies and multikingdom symbioses. This essay seeks to remediate our relationship with fungi and all organisms—thereby queerness—by collapsing and myceliating the emotional space between human and nonhuman. In order to do this, we explore dogma of institutional (capital S) Science, as well as the biology, history, and methodologies of mycology through a queer theory framework, as seen by a queer mycologist and a feminist educator.

Read the Rest Here.

[gayanesespicycake]

Blog Post #2

I will never forget the first time that I saw the video “Firework.” I remember watching it for the first time on my parent’s computer, with my Carribean grandmother sitting behind me. I remember watching with baited breath for “the scene,” the one all of my classmates had talked about in various tones of awe and disgust, unsure what was upcoming, unsure how to feel. And then it happens. Two men kiss. And I hear from behind me my grandmother yell out, and say, “Gal! Me ne want to see no batty-boys!

I will never forget not just her tone, the venom in her words, but the words that she used. I tried to look it up later on, but didn’t see anything in Patois to describe queer people other than slurs. Was there no way to be queer and brown in the same breath, to love someone without having to refer to that love in words dipped in hate?

I really loved  Picq and Cottet’s piece on the translation of queerness into languages other than English, because it was fascinating to see queerness portrayed in a non-Western context. For an identity that has existed in every culture through centuries of history, we have someone crafted and created a narrative that only the Western, English reckoning of the LGBTQ identity is the right one, and is one that captures all aspects of queerness. I remember thinking of my grandmother’s slurs, and trying to wonder if there was a queer in Hindi or a way to speak of it in Patois, and the article beautifully encapsulated the strife of trying to translate one’s identity into a space it doesn’t belong, like trying to cram a straightjacket onto a person too tall, the fabric ripping at the seams, unable to hold the weight of centuries of culture and identity being compressed into a single fitted and tailored box. 

In Edenborg’s piece of Putin, we see yet another example of this same rhetoric, where in the guise of traditional values, queerness is not only supresed but lamented as a weakness, a lacking of character, a bowing of sorts to the Western usurpers attempting to rewrite native histories and cultures. 

In coming of age in America, I struggled a great deal with my sexuality, in knowing how to own brownness and queerness in one space, in finding a way where I could be something other than straight in a brown space and still have a place. In radical spaces, we were told that white folks were the colonizers and the oppressors, and that included white queer people. In that same breath, it was the white queer community who I believed was writing the narrative of what it was to be queer in America, and without embracing that within a space, was there ever going to be a way to find a home, a sense of self that was not constantly under scrutiny? What part of myself would I have to erase to finally belong?

Helen Gao’s piece highlights as well the consequences of that suppression, what it looks like to hold back the entirety of a community, to restrain and collar them to the point of submission. What happens when in trying to shun Western queerness, your country and culture creates a queerness of its own, something not othered but revered and adored, something that becomes embedded within pop culture and phenomenon? China’s “little fresh meat” are an example of that - men in makeup, performing artists stars who refuse to be hidden, who popular media is unable to stomp out, despite the best efforts of the regime in power. Even with Jinping banning “abnormal” individuals from television or blurring out earrings on men, the love and support that these performers have received has dwindled little, especially within some of the most important voting groups.

In trying to understand the questions of global queerness, I wonder how much we can impact the narrative if we create space for queerness that is untranslatable? Picq and Cottet highlight within their piece an identity that doesn't fit within the English grouping of LGBTQ, called the Sangomas. They are described as, …”traditional healers who are women with dominant male ancestral spirits, and who choose women lovers.” Rather than trying to ascribe Western ideals of queerness to them, what if we normalize allowing folks to exist within the different, allow their own words to write the litanies of their story? What if we spent less time translating words and instead we began to pepper English and other languages with the stories and cultures around us? Let there be words that have no meaning and no translation, that exist not for our understanding but for the sake of those they define. Let us give those who claim that queerness is a weapon of the West no more ammunition to create hostility for communities around the world, and let us finally work on creating a global identity for the queer community and beyond. My grandmother may not have the words to see or accept me now, but maybe with the right words, we can see that change, and create the space to reconnect all those families who have been lost in translation.

