#simply existing. its what they say do and think that makes them biphobic

[herosbrine]

no way i just saw a whole ass adult use "pannie" derogatorily towards pansexuals without an inch of irony. can we grow up please. that is such a childish insult to use in genuine anger. i thought we were over this years ago

[colorisbyshe]

I think part of the frustration with people being so uninformed by historical movements, especially 2nd wave feminism, is that they don’t get that political lesbianism as a movement was deeply lesbophobic too, and still realistically hurts lesbians today with the subconscious attitude that simply choosing not to date men or interact with men is what makes a lesbian. Which then is how you also get weirdos thinking lesbians should make space to give dating men a shot. And thinking lesbians, who are not attracted to men, are exactly the same as the rage bait terf folks harping about cutting men off from dating women.

Obviously this is. A facet of the larger problem with this ideology, but it’s frustrating how few people acknowledge how damaging it was for more than lesbian separatist reasons. Straight women (a significant amount of political lesbians) largely trying to take over lesbian spaces in the name of feminism was also deeply traumatic for the community too.

Absolutely, it was also a grossly biphobic movement AND.... misogynistic. Second wave feminism, separatist feminism, political lesbianism found a way to really attack all women on an ideological level, not even getting into how the entire era was also... deeply racist.

Political lesbianism was not for lesbians (especially when its leaders tried to define lesbian as just women who didn't date men, by choice or otherwise) or any other women attracted to women. It wasn't for anyone other than the most privileged of women and often led to just attacking more vulnerable, more marginalized women.

While the ideology is not identical, movements like 4B are not for the longterm benefit of most women. Or most marginalized people. (When you separate women as the only cause worth caring about, you leave out... every marginalized group. When you stop caring abut the rights of every marginalized group, you inevitably harm... the women of those groups.)

I'm not even going to claim to be an expert on any of these movements: I have done readings on those I am speaking about but haven't done extremely deep dies into them but part of why I haven't is because... the flaws ae on the surface level. You don't really have to get into the nitty gritty or nuance of these movements to realize that they are fundamentally flawed.

To have a movement that effectively says "Women's oppression is literally stored in the balls (ie the sex with men, which are presumed to be people with balls)" is... inherently stupid. You aren't more or less oppressed when you have sex with or date men. Men aren't getting their power from sex or romance with women. You aren't really harming or criticizing rape culture.

Likewise with political lesbianism, being perpetually single or fucking women doesn't free you from misogyny's impact or even necessarily empower you against it. "Act the right way towards men or you deserve what you get from them" isn't feminism. It is victim blaming, though.

These movements just sort of become... prescriptivist in the same way the systems they're supposedly rebelling against. "Act this way or you're the enemy." "Do this or you deserve what you get."

"Our gender MUST act this way" only ever hurts your gender.

Which is the flaw of most radical feminist movements. They exist to take power from men and then lord that same power over more vulnerable and/or more "deviant" women. Or any other more vulnerable group (like white radfems using white supremacy in tandem with their radical feminism).

There's nothing wrong with being a lesbian. There's nothing wrong with being bisexual or straight and choosing to not date or have sex with men. For whatever reason.

Turning that into political movement where you then try to dictate the right/wrong ways to have sex, date as some sort of moral code... that's where you are just recreating the harms you're supposedly against.

Like... on the most obvious level, these movements are extremely stupid and there's no other way to frame that. They’re not just morally bad, they make no fucking sense. Even if you don't understand the bioessentialism, the way certain identities are stripped of meaning or politicized even when they're innate, or whatever...

just on its face... how the fuck are women liberated by new terms dictating what sex and love they're allowed to have, what reproductive choices they're allowed to make? implying by having sex with someone gives them power is inherently and obviously harmful

we need to be so fucking real

[fagmegumi]

u not a lesbian tho ur bisexual

Okay so let me clear this up not even for the benefit of anon but for my mutuals who don’t know me irl and may get the wrong impression from it.

what i meant to say in those tags is that the reason i still feel comfortable going to women’s places in my current state of existence is that 1) lesbianism AND womanhood both come in many diverse flavors of gender experiences so to speak 2) ERGO even lesbians who are straight up cis women can and will be attracted to people with various kinds of gender experiences, both “internally” so to speak (‘identity’) and “externally” (various configurations of genitals, breasts or lack thereof, body hair, presentation, etcetc.) this isn’t the case for ALL obviously but its certainly the case for some. Like I personally know lesbians who know about my gender situation and would still fuck me lol im not even being prescriptive rn as you point out i am NOT a lesbian and its not up to me to say what they should or shouldnt do. Im literally describing reality. 3) as i exist right now, i am a person with breasts, a pussy, and a relatively feminine face (though invisalign is doing wonders on my jawline, werk!). To say that no lesbian who sees me in a bar dancing could possibly be attracted to the person they see is genuinely so far out of the bounds of reality it boggles the mind. Also this is neither here nor there but i don’t exactly consider myself a “man”, like I would never want to fill the social role of ‘man’ the way a cis man does. That’s why i call myself transmasc but not a trans man. If id been born with a penis and assigned male at birth and raised a boy etcetc, i would STILL want to socially and/or medically transition bc I simply dont see myself as a genuine 100% man the way i dont see myself as a woman.

If i ever do manage to get hrt and I acquire more masculine characteristics etc the situation will be different, like I wouldnt feel as comfortable going to spaces for women. Also I should specify that the bar i went to today does not call itself a “lesbian bar”, it is a bar for queer women of any sexuality (and their friends and allies of other genders). Not every single person in there was a woman, and not every single woman was a lesbian. Statistically in fact many of them were probably bisexual, and honestly assuming otherwise is lowkey pretty biphobic lol

lastly, i also want to specify that, even if im pre-transition and i look for all intents and purposes like a cis woman (something that makes my life hell in many generic lgbt places, where the general misogynistic and boys-club vibe makes it so gay dudes will tolerate me at best and assume im a ‘fag hag’) i still would never have sex with a lesbian without clarifying my gender situation to them first. I simply would not feel comfortable with that in fact the thought makes me pretty nauseous. But at the same time 1) i know (again, for a fact) there are plenty of people who use the label of lesbian who WOULD fuck me even after knowing and 2) i dont think grinding a little on a stranger in a bar you saw from a cross the room and found really hot, or even having a short dancefloor makeout with them, is anywhere on the same level.

[ihopesocomic]

You don't have to answer this, but what are your thoughts on bi/pan lesbians? asking because the recent question you got about shipping lesbians with men reminded me of someone trying you argue that it's okay to ship a lesbian with a man if you hc them as a bi/pan lesbian because "you're not erasing the fact that they're a lesbian", and that just never made sense to me

tw: lesbiphobia, lesbophobia, biphobia, panphobia, transphobia

There's a reason it never made sense to you, its cuz the label doesnt make sense LOL "Bi/pan lesbian" is inherently lesbiphobic/biphobic/transphobic

1) Lesbians by definition have no attraction to men. Implying we can means that the ongoing struggle, of being told we “just haven’t found the right guy” or whatever lesbian-specific discrimination you can imagine that infantalizes our sexuality, means absolutely nothing. It also disregards the compulsory heterosexuality lesbians often experience. It supports (cis straight) men’s beliefs that they "have a chance" when that’s obviously not the case. Men have a snowball’s chance in Satan’s buttcheeks of being with a lesbian romantically or otherwise, and we like them to remember that. Not validated by some made-up label.

2) The deep-rooted bi/panphobia of the label. Like besides the implication that a bi person has ”finally picked a side”. There is no reason for any person who is attracted to men to be ashamed of their m-spec label and to adopt a label that is very specific in its lack of attraction to an entire group of people. Bi/pan people are attracted to men. Lesbians are not. Those things cannot exist in the same label because they directly contradict each other. And I do not think it’s because they don’t know that. I don’t believe anyone is really that foolish. I can’t imagine any reason to have this label other than being ashamed of being attracted to men. There’s this weird slew of people who think lesbians are “more woke” in their lack of attraction to men, or bi/pan people are somehow "better" if they're in a same-gender relationship, and that’s just plain untrue. Even having a preference or whatever doesn't erase your attraction. There is no reason to not proudly express your sexuality. So therefore there’s no reason to take my label for yourself just because you simply can’t use perfectly good already existing labels.

3) And I’ve seen this on a smaller scale, but some people have used this label because they are bi/pan or lesbian, who are dating someone or are attracted to someone who is trans and still on the gender binary or they’re treating nonbinary as a “third gender” (which I’ve stated before is too broad a label to categorize like that). I don’t want to get into speculation of specifics as to why they feel this way, but for whatever transphobic reason you can imagine, they don’t want to let go of the lesbian label, even tho nonbinary people are nonbinary, trans women are women, and trans men are men. And if you are attracted to trans men then you cannot be a lesbian. To say otherwise is transphobic and disrespects their gender. (Like its in the word, it’s not that fucking difficult to comprehend.)

I hope this helps validate your concerns. I’m not gonna suggest telling people off if they don’t respond to reason, I’m just simply making everyone aware about why this label is harmful. Awareness is all I care about. I could really care less about changing minds of people who are being willingly ignorant. - Cat

[spoonass69]

anyways my opinions have solidified. if youre throwing a tantrum and trying to say who counts as lgbtqia+ and who doesn’t, you need to sit down and take some deep breaths and realize these are all literally made up labels and words and the community is also made up. it is whatever each individual wants it to be. there are no set rules, we are all just vibing playing a game of social construct organization in order to form a community that keeps eachother safe in a very unsafe and bigoted world. youll be a much happier person once you realize that there are no set rules for anything, and everyone will be much safer too.

anyways, pan is not biphobic or transphobic. pansexual simply means an attraction to everyone, regardless of gender presentation or orientation. bi means an attraction to everyone but there may be a preference for a certain gender.

ace people do not experience the same kind of struggles that trans or gay people do, (unless theyre also trans or gay) that does not mean that they do not have struggles. they’re simply different.

you may not understand or want to use microlabels. it may seem silly to you to have so many labels for things that are so similar. those feelings and thoughts are not at all universal. mind your business. microlabels may make you feel very boxed in, and you may not like “defining” yourself like that. microlabels can help people better understand themselves, and may simply be descriptors. they are not for everyone, but that does not mean that you are allowed to take them away

we are all doing our best, trying to find ways to describe ourselves best and trying to find community. you can choose to exclude people all you want, but all that will do is make you an unsafe person, and prolong the suffering of others for the next generations.

dont do the same thing to other groups that bigoted people have done to you. its not pan people simply existing thats dividing any community, its people who think they have the right to tell people what their identity should or shouldnt be. you dont have a problem with pansexuals, you have a problem with transphobia and biphobia. point that anger at people who perpetuate those issues, not a whole sexuality that isn’t inherently bad.

