#separate things into those binary categories

[ftmtftm]

I made this post before recently but it bears repeating, with some additional thoughts.

There are no such things as "male socialization" and "female socialization". Those do not exist as separate and distinct categories of human experience.

We all live in a Patriarchal society. We are all socialized under Patriarchal conceptions of sex and gender. We are ultimately all taught the same sets of rules and the social enforcement of those rules is not set in stone.

Those rules may get enforced differently to different categories of people within society, but those rules are also malleable and can be weaponized against individuals and classes of people in whatever way makes the subjugation of those people the easiest.

The way trans and intersex people across all spectrums are treated within society is part of proof that those rules are malleable for the purposes of subjugation. Just as an additional point, the way People of Color - cis, trans, perisex, and/or intersex - have their genders racialized and weaponized is also proof that those rules are malleable for the purposes of subjugation.

This should be a point of solidarity between us all - not a point of division.

We can deconstruct and fight against those conceptions in a way that benefits us all. The issue is Patriarchal control and its violent enforcement of the sex / gender binaries, not each other.

We're all getting crushed under the same boots, who gives a shit what foot the boot is on.

[genderkoolaid]

have you seen the new feature from lyft, where female/nonbinary users can request female/nonbinary drivers? i was just wondering what your thoughts are?

personally a lot of the people i see upset about it are upset for the wrong reasons, its a lot of "creepy cis men will exploit this" which doesnt address the actual issues

in the replies to one of the posts there was an amab black nonbinary person saying they felt the least safe with white women drivers, who in their experience were most racist towards them, a lot of the replies to their comment were "this isnt about you, this is about protecting women/nonbinaries", "youre a cis man, you dont understand how difficult it is to be a woman" and things along those lines

personally i dont think this is going to make a difference, most actual minority groups will still be just as unsafe, all it seems to have done is create more hostility towards men/masculine presenting/otherwise oppressed people for not liking this new feature

Link for those curious

I mean I get the motivation here (making people feel safer), but for one making this only available to "women and nonbinary people" once again fucks over trans men. Like if a trans man wants to use this feature to feel safer, it seems like he'd have to misgender himself on the app. And if he seems like a cis man to the rider, is he going to be accused of being a predator taking advantage of the program? Would he be accused of that even if they know he's trans because he's a man?

And of course that last point also goes for anyone who might be read as being a cis man or too close to a cis man for the rider's comfort; trans women, nonbinary people assigned male, nonbinary people assigned female on T, intersex people with high T, etc etc. And that also applies to the rider- this could cause issues for trans* and intersex drivers who are viewed as cis men by driver.

Its almost like this kind of gender binary = safety mindset, while understandable, almost always finds a way to fuck over genderqueer people- specifically those seen as masculine, who are easily put into the "predator" category while also being more vulnerable. And as you mentioned it also ignores how race plays a role in this dynamic- Black and Brown riders and drivers alike are going to deal with these issues much more and much harsher than white people. & like I don't think we can separate this from the cultural impetus that white women must be preserved & protected, and that white women should be hyperparanoid of violation from (Black) men. Not that white women don't have legitimate fears of violence but there's a reason there isn't an option to choose the race of the rider you accept, and why their page about it focuses on images of white women drivers. The addition of "nonbinary" to this is just lip service.

[leministfesbian]

“Scholars of today’s prevailing feminist theory and its adjunct, queer theory, call for questioning all categories, disrupting gender binaries, halting separations; and women have been a casualty. After some acrimonious debate, Georgetown changed the name of its women’s studies program to Women’s and Gender Studies, hoping to attract more majors, and to appeal to those students who were male or trans-identified: worthy goals, but suggesting that a focus on women alone is no longer relevant or sustainable.

The change was made after a semester of studying the issue together, during which one professor declared (to an all-female faculty gathering) that she taught her students there was no such thing as a woman. Another colleague amended, “And aren’t all of us here to destabilize and problematize the concept of woman?”

As we went around the room and introduced our areas of research, I explained that my own specialization was history—what women have done, regardless of how they are identified now—to which someone responded, ‘There’s already too much history offered here.” But another colleague whispered, ‘God! After all the struggle to get women taken seriously as a research subject …’”

– Bonnie J. Morris, The Disappearing L: Erasure of Lesbian Spaces and Culture (2016)

[autispec-hours]

am i the only one who’s really fucking tired of people being like “ oh these are traits of autism in FEMALES ( and afab trans and nonbinary people i guess ) ”

first , i should not have to be a footnote or a last minute inclusion in my own community , especially given the high percentage of trans non-binary and otherwise lgbt people who are autistic as compared to allistics . do you know how absolutely dehumanizing it is to be forgotten all the time by the people you’re supposed to trust and connect with . and if you are remembered you’re invariably lumped in with your AGAB , even if those traits don’t actually fit you

second , these traits aren’t inherently gendered in the first place . it’s about the way you were raised . my cis brothers have a lot of ‘ female ’ autism traits , and me and my cis sisters have a lot of ‘ male ’ autism traits . these things are normal and relatively common . yes , there is a correlation between the way society raises girls and boys differently and the way we develop socially , but acting like that’s an absolute is disingenuous , imo

i understand the need to separate it into categories . that’s natural for all human brains . but as we’ve all said many times before , autism is a spectrum . it’s never going to be one to one , for anybody . and i’m really tired of people subtly reinventing functioning labels over and over again , on top of it being a very obvious way to reinvent the gender binary

cause it very much ends up being ‘ female ’ autism that directly correlates to the high-functioning label , and ‘ male ’ autism that correlates to the low-functioning label . “ oh , girls are good at masking ” “ girls will make eye contact ” “ girls are just so quirkycute none of their traits are negative unless they mask too much uwu ” ( and you know they’re including trans men and AFAB non-binary people in ‘ girls ’ )

i don’t know how to fix this . i don’t know what to do about it . i just know that there’s a reason most of my friends are both autistic AND genderqueer . because some of y’all cis autistics really like your gender roles , and it’s incredibly alienating

[devouredbyflame]

I want to make something clear: Loki is non-binary in the purposes of us defining Him to make Him an easier narrative to digest. We can know Him to be non-binary. That isn’t to say that He is non-binary.

As we all know, Gods don’t have body parts or sexual organs. They do not reproduce organically much less have hormones, human experiences, or endure human challenges in experiencing the problems of this modern world such that we need a title to define our experience of gender.

However, the point of Him being a male is the fact that He defies gendered practices and expectations that are the “norm” in our society. He takes into account the nature of gender in order to question it, and honestly, the best way to take into account the problems of masculinity would be to be a male Divine being who defies these things while otherwise appearing androgynous, queer, and sometimes even trans.

He does these things in spite of being predominantly male in order to question maleness itself. Which is kind of the point of Loki.

A Deity is made up of energy which is definitive, enormous, and encompasses many vast ideas, decisions, and can often only be explained by using metaphor, hyperbole, and analogy to describe Their existence. This is where stories come in. They tell us the tale of Their existence but we did not make those up on a whim, we made them because They were there with Their people and inspired these tales.

Who Loki is is important because we cannot determine His gender identity without glossing over the fact that He is a shapeshifter and the point of His shapeshifting is to show people what they want to see and believe of Him. Just because He shapeshifts and wears prettier faces than others, does not take away from the fact that He is inherently a male who is questioning maleness and sexuality norms just by being who He is.

We cannot place our own determination of gender onto the Gods who do not abide by that sort of thing. Just because we see Him as non-binary and trans does not make Him non-binary and trans. If that’s how our brains want to interpret Him, that’s how it’s going to be. How we see Him using our own experience of gendered pronouns and categories doesn’t necessarily mean that’s how He sees Himself. That’s the difference here.