[luuurien]

Shaylee - Short-Sighted Security

(Power Pop, Singer/Songwriter, Post-Rock)

The Portland singer/songwriter's third album and debut on legendary indie label Kill Rock Stars is a powerful and sentimental one as she picks herself up from one of the most difficult times of her life. As Elle Archer unravels stories of addiction, loneliness, and learning to live and love the world as a queer trans woman, Short-Sighted Security's post-rock and power pop influences deliver the passion needed to make these feelings hit hard through her music.

☆☆☆☆

"Where to now?" are the first three words plastered in the description box of the Bandcamp page for Elle Archer's third studio album, Short-Sighted Security. It's a sentiment that includes dozens of different feelings and events for her: struggles with addiction, inability to keep up healthy relationships, paranoia and depression. Few good feelings exist within this album. But what's lying underneath the album's devastated exterior is Archer's never-ending desire to create, to express these feelings out to the world and get them out of her head, even just for a short while, and Short-Sighted Security does a wonderful job at that. Working through those feelings atop bright, fast-moving power pop and post-rock slow burns, Archer's first album on the beloved Kill Rock Stars - home to icons like Elliott Smith, Unwound and Sleater-Kinney, - follows in the label's lineage with songs that perfectly fit in its alternative rock history, an album that could have come out way back in the mid-90s and fit right in place with everything else going on at that time. Archer is by far one of the most emotionally resonant new rock artists, and Short-Sighted Security does a wonderful job establishing Archer as part of the Kill Rock Stars team. Performed almost entirely by Archer save for organ and strings from Matt Mena, Short-Sighted Security's personal sound goes far beyond just the writing - Archer's emotions are embedded deep in every downbeat and guitar strum and piano chord here, any instrument she utilizes immediately becoming an integral part of her expression. Alongside contributing to the album's D.I.Y. nature that adds some extra charm to things, it gives her complete control over how Short-Sighted Security sounds, delivering classy power pop tunes with a unique flair as she sneaks some bubbly glockenspiel into Danger Decides or a tense vocal performance on Health that makes the explosive chorus hit even harder; when she wants something in a song, nobody's around to stop her. Thankfully, she's got a strong enough musical muscle to know what works and what doesn't, never throwing in anything unnecessary and still giving these songs full and intense instrumentation taking from both her 70s influences and the sound of classic alternative rock, laying down tracks like #1 Destroyer Fan and Stranded Living Room - my personal pick for the best song in her discography - where slow and thoughtful instrumental builds indebted to post-rock are infused into her soul-baring indie rock, crushing downbeats and electric guitars as big as an IMAX screen pushing her to the brink as she belts out "What will I do now / That trouble's all I see," the kind of song with so much drama and passion in it that it's practically primed to be a career defining song. It all sets her apart from the usual meat-and-potatoes indie rock by going for a sound that's more akin to Liz Phair meets The Flaming Lips than anything else, and combined with her ability to let her darkest feelings out without fear, Short-Sighted Security pulls you into her mind and never lets you back out of it. But despite it being an album that exposes raw the darkest moments in her life, Short-Sighted Security doesn't feel like a simple plea of sadness. Across these twelve tracks, she hurts not only herself but the people around her as well, playing vicious games with someone with no end in sight on finale The Best Enemies ("Cause we were destined to be the best enemies / At each other's throats / Til the other one chokes the other one out / And leaves her on the floor") and losing herself in the conflicting feelings of hating someone and missing them so much it hurts on Please Talk to Me ("And though I feel gaslit, abandoned, and used / I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss you"), never hiding any of her stories and telling them with so much detail that it feels like you're in the room with her through each of them. She wrote on the Bandcamp page that these "fell out of [her] at record pace" as she "found [her]self documenting the most intense parts of the experience as nakedly as [she] could," and you can absolutely feel it when she's singing her heart out on these vulnerable, bruised rock songs. Even in the quieter tunes, the folksy Turned Inside or The World Changes Around Us, the extra presence given to her voice only serves to make it so that you can hear every one of her words crystal clear, these tracks some of the most important on Short-Sighted Security as she uses them as she digs deep into the most toxic parts of her mind and heart. In the end, though, she only wishes to get better, singing "Forget about the pain, / Forget about it while you still can" on the murky Save Up where one of the few lines of optimism across its 58 minutes shows a ray of sunshine through the darkness of her mind that fades away within seconds. It's a dark album, no way around it, but the result of that is her feeling more proud of her music than ever before, and that's something you can't help but admire. These long, elaborate power pop songs uphold Archer's status as one of the most impressive and enjoyable indie rock artists out there, her Kill Rock Stars debut living up to the label's storied history with an album that's emotionally stirring and musically vibrant. Short-Sighted Security is an album that will positively be looked back on as one of Archer's best early releases, still exploring her sound and what she wants her artistry to look like while simultaneously delivering songs that are fully-formed and resonant within you as a listener, the pensive fingerpicking of Turned Inside or the power pop/post-rock blend of Stranded Living Room just as impactful as one another when Archer gives them both such power within the album, never leaving any of Short-Sighted Security's songs feeling half-empty or unrewarding. There's the rare bump here and there, but on the whole, Short-Sighted Security is by far Archer's most well-rounded and beautifully executed album to date, and a grand introduction for her into the Kill Rock Stars canon.