[posi-pan]

Is it possible to get some reassurance about identifying as pan. I get so manny hate asks about it that it’s starting to make me think I should call myself bi just to get them off my back...

of course! i don’t know if the kind of reassurance you’re looking for is the nice words positivity kind, or the facts/history to debunk hate kind. but i’ll do both just to cover my bases.

identifying as pan does not harm anyone. the words people call themselves in good faith do not affect or threaten anyone else. someone being hurt by the problematic explanations other people give for pan is not on you or the pan identity, it’s solely on those individuals.

you are not responsible for anyone other than yourself, and if you’re just labeling your identity in a way that makes sense to you and feels right for you and it’s what you’re comfortable with, then you have nothing to worry about.

every queer group has queerphobes, not just the pan community, so anyone zeroing in on biphobes or transphobes in the pan community, while conveniently ignoring the same in other communities or the issues in their own community, because they want to generalize us and make us look disproportionately bad, is not operating in good faith.

pan is not biphobic or transphobic. like i said before, individuals are the issue, not the community the belong to or the label they use. the origins of pan are not biphobic or transphobic. before it sort of gained ground and started becoming an identity on its own in the ‘90s/’00s, pan simply existed within the bi community as an alternative mspec label; along with other labels such as polysexual and omnisexual.

this “feud” between pan and bi is entirely fabricated by people who want to divide the community. are there biphobic pans and panphobic bis? of course, they’ve bought into the idea that these two identities and communities are at war with each other and all the misinformation and lies that are spread to maintain that idea. but history tells a completely different story. and even now when you look most bi organizations and activists, the story there is not what this online “discourse” would have you believe.

i know it’s stressful and hurtful and at times scary, but it’s important to remember that the people who spread hatred and lies online in order to divide or homogenize the community, no matter how loud they might be or how many it seems there are, they are a small group that does not reflect the greater community.

this type of online “discourse” kicks up every so often with a new identity that people think will be an easy target because it’s less known or less visible or less understood or already less accepted. pan is just the latest one. and it’s also important to reminder yourself that nothing panphobes say about pan is true. literally nothing. everything they’ve claimed has been debunked.

so again. identifying as pan isn’t hurting anyone. pan itself isn’t hurting one. it’s a perfectly valid, valuable identity label. not only because we as individuals decide what labels we want to use and give them meaning based on our personal feelings and experiences, because that’s how identity labels work (they’re personal, not universal or prescriptive), but also because history and facts back this up.

if you’re interested, i have a resources page that has links to my reference tag, the pansexual timeline i made, the history of the bi community accepting alternative mspec labels i put together, some pan inclusive queer research and pan statistics. i also have a faq page that debunks a lot of the things panphobes say and includes links to further read up on the topics.

i hope this helps, and i hope you stick to the label that you actually want to use and feel comfortable with and represented by, because everyone has that right and we shouldn’t be bullied or shamed or scared out of that. 💜💜

[ignitesthestxrs]

i apoligze for this in advance but idk who else to ask. so i’m attracted to women like 92% of the time but i’ve been dating a guy for a few months now. it’s not super serious yet but i still find myself feeling sad about never having had a gf/worrying i never will and just feeling like a bad queer. i KNOW that it’s terribly biphobic of me to think that if i a femme enby date a cis dude i’m not queer enough. but i also cant get past it no matter how many times i look at these ugly brain thoughts

first of all: you never have to apologise for sending me stuff like this. it is a known facet of my tumblr, and while i know i am hardly around at all, i do periodically check my inbox and am never angry or annoyed or any other negative emotion to see people reaching out for help/advice. i don’t always have the mental bandwidth to respond, but i am only ever glad that people still consider this a safe place to reach out to.

there are a couple of things i want to address here! in no particular order:

you are not a future teller or a psychic, no matter how much your worries and anxieties insist that they know what is coming. the fact that you are in a relationship with a man in this moment has no bearing on what relationships you may find yourself in, in the future. the fact that the person you are dating currently identifies as a man is no guarantee that they will always identify that way, even! you could be with them for the next couple of weeks or for the rest of your life and there are a million permutations in between and around those two options.

what i’m saying is - obsessing over things you might not do in the future because of things you are doing now is a game that nobody wins. you have no guarantees of what the future is going to hold - you can make decisions now based on what you want and/or expect the future to hold, but stressing about the path not taken means that you’re going to spend all your time straining to see that path and like, walk into a big boulder in the path you’re actually on or something. currently, you’re not even stressing about the fork in the road that you came across. you’re on a single path, and you’re worrying about a path you haven’t come across yet, which may or may not diverge from the path that you’re on, or might be in a different forest entirely and and and- at some point you gotta love the path you’re on and take in the scenery, my darling.

which, incidentally - this path? not incompatible with queerness. and i know you know this, but feeling it can be! so hard! so i am here to remind and reassure you that - queerness is not an action. the nature of identity is not things that you do, it is the person that you are. you do not cease to be non-binary because your outfit changes - your fashion choices are simply a way of expressing your non-binary-ness, and they are not the only way, and if you are not using fashion to express your enbyness then that doesn’t make you not enby. you don’t stop being enby when there is no one there to look at you and make external judgements about your gender, and you do not stop being queer because you are a femme-adjacent person dating a cis dude.

queerness is a thing that you are. you can take actions that express that queerness more clearly to outside observation, but outside observation does not change the fact of your queerness. i will not deny that it can make it easier to participate in community, because community is in part made up of particular signs that individuals recognise in each other and gravitate towards - but who you date is only one such sign. i’m a lesbian who hasn’t dated anyone for over half a decade - am i less queer because i have not hooked up with a chick in that time? i am not. if i fuck a dude am i less of a lesbian? idk man that depends on how i feel about fucking a dude. am i romantically and sexually attracted to the dude, or was his dick just inside me? what if he just uses his fingers? i feel like i could feasibly have sex with a cis man out of sheer curiosity and still be a lesbian, sure, but what if there’s a single man that just perfectly meets me where i am despite my overwhelming preference and interest in women? what if that man is trans? what does that mEAN? at which point do we stop dissecting identity and carving lines into each other?

queerness is a useful umbrella term to cover those people who exist out of heternormativity - cismen attracted to ciswomen, ciswomen attracted to cismen, exclusively. the second the spokes of that umbrella start poking you instead of protecting you from the rain, it has ceased to do its job. identity is useful in that it helps us understand ourselves and it helps us find community in other people, but there are no perfect words that encapsulate the whole of our individual experience, and there are no individual experiences that perfectly match up with another person’s individual experience, even if we use the same word/s to describe ourselves.

you can’t be biphobic at your own experiences. it’s not biphobic to look at the way you have identified previously/up to a certain point, to recognise a difference in your current behaviour, and feel weird or discomforted by this difference. it’s not biphobic to need some time to figure shit out - who you want to be, how you want to identify, what outfit fits you best. i think identity works best as a conversation with yourself - i think we should all be checking in on ourselves to make sure that the way are living is expressing the way we are being. this urge to build walls of definable identity is a protective instinct meant to save us and gather us together from the very real threats of a heteronormative society, but it can also mean we get trapped in a place that no longer suit us.

some practical advice - if the idea of never dating a girl stresses you out that much, i’d take a break from dating this dude, because it sounds like you have some work to do in terms of figuring out what experiences you want to have in life. but only you can decide where that stress line fractures, you know? but if you read this post and you sit with it for a bit and you find that the experience of dating this man is still making you miserable, it’s okay to take some time away from it. you don’t deserve misery.

that being said - like, you’ve only been dating him a few weeks? it’s cool to just envision this relationship in terms of weeks. you truly don’t have to stretch the current experience you are having out to cover the rest of your life in one daunting ‘what if’. so long as everyone involved in a relationship is clear with the terms of engagement, go forth and short term yourself some fuckin joy.

i stress, i beg, do not deny yourself the pleasure of a joyful experience with another human soul now because you are worried about what this means about other people’s perception of some amorphous identity. you are queer. you are a femme-enby person largely attracted to woman, but dating a man. you are queer, you are enough, you don’t need to question that anymore. i think that the last year, last four years, last lifetime has more than proven that life is, frankly, too fucking short. seize your joy and run with it. whether that means dating this man or take a pause to breathe and reflect, or whatever else! you’ll still be queer.

be kind to yourself my love i wish you well <3

[adorpheus]

on fujoshi and fetishization

Lately, more and more, both here on tumblr and on other sites, I keep seeing people spew unfiltered hatred at fujoshi - that is, women who like mlm content such as gay fanfic and fanart featuring men with other men. And I don’t mean like a specific type of fujoshi, like the ones who are genuinely being weird about it, but just like a general hatred for girls (but especially straight identifying girls) who express love for gay romance.

I hate to break this to you all, but women (including straight women!) actually are allowed to like mlm fanfiction and fanart, even enthusiastically so. A woman simply expressing her love of gay fanfic, even if it is in kind of a cringey way or a way that you personally don’t like, is NOT automatically fetishization.

I’ve been on the receiving end of fetishization for my entire life, from a very young age, as many black and brown folx have, so I consider myself pretty well acquainted with how it works. Fetishization isn’t just like, being really into drawings of boys kissing, or whatever the fuck y’all are trying to imply on this god forsaken site. 

Fetishization is complicated imo, and can encompass a lot of things, such as (but not limited to):

1 - dehumanization, e.g. viewing a group of people as sexual objects who exist purely for entertainment purposes, rather than acknowledging them as actual people who deserve respect and rights

and

2 - projecting certain assumptions onto said people based on their race/sexuality/whatever is being fetishized. These assumptions are often, but not always, sexual in nature (like the idea that black people in general are more sexual than other races, etc etc etc).

I’m going to use myself as an example to illustrate my point. Please note this isn’t the best or most nuanced example, but it is the most simplistic. A white person finding me attractive and respectfully appreciating my black features as part of what makes me beautiful is not, on its own, fetishization. A white person finding me attractive solely or mostly because I’m a PoC is now in fetishization territory. Similarly, assuming I’m dominant because of my blackness (like saying “step on me mommy” and shit like that) is hella fetishistic. 