It’s important to note that we get in our own way by saying things like He is non-binary because it can detract from the meaning that He is a male and there is a point that is made by Him being one given His pursuit of queerness and liminality. It is not what He is that’s important, it’s why.

What separates Him from every other Deity who shape-shifts, cross dresses, and practices seidr is the fact that given He is a male Deity, He does these things with reason to point out the inherent flaws in the system and take into question why it mattered that there was a binary in the first place.

I would also argue that in most cases, there are often two very opposing ideas that are true at the same time and that tends to be where you find truth. Especially with Loki who is a walking contradiction Himself. If we can’t accept that some things are true while also being not true, we kind of lose the point in knowing Him.

At the end of the day, believe whatever the fuck you want to believe. There’s no point in arguing with people about what their experiences are. Especially given the fact that Loki is a shapeshifter and it is inherent within His nature to hold His truest form to Himself for few people or beings to see. He is all those things but He also isn’t. Otherwise, He wouldn’t be much of a trickster, now would He?

[itslouisan]

Headcannons: Urahara Kisuke

Heyo tumblr, for anyone that knows me it's no surprise I love this dork and have a slight bleach hyperfocus (not slight at all, thanks Philza for getting me onto it). And Urahara is probably my favorite character, not only in bleach, but in fiction, I do have a sort of list of characters I love in general and he is on number 6 in a list of 262 characters. So needless to say I got A LOT of hc of him.

Note: yes you can count some of them for C!Philza, bc I'm silly and Phil def got some inspiration writing wise.

Also thanks to @saranel (which is one of my fav blogs bleach wise even though it has no updates in AGES) since she inspires a lot of my headcannons and analysis for Kisuke.

Without further delay, let's get into it.

These headcannons are a bit all over the place but I talk a lot about science related stuff (but I do plan on making a separate post ONLY about scientist Kisuke, more specifically MAD scientist Kisuke) it's a bit of everything so enjoy

• First of all, Kisuke is a person with trust issues, this is obvious considering how he acts towards others during the series, but even more so when you notice we've never been shown his lab, room or any interiors that he spends a lot of time on aside from the shop, which makes me think he never lets ANYONE inside. The only exception being Yoruichi, Tessai, Ururu and Jinta. After all, they are the closest thing he has of family (a found family if you will), and spaces such as his room and lab are too personal, a place where he put his soul and time onto, not only to feel comfortable but bc is where he can hide from the outside and focus on his projects and curiosity without worrying about others or being too vulnerable.

• His lab is quite neat normally, but, when he gets IN THE ZONE. He definitely has a messy lab, coffee cups, snacks (if he even cares about eating), papers, components, materials, and everything scattered, probably has a futon laid on the floor (which Kisuke didn't want to place, it was Tessai worried for his friend's health since HE WAS SLEEPING UNDERNEATH THE TABLE OR IN THE CHAIR FOR *DAYS OR EVEN WEEKS*) which has some plushie and pillows and a single blanket, prob has a ton of books in the tables too and in general a messy place that only makes to him

• Kisuke IS a clingy sleeper, Yoruichi can't escape when they are together sharing the same bed since he clings onto her like a pale octopus, or a claw arcade machine and with a bear tight grip. So he def owns a couple of plushies or soft pillows for hugging when he can't have her near this way he doesn't feel alone

• Kisuke definitely spends some time searching about random science facts, experiments and so on, I like to think while he is smart, he is more smart towards technology,human mind wise and battle wise science fields, so he tends to search more about those specific topics in depth, being a poison master.

• Due to his passion for science, he started collecting books, rare documents and archives, rare samples of experiments, things like specific components still in development and so on, and keeps it all in a secret place in his lab

• Sexuality and gender wise, I view Kisuke as either bi or pan, he definitely experimented a bit of everything and that included different gendered partners and he found out he likes it, so yeah. Gender wise, Urahara in at least japanese uses non-binary but also female speech, which made me think perhaps he would be interested in crossdressing but also that he falls into the category of a man who doesn't care or want to fit the male stereotypes and expectations, plus probably wouldn't care THAT much for gender, so you can say either he is a cis man that only vibes with feminine stuff, or he is agender (which I like a lot), hell you can go as far to say he could even be genderfluid.

But in a resume so I don't make a whole ass post about this: pan or bi, agender or just feminine man.

• Video game nerd, BUT MORE IMPORTANT, A NINTENDO STAN. I view that his favorite Nintendo franchises would be Zelda and Mario, hell maybe he would even cosplay Link

• he totally went NUTS when Minecraft was released (considering bleach takes place in 2002 in the beginning so...yep) and def loves to play Minecraft (cof cof Philza) in his free time, would make a server for everyone to join, be a redstone nerd and only play in hardcore or in super modded servers.

• He would absolutely LOVE to make complex farms that break EVERY SINGLE LIMIT in the game scripts, plus make builds that take AGES to make and call it simple, plus he'd love the game since it's a great way to teach the kids stuff and practice everyone's creativity while hanging around in a fun way

• Would get famous in Karakura due to being a REALLY good player in any types of videogames, but then would brush it off as "just a hobby" to make kids feel better and keep trying to improve (while maybe selling merch in the shop to improve in the games.)

• When he came to the human world, he became CRAZY for coffee, he likes it pure black, no sugar, sometimes adds cream but that's it

• Loves to watch announcements of new technologies and discuss how he could improve them, or how he is impressed by how far they are coming, plus he loves 64 and 32 bits but was MARVELED at the first 3D he saw like a Nintendo 64 type or 3D and couldn't stop talking about "how realistic" it was getting and how he is excited for the future of technology

• He isn't a programmer, but I think he has knowledge of how to code stuff, I could imagine if he needed to expand his store or be away for too long or be needed in 2 different places, I can imagine Kisuke coding an 64 bits version of himself to welcome people to the store, kinda like a recording or prototype ai to talk with people about certain things while he is away and it would be a lot of different screens with different dialog and functions

• Loves to paint his nails and would make the craziest designs and show it off to everyone, but his to go nails are either:

A- plain black

B- green and white nails matching his hat

• I'm 100% convinced he owns multiple pairs of the same clothing. I'm talking like straight up 50 hats, same samue, same pants, same geta, SAME EVERYTHING. AND HE WILL POUT AND GET MAD IF FORCED TO CHANGE.

• autism codded. That's all I'm saying

• Probably a fan of metal music, baby metal too, hell he'd be CRAZY about vocaloid and his favorite would be Miku, Vflower and Len (perhaps kaito too)

• He is a big fan of going to temples to talk about the history of the place, how religion shaped the culture in Japan, why each temple is special, and despite being an atheist (and proud of it) he prob bought one or two fans from their gift shops because he finds them extra pretty and detailed

Well that's probably it for today, you can ask me anything about Urahara or bleach characters in general and I'll go bonkers with it and answer in the most complex way possible, so yeah, see ya chat

[fantasyfantasygames]

This Game Is Familiar

This Game Is Familiar, Beebo Bunkums, 2022

There are so many jokes one could make here about TGIF and "but I haven't even seen it before" and "In Soviet Russia...", so hopefully you can fill those in yourself.

In This Game Is Familiar (TGIF) you play spellcasters' familiars. The game uses the term "witches, wizards, and warlocks", so I guess the implication is that warlocks are non-binary, which I think the NB folks I know would be down for. You could be helping your caster succeed in school or work, rescuing them from their nemesis, keeping from embarrassing themselves, etc. It's much more on the "beer and pretzels" side than the "serious games about serious topics" side. Or maybe on the "together they fight crime" side.

