#so when they get out of that they kinda experiment with their concept of womanhood

[vaugarde]

oh one of the things i wanted to draw but never did (and idk if i will) was like a concordia and anthea + gladion friendship specifically. like they have a lot in common with being older siblings that felt responsible for the abuse going on at home but concordia and anthea stayed and were stable ended up miserable for it while gladion escaped but felt guilty for leaving lillie behind and literally ended up in a team that didn’t accept him and on the run. so they could be friends and in my hc this would be when the sisters have left unova and retrieved their new pokemon (no pokeballs though, still uncomfortable with those), so they’re trying to really discover who they are and their identities apart from each other.

i imagine gladion really helps them specifically with accepting their more unconventional nontraditional interests and living on their own as a fellow former rich kid, and they all learn that no matter what happened in their respective households, theyre not at fault just because they were older, it was all on their parents. so all of them relieve their guilt to some extent. 

i also like to think that anthea specifically tries to reform the aether foundation but idk. she may feel uncomfortable given the type null stuff.

also by “nontraditional” i mean gladion gets them into punk style

[cityandking]

🖊️🚫🌈💙😓 for dai, minah and vesper!

ty my dear!! // details about ocs

🖊️ BALLPOINT PEN — does your oc have any tattoos? do they want any (more) tattoos?

DAI — yes he has one! he got a lil bicep band of a mountain range for airedon on his left arm. he's happy with just the one tbh; he's got more than enough funky body markings already and doesn't need more (rip to the extensive scarring)

MINAH — after a lot of thought and consideration I must acknowledge that she has no (0) tattoos. she's too paranoid to get permanent marks on her body that might be used to track her. however! she totally would in the future. that girl deserves to be tatted up

VESPER — she has a little owl stick-n-poke on her thigh to commemorate passing her harrowing

🚫 PROHIBITED — does your oc drink/smoke? do they do it regularly, or is it more on occasion or for special events?

DAI — drinks socially sometimes, mostly on special occasions. usually he only has an ale or two. he's not particularly interested in getting drunk; he likes to keep his mind clear

MINAH — definitely drinks, and honestly I think she'd partake in some elfroot or other smoked herb too. she enjoys a bit of a substance as a social event—catch her in the tavern after a show every night. that said, she doesn't like getting too inebriated

VESPER — she drinks, sometimes to excess. not so much anymore, but definitely you can tell when things are getting bad for her because she'll be in the tavern later and longer every night. fortunately her friends look out for her

🌈 RAINBOW — what is your oc's sexual orientation/gender identity? what pronouns do they use?

DAI — cis man (he/him), gay + ace-spec. before zaref he'd never even considered any kind of relationship and was perfectly content with that; zaref turned a lot of things upside down for him

MINAH — cis woman (she/her), bi. minah's the kinda gal who'll try anything (or anyone) for the novelty. she spent a few years exclusively hooking up with ladies, but honestly she has a slight preference for men

VESPER — cis woman (she/her) (though she's not particularly tied to the concept of womanhood), bi + demisexual

💙 BLUE HEART — does your oc have any cool/special powers and/or abilities? how are they with magic, if it exists in their world?

DAI — he's a cleric and a paladin and a demigod so that's a yes on the special powers and abilities. his got perpetual truesight, so many spells, and the ability to project an aura of hope as part of his demigod shtick. he's quite adept with magic

MINAH — minah doesn't know jack shit about magic and has no inherent abilities, though she's starting to learn a bit about how it works and has a number of magical items on her person. tbh magic for magic's sake freaks her out, but she can use an item or an object and view it as just a process/a system, which she's way better at managing (I'd like for her to multiclass into bard eventually, so I guess she better get on that)

VESPER — vesper was a proficient mage before inquisition, and she's only honed her knowledge and her experience since then. she's got the cool/special power of closing rifts and also of knowing So Much about the fade. she's an excellent mage

😓 DOWNCAST FACE WITH SWEAT — is your oc open-minded or stubborn? are they inquisitive or do they prefer to keep to their bubble of knowledge?

DAI — magnificently stubborn, but willing to learn. if there's anything he's learned so far it's that the world(s) are far bigger and more complicated than he can imagine, and he's genuinely come to enjoy expanding his worldview

MINAH — quite stubborn, but a lot of what drives her is a desire to know things and discover the truth. she can be pretty inquisitive when the mood strikes

VESPER — she's extremely open minded and always eager to learn more. she really never grew out of her childhood wonder stage; so many things have faded and faltered around her but her desire to learn and grow and expand her understanding has remained strong through it all

[agitowarrioroftheforest]

Thoughts on gender locked magic. Specifically the concepts of Witches. Discussion of gender essentialism and transphobia.

Ok this is a pretty common thing to run into in fiction. The idea that “Only women can become witches.”

But I have always wondered, but Why though? What is the reason only women get access to magic? What about their soul makes that a thing and why is that gender locked to woman as a gender specifically?

These fictional worlds with such a magic system always come with gender essentialism to me. They were not structured to include trans people. More likely because we weren’t a thought to the author.

Would a trans girl suddenly be able to do magic when she realizes? Would she always have had magic? Likewise, would a trans boy suddenly lose the ability to do magic? Did he never have any? People’s individual transitions are so unique, how would that effect their access to magic and how would that not be exclusionary? What about nonbinary people? What are genderfluid people who are women sometimes going to do? It all gets very complicated the moment you consider trans people and anyone whose gender is not binary.

It just strikes me as gender essentialism to say that only one gender has access to magic. I can never understand what in particular makes a character “worthy” of magic because of their gender, If we are going to look at gender with less binary expectations, then gender locking magic kinda goes against that goal.

Why has this cosmic magic or being that gives magic chosen “being a woman” as their qualifications?

If it’s about the oppression of misogyny, there are trans men and nonbinary people who experience that as well with no choice in the matter of how other people misgender us.

If it’s about a specific kind of physical body or genital, then there is no way to make that not exclusionary. If it’s about the trauma that young girls go through (Example: Madoka magica’s answer to this, where that trauma creates Energy to stop the heat death of the universe.) then that *still* becomes trans exclusionary, because there are people whose childhoods may have looked like that of young girls to society but were not, and were still traumatic in extremely similar, or the same ways. (right now i’m talking specifically about trans men and women who came out after adulthood and didn’t 100% know they were trans as kids. Madoka’s system also has no room for nonbinary people. )

The gender essentialist concept of "women are Closer to Nature and More Primal and have Secret Knowledge" also plays into this, and on top of that being something I don’t believe. I don’t think it’s smart to treat any gender as somehow secretly better than another.

Talking a bit more personally here, I did struggle to come out, and one reason because of people, who called themselves progressive feminists(in actuality this was a mindset from radfems), who treated the possibility of me being a boy as some kind of threat or loss. I’m definitely feminist, I want to make that clear. But I don’t stand for any kind of system that treats one gender as better or treats you as some kind of traitor because you didn’t turn out to be a woman.

I think that is the heart of the issue of why gender locked magic hits a sore spot.

The frustration that the experiences I have had, being treated like facets of womanhood. I know I and people like me don’t fit in magic systems like these, that there just isn’t a place there. So that part is alienating all on it’s own. I don’t have fond feelings for this trope. On top of all this, Trans men just aren’t considered in most media. There’s a sense of invisibility to finding representation. That isn’t just what I’ve noticed. Glaad has some stats laid out.