That being said, theres definitely a difference between how fetishization works in real life with real people, and how it shows up in fandom. 

Fetishization manifests in many different ways in fandom, but most commonly on the mlm side of things, I personally see it appear as conservative (or centrist) women who love the idea of two men together, but don’t actually like gay people, and don’t necessarily think LGBT+ people deserve rights (or “special treatment” as its sometimes dog whistled). These women view queer men as sexual objects for entertainment rather than an actual group of people who deserve to be protected from systemic oppression. I’ve noticed that they often don’t even think of the men they “ship” together as actually being gay, and may even express disgust at the idea of a character in an mlm ship being headcanon’d gay. In case its not obvious, this is pretty much exactly the same way a lot of cishet men fetishize lesbians (they see “lesbian” as a porn category, rather than like, what actual LGBT people think of when we read the word lesbian). There’s a pretty popular viral tweet thread going around where someone explains seeing this trend of conservative women who like mlm stuff, and I have also personally witnessed this phenomenon myself in more than one fandom. 

The funny thing is, maybe its just me buuuut.... The place I see this particular kind of fetishization happen most is not in the anime/BL fandom, from which the term fujoshi originates - I actually see these type of women way way more in western fandom spaces like Supernatural, Harry Potter, and Hannibal. I can’t stress this enough, there’s a shocking amount of people who are like, straight up trump supporters in these fandoms. If you want to experience it, try joining a Hannigram or Destiel group on facebook and you will probably encounter one eventually especially if you happen to be living through a major historical event. Like these women probably wouldn’t even be considered “fujoshi”, because that term doesn’t really apply to them given they aren’t in the BL/anime fandom, yet they’re the ones I personally see actually doing the most harm.

Of course this isn’t the ONLY kind of fetishizing woman in the mlm/BL world, there are other ways fetishization shows up, but this is the most toxic kind that I see.

A girl just being really into BL or whatever may be “cringe” to you, or she may be expressing her love for BL in a “cringey” way, but a straight woman really enjoying BL is not, on its own, somehow inherently fetishization. Yes, sometimes teenage girls act kind of cringe about how much they like BL and that might be annoying to you, but its not necessarily ~problematic~. 

That being said, IT NEEDS BE REMARKED that a lot of the “fujoshi” that you all hate so deeply, are actually closeted trans men or nonbinary people who haven’t yet come to terms with their gender identity, or are otherwise just NOT cishet. I know because I was one of these closeted people for years, and I honestly think tumblr and the cultural obsession around purity is one of the many reasons I was closeted so deeply for so long. STORYTIME LOL!!! In my early adolescence, I was a sort of proto “fujoshi”. I identified as a bi girl who was mostly attracted to men, or as most (biphobic) people called it, “practically straight”. I wrote and read “slash” fanfic and looked at as well as drew my own fanart. We didn’t use the term fujoshi back then, but that’s definitely how I could have been described. I was obsessed with yaoi, BL, whatever you want to call it, to a cringe-inducing degree. I really struggled to relate to most het romances, so when I first discovered yaoi fanfics (as we called them at the time), I fell in love and felt like I finally found the type of romance content that was made for me. I didn’t know exactly why, I just knew it hit different. LGBT+ fanart and fanfiction brought me an immense amount of joy, and I didn’t really think too hard about why.

At some point, in my early 20s, after reading lots of discourse™ here on tumblr and other places like twitter, I started to get the sinking feeling that my passion for gay fanfiction was ~problematic~. I had always felt a sense of guilt for being into mlm content, because literally anyone who found out I liked BL (especially the men I dated) shamed me for liking it all the fucking time (which btw is literally just homophobic, like can we talk about that?). In addition to THAT bullshit, now I’m seeing posts telling me that girls who like BL are cringey gross fetishists who inspire rage and should go die? 

Let me tell you, I internalized the fuck out of messages like this. I desperately wanted to avoid being ~problematic~. At the time, I thought being problematic was like the worst thing you could be. I was terrified of being “cancelled”, before canceling was even really a thing. I thought to myself, “oh my god, I’m gross for liking this stuff? I should stop.” I beat myself up over this. I wanted so badly to be accepted, and to be deemed a Good Person by the internet and society at large.

I tried to shape up and become a good ally (lmfao). I stopped writing fanfic and deleted all the ones I was working on at the time. I made a concerted effort to assimilate into cishet culture, including trying to indulge myself more deeply in the few fandoms I could find that had het content I did enjoy (Buffy, True Blood, Pretty Little Liars, etc). I would occasionally look at BL/fanfic/etc in private, but then I would repress my interest in it and not look for a while. Instead I would look at women in straight relationships, and create extremely heterosexual Couple Goals pinterest boards, and try to figure out how I could become more like these women, so I, too, could be loved someday. 

This cycle of repression lasted like eight years. Throughout it all, I was performing womanhood to the best of my ability and trying to become a woman that was worthy of being in a relationship. I went in and out of several “straight” relationships, wondering why they didn’t make me feel the way reading fanfic did. Most of all, I couldn’t figure out why straight intimacy didn’t work for me. I just didn’t enjoy it. I always preferred looking at or making gay fanfiction/fanart over actual intimacy with men in real life. 

Eventually, I stumbled upon a trans coming out video that someone I was following posted online, my egg started to crack, and to make an extremely long story short, after like 3 years of introspection and many gender panic attacks that I still experience to this day, I realized that I’m uh... MAYBE... NOT CIS..!? :|

I truly believe if I had just been ALLOWED TO LIKE GAY STUFF WITHOUT BEING SHAMED FOR IT, I probably would have realized I was trans way way sooner. Because for me, indulging in my love of gay romance and writing gay fanfic wasn’t me being a weirdo fetishist, it was actually me exploring my own gender identity. It is what helped me come to terms with being a nonbinary trans boy.

Not everyone realizes they are trans at age 2 or whatever the fuck. Sometimes you have to go through a cringey fujoshi phase and multiple existential crises to realize how fucking gay you are AND THATS FINE.

And one more thing - can we just be real here? 

A lot of anti-fujoshi sentiment is literally just misogyny. omg please realize this. Its “women aren’t allowed to enjoy things” but, like... with gay fanfics. Some of the anti-fujoshi posts I see come across my dash are clearly ppl projecting a caricature they invented in their head of a demonic fujoshi fetishist onto any woman who expresses what they consider to be a little too much enthusiasm for gay content and then using their perception of that individual as an excuse to justify their disdain for any women, especially straight women, ‘invading’ their ~oh so exclusive~ queer fandom spaces.

 god get over yrselfs this is gatekeeping by another name

idk why i spent so long writing this no one is even going to read it, does anyone even still use this site

*EDIT: HOLY SHIT WHEN DOING RESEARCH FOR THIS POST I FOUND OUT THAT Y-GALLERY IS BACK OMG!!! 

[vampireqrow-moved]

um its my birthday so wait until 12:01am pst to block me if u hate this post 🥰🥰

long story short the pansexual label is redudant and actively harmful (its far from the worst problem bisexuals face but it is one issue) and i dont hate anyone who identifies as pan because A) those ppl are bi like me and B) i used to identify as pan myself.

if thats enough for you to block me and make a callout post for me then i cant stop you but pretty please either read this whole thing or just wait a few minutes for my bday to end 🥰🥰

anyways im kicking off this point with some personal experiences bc i love to talk to myself. i got introduced to the pan label at maybe 10ish years old, and started identifying with it pretty much right away. i heard about it before bisexual and it was pitched as attraction to all genders and of course trans people. i was of course a trans ally! i had trans friends! i was trans also but hadnt figured it out yet! the way i had heard of it, there was no bisexual, there was no need for bisexual, and identifying differently was excluding trans people, which I was certainly against. being bisexual was trans exclusionary and why would i exclude trans people? the 'hearts not parts' slogan was thriving around this time and i genuinely said it and meant it.

as i started to become more online, mostly through roleplaying websites and tumblr here, i started hearing of bisexuality. it was supposedly an older term, so older people still used it, but it was common knowledge that pansexual was the better, inclusive label and younger people should adopt the new inclusive language instead of the old and transphobic words like bisexual. /s

and then bi and pan solidarity was all the rage! pansexual wasnt erasing bisexuality, why did anyone ever think that? bi and pan were two separate and complete identities that were valid and had to be respected or youre a mean exclusionist. and an asexual person, hearing people labelled exclusionist always meant they were excluding people from the lgbta community who rightfully belonged, denying peoples lived experiences, and generally telling people theyre wrong about their sexuality because theyre too young. and all of those things were bad and had hurt me, so it would be ridiculous to change labels and support "pan exclusionists" because they were just as bad as ace and aro exclusionists, and they were all the same people. or so it seemed to me at that time.

then, 'hearts not parts' began getting called out for blatant transphobic by insinuating that pansexual was the only identity that loved people for their "hearts" and personalities instead of those gross gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and even straights who only saw people for their "parts". (STRAIGHT PEOPLE ARE NOT OPPRESSED. I AM MERELY POINTING OUT THAT PANSEXUALITY WAS SHOWN AS ABOVE ALL OTHERS.) many pan people, including myself, began to denounce the slogan and insist pansexuality wasnt transphobic, there had just been a coincidence that a transphobic slogan was everywhere and a huge part of people's explantions of and associations with pansexuality. hint: it wasnt a coincidence.

from my perspective, this is when i began to see people discussing dropping the word pansexual. that seemed to be a huge step from getting rid off a transphobic slogan, and these people were just meanies who hated microlabels. and i like microlabels! as a genderfluid person, and someone who has friends who use specific aro and acespec labels, ive seen how people can use them to name specific experiences while still acknowleging their presence underneath umbrella terms like aromantic, asexual, nonbinary, lgbta, and for some people, queer.

pansexuals dont do that. they dont label pansexuality as a specific set of experiences under the bisexual umbrella, they see themselves as a separate identity, and even if they started to, the history of biphobia and transphobic undeniably linked to the existence of pansexuality in enough to stop being worth using. but i digress. pansexualitys shiny new definition that many people cling to is that pansexual is attraction to all genders. bisexual is two or more genders.