[nav-ix]

Queerness and Hierarchies of Power in The Locked Tomb

I wrote this essay for my sci-fi class and a few people expressed interest in reading it, so I’m posting it! Bear in mind the initial audience I wrote it for isn’t familiar with the series (I cut out some of the straight-up summarizing because if you’re here I’m assuming you’ve read the books, but if the tone seems weird or like its explaining things that are obvious, that’s why). I do use the term “queer” throughout the essay as an umbrella term for LGBTQ experiences, as well as to refer more broadly to non-normative interactions with gender/ gender-like hierarchies. Also, this has spoilers for Gideon the Ninth, Harrow the Ninth AND for the first chapter of Nona the Ninth, so watch out for that. Essay below the cut :)

     Though there has been an increase in LGBTQ representation in popular sci-fi and fantasy, representation that ends at same-sex attraction fails to actually explore queerness as an experience or identity, or, most importantly, as a lens through which to see the world. Tamsyn Muir’s The Locked Tomb series, however, is impossible to read without exploring that lens, and as such it is able to explore queerness on more than one level. I intend to analyze those explorations through the lens of queer theory and apply that analysis to how we imagine normative power hierarchies as a whole.

     The queerness of the series is overt and unmistakable by the beginning of the first book. The protagonist, Gideon, is a butch lesbian. This is a characterization that makes this series distinct from many others of the genre;  LGBTQ representation often takes the form of attraction and relationships between characters of the same gender, but does little to explore other nuances of queer identity and experience. From the beginning of Gideon the Ninth, however, Gideon’s queerness is clear by her personality alone, outside of any relationship. She is gender-nonconforming both as a woman and as a cavalier; she is muscular, her narration is blunt and often crass, she resents the elaborate sacramental face paint that she is required to wear, and her attraction to women is shameless and unmistakable. Swordsmanship is what she excels at, but rather than the delicate rapiers that cavaliers traditionally use, she prefers to fight with a huge two-handed sword. Even outside of Gideon, there is an overt queerness to the setting and many of its characters. Of the first book’s ten central female characters, at least six are attracted to other women in some capacity. Not only this, but their attraction to one another is framed as normal and assumed; there is no circumstance where anyone needs to come out.

      In this setting, traditional and patriarchal gender roles take less precedence in the power dynamics between the characters. But that does not mean that other parallel or allegorical hierarchies are absent. Though the series has checked more than enough boxes for queer representation, it continues to explore queerness by a broader definition, by establishing new normative hierarchies of gender and power and exploring the ways in which they are subverted. In the absence of traditional patriarchal heterosexuality, the characters in the book exist within the dynamic of necromancer and cavalier. Initially, we will explore how Gideon and her necromancer exist within this dynamic, and the degree to which her treatment of the dynamic is non-normative.