I feel like i’d be more interested in a world with this kind of magic if the point was about breaking and challenging this exclusionary magic system. Or perhaps, centering a transmasc perspective about losing magic because the system is exclusionary and how truly fucked up of an experience that must be in a society that places your value in magic.

Even in the few cases where a magic system is trans affirming to trans woman, trans men don’t seem to exist in the creator’s eyes. I am not going to name where this came from, but it did frustrate me that in a specific world that called itself queer friendly, cis and trans women and nonbinary people could become witches, but trans men got basically nothing. Didn’t seem to exist. A huge flaw in a world I really wanted to like and now just can not engage in without being reminded that people like me don’t belong. I get enough of that in real life.

My personal feeling is “fuck exclusionary magic!” like anyone in these fictional worlds should have the ability to become a witch. It shouldn’t be locked to a nebulous gendered expectation. (It shouldn’t just extend to magic too. Gender locked hair styles and clothing and pitches of voices in games also fall into gender essentialism. “You can’t be X if you look like Y.” Is exclusionary and transphobic, just on it’s own.)

[corvidinthewoods]

a new philosophy tube video came out and i have a lot of thoughts. i left this all as a comment on youtube, but i figured i might get better discussion elsewhere so im posting it here too. i put it under a readmore cause its kinda long and i dont want it to clog up ppl's dash, especially if discussion turns into a reblog chain (which would be nice!!!)

specifically this is thinking about what she said regarding gender dysphoria and pathologization and stuff

i started hrt in february 2020, so before any changes could be easily seen the world went into lockdown. i also got top surgery in april 2021, less isolated but still not especially opened back up yet

i don’t see my extended family very often just due to geography, so with covid it became even less frequent. the first time i spent time with some of my aunts after starting T, I think was thanksgiving or christmas 2021. So, at that point a lot of changes had happened and I imagine for my extended family it was much more sudden than for my immediate family and friends. That probably contributed to why gender and transition came up in conversation.

One of my aunts is fairly tall for a cis women, and she wondered why people choose transition over a different way of being their agab. she shared a memory of hers from growing up, how she felt like she wasn’t Correctly Female because of her height. But at one point she joined a tall womens social group, and was actually only just over the minimum height requirement. There, she was actually shorter than most of the other women and it helped her feel better in her own womanhood.

That’s a very nutshell retelling of it, but her full explanation sounded to me just like gender dysphoria, based on both my own experience and on what i’ve read of the experiences of others. It wasn’t the point of her question so I didnt bring it up, but it did (and obviously still has) stuck with me

Later, I went into a trans-focused discord community and asked others whether they thought cis people could feel dysphoria. The consensus from answers i received was ‘no’, and that surprised me.

For a while now I’ve also been feeling that the line between ‘cisgender’ and ‘transgender’ is a false binary, just like with the male/female binary.

I’ve recently been going back to Contrapoints videos, and in one of them she talks a bit about how her conception of gender and transness has changed, particularly with regards to trying to categorize it. She said her current mindset was that some things about human existence are just irrational, and will always defy attempts to group them. So rather than endlessly try and make them make sense, it’s better to just accept them.

I feel like this could apply to gender dysphoria, if we approach it in the more linguistic sense like when Abby Thorn used the word to summarize her feelings when someone asked “how are you”. Sometimes when a person is feeling dysphoric, the solution is adjusting her view on tall womanhood. Sometimes the solution is taking bioidentical hormone therapy. Sometimes it’s hormone replacement therapy, sometime’s its surgeries to change sex characteristics like breasts or genitals. Sometimes it’s just a feeling that we have to cope with and eventually let pass, like nervousness or sadness. There’s no way to systematically decide ahead of time what the outcome of ‘feeling dysphoric’ should be, and when you try to make that system you can end up with the clusterfuck going on in the uk.

[bybdolan]

i absolutely get you with what you're experiencing with Barbie, i'm genderfluid and lately i've been kinda feeling "detached" from i guess not MY womanhood but the concept in general? (does that make sense? idk) i went with my group of friends and they all had different reactions so to me the thing that took me out of place was one of them (who's het/cis) feeling extremely empowered by it. which good for her! but idk, the way she talks about the movie makes me feel like I'M not getting something? like i'm missing a piece of the puzzle? but also having another friend feeling kinda neutral about the movie (in that regard) made me feel a bit better so yes, i agree with that anon, going with friends might make you feel a bit better in terms of being able to maybe have a similar experience or feeling towards the movie as your friends.

yea for me it was sitting in a theatre full of women who had gotten dressed up in pink and had the full Barbie experience and feeling like "... was that it?" when I left the movie. because sooo many ppl I know LOVED it and it was getting rave reviews and I didn't feel what it wanted me to feel. Which partially might also be because my vision of feminism is a different one, but alas. It's super interesting to see how things that are presented and marketed as ~Uniting Experiences of Womanhood~ can lead to these varied feelings and reactions.

[mylevisdontfitanymore]

Um idk if you’d be down to talk about transfem Nat at all? But I’m kinda thinking about college frat au beer belly bro stuff lately? But I’m also a big bi trans girl mess😣😣😣 And the thought of wholesome bros Steve, Bucky and Sam supporting their new sis (while also the four of them become tubby bloated beer barrels🤣😫🥵) is very cute and sweet to me🥺 (also may I posit Cute Natasha ginger tummy fuzz🤔🤔)

Sure! I'm down!

I mean, I only have the opposite experience of being a trans guy, but I am so so down for this concept™️

Also, it reminds me of this post because... college frats/sororities + belly kink 🤤🤤

Which, the above post is breeding/pregnancy kinks not bloating and that brings up a point I am just kinda curious about (and obviously this isn't an across the board thing™️) but personally I feel that part of my pregnancy kink comes from the fact that I'm a trans guy and I can't get someone pregnant like a cis guy could. However, the idea of being able to get someone pregnant feels right. Like, I should have a cis dick and I should be able to get someone pregnant and the fact that I can't sometimes can be dysphoria-indusing. The same as how dysphoric I feel about being able to get pregnant myself because pregnancy is so highly linked to the Peak Of Womanhood and I'm not a woman 🤮

Ergo,,

A pregnancy kink because I feel like being able to get someone pregnant is kind of an experience I'm missing (even if pregnancy scares sound Terrible and I don't want kids irl), so it's on my mind in that way and on my mind because the opposite of a fear is a fetish. And I am very afraid if becoming pregnant myself so... it's possible it loops back into a fetish there 👀

Blah, blah, blah-

This only relates back to your ask as I wonder outloud- if trans women or other trans femmes out there have a higher chance at developing a kink for pregnancy because they, in a similar vein of what I described, feel like they should be able to be pregnant or want to be pregnant so bad? 🤔

And with that aside, well, aside now I'll get into your ask!

Trans femme Natasha

I love her. She sounds wonderful and so do her friends. I love pure allies like that 🥺

Warning for Samtasha belly kink, beer chugging, slight pregnancy kink, drunken confessions, etc.

Imagine:

Frat bros Steve, Bucky, and Sam yelling, "GET IT GIRL!" chanting "CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!" at the top of their lungs in the middle of a frat party, their voices even lounder than the pounding house music and the other people crammed in around them, shoulder-to-shoulder. Sweaty. Hot.

They and the whole crowd is watching her go to town on the keg.