The mechanics are in the Honey Heist / Lasers & Feelings area, with two axes instead of one. Axis #1 is Size vs. Speed. Axis #2 is Power vs. Personality. Each axis has to add to 7 independently, and you do the usual 1d6+stat. After that comes a power system that's pretty similar to the one in Everway. I think it evolved separately, but it's possible that (checks author credit) (checks it again) Beebo Bunkums did read Everway and decided to house-rule things. There's a page full of d66 tables with personality quirks.

It's a little unusual to see any substantial add-ons for a L&F hack. In addition, the powers don't really mesh with the rest of the mechanics - they're more in the "it works or it doesn't" category, like flight or not having to breathe. I wonder whether BB is actually two people who mashed their games together.

The game's setting is just sort of an assumed-D&D-type world. There's nothing explicit beyond the existence of spellcasters and some sort of magic society, so you could theoretically play this in a high-tech setting if you wanted. You'll just have to do the work of setting-building yourself.

The art is part scratchy b/w linework and part greyscale watercolor, which lends a little more credence to the "two authors" theory. The linework has the "creepy but friendly" style, where that crow could stop snacking on an eye long enough to give you a hand with the stuff on the high shelf. The watercolors are more in the Addams Family style, morose but morbidly funny.

The game's on itch, but you probably figured that out from the title and author. It's only 13 pages but it's nice and cheap.

[the-delta-quadrant]

ok so i found this chart and i have no idea who made this, but multiple things are incorrect about this.

1. abinary is defined as "not male, female or in between", yet the circle labelled abinary is shown to overlap with manhood and womanhood*.

2. that circle is labelled "abinary/aporagender/neutral" as if these are all interchangeable terms. they're not. abinary is bigger than aporagender, aporagender is bigger than neutral. abinary includes everything that's disconnected from the binary, which also includes xenogender and could include agender. aporagender is a specific subset of abinary which is decidedly not agender. neutral is a specific kind of aporagender. these should all be separate circles within each other rather than a single one.

3. this leads to a different problem, that is maverique being put inside the circle labelled neutral. maverique is, by definition, not neutral*.

4. atrinary is somehow shown to overlap with manhood*.

5. the orange circle is labelled "maverique/outherine" as if these are interchangeable. they're not. maverique is a single specific outherine gender. outherinity is an umbrella term for a whole lot of things, and it's not exclusively abinary. outherinity is defined as a catetogy that's separate from the common 4 categories (masc, fem, androgynous, neutral) while not being xenine, or uncommon combinations of those 4 categories (e.g. feminine and neutral).

*i know multigender who combine those things within them exist, as well as people with complex genders that are seen as "contradictory" (like abinary manhood), but these might be too complex to put in a simplified gender chart like this, and people who identify as combinations of these would usually have to put themselves on multiple places on that chart.

i do love analysing gender charts, ngl. like, despite these faults, it's still one of the best and most interesting ones i've seen so far, and the only one to include xenogenders.

[hxhhasmysoul]

Gender presentation of JJK female cast

This post contains spoilers for events in the JJK manga that happen after season 2 of the anime.

Part 1 - presentation

The first part of this post is going to be about how I perceive the gender presentation of most JJK female cast - aka the characters I’m fairly confident the author wants the audience perceive as women. 

There are a few caveats I need to make up front.

First of all I will be using adjectives like feminine and female, masculine and male to describe the gender presentation of characters. 

These categories stem from the cultural concept of a gender binary correlated with a biological sex binary that exists in many contemporary societies in one form or another. Concept because neither biological sex nor gender is binary. And this concept is very closely linked to traditionalist thinking, patriarchy, misogyny, right wing ideologies (including radfem ideologies) and fundamentalist religion and is reinforced by capitalism. All these forces have a vested interest in building up masculinity and femininity in opposition to one another and drawing a very clear distinction between them.

Of course as such these categories’ve been tackled by feminism, queer theory and general leftism, reinvented, reclaimed, etc. 

And like pointing out the origin of masculine and feminine is not me trying to judgemental about them. It’s to explain that when I’m using them here, I’m using them in reference to their origins, to what I believe a right wing person would consider feminine or masculine. It will become clear why later. 

The second caveat is that my perception on what would read more feminine and what more masculine is very subjective and deeply rooted in my own culture, my own experiences with gender and also what I’ve seen from other cultures over the years. And some of you looking at my categorisations below will think: nah, I don’t read that like that at all. I hope you will still understand my points even if you’d put some of the characters in different groups. 

The third caveat is that I’ve included most of the characters but not all of them, not even all of the ones the tier maker offered. I skipped them because I considered them too background to feature, like looking at them I couldn’t recall anything about their personality or anything like that. 

The last caveat is that by presentation I mean outer appearance (clothes, hair style, accessories) mixed with how the characters carry themselves and their mannerism. So like the overall visual vibe. 

_

I used the tier maker website but this is obviously not a tier thing but I just found this tool easy to organise the characters, it had most of the characters I wanted to use, and it was easy to upload the one I felt was missing. 

Since this is an organising effort, I actually put blank lines into it to separate the groups: masculine, mixed and feminine. 

_

And just one look at it shows how the vast majority of the women in JJK neatly fit into the feminine side of the presentation spectrum. 

So I divided it further. Here is my thought process behind it, and I know it may sound a bit weird. 

First of all, I separated classical feminine presentations from contemporary ones. 

The classical ones are for me ones that even rather conservative right wing people wouldn’t consider unfeminine, or not feminine enough. Even if they could consider some of the presentations sexually aggressive. 

The contemporary ones are those where some right wing dipshits would be like: she’s not trying enough to be appealing to my very narrow view of what a proper woman looks like.

The second distinction is between deliberate and casual. So whether there are grounds in the text of JJK to believe so or whether I get the overall vibe from the character that she’s putting thought into the femininity of her presentation or whether it just feels that she just leans that way and doesn’t consider the reasons for that. 

So the deliberate contemporaries all sometimes assume female associated poses and mannerisms at will and they are doing it consciously. And they seem to have an attitude towards their gender.

But they do not weaponise it like the deliberate classicals. Only Takada doesn’t do it for evil, she just does it for her career. The other four are very aggressive in their use of it. Mei Mei uses it to seduce her baby brother. Remi and Ogami to lure men to their deaths. Tsubasa to get her classmates to bully Junpei. 

I don’t want to say that it’s conscious on Gege’s part, that the cursed cat put this much thought into it. But it feels in line with how this classic femininity is seen as a tool by the right wing men. A tool they want to use but also fear because they feel weak to it. 

In this framing the deliberate contemporary would be not appealing enough to right wing men. It’s more a presentation that feels targeted to appeal towards centre left women. 

The casual classical presentation is probably the most desired by the traditionalist crowd. Women just falling in line but not trying to wield it.

But to people who are not into policing how others look and don’t follow right wing influencers, both casual looks classical and contemporary will likely register as neutral. 

I put three characters into the feminine but not sure how category. Uro has her jewellery and her body language slants feminine for me but she’s naked and I’m not sure how to read that. I also put there Sasaki and Nitta because we only see Sasaki in her school uniform and Nitta in her work clothes and after some thought I decided that I don’t want to make a decision without seeing their casual outfits, because I didn’t feel like they gave me enough of a clear vibe, unlike Mimiko, Nanako or Riko. 

_

Now to the three in the masculine presentation category, or at least leaning masculine.

Yuki often vibes masculine clothes-wise and posture but it’s not 100%. She has feminine outfits, she strikes feminine poses sometimes. For me she’s very “however I felt that day” gender presentation wise.

Miwa is fascinating. I searched for JJK wifu rankings (I took mental hits for this post, okay) and Miwa is in all of them, even the short, like 5 character ones. I haven’t seen her top any of them but she’s usually high. Miwa’s uniform is a suit, shirt and tie. I had a conversation about this with cursedvibes and he said that in a professional setting it doesn’t strike him as a masculine outfit, especially that the suit is cut for a female silhouette. But culturally, where I live, because she’s not wearing a blouse under the jacket, it would read masculine to a lot of people. It only shows how culturally loaded this all is. And then he found me a drawing of Miwa in casual clothing and it’s this:  

Yeah, her outfits are on the masc side but she feels so girly. I love her so much. 