      Gideon was not trained as a cavalier, but when there is no one else to fill the role, she has to hastily learn those traditions and behaviors. Already, she is in the position that many queer people find themselves in—she must learn to successfully imitate conformity to a role she doesn’t identify with. In order to do this, she must learn to fight with the delicate rapier, as opposed to her heavy, military-grade two-hander. She has to learn to apply daily the sacramental face paint of the Ninth House, which it is made clear that she hates wearing. She pretends to have taken a vow of silence, as her crass jokes and mannerisms would make the ruse immediately obvious. All of this she does at the command of her necromancer, Harrowhark, who is the heir of the Ninth House, who conforms fully and perfectly to the standards of a necromancer, and whom Gideon hates. When Gideon does conform to these standards, she performs exaggerated caricatures of devotion to Harrowhark in ways that highlight her nonconformity, such as saying things like “I am your creature, gloom mistress, I serve you with fidelity as big as a mountain, penumbral lady…I am your sworn sword, night boss.” (GtN 151). She pairs exaggerated, ironic declarations of loyalty with nicknames that make fun of Harrowhark’s necromantic pretentiousness. This reaction is a familiar one—for many people forced to embody gender roles that they don’t identify with, irony is the most comfortable solution.

      No power hierarchy, least of all a patriarchal hierarchy, is simple. Hierarchies that deal with both power and identity are at risk of being oversimplified into a win-or-lose model, but I think that that is a misrepresentation. To imagine patriarchy as a game in which men oppress women for their own gain assumes that men are the winners in the dynamic. In reality, I would argue that there is no winner. I think the most helpful way to imagine patriarchy is as a hierarchy, but not one with men at the top. In fact, I would argue that no one is at the top, except for, perhaps, patriarchy itself. In a patriarchal model, women are trapped as the objects of desire; their bodies exist to be exploited and consumed. The objective ideal of patriarchal femininity is characterized by smallness, by the ways in which women are available recipients of power or sexual desire. Men, however, are trapped too. They are trapped as the desirers, divorced from emotion and intimacy, except in those instances where they are desiring women or engaging in violence with other men. The objective ideal of patriarchal masculinity is characterized by the ways in which men exert physical and sexual power over both women and other men, with varying degrees of associated violence. Both men and women are rewarded for the ways in which they conform to these ideals and punished for the ways in which they fail. Critically, however, those objective ideals cannot be reached. Judith Butler, in Performative Acts and Gender Constitution, describes gender as “a performance with clearly punitive consequences…” explaining that “those who fail to do their gender right are regularly punished.” Butler continues, arguing that “there is neither an ‘essence’ that gender expresses or externalizes nor an objective ideal to which gender aspires; because gender is not a fact…” (Butler 552). There is no way to successfully embody normative masculinity in ways that will not cause oneself harm, just as there is no way to successfully embody normative femininity, because both of these standards exist somewhat divorced from the complexities of real personhood. Though queerness, by nature, defies definition, I am defining it in part as the instances in which people fail to conform to these hierarchies, and how, in doing so, they construct and embody non-normative models of gender.

     In the power dynamic between necromancer and cavalier, even the most normative, conforming participants find themselves punished by the ways in which they have failed to conform perfectly, often by the inevitable incompatibility of that perfection/ideal and their personhood. The hatred between Harrowhark and Gideon is mutual and codependent, and is perhaps one of the only ways in which Harrowhark fails to conform to her role. This power dynamic continues to function as an allegory for patriarchy, in which Harrowhark benefits from the power she holds over Gideon, but nevertheless is both trapped and harmed by her role in it. Because Harrowhark’s existence as a necromancer depends on her exploiting people like Gideon, she is consumed by and beholden to the guilt of her position. She resents it, and because she has no one except for Gideon, she has hated her for her entire life. Likewise, men benefit from their position in a patriarchy, but nevertheless are trapped within it, and harmed by the roles they are asked to embody.

     Even the first Lyctors, who worked alongside God since The Great Resurrection, who created the framework and thus should conform to it perfectly, are hurt endlessly by it. The first Lyctors are characterized as bitter and hateful in general and toward one another. Though many of the details of their history and origins are vague, we know that the love they had for their cavaliers has taken the form of ten-thousand-year-old grief, even as their necromantic power continues to feed on those souls. One of the Lyctors says, referring to another, “I never saw her cry except once…the day after…When she became a Lyctor. I said There was no alternative. She said…We had the choice to stop.” (HtN 121).