Steve and Bucky are holding it up for Natasha. And Nat is just drinking and drinking and drinking. Her throat bobbing fast as she tries to get it all down before it can spill out of her lips; chugging over breathing for as long as she can stand it. Still, some beer is still dripping down her chin and onto her neck- not that it matters right now, she's too tipsy to care the sight she makes. (It's quiet the sight too 😳 specifically to Sam. 🤭) Shit, she doesn’t even care that her belly is filling up right in front of the onlookers eyes. Her custom cropped frat t-shirt (she's always wanted to try crop tops, they looked so pretty, so the first thing she did after coming out was take scissors to half her shirts) shamelessly showing off the bloat and ginger fuzz on her tummy.

Sam's eyes are glued to her like she's the only person in the room, even though that's far from the case.

She's beautiful.

Especially beautiful when she finally gets the last drop down her hungry throat, pulling away victoriously, gasping for air, with her lipgloss smeared all over her face. Her eyes are heavily lidded and dark. Beer is wet and shiny over her face and neck. Bucky slaps one of her shoulders and Steve slaps her other shoulder. They're both laughing and hounding her like they always do. Grabbing her and shaking her around.

Sam has to join in, despite how... aroused starstruck he feels, looking at her. "Now those are the lady-like manners I like to see!" He laughs boisterously, his words underscoring her loud burp, hardly muffled behind one of her hands, held to her messy lips.

Natasha flips him off with her other hand while burping again, but she still lets him steer her through the crowd back to the lonesome garage couch when she can't walk by herself. There's too much weight pinned to her front for her to walk plus, she's too tipsy.

With his hands on her shoulders, moving her through the crowd, Sam puts his lips against her temple. Talking low so that shes the only one to hear in the party as he takes the the piss out of her, saying, "imagine how many less elbows and shoulders would be bumping you if you told 'em you were pregnant and not just full of beer. That's how you'd get the best treatment. Shit. We 'oughta pull a prank like that. We'll put a keg in you and walk you around, see how many seats you can steal, you poor pregnany young lady," he snickers at the idea, hiding the way his cheeks heat with laughter. It would work. It would be fun. He's just... a little drunker than he thought and fun is translating into,, other,, feelings, right?

Natasha makes a drunken(?) moan in response. And whispers back, as they finally make it to the closed off garage, "don't. ssay. th-that."

Sam plops her down on the couch in a few steps, finally alone and immediately apologizing, "sorry. Was that too much? I didn't-" coming around to face her though, he doesn't see hurt or discomfort at being reminded of such a socialital pinnical of womanhood, one she can't have, he sees-

Oh.

Her face is bright pink.

Her lip-gloss sticky lips are open, gaped as she breathes heavily.

Her eyes are focused down on her bloated belly.

And...

And her hands are rubbing little circles on her stomach. Her pregnant-looking belly full of obscene amounts of beer. Always able to out-drink anymore.

"Though," Sam starts over carefully, going out on a limb, "if we did that, we'd have to leave Bucky and Steve at the house, wouldn't we? None of the guys could come. It'd just have to be us. Otherwise it's not believable. Jus' gotta be ine mama and daddy, not one hot mama and three baby daddies..." He's already prepared to add on, and I've gotta be the daddy 'cause none of the rest of the guys can act for shit, but he doesn't need to say anything to cover his ass because Natasha moans again.

And her hands press down on her tummy. She slurs, "Jesus, if you take me on a date where you parade me around, pretending I'm pregnant I wouldn't fuckin' make it home."

"Oh, yeah?" Sam drawls.

"Yeah," she licks her lips, heavily lidded eyes flicking from her stomach to Sam's eyes, "you'd have to take me to somewhere private and, and-" her drunkness suddenly catches up with her, leaving her stuttering, turning even brighter red, doing nothing but touching her belly.

"That'd-" Sam bites his lip, a little growl growing in the back of his throat without his permission, "that'd be good with me."

"Just good?" She says, cocking her head and biting her lip right back at him.

"No-" Sam rushes out "-a fucking lot better than good. But, shit. We're talking about this when you're not drunk. When we're not drunk."

"But Saaaam-"

"No, no, I-" he's trying to be responsible dammit. He's the only (sort of) responsible one in this frat, he swears it.

"Will you at least rub my belly?" She pouts at him and Sam is about to say that that isn't fair but he can't when she suddenly arches her back and shimmies from side to side, "c'mooooon, I'm so bloated and sloshy, it'd help get all the burps out!" The movement of her belly is enticing in a way Sam didn't even know anything could be. His mouth is dry and his eyes arw glued to her round shape- the dome of her belly. All he wants to do is rub it. So he does.

Edit:

I just re-read your ask and realized you also wanted beer barrel Bucky, Sam, and Steve and hnnnnnnng that sounds so good too! Sorry I didn't include them accidentally 😅 samtasha just got in my sights and I couldn't stop lmao

[hareefaree]

Journal - 2022 Fall Reflections - Pre-Production and The Dressmaker Project - P1

EDIT: Part 2 | Part 3 | Final Photos

So perhaps my biggest project of the semester was this several-month long set/stop-motion preproduction project. My working title is The Dressmaker Project since thats the main character's vibe. Basically I just spent 4 months building, texturing, and crafting these two sets and a single puppet to just kinda live in it, based off of old photos and memories (round the 70s/80s) of my mother's childhood home in Bombay.

Process under the cut! Animation reflections here and game design here!

So I knew I wanted to work in 70s-80s india (for some reason this period just sings to me, my first 3D-puppet stop motion project was like 70s bollywood) so I spent most of the early semester watching vintage Bollywood films and asking my parents for photos and stories about growing up in Mumbai. I've also not been back to India in a while - since my grandfather died, actually - and usually when we go I call my grandparents' house/my mother's childhood flat home. I was feeling home(ish?)sick and was also super excited about coming out as a lesbian.

(photos from my mom's childhood)

So my goal was to capture like... young womanhood/girlhood in Bombay, the feeling you get of desiring something just out of reach, about wanting closeness with your girl peers that you can't cross over. I also learned a lot about the 1990 Mumbai riots, Bal Thackeray, and how that sorta framed modern Indian politics, sectarianism, etc.

Some films I watched for vibe reasons! Arth (1982), Sancharram/The Journey (2004), Parinda (1989), Fire (1996), Bombay (1995). At some point through this I became like, a massive Shabana Azmi fan lol. None of these are from the 70s. I am realizing that now.

I also listened to a lot of 70s bollywood and just general disco-pop music. You can find my work playlist here!

So yeah! Concept wise I was REALLY strong about my set but less so about my character. You'll see how that worked out for me :P

Some concept work:

(I really want to solidify my puppet making style. I love paper heads and felted bodies and I wanted a very shapey design. I don't think the character design on the left was super attainable or that it reflects the direction I was going with the character... but its a good design that would be fun to animate in a 2D style methinks.) Also the armature drawing looks disgusting bc there was epoxy putty and sculpey all over that thing.)

Some cardboard set experiments (my stop mo professor has been drilling it into our heads to map out the set on paper and test dimensions with cardboard cutouts. She's right):

So yeah! Two sets, one in which you can look to the other one via window. Pretty ambitious of me on its own, on top of that both sets would have to feel lived in...

Part 2 for texturing process!

[runthepockets]

This is just my personal opinion so take it with a grain of salt, but the idea that you need to be fully, 100% understood by another human being to be loved or respected by them is kind of stupid. It's definitely essential to read books about experiences you don't have, and to stay up to date on the news, and to diversify your circle so that you're not stuck in an echochamber of homogenous thought and yes-men, but at the end of the day no one knows everything and as long as you're a decent listener / mindful person I think that's fine. I think this belief is one of many reasons the TERF obsession with framing suffering and otherness as unique and exclusive to womanhood and the trans men who try to justify themselves to these TERFs by laying out their whole life stories and medical histories are all just losing in a rat race.