which. frankly? doesnt make any sense. my guess is that its supposed to be inclusive of nonbinary genders and those a part of cultures who historically have not had a binary gender system in the first place. i cannot speak for the latter group, but as a nonbinary person, its not inclusive. anyone can be attracted to nonbinary people. literally anyone. theres no way to know if everyone you meet is nonbinary or not. whether or not a nonbinary person reciprocates those feelings and is interested in pursuing a relationship is completely up to the individual, regardless of the sexualities of the people involved.

bottom line is that you cant number the amounts of genders someone can be attracted to, thus rendering those definitions pointless. people can be attracted to all kinds of people regardless of gender, even if they are gay, a lesbian, or straight. all people can date thousands of nonbinary genders if all people involved are interested and comfortable with it. numbering the genders you can be attracted to diminishes the post of nonbinary, as it is not a third gender, it simply any experience not fitting within the western concept of the gender binary (if the person so chooses to identify as such. if you cant tell already, the nonbinary experience is varied between every single nonbinary person.) important to note also that no widely accepted bisexual text defines bisexual as attracted to exclusively two genders or even the "two or more genders". i know this is used a lot but please read the bisexual manifesto. its free online i promise.

some people also claim pansexuals experience "genderblind" attraction while bisexuals feel differently attracted to different genders. this is very nitpicky for whats supposed to be two unconnected idenities, but thats only part of the problem. this definition is also not in any widely accepted bisexual texts, and bisexuality has never excluded those who experience genderblind attraction. i am in fact a bi person who experiences genderblind attraction. this does not mean i am not bisexual. it simply means i experience bisexuality differently than other bisexuals, and thats wonderful! no broad communities like bisexuality are expected to all share the same experience. we are all so different and its amazing were able to come together under the bisexual flag.

last definition, or justification i should say, is that yes these definitions are redundant and theyre the same sexuality, but people prefer different labels and thats okay. i agree in principle. people can define themselves as many things like homosexuals or gays or lesbians or queers or even other reclaimed slurs, while still not labelling themselves under the most "common" or "accurate" labels.

but pansexuality isnt the same as bisexuality, which may sound silly but hear me out. it has been continually used as a way to further divide bisexuals, who are already subject to large amounts of lgbta discrimination. "pansexuality was started by trans people who were upset with transphobia within the bisexual community! it cant be transphobic OR biphobic!" except of course that it can and it is. to say that trans people cant be transphobic is absurd. transmedicalism is right there, but thats not what im getting at. all minorities can have internal and sometimes external biases against people who are the same minority as them.

pansexuality was started as a way to be trans inclusive at the expense of labelling bisexuality as transphobic when its not. transphobia is everywhere, and bisexuals are not exempt. instead of working on the transphobia within the community, the creators of pansexuality decided to remove themselves from it to create a better and less tainted word and community, and the fact that pansexuality is intended to replace bisexuality or leave it for the transphobes goes to show a few things. pansexuality and bisexuality are inherently linked because the pan label is in response to the bi label. due to its origins, it is inherently competing with bisexuality and it cant be "reclaimed" from its biphobic roots. pansexuality is not a whole, separate, and valid label. its a biphobic response to issues within the bisexual community.

to top off this post, heres something a full grown adult once said to me. in person. she was my roommate. "i feel like im pan because im attracted to trans people. trans women, trans men, i could definitely date them. but not nonbinary people because thats gross and weird." she saw pan as trans inclusive and defined herself that way as opposed to bi which is shitty!

also a little extra tidbit about my experiences identifying as pan. i saw myself as better than every bi person. all of them. even my trans and bi friends. whenever they brought up being bisexual i would think to myself "why dont you identify as pansexual? its better and shows people you support trans people." because i was made to believe bisexuality didnt and was therefore inferior. thats the mindset that emerged from my time in the pansexual community. i am so sorry to all of my bisexual friends even if they never noticed. i love you all and hope you have a great day. this also goes to any bisexuals or people who identify as bi in anyway, such as biromantic or simply bi. love you all.

ummm yeah heres some extra reading i found helpful and relevant. here and here. also noooo dont disagree with me and unfollow me im so sexy 🥴🥴🥴

[la5t-res0rt]

fun fact fucko no one cares that he’s trans, gnc, or autistic. all they care about is that he said someone wasn’t bisexual all because they hate them. thats fucked up no matter who you are. being austistic isn’t an excuse to be an utter dick hole.

alrighty folks strap in because we are in for a long one today

to start off i will begin by saying that i care about the identities of people i like and call friends i care enough to listen and learn from them because they have different perspectives on issues that i as a person who is none of the things that this person is will ever understand

it is important to listen to people and learn from them not just shine a light out of your ass for someone out of a weird place of blind worship thats honestly so cringey but that isnt what this is about this about you and likely others harassing ad sending death threats my friend and comrade betel bitches

i will now be going under a readmore to spare the dashboard

so lets recap what exactly is he being harassed for

as you all are no doubt aware there is a blog called nether receipts where a certain user we shall not name catalogs instances where members of the beetlejuice fandom are harassed correction its a blog where this person catalogs instances where flaws in their character as well as the characters of the people around her are highlighted and critiqued with the occaisional off color remark and threat which i obviously do not approve of who would

anyway following reading some ill-informed and not-so-well-phrased comments from a certain narcissistic user about their sexuality my friend had this to say

this was the post that got them put on this receipts blog which really exists as a source of people for a certain cluster of the beetlebabe fandom to harass and try to drag or cancel 

this is the post that has made people call him biphobic and here is why thats wrong and stupid

you said in your ask that he only is saying that this icky person is not bisexual because there is malice between them and while yes its true that there is malice orion never once said that this person wasnt bisexual

i took the liberty of sifting through the harassment asks he received yesterday because you all love receipts so much i took the liberty of grabbing a few and adding some highlights so you dont miss the important bits

orion never once said this person isnt bisexual he stated that equating doing femme on femme  pornography to bisexuality is a biphobic statement and is in fact a problematic thing to say

there may be crossover between bisexual people and people who do femme on femme but they are far from the same thing doing pornography is a choice you actively make and you do it for compensation however being bisexual is simply part of who you are it is something you dont choose 

although this person would perhaps disagree

and before you come for me this person posted these for the world to see and obviously i have as many receipts as my drive can carry furthermore how does this argument make sense why would you care so much about heterophobia if youre not heterosexual why are you so pressed oh wait is it perhaps

because this person is using the split attraction model for woke points like this screams that this person sees women as sex objects or perhaps this person is comphet and is denying themselves because heteronormativity is so deeply ingrained in their being that they wish to cling to heterosexuality to keep up their squeaky clean white feminist woman persona or maybe theyre just not well informed on lgbt+ issues

editors note the editor is an ace person who considers using the split attraction model is situations like this isnt exactly helpful like i cant stop you from doing it but you shouldnt have to say im a bisexual heteromantic person you can just be a  bisexual woman and keep dating men you dating men doesnt erase your bisexuality saying that you would have sex with a woman but not romantically be involved with them makes the editor think woman = sex object and as a feminist the editor has to say thats fucked up

i will reiterate implying that doing pronography of any kind is equitable to a human sexualty is harmful to bisexual people and if youre like uhhh im bi and i think its okay guess what you do not speak for every single bi person so you should try harder to be compassionate for other peoples level of comfort

in any case statements like these are hurtful to bi people equating voluntary sex work to a sexuality isnt okay and its something that person should maybe address and consider apologizing for but since this person only listens to people in their inner circle and they dont even really listen to them its unlikely that this person will ever make amends for past biphobic tendencies because as everyone has been so quick to point out being bi doesnt excuse biphobia or homophobia or anything of the sort editors note heterophobia is not a legitimate issue im sorry if you feel oppressed for your straightness but really thats a you issue 

here is one more screenshot where my friend basically covers what i have just said as well as reminding the world that the owner of nether receipts is a narcissist 

being a bisexual person does not excuse you from saying biphobic things and there is literally no identifier you can use for yourself that exempts you from criticism for your actions and it doesnt mean that people cant demand that you address the wrongs youve done or said

you dont have to listen you dont have to do anything but dont be surprised if you say something shitty to a group of people and they get mad at you

also all that being said what orion said was not biphobic if anything he is raephobic but lets be honest who isnt ok there thats my one funny haha for you

we have every right to criticize someone who creates simulated cp and shares it with minors in 18+ servers or someone who equated bisexuality to voluntary sex work or someone who accuses people who disagree with them of being fascists or nazis or someone who goes out of their way to repost and edit art in a mocking manner or someone who actively claims to own a fandom like these are all critique worthy behaviors that all come from the same person who never explains their actions never holds themselves accountable for the shit they cause like we as people who share the same space as this person have every write to call bull roar when we see it

it is no secret that i dislike his person and it is also no secret that i will not hesitate to the the opportunity to drag them for being a shitty person whenever the opportunity arises and since their most recent beef with me was about how i was a bad friend i guess i figured this would be a good time to come forward for one of my friends who received dozens of harassment messages and several death threats over his commentary on the actions of this one vile individual

and i am addressing them now if they ever end up reading this or when it is inevitably sent to this person 

if youve got a problem with the way he and i or other antis critique you maybe come out from behind your wall of dipshit cronies and talk to us your damn self i am very sick of having to deal with nasti or morgan or that one minor or suz or that person that runs the rp blog or any of the others in your little hoard im tired of them trying to be slick like we see you we see all of you

all of your simulated cp aside youve said some really shitty things that you could easily amend since youve likely learned more about what it means to be lgbt+ since it is now a community you see yourself being a part of 

part of being human is learning from your past and making a better version of yourself for tomorrow and although i think you are a really awful person i dont think youre above self betterment and self reflection and self awareness 

also you dont seem to care at all when threats are being tossed around by your buddies but no matter how much me or orion or any of the others dislike what you do no person in their right mind would be okay with sending death threats and you shouldnt either you should at the very least extend that courtesy 

anyway

fuck you asker youre full of trash garbage and i hope you have a not so good day like i hope it rains or something invalidate my friends identity and ill yell at clouds

[claudiafekete]

This is another ordinary story of “how xxx fandoms changed my life” -

- or maybe not. you decide. I want to write it down.  trigger warning for politics, discussion of sexual violence, mild gender dysphoria It’s also horribly long. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. 

When I first came to tumblr, I had just graduated from APH. Short for Axis Power Hetalia. I learned about it in the form of manga. For years it was my everything - I learned what fanfic or fanart meant and I learned the basic online etiquette. As I grew in years, it accompanied me.

Until it didn’t.