Tengen will look masculine in a gown:

And she’s shown wearing suits with a masculine cut. Amazing.

______________________________________

Part 2 - Maki and Mai

So what prompted me to even think about the presentation of the female characters was this garbage post. 

It seems to have been deleted so I cropped the author’s name and icon out. Idk why the author did that but maybe they don’t hold these opinions anymore. Maybe someone pointed out to them that that vague about Maki is deeply misogynist and lesbophobic. And since they were trying to perform a feminism with this post, they just deleted it because it wasn’t a good look.  They could’ve just deleted that Maki vague, the rest of the post is inoffensive. 

Maybe they actually looked at the manga and realised that fuck, they are wrong about what’s in there. 

That Maki vague is very unpleasant to me on a few levels.

Before Jougo burns Maki, she usually wears skirts. She has a girly hair style. She wears the cutesy leg warmers. Maki pre burns actually tops several of the wifu lists I’ve looked at! Her appearance is read as girly and desirable by what I assume are straight male western anime fans who make these lists. 

So to associate Maki so strongly with masculinity you need to buy into the bullshit that personality traits are gendered. Or that having certain ambitions, desires or priorities is reserved for either men or women. 

That Maki’s ambition and/or lack of nurturing traits and/or her harsh bully personality make her by default masculine. While also pretending that Mai isn’t a harsh bully. 

Even after the burns her outfit is not masculine. 

It really accentuates her curves, it’s tight, it has the decorative belt and cape. Look how she poses in it. Cursedvibes said that he gets a superhero vibe from it and he’s absolutely right. Yorozu’s outfit has a similar vibe, and so do some of Yuki’s outfits.

But it also accentuates Maki’s arms. And she has amazing arms. 

Her pre burns outfits don’t expose her muscles so much. Her fighting style doesn’t really emanate with that much strength. 

The above post alludes to the moment of Mai’s death. The first time when Maki is wearing trousers while Mai is in a skirt in the same scene. It’s after Maki was disfigured, has shorter hair. Is in an outfit that accentuates her athleticism. 

Professional female athletes get their femininity questioned all the time, they try to perform femininity during competitions with makeup, hairstyles, sometimes their outfits to counteract that. Things that male athletes don’t have to do. 

And even though Maki’s outfit isn’t really masculine, it’s not as strongly feminine as her skirts because it doesn’t hide the physical strength in a palatable package. So there is some change in presentation but it’s not an obvious jump from full femininity to full masculinity. 

Also scarring is something women tend to hide more than men. Scarring is culturally charged considered a blemish and any form of deviating from the norm, clear and unblemished skin, carries the possibility of ridicule. But society puts extra pressure on the appearance of women. Naoya even attacks Maki’s post burns appearance directly. 

And this is the last level why that vague is unpleasant specifically in the context of Maki. Her family constantly challenged her value as a person. Tied a lot of their bullying to her not being enough. Not human enough because she had no cursed energy. And the only sliver of value they awarded to her was her attractiveness as a woman. Sliver because they despised her for not falling into the role of a meek, invisible woman, the servant to the heir. 

Yet neither she nor Mai seem to have ever rejected their femininity. Maki’s rebellion didn’t go into her gender or gender presentation. And it easily could’ve. With the trauma she has it wouldn’t be strange if she had a complicated relationship with her own gender. But she doesn’t seem to and that’s also okay. And this isn’t a criticism at creators of fan art or fic that depict Maki as more butch, that include considerations of gender and gender presentation into her trauma or rebellion against the Zenin. This is specifically an issue with these kinds of takes that wear the guise of interpreting the actual text of JJK. 

This is why I’ve been talking about how one needs to be careful when critiquing JJK from a feminist point of view. This is just the latest post I’ve seen where the author in their attempt to paint Gege as doing a supposed misogyny, did an actual misogyny themself. Here’s another one I actually responded to. 

One of my fandom friends, Subdee, has always talked about how radfems and right wing fundamentalists are astroturfing the fandom, how many people who pursue their fandom hobbies on social media get exposed to radfem ideology masqueraded as progressive feminism or queer theory. And if these people don’t have a solid foundation when it comes to these issues they will internalise the rainbow puritanism and radfem ideology. While they also usually get dragged into these ideas that fandom is activism, that you have to present a certain ideological purity through fandom not to be a bad person. That you have to be “critical” of what you “consume” and actively seek out the problematic aspects of the works and condemn them.

And it is very clear in both the post about Maki and the one about Nobara. The desire to be “critical” and the deeply rightwing radfem ideology. Because to think that Maki is masculine and Nobara is unfeminine you have to believe in such a painfully narrow idea of what femininity can be, an idea that you could hear espoused by a far right influencer. 

The Maki post actually went further than that. It hints upon other radfem ideas of any proximity to masculinity giving the person automatic privilege (aka butches have male privilege bullshit). But even if we imagined an alternative universe version of JJK which had grounds to link Maki to masculinity strongly enough for it to match Sukuna’s very obvious and aggressive traditional masculinity, there’s another radfem red flag in that post. The implication that a feminine person doing something for a masculine person is inherently an act of being exploited. Regardless of the circumstances of the situation, because the Maki/Mai situation is not even remotely similar to the Sukuna/Yorozu situation if you actually give it a few seconds of thought. The idea of femininity always being the victim of masculinity is one that inherently means that feminine people are weak, helpless and can’t make their own decisions, it strips them of any agency. It undercuts and disrespects both what Mai and Yorozu did. 

_____________

post script.

I recommend the interview that Gege did together with Kubo, the creator of Bleach. There's some interesting stuff in the about how for instance someone from the industry views Gege's female cast.

(Side note, one wifu list included guys and Gojou and Megumi were higher than Yuuji! Can you believe that? He’s the only proper wifu out of the 3 of them. Disgraceful, that’s why straight people shouldn’t have the right to vote on anything, even anime wifus)

[lettucedloophole]

i'm confused what you mean by "sex is a social construct" and "the categories of male and female don't exist outside of society", because of course those categories do exist outside of society, in mammals and other animals. sex is *described* by language, as all phenomena are, but not constructed by it. if sex is socially constructed, then so is carbon, glass, rocks, and trees.

a good way of determining if something is a social construct is to remember that socially constructed ideas change over space and time. for example, take the female gender role and its expectations – the expectations placed on a woman in China in the 1840s would be very different from those placed on a woman in Scotland at that time (social constructs vary with space). further, both of these would be very different from the expectations placed on women in either of those countries in 2023 (social constructs vary with time).

this is because sex roles are socially constructed and thus subject to change. but how does this apply to sex itself? the 1840s Chinese woman is observed to be female at birth. the 1840s Scottish woman is observed to be female at birth. the 2023 women are observed to be female at birth. there is no change to the sex category over space or time, there is only change to the social expectations applied to that sex category (this is gender aka sex roles).

it seems like your whole idea of sex as a construct is entirely based on conflating sex roles (i.e. gender) with sex itself. it's important to remember that they're different things. sex exists naturally regardless of human opinions on it, and in fact vastly pre-dates humanity (so does not meet the definition of social construct), whereas sex roles/gender is placed upon us by external societal forces (so is very much a social construct).

here are some previous posts i've made explaining that concept. i hope these help! i will supplement them a bit by replying to some other parts of your post.

i think the female sex and sex role are interchangeable, so the change of gendered expectations throughout time and diffierent cultures would prove womanhood as a construction, imo. the part where we disagree is that the female sex can be separated from sexist ideas.

the fact that you compare human afabs to animals first, concerns me as a feminist, because in the animal kingdom the abuse of female animals is commonplace and concepts like consent don't exist. we're not animals, and i choose not to let our fate be to give birth to men to populate the human species. i would rather abolish sex through the negation of pregnancy, the creation of artificial wombs, rather than preserve our reproductive differences which lead us to the same level of freedom as animals.

exaggerating the difference between men & women does us no good; by enshrining those differences in nature we make them & patriarchy permanent. we have more of a choice as people than animals do, we can make the choice to abstain from sex, or change sex as transsexuals do. and i know you don't think trans people change sex, but they do disrupt the binary & permanence of sex, which is good and necessary for feminism. and their social conditions and bodies clearly change as a result of it. as the xenofeminist manifesto said, "if nature is unjust, change nature."