Yeah, maybe as a cishet dude I wouldn't know what it feels like to get catcalled, nor would I know how it feels to be someone else's property through church and marriage. But like. So what? I honestly don't know what these things feel like as a trans man, but I have befriended, dated, slept with, worked beside women irl and seen enough women online who DO lay claim to these experiences and have had enough in depth discussions about rape culture and marriage as an institution in my presence as a result to know that it makes people feel shitty and pissed off and kinda scared, I DO know that the concept of a stranger running up on someone and using abusive / inflammatory / targeted language is rather creepy and offputting, and I DO know that even if I've never been in a serious relationship with a man, I've had a boss and parents, and I've hated when they've felt entitled to my time and micromanaged all of my behavior and I've hated having to live up to all their meaningless rules just to get money food and shelter. I still pay attention to the world around me and how people interact with one another out of a genuine interest in humanity, and I think that's all I really need.

At the end of the day I'm human and I don't like seeing other people suffer. Anything done in the name of love or helping other people feel a little less lonely or scared feels like a necessity to me, not a chore, even if I can't fully wrap my head around it cus I haven't experienced it firsthand. I think as humans we need to embrace our differences just as much as our similarities to fully appreciate each other, too much of one or the other is an injustice. The fact that this puts me a "world above" other dudes who date and fuck women is kind of mindboggling to me. The bar should be raised. This should just be standard behavior.

[terfetuloa]

I recently 'peaked' and started doing feel how you do about libfeminism too. I still struggle with this fear that I'm buying into some kinda fascist rhetoric (even though there's no evidence for that) but it makes me happy that there's a community on here of women, many lesbians and woc, who are speaking their mind freely

Hey anon! Beforehand, lemme apologize for replying to you this late, the past days were a bit hectic for me. I sincerely hope for this reply to reach you somehow. 

I'm glad you peaked! It's a hard and confusing process, mixed with disappointment over lots of stuff you've done before 'waking up' and towards people and discourses around you that consider your new opinions as something too extreme, hateful, or even devoid of serious analysis (as if you're just an irrational hateful person who can't think straight). When I first started to question my beliefs regarding gender ideology and trans rhetoric my immediate response to my doubts was to tell myself that I wasn’t a bad person. 

When you're systematically conditioned to hate the evil terfs and to shudder at the mention of radical feminism and terms alike, it's hard to get rid of this impression once you start to realize you're probably one of the evil terves. I had feelings along the lines of "I'm probably leaning towards radfem, but I'm not like them, I can be gender-critical and be a good person". See the problem? Lots of women full of doubts will never approach radical feminism and gender-critical concepts because it's rooted on their very core that said ideas are essentially evil, regressive, even fascist. 

I understand your fears, but after months interacting with radfems and TRAs I can assure you I never saw any radical feminist advocating for trans people to lose civil rights (like healthcare, housing, a job) or sending them rape and death threats, orchestrating campaigns for them to lose their jobs and to boycott their business... While all of this was already done by TRAs against women. As I said in my pinned post, I believe that there are trans people minding their own business, trying to live their best lives without claiming rights at the expense of female sex-based rights. But trans ideology on its political aspect is harmful. Harmful to women as their politics deny them their female-only spaces (like shelters, bathrooms, sports), erase language concerning female reality (by saying "people who menstruate", "people with wombs", "people with vulvas"), by hurting children, especially gender non-conforming young girls (by reinforcing the idea they have to get hysterectomies/mastectomies, puberty blockers that will ruin their physical development, testosterone with its everlasting effects)... 

I see trans ideology as a selfish liberal agenda that only reinforces the ties within which patriarchy holds women submissive. Try to ask a trans activist about what's a woman and be ready to listen 1) circular definitions (a woman is a woman), 2) stereotypical aspects of femininity as equivalent to womanhood (women are fragile, delicate, they like pink and makeup), 3) the "lady brain" argument (neurosexism), 4) the transcendental argument (a woman is a feeling)... And we know that's not why we're women. We're women because we're adult human females. The material reality of my body explains why I was socialized a certain way, why I'm the target of some specific forms of violence. Yes, across cultures gender roles change and the perceptions of what "looks like" a woman or a man too. But the material reality of what is a woman and a man doesn't change.

What makes me a woman is the same thing that defines what's a woman in Sri Lanka, Ghana, Austria, or even in an isolated indigenous tribe in the middle of Bolivia. You know this, everybody knows this, even those too delusional to raise the trans flag know this. If they didn't they wouldn't be so eager to crucify women daring to say the truth, desperately trying to change the meaning or words, and coercively trying to change reality. To call out a woman for stating facts about her material reality accusing her of being a bigot, someone equivalent to a nazi is PURE MISOGYNY. Most of the time you don't even have to say "trans women are men" to receive your Evil Terf badge. You just have to say "women menstruate" or anything related to your experiences as a female. And the backlash is HUGE. So, who are the fascists here? Not the women raising their voices against a male-centered movement trying to pass as an oppressed minority whose tormentors are "privileged cis" women. 

So don't feel afraid, you're not aligning yourself with a fascist movement. It's hard to act based upon what we feel in a world where critical women are haunted down like witches (side note: curious how "oppressed queer people" have such power under capitalism, right?), but you can try to see if you're lucky enough to have any of your irl friends agreeing with you, you can go anonymous and ask questions, you can create a side blog and make new friends... There are lots of smart women here to listen to your questions and share their experiences. Eventually, your fear will pass and you'll find yourself. Be safe, anon.

[geekeryisafoot]

when people talk about a connection to their gender, what are they talking about? how does said connection to gender present itself? thank you!!!

My dude I have NO idea. Gender mystifies me and I wish I understood it better

It's like, okay so for me I'm asexual and a cis woman, and I was raised in a Catholic environment in America. In my experience, Catholic womanhood is chiefly defined by motherhood, getting pregnant, reproduction. And one major aspect of American womanhood is being sexualized. Both of which are things I want absolutely nothing to do with. The very concept of pregnancy fills me with a visceral terror (I mean seriously it's a separate creature growing inside you that moves all your organs around and fucks up your body permanently and historically has had a good chance of killing you before violently and painfully rupturing out. THAT'S THE PLOT OF ALIEN WHY IS THIS A THING THAT'S ROMANTICIZED AND EXPECTED AS DEFAULT?), and the thought of being sexualized or a sexual object of desire makes my skin crawl. So for me there's this disconnect between how I want to navigate life and how my society tries to define womanhood, and this disconnect sometimes manifests as me being uncomfortable with various hyper-feminine things.

But I think about what if I was a brain in a jar on a robot body, what would my gender be? And it's an immediate and fairly resounding "yeah I'm a woman." I have NO IDEA why though. It's just, like, this nebulous feeling. It just kinda is.

I've never been able to dissect or figure out where that feeling comes from. Why am I a woman? What does being a woman mean? How do I define my version of womanhood? Why do I as a cis woman feel more like a woman when it's divorced from my physical body? What traits, behaviors, or self-expression makes me feel feminine? Which make me feel less feminine? Why is referring to myself as a woman comfortable but using the word feminine is uncomfortable? Fuck if I know. I have 0 answers to any of these questions. Writing this list just gave me more questions.