     How else are these dynamics complicated in the other houses, and within Lyctorhood? We see several examples throughout both Gideon the Ninth and its sequel, Harrow the Ninth, but some stand out more than others. Putting Gideon and Harrowhark’s Lyctorhood aside (for they do, tragically, achieve it), there are several other characters that stand out and complicate our understanding of the dynamic. The characters that most clearly subvert the dynamic of necromancer and cavalier are the pair from the Sixth House: Palamedes and Camilla. Throughout the first book, they are depicted much more as equals than many of the other duos. They are lifelong friends, and though there is no romance between them, they are close and familiar in a way that makes Gideon uncomfortable to see, as her own necromancer-cavalier relationship is so fraught. In the first book, the characters face a series of tests which introduce many of the component parts of Lyctorhood. In several of these tests, the necromancer is not yet asked to kill their cavalier but is required to use their body or soul in some way, and the cavalier is required to submit to that process. Palamedes is one of the first necromancers to realize what Lyctorhood will eventually require, and refuses to engage with any test that has the potential to harm Camilla. When she does come to harm, he cares for her wounds. At the end of the first book, he sacrifices himself to save several of the other characters, Camilla among them. In all of these instances, he refuses to conform to a dynamic which would put him in a position to hurt her. Though neither of these characters are explicitly queer in the traditional sense, the way that they subvert the dynamic of Lyctorhood functions as a queer-ing of the normative hierarchy.

     Their dynamic exists in contrast to that of the Third House. Long before it is necessary, the necromancer Ianthe uses the body of her cavalier, Naberius, as fuel for her necromancy. “At one point [Ianthe] beckoned Naberius forward and, in a feat that nearly brought up Gideon’s dinner…ate him: she bit off a hunk of his hair, she chewed off a nail, she brought her incisors down on the heel of his hand. He submitted to all this without noise.” (GtN 188). Ianthe is the only one of the necromancers who willingly and intentionally becomes a lyctor. Her relationship with her cavalier is antagonistic, but both of them know their roles; she treats him almost like an annoying pet—dismissing him, mocking him, nicknaming him “Babs”. This hardly matches the loyalty and devotion we see in the other pairs, but as a result, Ianthe is the perfect candidate for Lyctorhood. She was consuming her cavalier before she was even aware of what Lyctorhood would entail. However, though she is rewarded for conforming to and embodying that hierarchy, she does not escape the harm entirely. She has a twin sister, Coronabeth, who is neither necromancer nor cavalier, but who trained in the ways of a cavalier in the desperate hope that her sister would choose her instead of Naberius. When the others find that Ianthe has killed Naberius, they also find Coronabeth, “eyes swollen from crying,” sobbing and “utterly destroyed.” She tells them, “She took Babs,” seeming in every way as if she is mourning the death of Naberius. But then she continues, “And who even cares about Babs? Babs! She could have taken me.” (GtN 394). In the second book, Coronabeth offers her life again to a different necromancer, one who she has loved since childhood. She says, “Save me…bind me to you, or who knows where I will go? What throne will I mount, if you don’t bind me down?” (HtN 551). Again, she is refused because the necromancer in question loves her. Coronabeth is heartbroken by the refusal to take her life because, as someone in the position of a cavalier, the only way she knows how to love someone is through literal self-sacrifice. Ianthe loves her sister more than anything else, but she is divided from her by her refusal to kill her. Even Ianthe, who embodies the power hierarchy perfectly, is harmed by the structure of Lyctorhood and its incompatibility with the complex love she feels for her sister.