Shortly after I fell into solangelo.

It’s a fun story, how I picked up PJO years after years of absence. My brother was whining about something written in Magnus Chase. “What do you think the Norse Gods were going to do to Percy that Annabeth was crying?” He demanded. I expressed my confusion. He kept on with his different theories and I made the decision to look it up online later.

My online search of Percy Jackson’s fate soon revealed something unknown to me before: solangelo. The first canon gay ship I ever knew. Therefore, at the ripe old age of 19, I threw myself into this endless hole called “tumblr” for the first time.

It was the most LGBTQ+ friendly place I had ever been. I joke you not. It was also the place where I was taught not only how a healthy relationship should look like, but also how sex should or could be like.  You don’t learn anything healthy about sex in Chinese or Mandarin using fandom, at least during the years I was in them. There were rigid 攻/受(roughly translated as top/bottom) stereotypes that everyone rushed to squeezed their characters into them. A lot of time though both person might ship A with B, they wouldn’t interact because one thought A should top and another thought B should top. Their different topping designation resulted in depictions of the characters’ personalities so dramatically differed that you couldn’t recognize them as the same characters.  Other than the refreshing relationship dynamics, Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard offered me a chance to take a look at my gender identity. I had known that theoretically non-binary people existed outside of binary gender, but I hadn’t known how one might live as one or describe themselves as one. I’m not trying to claim that Alex Fierro’s story is the only story of non-binary people. I’m trying to say that it was the starting point for me to make exploration and find the label  “agender” for myself.

I stayed in APH for 6 years. I had expected to stay in solangelo for longer.

Entered June 2019 with its whispers and anxious demonstrations. Entered folks pouring into streets in Hong Kong. Entered tear gas and facemasks and sticks and a bullet scarcely missing the heart and journalists beaten by police. Entered young students not of age disappearing mysteriously. Entered people dressed in white attacking citizens and not arrested by police. Entered dead bodies that were probably “被自殺 (being suicided)”.

Entered a city falling into the hands of tyrants next to your door, and you didn’t know how to help. You didn’t know what to do with yourself with your clean and spare hands. You were so far away from the frontline, you were angry and helpless and hopeless for that.

It was the first time I witnessed, first-hand, how the Chinese government directed the discussion online, so that it seemed as if there were random mobs who were disturbing the peace of Hong Kong and possibly taking money or being trained by US.  “Bullshit. Would there still be so many kids hurt on street if we have received any kinds of training for this?“  Of course, the majority of Chinese people inland wouldn’t hear that. Hong Kong is a former colony. Any calls of outrage toward the present government must be made by disillusioned young people who were unaware of colonization and imperialism. 

That was why I took refugee in Good Omens. I needed to run some where to stop myself from scratching myself to blood. I needed to some works for these clean and spare hands to do so that they wouldn’t pick up something destructive, such as a knife.

If the PJOverse fandom had felt the best place on earth, well, the Good Omens fandom lifted me into paradise. 

I’ve never seen so much kindness being showed under one tag. The creators and actors were all kind and interacted with the fans in their own ways. We were encouraged to do everything, anything, to build art with it however we liked. We as fans were recognized. We were seen. We were ... cared for. It was overwhelming, in a good way.  For that, I would be forever thankful to Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett and Michael Sheen and so many others in the production. I would be forever thankful to artists who liberated body types and freed the ties between gender expression and genitals. I would be forever thankful for the fantastic creators out there.

Would it seem as if I’ve only cherished the mutuals I met in Good Omens fandom? It wasn’t my intention. There are friends I keep in touch long after I fell out of love with APH. There are mutuals I got to know through solangelo and I feel, I hope that we are friends. Everyone who has chat with me I do my best to remember. (Though I do left conversation in weird places, become so ashamed of my incompetency that I do not continue them.)

What I’m trying to say is, as good as the solangelo fandom was, I still ran into biphobic posts here and there. It was only once or twice – but it was a constant reminder that being bisexual didn’t seem “valid” to some of the other LGBTQ+ members out there. Who cares what cis-gendered, heteronormative people said? Bullets that shot from friendly fire hurt the worst.

Besides, with a large and vibrant fandom like Good Omens, it’s easier to feel less alone and more… seen.

Damn right. Even after writing more that 5000 words in English it is still so easy to fall back into the comfortable nest of mother tongue. I can read simplified Chinese characters as well as the traditional Chinese characters I grow up using. There probably will never be getting the accent right but soundlessly devouring words in front of a screen? I excel at that.

That was what’s happening when the days rolled into January, 2020. I flew to US as an exchange student and exchanged long letters with a young Chinese woman I met in Good Omens fandom. I’ve never felt so alone in life. English as in creative writing has never come more naturally for me. The words burst in my head and arranged themselves freely on screen or on papers. I’ve never felt more hopeful about my writing ability.

The days rolled into March, 2020.

The first time my mom told me to come home over home, I laughed. The second time, I frowned. Before she pleaded me for the third time, I had grabbed a ticket.

I hadn’t imagined the disease plaguing China and its neighboring countries would affect the whole world.

You lived the rest of the story. I fled back to Taiwan.

 That was where Doctor Who came in. Or David Tennant. Such a strange time. For fourteen days I was the only living human in the house. I watched Casanova – or was it later? Hamlet definitely came before that. Then I could live with my family again. I handed in my homework and wrote in a different language than the people around me were speaking. My parents were working. My little brother was in school. When there was no one to talk to me I either read or watch Doctor Who to pass the time. I fell for Thirteen. I fell for twissy. Falling fast and hard and completely won over by their glamour.

I started internship. There were some small breaks where I could catch an episode or half, but never as much time as before. I dipped into fandom wiki and found that no matter how much research I did, there would always be details I overlooked simply because I could not afford hours watching all the episodes. No matter how hard I squeezed my schedule for time, no matter how much I devoted myself to the series, it would never be enough.

So I gave up, and let it go. For the first time in quite a while, I willingly gave up something for the simple reason of “I want to live a more comfortable life”.

 Came summer. Damp air combined with biting heat and piles after piles of biochemical terms made life agonizing. An ordinary kind of pre-pandemic “agonizing” which felt like a luxury in a world that was ending.

Hong Kong fell.

It was bound to happen. Once I heard protestors fought their way into the legislature I knew, for almost an year I knew, nothing good would come out of this. CCP would never allow its subjects acting out of hand. With such open despise to the authority, CCP would take nothing but a full conquest at the end of it.

See where we are now. As long as you’re “interfering” the political climate “inside” China, it doesn't matter which nationality you hold or where you were or how long it has been since you made the statement. “According to the law”, China can come for you. No, better, it can tell your country to hand you over. What a clever empire. What a graceful empire.

What a horrifying empire.

With the news I spiraled down fast. I kept away from the young Chinese woman I was exchanging letters with, I kept away from any kinds of Chinese social media, and the worst of all, I kept away from Good Omens, for it was sweet and kind and hopeful, for it reminded me of a time where fighting seemed to make a difference. I was empty and exhausted and a husk. Something must come out to fill the void. Someone needed to paint me in colors so that the world wouldn’t notice I was fading away.

I was surprised at who took the brush.

 After ten years, the first man I ever have a crush on strolled back into my life.

He was over thirty, but I always pictured him in his early twenties. Dark hair, eyes of grey or silvery blue. Loud laughter that sounded like a bark. Swift and elegant. Intelligent. Prideful. Stubborn. I embraced him as I’ve done ten years ago as a little child.

When I looked past him, I saw someone else.

Worn, weathered, with wry humor. Attentive and considerate. Tortured by the world yet never stop giving out kindness. Countless scars. Grey hair unfitting to his age. I didn’t pay him much attention ten years ago. This time, I looked.

Let me introduce you Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, my very first crush and the man who is too much like my last crush.

 2020, a month before Fall semester started, I trekked cautiously, timidly back into Harry Potter fandom.

The fandom of August 2020 was very different from fandom of 2010. The lack of author, for one – it became mandatory to denounce the author’s transphobic statement and other bigotry setting. I’m glad that everyone is doing their best to make it a friendly place for minority groups. Though I’m afraid, by making it a white or black situation with short statements and no discussion, it wouldn’t really help people understand why she is wrong in this. However irrefutable the author’s guilt seems to us, it is not something obvious to those who are unfamiliar with the subjects.

But it does feel good to see blogs and fics with the introduction such as “If you support the author’s transphobic bullshit this place does not welcome you”. It feels reliving.

The second was, I found the type of work I’m actively pursuing changed.

Back when I was young – when I was so little I didn’t even know what the word “fandom” meant – I read Character x OFC and some M x M. During the APH period I read an alarming amount of M x M and countless historical AU. When digging through solangelo, beside the canon divergence stories, simple AU like coffee shop grabbed my attention. Coming out stories were my comforts. The best of Good Omens fics were either in canon verse discussing desires, bravery, humanity and mortality, or setting in an AU with the promise of sweet, fluffy endings. Doctor Who almost always focused on Time and Space. Love was twisted and so often tainted by anger. Monster and god were very alike.

I came a full circle back to the Marauder era, and found myself not looking for heroes, but for young fighters struggling desperately in a seemingly hopeless war. I looked for people who were frightened but never, never ever going down without a fight.

I used to find characters and events unfolding in foreign places, now I want  characters who are close to what I am or what I want to be.

---

So, that’s it, my grand journey through multiple fandoms and basically a journey of self-discovery. It’s messy, sometimes painful, but always with so much joy blooming along the way.

Something doesn’t change. I’m still obsessed with words. I’m still a sucker for happy ending. I’m still wishing someone will come and love me the way I need to be loved.

Something does. I stop imagining that some magical power will come into my life and solve everything. I stop looking for others to save me from myself. I start believing that though wounds hurt, some of them do teach us to be a better person.

Long ago, I saw my friends and I as rabbits, without proper weapons to defend ourselves. That wouldn’t do. I thought. For my friends I’ll grow into a snake with fangs to protect them. Maybe I have grown into a snake. Maybe I haven’t. But I do hope I won’t stop fighting for those I love, with those I love.

I hope I won’t give up.