I've toyed with the idea of being nonbinary before, but different genders (even ones of my own making) feel like they don't quite fit, like clothes that are too tight, and playing with the idea that I might be agender feels like being naked

I'm sorry I probably didn't answer any of your questions and gave you a personal essay instead lol but if you do find a good answer feel free to let me know cause I have some of the same questions

[whitehotharlots]

Andrea Long Chu is the sad embodiment of the contemporary left

Andrea Long Chu’s Females was published about a year ago. It was heavily hyped but landed with mostly not-so-great reviews, and while I was going to try and pitch my own review I figured there was no need. Going through my notes from that period, however, I see how much Chu’s work—and its pre-release hype—presaged the sad state of the post-Bernie, post-hope, COVID-era left. I figured they’d be worth expanding upon here, even if I’m not getting paid to do so.

Chu isn’t even 30 years old, and Females is her debut book, and yet critics were already providing her with the sort of charitable soft-handedness typically reserved for literary masters or failed female political candidates. This is striking due to the purported intensity of the book: a love letter to would-be assassin Valerie Solanas, the thesis of which is that all humans are female, and that such is true because female-ness is a sort of terminal disease stemming not from biology but from one’s inevitable subjugation in larger social contexts. Everyone is a woman because everyone suffers. Big brain shit.

But, of course, not everyone is a female. Of course. Females are females only some of the time. But, also, everyone is a female. Femaleness is just a title, see. Which means it can be selectively applied whenever and however the author chooses to apply it. The concept of “female” lies outside the realm of verifiability. Suggesting to subject it to any form of logic or other means of adjudication means you’re missing the point. Femaleness simply exists, but only sometimes, and those sometimes just so happen to be identifiable only to someone possessed with as a large a brain as Ms. Chu. We are past the need for coherence, let alone truth or honesty. And if you don’t agree that’s a sign that you are broken—fragile, illiterate, hateful, humorless.

Chu’s writing—most famously, her breakthrough essay “On Liking Women”—establishes her prose style: long, schizophrenic paragraphs crammed with unsustainable metaphors meant to prove various fuzzy theses simultaneously. Her prose seems kinda sorta provocative but only when read on a sentence-by-sentence level, with the reader disregarding any usual expectations of cohesion or connection.

This emancipation from typical writerly expectations allows Chu to wallow proudly in self-contradiction and meaninglessness. As she notes herself, explicitly, meaning isn’t the point. Meaning doesn’t even exist. It’s just, like, a feeling:

I mean, I don’t like pissing people off per se. Yes, there is a pleasure to that sometimes, sure. I think that my biggest takeaway from graduate school is that people don’t say things or believe things—they say them because it makes them feel a particular way or believing them makes them feel a particular way. I’ve become hyper aware of that, and the sense in which I’m pissing people off is more about bringing that to consciousness for the reader. The reason you’re reacting against this is not because it contradicts what you think is true, it’s because it prevents you from having the feeling that the thing you think is the truth lets you feel.

And so she can get away with saying that of course she doesn’t actually believe that everyone is a female, the same as her idol Valerie Solanas didn’t actually want to kill all men. The writers, Chu and Valerie, are just sketching out a dumb idea as a fun little larf, to see how far they can push a manifestly absurd thought. If they just so happen to shoot a gay man at point blank range and/or make broader left movements so repulsive that decent people get driven away, so be it. And if any snowflakes complain about their tactics, well that’s just proof of how right they are. Provocation is justification—the ends and the means. The fact that this makes for disastrous and harmful politics is beside the point. All that matters is that Chu gets to say what she wants to say.

This blunt rhetorical move—which is difficult to describe without sounding like I’m exaggerating or making stuff up, since it’s so insane—papers over Chu’s revanchist and violent beliefs. Her work is soaked with approving portrayals of Solanas’ eliminationist rhetoric—of course, Chu doesn’t’ actually mean it, even though she does. Men are evil, even as they don’t really fully exist since everyone is a woman, ergo eliminating men improves the world. Chu goes so far as to suggest that being a trans woman makes her a bigger feminist than Solanas or any actual woman could ever be, because the act of her transitioning led to the world containing fewer men. Again: big brain shit.

I’ll leave it to a woman to comment on the imperiousness of a trans woman insisting that she is bestest and realest kind of woman, that biological women are somehow flawed imposters. I will stress, however, that such a claim comes as a means of justifying a politically disastrous assertion that more or less fully justifies the most reactionary gender critical arguments, which regard all trans women as simply mentally ill men (this line of reasoning is so incredibly stupid that even a dullard like Rod Drehar can rebut it with ease). Trans activists have spent years establishing an understanding of transsexualism as a matter of inherent identity—whether or not you agree with that assertion, you have to admit that it has political propriety and has gone a long way in normalizing transness. Chu rejects this out of hand, embracing instead the revanchist belief that transness is attributable to taking sexual joy in finding oneself embarrassed and/or feminized—an understanding of womanhood that is simultaneously essentialist and tokenizing. When asked about the materially negative potential in expressing such a belief, Chu reacts with a usual word salad of smug self-contradiction: 

EN: You say in the book that sissy porn was formative of your coming to consciousness as a trans woman. If you hadn’t found sissy porn, do you think it’s possible that you might have just continued to suffer in the not-knowing?

ALC: That’s a really good question. It’s plausible to me that I never would have figured it out, that it would have taken longer.

EN: How does that make you feel? Is that idea scary?

ALC: It isn’t really. Maybe it should be a little bit more, but it isn’t really. One of the things about desire is that you can not want something for the first 30 years of your life and wake up one day and suddenly want it—want it as if you might as well have always wanted it. That’s the tricky thing about how desire works. When you want something, there’s a way in which you engage in a kind of revisionism, the inability to believe that you could have ever wanted anything else.

EN: People often talk about the ubiquity of online porn as a bad thing—I’ve heard from lots of girlfriends that men getting educated about sex by watching porn leads to bad sex—but there seems to me a way in which this ubiquity is helping people to understand themselves, their sexuality and their gender identity.

ALC: While I don’t have the research to back this up, I would certainly anecdotally say that sissy porn has done something in terms of modern trans identity, culture, and awareness. Of course, it’s in the long line of sexual practices like crossdressing in which cross-gender identification becomes a key factor. It’s not that all of the sudden, in 2013, there was this thing and now there are trans people. However, it is undoubted that the Internet has done something in terms of either the sudden existence of more trans people or the sudden revelation that there are more trans people than anyone knew there were. Whether it’s creation or revelation, I think everyone would agree that the internet has had an enormous impact there.

One of the things I find so fascinating about sissy porn is that it’s not just that I can hear about these trans people who live 20 states away from me and that their experiences sound like mine. There is a component of it that’s just sheer mass communication and its transformative effect, but another part of it is that the internet itself can exert a feminizing force. That is the implicit claim of sissy porn, the idea that sissy porn made me trans is also the idea that Tumblr made me trans. So, the question there is whether or not the erotic experience that became possible with the Internet actually could exert an historically unique feminizing force. I like, at least as a speculative claim, to think about how the Internet itself is feminizing.

Politics, like, don’t matter. So, like, okay, nothing I say matters? So it’s okay if I say dumb and harmful shit because, like, they’re just words, man.