[soaplantro]

(i was gonna comment this on your exorsexism post but the comment got too long lol)

i think the word itself hasn't caught on much yet but i do genuinely believe that it's a real form of oppression separate from transmisogyny, like there's a very clear difference between how you're treated if you're a trans woman vs a transfem non-binary person (and same goes for trans man vs transmasc non-binary person)

and like, there's also a very clear difference between how you're treated if you're a cis woman vs a non-transmasc non-binary person who was afab (idk the best way to word this, but hopefully you get what i mean)

on top of that, there's definitely a difference between how you're treated if you're a non-transmasc non-binary person who was afab vs a transfem non-binary person, that's the difference between being tme and tma

so when you experience both transmisogyny and exorsexism it may be hard to separate them both, but society does place transfem enbies (at least slightly) below trans women, like how society places non-transmasc enbies afab below cis women (while not putting them in the same category as trans men)

think about how like, many transfems have to hide the "non-binary" parts of themselves just to be taken seriously by society, many enbies have to basically misgender themselves in places like healthcare just to get stuff like hrt and surgeries, and there have been so many cases of medical professionals denying (openly) non-binary people care because they basically admit that they straight up just don't treat non-binary trans people (while still accepting and treating binary trans people)

and many binary trans people do actually weaponise the little privilege they have against non-binary trans people, like with the whole "i'm a normal trans, not like those they/thems" thing that certain trans people love to pull, and even cis people admit this "i accept trans people as long as they fit into my image of what a perfect trans person is like" which almost never includes non-binary people ever

and there's just the fact that "non-binary" just doesn't even exist in most people's heads, people only ever use "they" when they want to degender you, but the moment your pronounds are actually they/them they'll either always misgender you as he/him or she/her, and if you're transfem and you don't use she/her at all, people will just use that as an excuse to call you he/him instead (when they're perfectly fine not using he/him for binary trans women, this is something i've seen happen myself) or just use she/her and make you feel guilty for being uncomfortable with it (this is something all enbies who are misgendered as she/her experience, but if you're tma it's definitely worse)

in fact, even if you align more with womanhood while still being non-binary (and using she/they or they/she for example) you can experience this.. i knew a transfem who used she/they pronounds but only ever said her pronounds are she/her to certain people because (in their exact words):

"i relate more to demigirls than cis women but tell that to cis people when talking about being transgender they just load the ammo you give them"

and also:

"im she/they and have been a demigirl forever, but a lot of times my cis girl friends will make uncomfortable overly binary comments about my body" "and I don't say anything because they're seeing me as a girl but it's uncomfortable"

i think that's a perfect example of what it's like to experience both transmisogyny and exorsexism at the same time.. society places such strict standards of femininity on tma people that even showing a hint of being non-binary is frowned upon, this is something non-binary people who were afab experience too, but being tma makes it worse!

that isn't to say that binary trans people aren't hurt by this at all, these strict standards of femininity also hurt trans women, but the way it targets and isolates transfem enbies specifically (and forces them into the closet in places where trans women can be open about their gender) makes it exorsexist too, at least imo it does

Interesting! Thanks for your input.

[mercifullymad]

Hi there! I was wondering if you had any recommendations for beginner readings about Sanism, anti psychiatry, etc? I've only recently been introduced to these ideas, but they really resonate with me and I'd love to learn more.

Hello, thank you for asking! I'm more than happy to share a list of readings I've found useful and/or important, and glad that you're interested in learning more!

Before I get into the list, one note: I identify as a mad liberationist, rooted in the principles of the Mad Pride movement and the academic (in)discipline of Mad Studies. So I don't have any recommendations that come from a strict anti-psychiatry stance, as I don’t root myself in the anti-psychiatry moment and I simply haven't read much in that tradition. Instead, my readings are mostly rooted in Mad Studies, Mad Pride, the psychiatric survivor/consumer/(ex-)patient movement, Critical Disability Studies, Disability Justice, and Crip Studies.

Without further ado, here are my recommendations (I encourage anyone else to add on in the comments/reblogs—I certainly have not read everything)!

Articles:

Mad Studies – What It Is and Why You Should Care:

“Mad Studies is an area of education, scholarship, and analysis about the experiences, history, culture, political organising, narratives, writings and most importantly, the PEOPLE who identify as: Mad; psychiatric survivors; consumers; service users; mentally ill; patients, neuro-diverse; inmates; disabled -to name a few of the “identity labels” our community may choose to use.”

Mad Studies Network – Shared Principles: From the same website as the above article. The website has many great articles and reading recommendations even though it hasn’t been updated for a couple years.

“We aim to work towards making and preserving space for mad people’s knowledges and histories within the academy and within [mental health] services.”

Mad and Queer Studies: Interconnections and Tensions:

“Mad and Queer Studies have lot of common ground – especially in terms of challenging existing binaries (for example, gay/straight and mad/sane); subverting negative connotations of Queer/Mad; and critiquing prevailing normativities (ways of being ‘normal’).”

A Psychiatric Survivor Studies Manifesto: A critique of Mad Studies and identifying as mad, instead suggesting identification as a psychiatric survivor and psychiatric survivor studies. A good read, especially as someone new to this area exploring your options for self-identification!

“Psychiatric survivors are those who have sought help and have not found it, psychiatric survivors have varying levels of belief in a separation of mind and body. Psychiatric survivors are not reducible to a single category but instead are a force to be reckoned with who have (often dysfunctionally) shut down major oppressive institutions and forced change within medicine multiple times over.”

Against Self Advocacy Part 2: Maddening Autistic Self-Advocacy: From the same writer as the above article.

“Like it or not, mad and anti-psychiatry politics do inform and are part of the history of Autistic politics.”

“The Autistic meltdown, when our bodies rebel because of sensory overload, the issues related to social impairment---many of these things have more similarity with mad politics … But those similarities have intentionally been quieted so as not to make Autistic bodies seem rebellious.”

Mad People Of Colour: A Manifesto:

“We cannot separate our experiences of racialization, madness, and other oppressions. … White people’s experiences of psychiatry are not ‘like colonialism’. Colonialism is like colonialism… Ask yourself whether your goal as a mad activist is to regain the white middle-class privilege you lost when you were psychiatrized.”

Trans Activists, Don’t Throw Mad People Under the Bus!: Article on the shared history and aims of trans and mad people.

“We know that the various psychiatric diagnoses for trans people have not been based in sensitive listening or in any kind of scientific knowledge of etiology, that on the contrary they have been nothing but arbitrary and punitive vehicles for imposing normative expectations of how a person ought to be. We know that psychiatrists and psychologists don’t listen to us, or our communities, don’t know about us, or our communities, and don’t help us, or our communities. Why would we assume things are any different for all the other kinds of people psychiatrists assert dominion over?”

The Buzzfeedification of Mental Health: This article is far from perfect in its analysis, but I think it’s still worth reading for its observations about how the internet structurally reinforces stringent diagnostic categories.