[chaotic-person]

some daydreams about "a nexus event", loki's 4º episode.

i just finished the fourth episode of loki. after a few minutes of freaking out and some reading posts here on tumblr, i formed certain conclusions about sylvie and loki (sylki), and i would like to share with you.

important: this post is MY opinion about the episode, i'm not the owner of the truth and much less speak for everyone in the community. if you have a different point of view than mine, that's fine! we are plural beings, with different opinions and worldviews. feel comfortable to comment if you like, i'll love to continue this conversation.

since the series was announced, we've all assumed it would be geared towards a development of loki, as, well, the title bears its name. we were prepared to see loki improving as a person, creating feelings, caring more about others, all that sentimental crap the character never had (for obvious reasons).

and that's what the series has been bringing: we've already seen loki getting emotional over his mother's death, loki becoming close to mobius, loki taking on his bisexuality, and most recent of all, loki (apparently) creating romantic feelings for sylvie. of all the events in the series, this last one is the one that has impacted the community the most (in the negative way), making it separate and start discussing some topics.

my idea is to try to bring both sides of the discussion together, but i know there is a possibility that i won't be able to. if that happens, i remind you that the comments are open, available for new opinions and points of view!

the first thing i read about it was: "sylvie and loki getting together is self-incestuous". some people defend this because sylvie is a loki from another reality, which suggests that loki is falling in love with himself, making a self-incestuous. i don't agree with that, simply because that's the only connection between sylvie and loki. taking away this characteristic of "loki in another reality", sylvie ends up becoming a totally different person from our loki, with a different history, with different habits, with different thoughts... anyway, she ceases to be a loki, and becomes just a sylvie. therefore, in particular, i don't think calling their relationship "self-incestuous" is really right.

the second thing is: "there is no need for sylki to exist". some people comment that a relationship between the two is a little meaningless, as the series should focus on the individual development of loki, not the development of a relationship. i admit that thinking in this perspective divides me a lot; in part i agree with that, as i had expectations that this series would show more of the loki using his abilities as a god of mischief, i hoped the series would focus on him improving as a person as he improved (further) his powers. however, another part of me disagrees with the issue, knowing that people are a key player in development; no character goes from "idiot who doesn't know anything" to "evolved person who learned from his mistakes" out of nowhere, he needs help from other people to get better, and a relationship with sylvie would be a great way to do that, in the context of the series.

finally, the third thing i want to comment is: "the relantionship between the two close the horizon of a bissexual loki and a bisexual sylvie". this topic is focused on the fact that some people expected a loki-mobius relationship, especially after loki canonically come out bisexual. guys, bisexual people like men AND women (or more genders), loki being involved with sylvie doesn't make him "less bisexual", on the contrary; it just shows that bisexuality, in definition, allows him to be involved with women as with men. it's kind of biphobic to undermine a person's bisexuality just because they're in a relationship with the opposite sex, and this type of speech only reinforces something that's been talked about for years: representation is a good thing, but it's almost useless when the audience doesn't really accept it.

with all these points given, i say i don't ship sylki. not because i think it's self-incestuous, not because i think it's unnecessary, not because i think it undermines their bisexuality. it's simply because i can't see anything romantic between the two of them; i spent the entire episode 3 seeing them as a couple of friends, who never leave each other alone and always tease each other. my mind has gotten used to this interpretation, and now that it's proving itself wrong, i can't help thinking that way.

i think that's it for today, my dears. remember this is a personal thing, leave comments if you think it's necessary, and thanks for reading this far! goodbye :)

[nandalorian]

So. I wasn’t going to post about Roswell, but now I am, so buckle up because this is going to be a long one.

A lot of people on Tumblr, Twitter, and the wider internet have, over the last few days, very intelligently posed criticisms of Roswell’s representation of POCs and queer characters in the context of Malex. While I have to be upfront about the fact that the problematic writing has made me apprehensive of seeing the show through to its next season, I’ve been pretty quiet on that front as I gather my thoughts and figure out what I need to say. As a white woman, I am upset and dismayed by the token and tone-deaf representation, but I feel like that’s not mine to speak to when there are a lot of people of colour in this fandom who can and should take this opportunity to explain, criticize, and educate the rest of us on how the show has failed and how it must do better. In that regard the most worthwhile contribution I can make is to listen and amplify those voices and their thoughts, feelings, experiences, and insights about the negative and at best lazy representation of people of colour on the show.

But as a bisexual woman and a professional writer and editor, I am in a position to criticize the queer representation from a political and social standpoint, but also a creative one. I am going to break this post up into two parts because there’s a lot I want to address about two separate issues, and I think the waters will get muddied if I try to combine it into one post. So let’s talk about Malex first, which is the subject about which, oddly enough, I feel the most calm. Depressed af, but mostly calm.

More under the cut.

A lot of people have already written about Malex or Tweeted Carina and the production team far more eloquently than I can manage, but the thing is, while I do have issues I’ll get into in a sec, I... actually think they have done a good job of writing Michael as a bisexual man and Alex as a gay one. That isn’t a popular opinion at the moment, but hear me out, because I have a lot more to say on the subject of bisexuality that doesn’t concern Michael Guerin. The show’s struggle isn’t entirely that their politics are bad. I do think the intentions are mostly good--mostly--but what I want to speak to is the breakdown between intentions and how those intentions translate to the screen through the medium of writing, direction, and the actors’ performances.

I don’t want to dismiss or disregard anyone who feels differently since that view is also totally valid and a lot of people have raised very fine points to that end. This is just my interpretation, so take it with a grain of salt and feel free to disregard or not. But my take is we can’t boil down the show’s issues to saying oh it’s biphobic or homophobic where Michael and Alex are concerned. I don’t think it is, not inherently.

The show’s struggle is that the writing is often so sloppy, rushed, and disjointed that it’s impossible to tell whether they don’t fully understand what positive queer representation is and what it isn’t, or if they just don’t know how to do it justice on TV. Perhaps it’s a combination of both, and right now I’m not writing off either possibility.

But I’m inclined to think it’s the latter. To be clear: the Malex/Maria triangle is shitty writing because love triangles frequently are, and they’re really, really difficult, if not impossible, to get right. The reason I think so many of us are up in arms about it is because the show rushed and stumbled its way through a 30-second supercut of Alex and Michael’s relationship from the word go, just enough to get us hooked before abandoning it for something else.

We’re pissed because it’s like they got us addicted to black tar heroin and then took away our fix just as the night sweats and shaky hands started to kick in, and at this point my life since episode 1x11 has been like a bad Trainspotting withdrawal montage. I don’t think they have intentionally baited us, although that is what it feels like. It’s taken a lot of angst and going back and forth on my part to arrive at this conclusion, and I will say I still waffle about it some days. But bad writing is bad because it pulls unintentionally negative reactions from people due to being misunderstood, or from creating all these wild implications the writers didn’t necessarily intend or realize were present in the final product.

The fact that Carina has to take to Twitter to explain each episode to viewers shows the quality of the writing or lack thereof. If it were stronger, she wouldn’t have to do that, but the show suffers from chronic exposition, incredibly bad pacing, and an overreliance on plot devices to advance the story rather than gradual and necessary character development. Sorry if that’s harsh, but the editor part of my brain sometimes wants to weep during episodes of Roswell. Oftentimes a bunch of shit will happen in an episode that doesn’t even progress the story, leaving us or the characters at exactly the same place they started off.

In short, everything happens too much. The characters feel like they have no agency because they are always reacting to one thing after another every episode, not even a second for them to breathe and be and let us see who they really are when the world isn’t on fire. And that’s all the characters, not just Alex and Michael, although arguably we have a bit more insight into the primary characters like the Pod Squad and Liz. But really, everything suffers as a result. The characters seem thin or underdeveloped and the sense of urgency, tension, and risk disappears even from theoretically high-stakes scenes like a live shooter at a hospital because we don’t get to see who the characters are in their normal lives. We don’t fully know what’s important to them before the next explosion happens.  

Adversity is a helpful writing tool because it can show us who characters are under a certain set of high-pressure circumstances, but boredom and normalcy is just as important for character development. You can’t tear down what we don’t know exists. Star Wars: A New Hope wouldn’t have been half as effective if we hadn’t seen Luke Skywalker in his day-to-day life before that simple life was upended and he got the call to adventure. The first stage of the hero’s journey is necessarily the boring part because we can’t cross from the known to the unknown world without seeing what the known world is.

We never really… get that with Roswell. Not even for a second. So of course we feel cheated of bisexual or gay representation in the show because we never actually get to see Michael and Alex in any kind of sustained relationship, healthy or not. It’s just conflict conflict conflict with a bit of sex and longing gazes thrown in, followed by more conflict and then the relationship ending in favour for a new one. All hat, no cattle. (Literally.)

With Michael we get to see some of his routine and him being himself with his family, etc., and a lot of that has to do with the incredible performances Michael Vlamis delivers week after week, although even then, that suffers. Rather than start us off slow and building relationships from the ground up, the season begins in conflict, so that it has the effect of it seeming like the town of Roswell has been vacant for 10 years and everyone moved back in the same day and started catching up on each other’s lives after a decade apart. You don’t get the sense that anyone really talks to each other, even though most of them have been living in the same place their whole lives. Every single relationship, from Isobel and Michael, Max and Michael, Max and Isobel, even Maria and Michael, could have been strengthened if they’d taken more time to lay that groundwork ahead of the conflict. Especially Maria and Michael! Imagine how much better this season would have worked if they’d had an existing relationship, friendship, or flirtation before Alex got back. By this point we’d be nodding and probably going, “Okay, I get it. I might not like it, but I get it.”

Alex by comparison is a total cypher where his background and his day-to-day life is concerned. We know almost nothing about him outside of his history of abuse, his tragic backstory with Michael, and his role in helping to uncover the mystery about the fourth alien. Yes, we’ve gotten to see that he is blunt and fiercely loyal to his friends, and he has serious issues with needing to be in control, which are all valid from a character development standpoint. I have come to desperately crave any and all scenes with him and Kyle because that seems to be when we get the most significant moments of character insight like that wonderful “I’m talking about a conversation, not a war” moment. But how much else do we know or understand about him that is canon, not fans’ headcanon?

Furthermore, the lack of context and representation around Alex’s disability as a veteran, amputee, and potentially as a PTSD-sufferer is really dangerous and feels like tokenism. The way they’ve written the existence of his injury feels inconsistent, and while showing his residual limb during a love scene was significant, they ruined any goodwill we might have developed toward them for that by simply never engaging with his disability again. Same with the fact that he is of Indigenous heritage, which we know FROM A TWEET but which the show has never actually engaged with explicitly, in a move taken straight from the J.K. Rowling Book of Bogus Representation. We don’t quite have enough information to know yet whether this is tokenism or bad writing, in Alex’s case, although I sincerely hope it isn’t the former. Based on everything I’ve seen so far, though, my hopes aren’t high, because it kind of feels like the writers want credit for representation when they haven’t actually done the legwork (yet?).