Chu can’t fully embrace this sort of gradeschool nihilism, though, because if communication was truly as meaningless as she claims then any old critic could come along and tell her to shut the fuck up. Even as she claims to eschew all previously existing means of adjudicating morality and coherence, she nonetheless relies on the cheapest means of making sure she maintains a platform: validation via accreditation. This is all simple victimhood hierarchy. Anyone who does not defer all of their own perceptions to someone higher up the hierarchy is inherently incorrect, their trepidations serving to validate the beliefs of the oppressed:

I like to joke that, as someone who is always right, the last thing I want is to be agreed with. [Laughs] I think the true narcissist probably wants to be hated in order to know that she’s superior. I absolutely do court disagreement in that sense. But what I like even better are arguments that bring about a shift in terms along an axis that wasn’t previously evident. So it’s not just that other people are wrong; it’s that their wrongness exists within a system of evaluation which itself is irrelevant.

Chu has summoned the most cynical possible interpretation of Walter Ong’s suggestion that “Writing is an act of violence disguised as an act of charity.” Of course, any effective piece of communication requires some degree of persuasion, convincing a reader, listener, viewer, or user to subjugate their perceptions to those of the communicator. Chu creates—not just leans on or benefits from, but actively posits and demands fealty to—the suggestion that her voice is the only one deserving of attention by virtue of it being her own. That’s it. That’s what all her blathering and bluster amount to. Political outcomes do not matter. Honesty does not matter. What matters is her, because she is her. 

This is the inevitable result of a discourse that prizes a communicator’s embodied identity markers more than anything those communicators are attempting to communicate, and in which a statement is rendered moral or true based only upon the presence or absence of certain identity markers. Lived experience trumps all else. A large, non-passing trans woman is therefore more correct than pretty much anyone else, no matter how harmful or absurd her statements may be. She is also better than them. And smarter. And gooder.

Designating lived experience and subjective feelings of safety as the only acceptable forms of adjudication has caused the left to prize individualism to a degree that would have made Ronald Reagan blush. And this may explain the lukewarm reception of Chu’s book.

While they heaped praise upon her before the books’ release, critics backed off once they realized that Females is an embarrassingly apt reflection of intersectional leftism—a muddling, incoherent mess, utterly disconnected from any attempt toward persuasion or consensus, the product of a movement that has come to regard neurosis as insight. The deranged mewlings of a grotesque halfwit are only digestable a few pages at a time. Any more than that, and we begin to see within them far too much of the things that define our awful movement and our terrifying moment.

[floof-reppu]

Misinterpretation

Camie Utsushimi x Fem!Reader

WARNING: SMUT AHEAD

Word Count: ~2k

A/N: I said I was delivering the Camie tonight, and I sure am! don't sleep on this food or I will be sad

She was just a graduate from another hero course, you told yourself. There's nothing special about her, nothing that makes her stand out from all the rest of your friends.

Or so you thought. Why else would you be on your own bed in such a predicament that couldn't be labeled as anything but inviting? You didn't expect for a friendly hangout at your apartment to turn so… intimate so quickly. Before you knew it, both of you were naked, Camie on top of you and straddling your waist.

She knew her way around you, knew exactly how you worked, and yet you thought you knew where you stood when it came to her. It's like she already knew what she was doing, even though she claimed to be a virgin countless times, but watching too many videos might be the reason why you were melting under the slightest touch of her fingers on your flesh and her breath on your skin.

"I know you said that I was just the same as everyone else you've met, but like… I think you've made a huge mistake." Camie's face was mere centimeters away from your own as her hot breath all but intoxicated you as it hit your cheeks. Her thumb ran across your lips, wanting you to open up for her for reasons unclear to you. You complied willingly, opening your mouth slightly as she lowered her lips onto your own and eagerly took the opportunity to glide her tongue against the roof of your mouth, occasionally intertwining with yours in the heat of the moment. Your hands found their way to her hair and clenched your fingers as you felt something rubbing you off down there.

You knew it had to be her doing this, only she knew that you wanted this. Her lips continued to kiss yours in ways you'd never imagined before, and when she separated from you, a small whimper emanated from the back of your throat as you were forced to move your hands lower.

"Don't complain… if I hear you make one more noise like that I'll leave. Understood? You've been underestimating me since the minute you laid eyes on me, but you're just a horny slut, aren't you?" Camie looked down at you and grinned, her naked body towering over your figure as she straddled your waist. "You think I'm hot, don't you? I want you to say it to me as you watch me fuck you senseless."

Your hands slid off her waist as she climbed off of you to rub your clit yet again, but this time she had a full view of your gorgeous pussy. Juices were already lubricating it and making it glisten in the dim light, making it quite easy for the young adult to slip a finger inside of you, then two. Your eyes already wanted to roll to the back of your head, but you knew you couldn't let her see how much she was affecting you.

"I don't hear you saying anything, babe. Wanna speak up? Turn your voice up a couple'a notches for me." She started to thrust her fingers slowly, teasingly in and out of your hole and expecting a reaction from you. Did she want you to call her Utsushimi, or did she want you to go by her given name? Unsure, you hoped to God she was okay with you saying Camie so lewdly after only knowing her for not even a month.

"Y-You're so fucking hot, Camie—" was all you could get to come out of your mouth, the pleasure from her fingers overriding all your other senses and nearly disconnecting you from reality. Nobody else has ever made you feel so hot, touched you in all the right places, and made you want to do everything she commanded. Camie Utsushimi seemed to know all of your weak points, her words evicting stronger feelings than her fingers ever could.

"You're coming undone just from my fingers, Y/N? That's just pathetic. I thought you would be able to hold out longer, but, guess little ole' me was wrong." The woman in question removed her extremities from your womanhood, examining the coat of your secretion covering them. You can't whine or express your displeasure no matter how upset it made you or else she would stop. "I think you might like this next part totes better though. I'll just eat you out, how's that sound?"

She moved back a few inches on the bed and spread your legs further apart than they were before so she could dive head first into your crotch without injury. She maintained a firm grip on your thighs as her tongue gently slid across your clit, causing shivers to run down your spine from the sensation. Camie's hands crept up your legs and down to your slit to gently pull your folds apart and give her more access to your sex.

You somewhat hated to admit it, but she had you wrapped around her finger, and there was nothing you could do about it.

Her tongue shot into your pussy, and she started to eat you out fervently, almost like an animal. She just couldn't help herself around you even though she was the one who was ordering you around; she could get off to the moans you made for her because her drive was just that high.

"F-Fuck, Camie, that feels so good… please don't stop…" You cried out between shaky breaths, hoping that a bit of your own encouragement would just… make her go faster or something. Your core was warm as hell, and given the way you were tensing up, you knew you were finally almost at your limit.

Instead of continuing to ravage your sex, Camie lifted her head up just to take a look at your expression.

"You really are a slut, aren't you? Kinda easy to get you to beg for me to finish you off. That's so like you."

God, how you wanted to push her head back down and make her finish you off. Your hands were already making their way down to her head, but from the look on Camie's face, you knew she would refuse to let you take control. Fuck.

"You know, I was gonna let you cum but like, I don't think so anymore. You'll have to work for it now. Sucks that you can't control your hands, else this would have been a cakewalk for you."

"Dammit Camie, please let me cum, please finish me off, don't let me stay like this-"

"Aw, what's that? You want me to finish you off?" She slid her body up yours as she met your face yet again, her hand teasingly placed near your thigh. "I might reconsider what I said if you let me sit on your face and eat me out pretty good."

This woman was everywhere and nowhere in the blink of an eye. You knew you weren't going to get out of this without giving her just a hint of pleasure, but she really wants to sit on your face right this second? Who were you to complain, though? Camie looked like an entire meal from head to toe, and you couldn't say you didn't want to eat her out.