The Locked Tomb deals with two notions of queerness: the first is the representation of LGBTQ characters whose identities don’t conform to traditional, patriarchal ideas of gender, and the second is the subversions of the normative power hierarchies that are unique to the story’s setting. These two levels of exploration don’t occur completely separately, however. In fact, as the story develops, we begin to see the interaction between these two kinds of queerness literally embodied in certain characters. In the third book of the series, Nona the Ninth (I will reference only the first chapter, as the full text has yet to be released), there are at least two characters whose Lyctorhood has been performed incorrectly in some way. Palamedes, the Sixth House necromancer who sacrificed himself in the first book, used necromancy to prevent his soul from truly dying. When we encounter him again in Nona the Ninth, his soul is living in his cavalier’s body, alongside Camilla’s own. Again, in normal Lyctorhood, the cavalier’s body is killed, and their soul is consumed by the necromancer, effectively killing the cavalier outright. But in the instance of the Sixth House pair, it was the necromancer’s body that died, and both their souls live in the cavalier’s body, neither consumed by the other. In every way, this pair subverts and outright reverses the standard operation of Lyctorhood. 

     Likewise, there is another Lyctor who failed to completely consume the soul of his cavalier. When the soul of that necromancer was killed, his cavalier’s soul, named Pyrrha, surfaced and now lives in his body. Palamedes lives in the body of his cavalier, who is a woman, and Pyrrha lives in a body that previously belonged to her male necromancer. Pyrrha is very much a woman whose body would be traditionally thought of as male, and Muir doesn’t shy away from describing her as such. In the first chapter of Nona the Ninth, for example, she is described as “wearing pyjama pants and a string vest and no shirt, so the orange glow of the hot plate ring lit up all the scars on her wiry arms.” Later in that same scene, she shaves her face. In the case of Palamedes and especially Pyrrha, their subversion of the Lyctorhood dynamic results in bodies that embody gender in non-normative ways.

(note: that bit was kind of hellish to write, because my audience is unfamiliar with the series and I’m already cutting out so much of the convoluted plot, so I just did my best to leave out the fact that two essential characters have the exact same name lmao. In any case, that is why I did not name G1deon here.) 

     The phrase that repeats throughout the series is “one flesh, one end.” It refers to the bond between a cavalier and a necromancer, and it is the oath they make to each other. As Gideon sees cavaliers and necromancers who care for one another deeply and as equals, it is implied that this phrase refers to the epitome of devotion to one another, a dynamic in which the cavalier and the necromancer are equals. However, as the true process of Lyctorhood is revealed, the phrase’s meaning turns dark, referring instead to a process in which the necromancer’s body and power is both the flesh and the end. However, though Lyctorhood grimly recontextualizes this phrase, it doesn’t change the interactions that Gideon sees between many of the cavaliers and necromancers. At one point, the Fourth House cavalier asks Gideon if she and Harrowhark have been paired for a long time. Before she answers, Gideon sees Palamedes bandaging Camilla’s wounds, and sees the necromancer from the Fourth House braiding his cavalier’s hair, and she “contemplate[s] the sight of the growing braid, and the sight of Palamedes squeezing the noxious contents of a blue dropper into Camilla’s wound… [as] Harrowhark lurked next to them, pointedly not looking at Gideon…[Gideon] still didn’t understand what she was meant to do or think or say: what duty really meant, between a cavalier and a necromancer, between a necromancer and a cavalier.” (GtN 275-6). Though the dynamic between the two is modeled after a relationship built around harm and unequal power, the relationships that occur within that framework do not always emulate that harm or imbalance. This reflects a real phenomenon, in which the ways that we might define gender within a patriarchal framework are disproven by many of the people embodying those identities.

     In some ways, the dynamics of gender do exist as a result of the framework of patriarchy; that the ways by which we define femininity or masculinity revolve around their roles within heterosexuality. As with any categorization of identity, however, there are always people whose performance and engagement with the category defy the bounds of its definition. Likewise, though the normative necromancer-cavalier relationship is epitomized by the self-sacrificial, grief-filled, exploitative model of Lyctorhood, there are versions of that dynamic that defy that definition, that subvert it or refuse the harm that is seemingly inherent to it. The pairs that seem to embody the initial understanding (and not the later, darker meaning) of “one flesh, one end” most strongly are pairs such as Palamedes and Camilla, who would refuse to ascend to Lyctorhood once they know the cost.