Maria suffers a similar lack of character development, and what started off promising when we got great scenes with her, Liz, and Alex and then met Mimi has quickly deteriorated to her being nothing more than Michael’s new love interest. As a woman of colour, that is lazy and shitty on multiple levels, and I just about hit the ceiling in 1x11 when they not only showed a black woman being drugged and her body used against her will--could you be more tone-deaf to those implications?!--but had two white women (Jenna and Isobel) accusing Maria of being a murderer to another WOC (Liz). Maria’s very thin character development in the latter half of the season has had the dual effect of making us feel like we’ve been cheated out of a relationship we have gotten attached to but haven’t been given time to fully appreciate or understand (Malex) and thrust into a new one that feels weak, arbitrary, and rote by comparison.

I actually don’t object to the idea of Michael and Maria as a couple. They have great chemistry. But I do object to the lack of development they’ve given us on either front, either Michael/Maria or doing serious justice to Malex as a ship. To think all of that could’ve been solved if the writers had slowed down the show’s pacing and actually given themselves and the characters time to breathe and get to know each other, and us them.

What I feel a lot of straight/white/cis/able-bodied writers don’t seem to understand is that representation takes care. It’s great to say you’re going to write a diverse show and have lots of representation, but it’s for naught if you don’t also understand that you can’t write diversity in the same way you’d write a character coming from a place of privilege, be it racial, socioeconomic, gender, sexuality, ability, etc. Part of that privilege is having a lot of generally positive understanding and assumptions about those characters already built in, especially from your viewers who share that privilege. Writing diversity takes WORK, a lot of attention to detail, sensitivity, and most of all the ability to listen. It takes a lot of consultation with people who have those experiences and know what they’re talking about, because the experiences, assumptions, and biases of nondiverse writers just can’t fully capture what minorities know and live every day of their lives. To do otherwise is how we arrive at whitesplaining, mansplaining, straightsplaining, etc. If you’re a white/straight/cis/able-bodied person and think you’ve done enough to positively represent your diverse characters, that probably means you need to do more. It’s not for you to judge how much is “enough.” That’s for your consultants and, most importantly, your viewers. And if those people are telling you you’ve missed the mark, the next best thing you can do is stfu and listen to them and try to learn how to do better, not get defensive or start patting yourself on the back for everything else you’ve done.

I think those principles can be applied to all the representation on the show, including that of POCs, the differently abled, and the queer characters. I think the writers have done enough with Michael and Alex as queer characters on their own, but they’ve missed the mark on doing enough with them together. Because--and I know this will come as a shock--part of writing queer characters is also giving us well fleshed-out queer relationships. They started off down that road, but at some point the road abruptly ended and left us as viewers feeling stranded in the middle of a desert. That’s uneven writing that results in a feeling of uneven representation, and as far as viewers are concerned, it amounts to the same thing.

Carina’s attempts to explain why they’ve done nothing wrong to viewers via Twitter and social media is sheer intentional fallacy. And while we’re at it, I’ve spent a lot of this season wanting to take Twitter away from her and throw a copy of “The Death of the Author” at her head instead. It’s not enough, Carina. What you intended isn’t enough if it’s not there on the page or visible to us on the show. As a writer she should understand that, but instead she is getting defensive of her abilities as a screenwriter and showrunner when fans pipe up to say whatever she intended isn’t translating properly. We aren’t seeing that representation, which means the writers need to do more than what they think is “enough.”

Add into that a rushed, arbitrary love triangle with an underdeveloped black female character and an underdeveloped gay POC with a disability, especially when those two characters are also best friends whose relationship is severely threatened as a result, and there’s no wonder why viewers are up in arms about this. I don’t think the love triangle makes Michael seem like an indecisive or promiscuous bisexual--and anyway, since when is being promiscuous a bad thing. It just makes him and Maria seem careless of Alex’s feelings and like Alex is the victim, which they could have avoided by taking their time with the characters/relationships, especially the vulnerable ones, or by avoiding such a lazy and unnecessarily dramatic trope in the first place, or at the very least establishing the characters and their relationships enough that our current situation felt more organic.

So really this kind of leaves us at an impasse, I think, as fans. I think people ought to keep speaking up to Carina if they think that will help, but I think it’s also important for us to be able to separate bad politics from bad writing, or at least be able to engage with them as separate things that occasionally (or frequently) overlap with disastrous consequences. I’m sure there are a lot of people who will disagree with this utterly, and that’s fine. Could be I’m totally wrong, and I am aware that I’m probably giving the writers too much credit about what they may or may not have intended.

But with regards to Alex and Michael, maybe it will help to understand what’s happening from this standpoint and tailor our approach accordingly. We really can’t take it upon ourselves to make demands upon the show in terms of what story they want to tell, but we can certainly complain when they aren’t telling that story effectively or when it alienates viewers, especially on points of diversity and representation.

But I don’t know. It could be the only way to make ourselves heard, to tell the writers when they are and aren’t doing “enough,” is to vote with our time, attention, and viewership, whether that means continuing to watch the show or stopping altogether. And that’s kind of a bummer, because there was a lot of potential. But if the quality of the storytelling is unable to make heard the voices and experiences it ought to, especially with such a receptive, enthusiastic audience, then maybe it’s time we start looking for other shows that do a better job, or better yet, continue to keep telling and creating our own.

Those are just my thoughts. Please feel free to discuss with me in the comments or via DM, because I’m still talking through this stuff and welcome the conversation and any alternate or opposing viewpoints.

I’ll be back in a bit to share a second post with my far less forgiving thoughts about Roswell’s representation of queer female sexuality, because that one’s a doozy and the gloves come off. Sorry not sorry in advance.

[a-polite-melody]

Two big things that prevent (initially ace, but then it kinda turned into all types of) “discourse” from actually... being a discourse, as in a productive discussion, are 1) that aphobes purposefully use misrepresentations and as dismissive language as possible in regards to aspec orientations, and 2) REGs insistence that they talk about oppression as being ranked (as in you can say who is most oppressed and can rank down to least oppressed in a group of people).

The first is pretty self-explanatory. It’s much easier to get people who are uneducated/undereducated on a topic to agree with you quickly if you use strawmen versions of your opponents arguments to make them seem as though they’re being unreasonable or spreading blatant falsehoods.

This includes things like, instead of saying, “asexuals aren’t oppressed,” which is their real argument, saying, “people aren’t oppressed for not fucking.” At this point, anyone with any cursory knowledge about ace discourse knows that asexuality is not, as a community or “umbrella” definition, about whether or not people have sex. Aphobes specifically use the second statement because they’re using what they can to portray inclusionists as having nonsensical arguments, which is to twist and misrepresent us.

Similarly, I’d place, “cishets aren’t oppressed/cishets aren’t LGBT,” here as well. Cishet no longer is a useful term to describe anyone who has societal power over all LGBT+ and queer people under pericisheteronormative society. That’s what the term was coined to refer to. Now, when someone says cishet, I have to dig to make sure that’s what they mean, because REGs use cishet in a few different ways, and none of them are its original definition. Usually they mean it as, “a person who is cis, het, and aspec,” or, “a person with a fake MOGAI identity trying to be special,” or even just, “someone I disagree with,” as there are many people, myself included, who can attest to the fact that we, as trans and queer individuals, were called cishet simply because we disagreed with a REG.

That second reason is where things get a little more tricky, but also is one of the similarities between different types of REGs, which we’ve used to group them all as exclusionary gatekeepers of some description.

It is in all REGs’ best interest to most always (if not always) talk about oppression as if it is able to be ranked. By ranking oppression like this, or in other words, by doing exactly the opposite of what intersectionality requires, they can arbitrarily determine that certain people who may be highly vulnerable are actually, by their “true” standards, twisting the narrative and stealing other groups’ oppression.

TERFs claim that ‘Males’ are appropriating the oppression of women by calling themselves trans. These ‘transes’, when they claim they are oppressed by cis people for being trans, are claiming that ‘Females’ can oppress ‘Males’ based on sex, or are appropriating our oppression from us.

Truscum/transmeds/trumeds (why do we need so many words?) claim that ‘nonbinaries/MOGAIs’ are appropriating the oppression of trans people by calling themselves this nonbinary/MOGAI identity. These ‘MOGAIs’, when they claim they are oppressed by binary gendered people for not adhering to the gender binary, are claiming that ‘true trans people’ can oppress ‘cis snowflakes’ based on gender, or are appropriating our oppression from us.

Biphobes/mspec-antagonists claim that ‘bihets/etc.’ are appropriating the oppression of LG people by calling themselves gay/queer/not straight when they’re in a ‘het’ relationship. These ‘bihets’, when they claim they are oppressed by the monosexuals for experiencing attraction to multiple genders, are claiming that ‘LG people’ can oppress ‘bihets’ based on orientation, or are appropriating our oppression from us.

Aphobes claim that ‘aceys’ are appropriating the oppression of LGB+ people by calling themselves part of the community for being asexual. These ‘aceys’, when they claim they are oppressed by the allos for not experiencing attraction, are claiming that ‘actual LGB+ people’ can oppress ‘people who feel special for not fucking’ based on orientation/having sex, or are appropriating our oppression from us.

This. Isn’t how any of these things work. There are many different facets to both gender-based and orientation-based oppression. The existence of both oppression against women and oppression against trans people can coexist. The existence of oppression against people who are attracted to the same gender, oppression against people who are attracted to multiple genders, and oppression against people who are attracted to no genders can coexist. Because they’re all separate axes, even if they are all related. There’s interplay between these axes that we can’t ignore, but we also can’t really use any of this to rank oppression. The systems are too complicated for that.

And, beyond that, it’s just. Not necessary to determine who is more oppressed than whom. It’s not doing anything productive. It’s wasting our energy on infighting instead of creating better spaces, collecting and distributing more information, and other much more useful and helpful things that’ll end up benefiting all of us, especially those who are in vulnerable positions. Essentially, I think it’s much better to focus on making life better for the most vulnerable or oppressed of us than it is to determine who exactly is the most oppressed.