"Y-Yeah…"

In less than five seconds, she was hoisting her legs over you and turning around so that her clit was hovering right above your mouth. Instead of facing away from your body, she was staring straight down at your stomach. But damn, her ass was so big that it was obstructing your view.

Was she going to do what you thought she was about to do?

"Don't even think about lifting your hands, got that? I won't hesitate to stop what I'm doing just to smack them away like flies."

And just like that, Camie was lowering herself just enough so that your breath was hitting her pussy. Just like your own, hers was oozing juices, but it wasn't caused by physical stimulation; rather, the entire concept of dominating you in this situation was extremely pleasurable to her. As soon as your mouth connected to her sensitive area, you felt your own getting its own little treatment from the very woman who said she wasn't going to finish you off yet.

Her mouth was back on you, but this time she stuck to pleasuring your clit, giving it all the attention instead. You moaned as you tasted the sex goddess before you. She surprisingly tasted like… well, nothing, which was a huge shock. The texture didn't bother you, but the way you were positioned, you couldn't help but want to pull her legs apart even more than they already were so you could delve deeper.

Maybe she had you positioned precariously this way because she was close and just wanted the two of you to finish at the same time? You highly doubted it, but there was a possibility that was the case.

You felt it though; the heat in your core was almost unbearable at this point, and you gripped the sheets you laid upon in anticipation. Camie seemed to have noticed and lowered herself even more, signaling that she was just as close as you were. The entire room was filled with nothing but moaning and the wet sounds of tongues and lips on flesh by now.

By this time your eyes were again ready to roll to the back of your head, and you got yourself lost in pure bliss. Your lower body arched up, and at the same time you were able to taste the newly created secretion that was dripping from Camie's aching pussy. There was nothing else that you could think of in this moment except for the fact that you just fucked another woman, because your mind was hazy after… that.

It took a few minutes for the both of you to collect yourselves, Camie laying on top of you and resting until she found the strength to lift herself off of you and sit on the side of the bed.

"A...Are you leaving?" Your eyebrows cocked up, hoping that was not the case. The intimate experience the two of you had shared solidified any sort of friendship you had prior; to be quite honest, you wanted something more with this woman.

"Nah, just trying to think."

"About what?"

"...I don't think this means we're together, does it?" She looked back at your exhausted body from over her shoulder, wondering what your answer would be.

"I… guess it's whatever you want it to be. I'm fine with whatever you choose."

"Oh... well like, I really enjoyed that even though I did most of the work. Plus, you are kinda hot, so…" She giggled, pursing her lips into a small smile. "I don't see why we can't get to know each other a little more, Y/N."

"I'd… uh, really like that, Camie."

"Well, I love the idea just as much as I… nevermind. I don't think I should say that until we're actually together."

"Then just be my girlfriend. Isn't that what we both want?" You finally managed to sit up, stretching your arms and legs. Camie had a visible blush on her face as she looked back away from you.

"...yeah, I guess... doesn't matter how long we've known each other, I can't just go on without letting my feelings out, yeah? So… I do think I'm in love with you, as cliché as that sounds. God, it's like I'm digging all this from a rom com."

"A very cheesy rom com at that." You hoisted your legs over the side of the bed as well, your hand meeting Camie's and your fingers intertwining with hers. "But I'm in love with you too. No matter how cheesy it sounds."

"Then let's stay like this for a long while, Y/N. How does forever sound?"

"It sounds like music to my ears."

[anxietysroomsupport]

Hi, could you help me out a little? I'm questioning my gender and I don't quite know the best way to do so (I know it's individual, but really any tips? or comfort?). I've always felt female, I've always been happy being female, I'm even pretty traditionally "girly". But when I was really young I decided to defy stereotypes. I rejected "girly" stuff forever because of it, but recently I feel like I've been coming into my own more with it. (1/2 probably) -Gender

(2/2?) When I feel pretty, whether in "girly" (man I wish there were a better term for that, since it's not true) clothes or not, I get a huge confidence boost, even though most of the time my self worth on that front is pretty good. But today I was watching some genderfluid tiktoks, and I just kinda. . felt it? Gender's never been a huge thing for me, so it sort of feels like I like being a girl, but not like intensely, I guess? Just sort of casually, (2/3 I guess) -Gender

(3/3 probably) but I don't really feel like I would prefer anything else. I want to be a girl, I am a girl, and I usually like being feminine. Yet still I feel sort of weird. When I've tried to think about before, it's just "oh, yeah, being a girl is nice I guess". And I'm like "hm, that doesn't seem very enthusiastic" so I imagine if I were nonbinary, male, genderfluid, etc. But none of those sound any better. So now I'm not sure if I'm questioning or just see a lot (3/4, I promise) -Gender

(4/4) of people focused on trying to figure themselves out, including gender. My friends on tumblr, and one or two in real life, having gender crisis all the time. I'm supportive and I'm glad they're figuring themselves out, but I'm just thinking, maybe when you have the privilege of being assigned your true gender, you don't feel as excited about it, I guess? I haven't had to go through anything to get here, so it's just "meh"? I don't wish I was dysphoric, but I do wish I felt more. -Gender

Hi Gender Anon,

I’d say that it sounds like it could be a few things. You could definitely look at concepts like demi girl and other more femininely aligned genders. 

Also something I’ve seen cis women talk about is how sexism and the patriarchy can make identifying as female feel very fraught and confusing, especially for people who don’t fit the very specific view of womanhood that is praised (disabled, WOC, butch women, etc.). Finding places that talk about this can be challenging because it is a piece of rhetoric that terfs latched onto to invalidate trans folks, but it is a real experience that I do see folks talking about and could be what you’re experiencing.

I also think it’s acceptable to like experiment with other presentations, pronouns, etc. Some trans folks do not experience dysphoria but will experience euphoria where something else feels right and good while their gender-assigned-at-birth feels very neutral. I follow a handful of trans masc and non-binary folks who aren’t super masculine but identify as non-binary or male. (Two that come to mind are @kingfemme and @thedisabledhippie on instagram) 

Also like take your time. Don’t feel pressured to figure everything out right away. Talk to folks in the communities or who’s online presentation rings true for you and ask their advice if you’re comfortable with it.

-Kai

[rootfauna]

Loss of the chance of life

A while ago I found out my grandmother was one of the many native american women who were forcibly sterilized. I wrote this article.

In 1972 Janet Clifton, an Osage woman, walked into the IHS in Clairemore, Oklahoma. For years she had been having severe pelvic cramps and they had become too much to bear. She was put in a gown and lead to a room in which sat the dreaded stirruped chair many women have despised since it’s invention. The anxiety is understandable even in modern times when women’s healthcare is arguably the most advanced it’s ever been. It’s frightening, then, to imagine approaching that chair in the 60’s and 70’s, when modern women’s healthcare was in it’s infancy, and for a Native American woman, it could be absolutely terrifying.

When Janet signed in to the clinic, she’d been asked the usual questions, one of which was ‘are you married’, which she was, and was asked if she had any children, which she did. Three to be exact. She was only twenty-five and all her children were born just under three years, so it is no surprise that when she was asked if she was religious she replied that she was Catholic. Christianity and native Americans have a strange relationship. The religion was used to justify atrocities done to us too numerous not only for this paper, but for anyone to ever list. Arguably it’s greatest crime was to mold itself into a cardboard beacon, offering native Americans sanctuary from it’s own ugliness. For centuries Native American men made the decision to convert for the rest of the family. The rules of life changed for them, but it’s unclear if they realized the changes it meant for their wives. Their roles in many nations were reduced, as was their agency over their bodies. Contraceptives in their earliest days were known throughout the world, including the Americas, yet now they were forbidden. As ridiculous and ineffective as they could be, they at least offered the illusion of body autonomy, mostly for women.