“The danger lies in how we enforce and contextualize these [diagnostic] categories. ... If we cannot commune with each other, relate to each other, love each other, argue with each other, without feeling that we are irreconcilably different because of something endemic to our psyches (you have ADHD, I have BPD, we are not the same), we lessen the chance that we will be able to build actual solidarity, and fight against the structures that cause us all to feel so mentally ill.”

An Introduction to Anti-Black Sanism: Unlike the other articles, this one is an academic article, but it’s too important to leave out.

“The historical and ongoing set of aggressions visited on Black/African people in the Global North is both anti-Black racism and a specific kind of sanism, and we have named this suffering, this particularly perilous mix of oppressions, anti-Black Sanism.”

“Anti-Black Sanism provides a framework that names the injustice, the pain, and seeks to address the historic discrimination, continued overrepresentation of Black/African-identified individuals in the mental health system… Anti-Black Sanism also allows us to join with others in de-centering whiteness in mental health as well as in the ex-patient, survivor, disability, and mad movements.”

The Next Generation of the Mad Movement in New York City Looks Like This:

“Peter Stastny finishes the first panel. As the elder of the group, he’s the self-chosen, pragmatic voice of “What works and what doesn’t work”, having been around and active since the 1980s and watched so many progressive mental health projects become defunded or co-opted or simply slip into obscurity. It’s obvious he wants this project to have a different fate.”

Help-Seeking: Where’s the Help? (tw self-harm and suicide)

“In the context of mental health, particularly intense mental distress associated with self-harm and suicide, asking for help might not only result in the absence of care, it might result in punishment and harm. … Emphasis on seeking [help] ignores not only the availability of help but crucially, the deep pain and frustration of calling for help and having nobody come.”

Un-care-able (tw self-harm and suicide)

“Stigma’ is too general, too mild a word for what is happening here. This is rejection, it is a casting out, it is the designation of ‘un-care-able’. In a sleight of hand so swift as to be both bewildering and dazzling, the more a person who self-harms needs care, the more they prove themselves to be both undeserving of it and unfit for it. Here pain is not evidence of need, and thus a prompt for care – instead, it is the signal for abandonment.”

Toward a Neuroqueer Future: An Interview with Nick Walker: Focused on neurodivergence, but a very good and important read for anyone interested in learning more about non-normative bodyminds.

“A lot of people hear neuro and they think, brain. But the prefix neuro doesn’t mean brain, it means nerve. The neuro in neurodiversity is most usefully understood as a convenient shorthand for the functionality of the whole bodymind and the way the nervous system weaves together cognition and embodiment. So neurodiversity refers to the diversity among minds, or among bodyminds.

In terms of discourse, research, and policy, the pathology paradigm asks, ‘‘What do we do about the problem of these people not being normal,’’ whereas the neurodiversity paradigm asks, ‘‘What do we do about the problem of these people being oppressed, marginalized, and/or poorly served and poorly accommodated by the prevailing culture?’’”

Books:

Unfortunately, I don't have many beginner book recommendations, although this depends on how you’re defining "beginner." If you're new to Mad Studies but not new to reading dense texts about Literary Studies, then La Marr Jurelle Bruce's "How to Go Mad Without Losing Your Mind" or Therí Pickens' "Black Madness :: Mad Blackness" would be great beginner texts. If you’re well-versed in the study of rhetoric, then other academic books like Margaret Price’s “Mad At School” and M. Remi Yergeau’s “Authoring Autism” can also serve as introductions. But if "beginner" means written for the general public as opposed to an academic audience, then these are the only recs I've got:

Robert McRuer's "Mad in America”: A history of psychiatry care and the psychiatry industry in the U.S. written for a general audience. Great for contextualizing and historicizing the development of U.S. psychiatry.

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s “Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice”: This book does a great job explicitly connecting the Mad Pride and psychiatric survivor movement to broader disability organizing and issues. It is a great recounting of organizing efforts from both Disability Justice and the psychiatric survivor moment, grounded in Piepzna-Samarasinha’s long involvement in both.

Eli Clare’s “Brilliant Imperfection”: An extremely insightful overview of and meditation on the politics of “cure” for physically disabled, chronically ill, and mad people. Also some of my favorite writing on the utilities and harms of diagnosis.

[Textbooks] “Mad Matters” and “The Routledge International Handbook of Mad Studies”: It can be hard to get copies of these books without academic access (or spending a lot of money), but if you can somehow get them, they contain a lot of useful information and history.

[Can’t personally vouch for] James Davies’ “Sedated: How Modern Capitalism Created our Mental Health Crisis” and “Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm than Good”: I have not read either of these books, but they are written for a general audience, so probably very explanatory/introductory in their explanation, which might be good if you are coming to this with no prior knowledge. Jamies Davies is probably the most anti-psychiatry-aligned author on this list, too, if you’re specifically looking for writing rooted in that stance. The books seem to be focused critiques of the contemporary psychiatric industry (rather than focusing on the experiences/organizing/culture of mad people, as most of my other recs do).

Finally, I would also suggest checking out collectives/orgs like Project LETS (lots of great posts on their instagram about sanism and mad pride), the Institute for the Development of the Human Arts (IDHA), Recovery in the Bin, the #StopSIM collective, and country or region-specific Mad Pride groups, Hearing Voices groups, and Alternatives to Suicide Groups. So much of this knowledge is created and spread through social networks and transient social media posts rather than in articles and books.

[farmerlesbian]

where is the line between transmasc/genderweird lesbians and Men with a capital M? i dont think there really is one, but as a lesbian who straddles that line, people are constantly trying to shame me onto one side or the other and its exhausting. i think sometimes the ppl trying to protect our community by keeping men out end up targeting mostly ppl who are in between or overlapping categories and are typically trans, instead of like, Cisguys preying on dykes. its become a real problem in the community just being visibly trans or butch tbh

i don't think it's possible to articulate A Line. i agree with you and don't really have anything to add!

i'll just say what i've said before. it's fuzzy/blurry. the nuances and intricacies of someone's gender through the narrow slice the internet (on anon!) is not enough for a stranger to make any sort of call about! it's something that individuals with non-binary gender experiences gotta use their own discretion about. people should go about these things with a mindset of using their best judgement and engaging in good faith, instead of like, pushing the boundaries of what is "allowed". instead of seeking approval and validation, seek to look inside onesself and determine 'is this for me? is this space for me? do i genuinely feel like i'm intruding and pushing the boundaries or do i feel like i'm being pushed out and unjustly excluded?'. those are different feelings and while i can imagine it's hard to discern sometimes, maybe talking with your irl people you can figure it out. yeah sometimes you gotta ask a clarifying question here and there to the organizers of the space in question -- i certainly do when seeing (nonlesbian) events for "femmes" and stuff like that haha!

i'm sorry that you're dealing with people being shitty to you about straddling the line. i know i see it, people having this like compulsive need to find rules and permission and categories for everything, needing to push people into one box or another in order to make sense of them, to know how to see you and treat you. and it sucks! it sucks even more because the boxes are WRONG! it hurts and they don't get you.

for ME, when i say "no men" i mean people who are men period. no additions no explanations no complications. just a straight up man. a fully binary man, if you will. i do not intend to apply this to people with funky genders. to trans folks straddling lines. i think if someone is genderweird or got somethin funky goin on they aren't a straight up Man capital M with no qualifiers! do you see yourself as a man or not, deep down? (general you, not you anon!) i do apply it to trans men and cis men alike. i see no reason to separate the two as if trans men aren't really men. because there ARE binary trans men. there are binary cis men! there are a LOT of them out there in the world! some of them are even on tumblr! are there ALSO trans men that feel also kinda butch at the same time and like a little dykey? maybe. i dunno any personally so i'm not gonna make harsh calls and big rules and statements. i'd expect people to make their own judgement calls and use their discretion and best judgment! i absolutely do not want to push someone out who feels that it is their community and that they deserve to belong in it. this is why i don't patrol my followers list except for bots (common lately ugh tumblr!) and obvious gross lesbophobes (quite rare).

sorry this got so long. lmao i say i'm not gonna add anything and then next thing i know you have an essay!! sorry!! hope it makes sense. basically i fully agree with you and i'm sorry you are having people shame you and push you. they should not do that and i do not support it and it is not what i think We should be doing as a lesbian community.