REGs go completely against that, mostly as a way to further push respectability politics to keep their optics up. Can’t have anyone too ‘out there’ hanging around when the oppressors we’re sucking up to to get extremely conditional acceptance from happen to glance at us. We need to portray ourselves as sanitized as possible so we don’t upset them. :/ (if you couldn’t tell, I don’t like this)

(Also, inb4 “stop comparing exclusionists/truscum/whatever to TERFs!” I’m not. I’m just pointing out that all exclusionary gatekeepers, of which all of the groups I called REGs are, tend to use very similar language and ideas. And those things did just so happen to originate from radfem arguments.)

[writcraft]

Hey! So I’m really interested in your take on bi people in th lgbt community and the bi erasure that exists especially at pride events. How does that impact the community and it’s feeling of being part of the wider community. Also if you have any advice for the LG for how to be better allies

Anon, this topic makes me feel so much and thank you for asking. Particularly the part about how LG people can be better allies, I actually nearly cried when I read your ask because this is, as you likely know because you’re sending me this ask, a topic that is very, very close to my heart. 

I’m going to put this beneath a cut. It got long.

ask me stuff, tell me stuff - whatever goes!

Even before I knew the term ‘bierasure’ I was scared of going into queer spaces. I remember the first night I went to a gay bar, heart pounding. My first thought was that the bouncers might not let me in because I wasn’t ‘gay enough.’ It wasn’t like I was with a big group, I was actually by myself. Yep, the first time I went to a gay bar, I was alone. I had long come to understand I was bisexual but there would be many different moments of going back into the closet, coming out with a battle cry, and going right back into the closet again, and it took me a lot longer to start finding spaces to go than it did to work the rest of it out. I didn’t know what I was doing that night, only that I was craving something. A community. A sense of solidarity. The hope that I might have a drink and an awkward chat with someone who actually understood. Maybe I wanted to hook up too, I have no idea. I just wanted to go into the damn bar, have a drink and maybe chat with someone who wouldn’t make it all seem so frightening.

That night I went into the bar with very little confidence, but since then my confidence in who I am, my sexuality (I’m still working on gender stuff) has grown enormously, and I’ve found sanctuary in queer space and at LGBTQ+ events. Even those places though, sometimes make me feel at odds with others in LGBTQ+ communities. I’ve had some bad experiences at Pride events for example, the more openly ‘bisexual’ I’ve become. Pride events have been in many ways brilliant, transformative, glorious days, but I can tell you that as much as being within those spaces has made my heart sing, I have also encountered biphobia. There was the dude who told me I wasn’t bi, just bored. The lesbian who refused to believe I was queer and decided I was straight. The friend - my friend - I went to Pride with who introduced me as a lesbian because oh darling it’s so much easier and the person who thought I must just be confused. These are multiple instances at multiple different events and to be very clear - because I often see posts saying ‘don’t assume a man and a woman at Pride are straight or not trans etc. - all of these instances happened when I was pretty much, by myself. I attend most Prides without a partner. I go with friends, who I am very clearly not hooking up with. These comments came about simply as a result of me saying I am bisexual. 

How does that impact my sense of community? It impacts it a huge amount. It makes me feel like if I’m having a random conversation with someone in a gay bar I have no desire to hook up with, I should just use the label that nobody quibbles. It makes me feel talking to straight friends I should just use the label that nobody quibbles. In both instances it shoves me back into a closet that hurts, and it’s not somewhere I want to be.

I’m using Pride and nights out as part of my personal experience, but one defining moment that made me understand how much biphobia really permeates was when I went to a training session run by actual Stonewall (the biggest and most prominent UK LGBT charity) on bisexuality and the bisexual person running the event had just got married to someone of the opposite sex. He said, I know I’m speaking to a group of bisexual people, but part of me worried you wouldn’t think of me as queer enough to host this session. THE ACTUAL HOST OF A BISEXUAL TRAINING SESSION TO BISEXUAL PEOPLE. That is what biphobia does. It leaves us in the cracks, in the margins. It makes us feel like we’re not enough even when we couldn’t be surrounded by a more welcoming audience. It makes us feel isolated, lost, alone and like the rainbow flag that gets raised with such vigour isn’t really for us. It’s why bisexual people are statistically more likely to experience mental health issues than their LG counterparts. Bisexual people are not straight and they experience an enormous amount of marginalisation, higher chances of domestic violence, higher chance of being below the poverty line and so on. 

THIS GOT LONG I’M SORRY. In terms of how LG people can be better allies I’m so fucking tired I would literally say believe bisexuals exist and call out biphobia in your communities when you see it. That’s the best thing you can do. Also to people who find it ‘easier’ to lay your chips down as gay or straight in casual conversation if you’re safe to do so don’t. Be bisexual. Let us exist. Only of course if it’s something you can do, but I have honestly so many friends who have told me they are bisexual but it’s ‘easier’ to say they are gay and they’re in a happy same-sex partnership, it makes my heart hurt. Please be brave, if it’s not going to put you in danger. If you’re pan or queer or attracted to people of different genders please don’t perpetuate the biphobic ‘bisexuals are transphobic’ myth. Bi, literally, means two, but its origins are from the same place as homo and hetero sexuality. Bisexuality has nothing to do with gender it’s the inbetween of a homo/hetero sexuality binary. There are many, many bisexuals, myself included who experience attraction to all genders, all sexes, all people. Do not make bisexuality a binary male/female issue, it is not, it never has been.

FINALLY as to how LG people can be better allies apart from the whole ‘bi people exist’ thing, there’s an important conversation happening that does impact bisexual people at big events like Pride which relates to the appropriation of queer space. The two, unfortunately, intersect. Queerness has become more mainstream and as a result there are a lot of people occupying queer space these days (the dreaded hen do in a gay bar) and that contributes to the issues people have when they see people who seem ‘straight’ in queer space. There is a history of non-queer people infiltrating places that are supposed to offer refuge and I get all of the concerns around wanting to feel comfortable in the places you’ve fought so hard to build and protect. Just remember we’ve fought for those places too. Us bisexuals. Please don’t make assumptions about peoples rights to access a particular place, they could be bisexual, they could be trans, you don’t know why they are there, or what those places might mean to them.

I just. I don’t know. If a person in a plaid shirt who cares so passionately about queer stuff comes up to you (me, it is me) be an ally by saying, hi. Nice to meet you. You’re bisexual? Cool, I believe you. Let’s get a beer.

[ruffiorocks]

Looking for offence where there is none.

Wow! So I have learned something from the short time I have been on Tumblr is people literally will find any reason to be offended. I mean like they really reach to scrape the bottom of the barrel for that non existent offence they so desperately need. I'm beginning to think that some people have felt so offended their whole lives (maybe they have? I know some will most definitely of had) that they simply don't feel comfortable without something to be offended by. It's not just the LGBTQ+ community either, it's the straight community to. It's honestly got to the point where it plays out like this:

Person A *inhales*

Person B "Omg! Stop offending me!"

Person A *exhales*

Person B "For God's sake! Stop oppressing us! You and everyone in your community are d**kheads! Im reporting you!"

Yep, that's is basically what I am seeing. Someone only has to breath, have some difference of opinion and suddenly they are racist, transphobic, homophobic, biphobic, misogynistic or straightphobic (is that a word?)

Now I only scroll through the Supergirl tag mostly. But man! (Waiting for someone to call me out and be offended I said 'man' and not 'woman') some members of the fandoms really do spend the majority of their time on here looking for offence in every post don't you? Notice how I said 'some' and not 'all'? Yeah that's because generalising (one of those things people find offensive but do anyway) isn't cool. So one or two of the fans are d**kheads, that doesn't mean everyone is. Yes I know it's not just 'one or two' before the haters come for me. I am simplifying. But just because a gang of men were misogynistic towards you doesn't mean you would say 'ALL me are bad!' Or you run into a group of women who are homophobic you wouldn't then say 'ALL women are homophobic!' Would you? If you would please seek some help.

Now recently I've seen a lot of Supercorp posts that simply show gifs of Kara and Lena and it says they are showing heart eyes. Perfectly harmless, no mis tagging for the tag police, and yet I see 'That's fan interpretation!' Well yes, well done you 👏 of course it's fan interpretation, what else would it be? So then it's followed up with 'that's fanon and not canon!' Well again, yes of course it is. Isn't that the whole point of shipping? This coming from people who actual ship non canon couples. Hypocrisy aside I don't see how this offends someone ? Please enlighten me because it seems that that is scrapping the barrel looking for offence where there is none.

I mean do you have a daily offence quota you have to hit before midnight before you turn back into a pumpkin?

Anything that is different to what another person ships seems to carry full on offence now.

Person A 'I didn't like the James and Kara pairing'

Person B 'Omg! How dare you! You must be a racist there is no other reason why you would say that! Don't even try to make an excuse! We see you!'

Person A 'er.... it's not because he's black, I actually really liked him with Lucy, I wish they were still a thing'.

Person B, silent because they assumed racism from someone they didn't know. Quick, we need a new argument to throw at them, oh I know, 'well then you must be gay and a Supercorp shipper!' Congratulates themselves on finding a new offence.

Person A, "Actually I don't ship Supercorp, I like the idea of Lena with Winn'.

Person B, *dumbfounded* needs another reason to be offended because they can't admit they were simply ignorant arses who assumed, and completely ignore the fact they just assumed someone was gay. "Well then you must be homophobic!' Once again congratulating themselves on coming out on top!

Person B, *exasperated* "So, in the last 5 minutes I've gone from racist, to gay, to homophobic? If I say I don't ship Nia and Brainy will you then call me transphobic and I can have a full house? I think I may have more reason to be the offended party in this conversation'.

Person B, still not brave enough to admit they have been acting ridiculous this whole time decides to try and have the last word with 'stay in your own lane and tags!'

THIS! ^^ I see this frequently. That right there is scrapping the barrel looking for offence where there is none. So some people on here are petty, some are homophobic, some are transphobic, some racist, some bi phobic and some misogynistic. But here's the thing, just because someone isn't agreeing with EVERYTHING you want to happen on the show or simply doesn't have the same view does not mean they are out to get you. Please for the love of RAO stop looking for offence were there is none.

Sending ❤ to the Supercorp, Karamel, GuardianCorp, Winnara shippers. (That's all I could think of) Your ship is valid, you aren't wrong to ship them. Ignore the haters. Every ship has its issues.

Just waiting for someone to say I'm offensive now.