     In deconstructing the patriarchal framework that defines femininity and masculinity, I often feel that the question is: what is salvageable here? Is anything? The Locked Tomb series argues, in part, that we are shaped by our broken cultures, and that to accept the rewards of such hierarchies is to inevitably hurt one another. There is a cynical way of looking at it, and that cynicism is characterized in Harrow the Ninth by a letter left by an enemy commander, a character who hates everything that the nine houses stand for. She says, “The only thing our civilization can ever learn from yours is that when our backs are to the wall and our towers are falling all around us and we are watching ourselves burn, we rarely become heroes.” (HtN 403). This commander, however, is characterized almost entirely by her hatred, and though her letter sums up this argument well, I believe that it is only half of what the series is saying. The Locked Tomb says that there are things here that are salvageable; even if we are shaped by our broken cultures, even with our backs against the wall, there are ways to reject that harm without leaving ourselves and our identities behind. It argues that the nature of humanness is that we, as people, will always love one another in ways that fail those hierarchies. Though the hierarchies of identity, gender, and power only ever give us options to love in ways that hurt one another, our personhood is complex in ways that makes queerness and queer love inevitable.

[knowlesian]

gdi, apparently i still have more to say about muppets. i got that good brainrot, team.

i already covered how izzy spends the series in a skinner box from hell dedicated to finding out what happens when you take a character from black sails and drop them into muppet treasure island without warning, so i’ll just link it here and move along to our second pillar in this cursed metaphor i refuse to stop torturing: jim.

i have a longer and more emotional post in the offing about jim and why they’re our tim curry here (aka, a human so capable of becoming one with the rules of the canon and attaining muppetdom you go “hell yeah. what a muppet that is. i am seeing a muppet here, everybody, def not a human actor chewing the scenery to absolute shreds”) but the long and short of it for now is that the day jim met olu, they were offered a gateway into muppetdom. and because jim is lowkey the best character on a show where everybody on-screen at any given second is my favorite character in the entirety of all media, ever, they jumped at the chance.

i realized this morning there’s a third pillar holding this framework up, and it’s our boy ed. ed, who is izzy’s shadow twin: a muppet born into a gritty pirate drama. the narrative uses everybody who has ever met him to tell us over and over that blackbeard is singular. he’s known for being absolutely insane within his own context, pulling off plans that shouldn’t work and saying things like “if you get stabbed on the correct side, nothing bad will ever happen. livers, how do they even fucking work????” and apparently being right because he’s just fine the next day. 

that’s some muppet shit if i have ever heard it. 

which brings me to the part that’s actually pretty heart-warming. ofmd operating on muppet movie logic answers why sometimes stabbings require tender gazes and brow mopping and then sometimes you can go on a nature walk the next day and why getting in a dinghy and just starting to row can get you anywhere safely in approximately five seconds flat and there’s no risk of dying of sun exposure or thirst and starvation, sure, and it ten zillion percent enhances the absurd comedy, but i think there’s something deeper and more poignant at play here.

to be a muppet is to embrace the shit that makes you weird and different. it’s to be loud and joyful and part of a circus of the same glorious clowns, getting along together and appreciating those quirks instead of condemning them. what’s cringe? what’s shame? a muppet doesn’t fucking know, they’re too busy loving what they love unabashedly and authentically and finding a community of like-minded weirdos who do the same. (and since i can hear the 'well, actually's now: statler and waldorf always poking fun is part of it too! they are In On The Joke. doing the dozens is a valid form of love as long as everybody feels safe and supported and is okay with it, it’s only when teasing becomes a passive aggressive way of releasing issues you refuse to address openly that it Gets Weird.) 

honestly, much like piracy functions as a textual haven for queer characters as well as a metatextual metaphor about how simply existing as a member of the lgbtqia+ community is seen as a transgressive act, the muppet metaphor works as a commentary on finding your joy when you are a part of the aforementioned alphabet soup.

(this is also why i honestly have some hope for izzy; if any show was going to give that wholeass wreck of a lone human amidst a newfound sea of felt a road to muppetdom and thus happiness, it would be this silly and tender love letter to those of us who really, really needed some joy right now.)

anyway, in conclusion: 

ID: very dumb meme my very kind friend nicole made that reads “it’s about the muppets.” End ID