[johannestevans]

Hi, this is the anon who was asking about the afab term stuff 👋

Firstly thanks for the longer explanation, I hope it wasn't too frustrating for you, I really don't mean to bother you, so if this is too many questions feel free to ignore it

Secondly, this has actually kinda explained a couple things about my own experience with the terms, like how people asking if I'm afab/amab (which doesn't really apply to me in a binary/dyadic sense) has always felt a little like someone asking my deadname. So thanks for making me consider that more from a different perspective

Thirdly, my experience from having my identity heavily medicalised (intersex healthcare in the UK is a mess) and from being raised by a doctor is that female sex vs female gender were two separate things, and that one doesn't always correspond to the other. I never really approached the idea that female/male sex weren't useful/real categories because their meanings to me were entirely anatomical definitions of a collection of parts that are usually found together. To me it would be completely the same to refer to them as Sex A and sex B, with the understanding that there are people who fit neither category. Intersex anatomy is often talked about as if its the crossover in a Venn diagram of characteristics, between the two categories of 'male sex' and 'female sex'. For this purpose having those categories for communication purposes, is somewhat helpful, e.g to say that an increase in my testosterone will cause my male characteristics to become more prominent. The categories serve a purpose for communication more than anything else.

If the categories weren't using the words female/male do you think it would be any better of an experience for you? Aka if the terms used to describe them had no relation to any gender identity, but there was still two prominent categories.

Of course I can see the issue with when people assume that you fall exactly into one category or another, so regardless of name/language no number of categories should ever be assumed to be a universal set, but that doesn't mean that the terms don't have positive uses. Our language exists for us to communicate, so if terms to describe a category of anatomical parts help us do that, surely they still have meaning/usefulness?

Nope, don't worry about it, Anon! If anything bothers me so much that I don't want to answer it, I'll say or I'll just delete the ask.

I absolutely think that some people do ask after ASAB because they want to just find out what people "really" are and whatever, have just internalised the whole gender aspect and do think of some trans people as being female (good) and male (bad), and there's so much transmisogyny baked into it, but also just... misanthropy, you know? Like a real distaste for the variety in humanity and a desperate desire to force everyone into particular categories.

The thing about current medicalised perceptions of intersex identities is that there are dozens of so-called "intersex conditions", but we literally have 0 way of knowing how many people are the "pure" standard of female with the exact female anatomy and the "pure" standard of male with the exact male anatomy without like, MRI-ing and later dissecting massive swathes of the population and comparing them all, and we don't do that because people want the male/female divide to exist when like.

It doesn't, not in the way people want to imagine it does.

These are broad categories people have projected onto people, and while I agree that medical professionals knowing someone's physical anatomy is valuable, I actually think that the M/F binary actually is more likely to harm them than otherwise.

Many doctors will meet someone who they assume was AFAB, and therefore they must have all this anatomy, and then they'll just put any abdominal or even chest pain down to their period, on top of not really caring how much pain they're in - and then they won't even check for shit like appendicitis or gut problems or even more significant uterine problems like endometrioisis, but also like... testicular torsion.

I frankly don't agree that "female sex" and "male sex" are genuinely useful categories. They're just weaponised too much for me to believe that - I think we should do away with M/F categorisations on birth certs and medical records, and that doctors should have to fucking, God forbid, examine people to see what their problems are.

I'm so sorry that you've received shitty treatment for intersex medical issues, several of my friends are intersex and experience just roadblock after roadblock - even as a probably dyadic trans dude with a few chronic issues it's just painful to navigate, and I just get pissed off because it's complicated by doctors religious devotion to a cis medical binary that's not nearly as important as they desperately want to believe it is.

[genderstarbucks]

I'm curios on your thoughts on agab terms. If you're comfortable talking about it.

The way I see it used, in general, seems really exclusionary of intersex, trans, nonbinary, gnc, and anyone who doesn't fit into rigid binary ideals of male and female. (So cis people are excluded under this too, like say a cis woman with prominent body hair or a cis man who's short, for simplest examples.)

It's always about, like, agab bodies, agab genitals, agab hormones, agab organs, agab socialisation, agab chromasomes. And it just doesn't work. Like even considering agab in a more literal sense, like intersex people being assigned a sex without their say, that can only go so far. With current technology it's impossible to assign internal organs, chromosomes, and even with surgery and hrt, that still doesn't change the experience of being different, of getting such changes rather than always having them. But agab just groups everyone under the same category, and erases those differences.

And for trans people, I think it leads and perpetuates a lot of incorrect information as well, some of which gets into the territory of sexism too. Like the idea of agab bodies, when applied to trans people, it just makes a lot of assumptions about what genitals they have, what organs they have, what hormones they have, etc. which just isn't true. And for those who don't medically transition, which is fine, lumping them into the same category are cis people really erases their trans identity. Like for example, a non medically transitioning trans man isn't just exactly as a cis woman, or a non medically transitioning trans woman isn't just the same as a cis man. I feel like it's really erasing something there, and under agab they're just treated as the same.

And I feel like I see it used to be really weird about biology too, like "oh it's important for your doctor to know your agab!" For the most unrelated things. Like a flu is a flu, fixing that illness isn't about chromosomes, or agab, or whatever, but it's treated as if it is. I wonder if people who say things like that know what trans broken arm syndrome is, how trans people can have completely unrelated issues blamed and refused to treat because of them being trans. Of course, even for things where "sex matters", intersex people mess up that system. Or even just perisex people with some mild difference. Like women can be autistic do, but people think of it as a "biological sex" thing, and so say only men can be autistic. But that's just not the case right. Agab terms just remind me of that. Another pointless oh but sex matters thing. Except maybe worse, since I feel like people have started accepting sex can be changed (think trans surgeries), so they just replaced it with agab, which is forever assigned and can't be changed.

There is more to be said about it, how it just weirdly separates men and women as different species, and drags trans people into it with the whole forever assigned thing, but I've already typed too much haha /lh

So I mean I guess it's obvious I don't really like agab terms, but then I see people like you (or I guess actually you're the only one I've seen) who use it as self identifiers, instead of boxes to shove other people into, and are quite inclusive with it (like people can be transmasc/transfem regardless of agab sort of thing). So that does get me wondering about my distaste for agab language. I mean you seem to really identify with it, it'd be mean to say you can't use that word for yourself.

This turned out more negative than positive, but you seem to be using it pretty positively, so it got me wondering about your ideas with agab terms. /gen

Basically how I see them is that they can be self-identifiers and they can be useful terms, but only in certain situations

Like you said, agab shouldn't matter at all with things like going to the doctor for a cold or something completely unrelated (shoutout to the time I went to the doctor for a cough and he asked me if there was any chance that I could be pregnant like what 😭)

Afab and amab shouldn't be used like how tme and tma are, people are literally just using them as a different binary to put people into

Obviously I see my afabness as a very important part of my gender identity and other people don't and that's completely okay

And like what you said, people of the same agab can have different experiences

Like many afab people have more testosterone than other afab people

I see agab terms as terms that should only be brought up in conversations where it actually matters (such as this one, or someone stating their experiences as an amab person) or as self-identifiers

And they most definitely are exclusive of intersex people, since most of the time intersex people are assigned afab or amab

Like just because someone has F on their birth certificate doesn't mean they're gonna have the same experiences as someone else with F on their birth certificate yk?

And the fact that I'm the only person you've seen who uses agab as a self-identifier and is inclusive with it is kinda sad tbh 😭 like people should be able to identify as transmasc or transfem regardless of their agab

Transmasc and transfem just mean being trans and transitioning to masculinity/femininity, agab shouldn't matter and it should be up to the person on whether or not they wanna use those terms

Honestly people are just using agab terms as boxes to push people into, like it's literally just a new binary that's "inclusive"

And also like what you said about trans people with a certain agab, just because that's their agab doesn't mean they're gonna have every single afab trait if they're afab (and especially if they transition)

Just because both me and a cis woman are afab doesn't mean we're the same, I could have a dick but still be afab (I mean I don't but ykwim)

You basically just stated everything wrong with agab terms, how they're exclusionary and also rigid boxes to put us into that are labeled as "inclusive"

Just because some doctor took one look at our genitals and decided "yep, that's a female/male" doesn't mean that that should have to determine the rest of our lives

So basically, the only good way I see that agab terms can be used is for self-identifiers and in conversations or other situations where someone's agab would actually matter

Other than that, they're just a new exclusionary binary box that people are shoving us into

[rebellum]

Just saw a post saying tma/tme isn't a binary and while the post did have some stuff I'd want to discuss about it (which is why no reblog, I just woke up) I do find it an interesting perspective

Op was arguing that tma/tme is about broad relationships to transmisogyny, and that people don't have to be tma OR tme

Which isn't how anyone else uses it so I'm not sure of its uh.. word hard. Silly to use words to mean one thing if everyone means another and you act like you're having the same conversation. Like I suspect if most ppl who are rly into tme/tma being used heard someone say "tme people regularly experience transmisogyny while remaining tme" they might act like it's a statement that doesn't make sense.

But it IS interesting to me the concept of to use those words to mean other things. Like to respond "no" to the question "are you tma/tme". Or like how I could respond "sometimes" or "depends".

This got super long, rest under cut. Discussions of racism, transmisogyny, misogynoir, transmisogynoir, intersex-phobia.

I think it WOULD be useful if they were talked about as broad relationships and not black and white applicable or as binaries. But that's not how ppl are using it.

Like to use it that way would be to make a category called tme that is "individuals who don't regularly and frequently experience targetted transmisogyny" and to make "tma" mean people who are. Which could be useful if everyone used it that way, sure. Like tma wouldn't mean "trans fem" or "trans fem and certain gnc people who were amab and are perceived as feminine" like it does now, it would actually include all trans fems, gnc cis men, cis men/boys who eg are bullied or assaulted for being "sissies" etc, people regardless of agab/asab who are perceived as gnc and violating gender norms, most if not all intersex ppl, and more who I'm forgetting. Which could be useful in talking about insivisual experiences of transmisogyny as well as society-wide.

If used in that way, could also inspire more discussion about how transphobia is baked into misogynoir bc of how transphobia is baked into misogyny. Like to discuss the relationship and how cis intersex women of colour esp darker skinned woc often black women, experience transmisogyny daily but also prominently in sports. Like how ppl are like "this person is actually a man and is bad and tricking people" when it's an intersex woman who is a poc who is then forced to be hormone-tested and then banned from sports unless they modify their natural body. To discuss how transmisogynoir isn't some ultra-specific form of oppression only experienced by trans black women, but is PART of daily misogyny and white supremacy and transphobia and patriarchy.

Could bring forward discussions and acknowledgement that when eg a feminine-presenting cishet perisex black woman is seen as unsafe bc she's "manly" and she is shunned for maybe being trans, and assaulted in the bathroom so people can see her genitals, how that IS transmisogynoir and isn't, like, a random incident, or a misfire of transmisogyny, or collateral damage, that that is how all these systems under patriarchy and white supremacy are SUPPOSED to work to hurt many different kinds of people, including cis het perisex woc. Like the systems all overlap to become transmisogynoir, like a bunch of vines on a monster coming together into one vegetational spear to lunge at people and hurt them and keep them in place and punish those who aren't white gender conforming cis het perisex men. The relationship between racism and transphobia and misogyny is tangled and cannot be separated.

But while an alternative view of tma/tme could be useful in those ways, it isn't really, because that's not how the terms are used. They're usually used to mean a binary of [people who were assigned male at birth and assumed to be perisex and who are feminine presenting or perceived as such] vs [everyone else who somehow never experiences intersectional of misogyny + transphobia]

I think part of where that idea comes from is from ppl not understanding that transphobia, misogyny, homophobia, intersex-hate, white supremacy, aren't separate systems, but are all part of the same system. The way this was usually discusses during my degree is as everything is misogyny, but I feel like that isn't the best overarching phrase. They're all part of the main patriarchal system of control. Which is intertwined with white supremacy and colonial systems of control.

Like, it's easier to talk about love than hate, so I'll use that metaphor. I love ice-cream. I love the sugar, the cream, the coldness, the added in bits like chunks of caramel or whatever. It's all ice cream. But to talk about specific parts of ice cream, we invented words. We say "flavour" and we say "texture" and we say "salinity" and "sweetness", but it's ALL ice cream.

Societal systems of control and oppression are icecream. Transphobia isn't some extra part, it's not the cone, it's the icecream itself (eg salinity.). Homophobia isn't some separate part, it's not sprinkles, it IS icecream (eg cream). We use these words to talk about specific aspects, but they're the same thing.

When an intersex child is forced thru unnecessary surgery, they aren't just experiencing intersex-phobia. They're experiencing homophobia and amatonormativity, because it's assumed they need ""correct"" genitals to have heterosexual sex which is necessary for happy adult life. They're experiencing misogyny and the inheritance of misogyny in western medicine tradition (by late medieval era, confirmed that science then thought as men/penis as The Correct One, and women/vagina as deformed penis. Flash forward to nowadays, if baby genitals don't fit perfectly into sex binary, it's usually chosen [well ok I don't know about post 2020 intersex procedures. So 1900 - 2016ish] that they will be female. Snip snip the penis/clitoris. Widen that little canal and make it into a vagina now. Unless only difference is micropenis, it's not usually left.). They're experiencing transphobia - transphobia and intersex phobia inseparable! Need both words tho bc otherwise intersex ppl get forgotten about, and need that specific word to describe eg forced child medicine. But both part of sex binary and gender binary. You can't separate.

If lil black boy bullied for being a "sissy" by non-black kids, he is experiencing misogyny (told he is a failed boy, so must be a girl, and being a girl is bad.), homophobia (failed boy - must like boys like a girl does, boy + femininity = faggot), racism (black men degendered, black women also degendered), transmisogynoir (bc of how those things are all inseparable).

Earlier example of cis het perisex feminine presenting black women. Misogyny (women can only be certain way, if you are a failed woman you are basically also a failed man); homophobia (failed woman - you must like other women because a failed woman is like a man); transphobia and intersexphobia (violate the sex binary and gender binary, your face is masculine and your body is masculine); racism (black women degendered, part of degendering for women is to be masculinized. Black women = failed women (not white little prim thing. Not proper dainty feminine nose, not proper long luscious feminine smooth hair, not pretty light skin) = more masculine); transmisogynoir (you are masculine and black failed-women, failed-man, woman-man thing bc not dainty white woman).

In order to have discussions of systems of oppression that actually reflect lived reality, in order to theorise why/how things happen, it's imperative to understand that they're all the same thing. Homophobia and transphobia are misogyny. Misogyny is part of white supremacy.