When Janet went to the IHS the Women’s Health Movement (WHM) had only recently begun, along with second wave feminism. It spoke loftily and justly about abortion rights and about changing the traditional maternity ward practices into more family oriented ones, with the fathers allowed in the delivery room. There was a resurgence of midwifery. However, these improvements did not scratch the blood soaked surface of Native American health care. As Janet lay in the chair, three white doctors entered the room. The Indian Clinic did not have any native doctors, so doctors were driven in from nearby Tulsa Oklahoma, thus continuing the tradition of white doctors working with an exclusively non-white clientele. “I felt like I was being experimented on,” she would later say. She would be in good company. A Google search of “experiments on native women” will instantly bring up several articles about the forced sterilization of Native American women, and many give examples of experimental procedures that were performed in front of many doctors under the guise of research. Janet, who only wanted treatment for what we now know as polycystic ovary syndrome, never knew she would join their ranks. “One of the doctors told me that they were going to burn the cysts off. The procedure was never really explained to me and it was probably a combination of me being a woman and being Native American. They thought I was too dumb to understand anyway.” Had she known more on the subject she might have thought he was referring to a ovarian wedge resection, a common treatment at the time. It involves opening the patient up in an operating theater and exposing the ovaries. The cysts are then carefully removed with a cauterization tool not only keep the cyst from bursting, but to ensure the ovary heals properly. Instead of doing this, Janet and her doctors remained in the exam room where he gave her a local anesthetic, inserted a cauterizing into her vaginally, and performed what was most likely a tubal litigation. This is the most common form of female sterilization and only severs the fallopian tubes. My grandmother’s painful ovaries would remain untouched and untreated.  

“I remember smelling something burning,” recalled Janet, “I looked down and saw smoke.”She was sent home directly after the procedure, unaware of what had actually happened to her and uninformed of the possible side effects. There was pain, of course, and in a candid moment she also confessed that she was never able to feel sexual pleasure with her husband again. Worst of all, because there had been no attempt to treat the cysts, and the pain that started the entire ordeal returned within weeks.

Pain seems to be woven into the fabric of every Native American woman’s life and this has not gone unnoticed artists, native and non-native alike. When native women are not posing nude on a biker’s bicep, we are huddled into blankets, riding our horses, our backs bent and heads hung low. Sometimes we stand on hills, gazing at nothing with blank faces and sometimes we kneel by our tipis and look at the ground. Though the past few decades have brought forward more animated depictions of Native American women, my grandmother’s house was filled with the old fashioned kind. As a child, I thought they were pretty, if boring. I never perceived any greater meaning than a woman simply looking down. Maybe she was watching a bug. As a child I was also blissfully unaware of the majority of the atrocities faced by our people and what I did know, I largely new in name only. It wasn’t until I grew older that I’d look at these paintings and think ‘huh, she actually looks kinda sad’. Now I look at these paintings and think ‘she looks utterly defeated’. Knowing what really happened to us makes me notice details I never had before, like how so many of them have textbook thousand yard stares while portraits of chiefs and warriors in the same stye still seem to have fire in their eyes. The men are also more likely to be depicted upright, whether standing or on horseback, still tall in some way or another. The woman have deflated. We slump over our horse’s necks, we kneel, we sit. It seems as though these women have accepted that pain is just something they must endure silently and with dignity, whatever the source. My grandmother is not like these women, so when the pain that had sent her to the doctor in the first place returned, so did she.

The doctors made little effort with pretense this time - she would have a hysterectomy and that was that. At this point there was no reason to try and treat her as Janet could no longer have children, and in the end her hysterectomy would succeed in ridding her of her pain. Why then does it seem to hold so much more significance? European invaders managed to erase many aspects of various indigenous cultures, but some roots run too deep to be completely torn out and in so many of our cultures it was the female ability bring forth life that created the world. The association with women and new life was so strong that even in some nations it was observed that women sewed the seeds for the new crops and tended to them, but it was the men who reaped them. Their reasoning was that women brought life, and men took it. Some Lakota Sioux would not acknowledge a girl’s transition to womanhood until she has had a child. This doesn’t mean that a woman’s only value was her ability to have children and in many nations women held high political power, were religious leaders, and even warriors. Still, it is virtually impossible to completely separate a woman’s potential reproductive capabilities and how she was viewed in societies that place more value on the concept of new life, birth, or rebirth. So many Native American nations fell into this category, and on some level or another, a woman’s womb was sacred. In 1972, at age 25, my grandmother’s was ripped from her body.

From an outsiders perspective, it seems as though these sterilized women have become those broken women from the paintings. In doing research for this paper, I found very little. The ambiguity is unsettling. Is the near total absence of initial medical documentation a result of apathy towards Native American health, or an intentional coverup? Did the women affected not speak out about this at the time because of the taboo around reproductive systems? Was it shame, or a feeling that no one would listen anyway? I have to wonder, too, how many woman are like my grandmother who only now realizes what was done to her. Whitehorse also did not realize what happened to her until later. “I was trying to have more babies, but was having trouble getting pregnant, so I went to the IHS clinic. That’s when they told me about what they did to me,” She said. She had been sterilized during a previous surgery.“I was in so much pain when I went in for the appendectomy; they gave me a bunch of papers to sign. They never explained anything to me; I had no idea I was giving them permission to sterilize me.” she said. It wasn’t only abdominal pain that allowed doctors to trick women into sterilization. One of the more famous cases of sterilization involved two girls, both under fifteen years old, who were sterilized during surgery to remove their tonsils. It’s been estimated that between 1960 and 1970, for every seven native babies born, one woman was sterilized, culminating in roughly 25% of the potentially fertile female population. Even this was not enough of an attack on the Native American woman. Native American boarding schools, run by the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) where still common in that era. A 1971 census stated that approximately 35,000 Native American children lived in boarding schools rather than at home. In these schools, children were stripped of their language, their culture, their religion, their names, and often, their sanity. Abuse was rampant and the chances of escape were bleak. While non-native children were begging for bell bottoms and watching t.v, two native boys fled, only to freeze to death in their attempt to return home. Suicide rates amongst teenage boarders could reach as high as one hundred times the national average. The rest of the nation, if it noticed, soon turned away and continued to focus on disco. Native mothers could do little to stop the abuse of their children, but a growing number were being offered a choice. If they agreed to be sterilized, their existing children might be allowed to stay with them. It can’t be said if it was in defeat or defiance that a mother made her choice, whichever it was. It would a lie to say that no woman was defeated, and sat slumped over a bottle of whiskey rather than a horse.

However, when my grandmother was wheeled into the recovery bay, she discovered that she was not the only woman who refused stoop down and be silent, though she did not yet know what bond she shared with these women. They were a small group, all in various stages of recovery. They smiled and chatted if and when they could, and because the nurses were about as helpful as a match under water, they tended to each other. The women adjusted each others hospital beds by hand, fetched each other glasses of water and just as importantly, they kept each other in good spirits. Decades later, Janet will still smile and laugh when she remembers a woman that was truly fed up with the barely edible hospital food. “You guys want some pizza?” The woman had asked, and then she got up and climbed out the window. A while later she returned the same way, pizza in hand. They might have been neglected and in pain, but in that moment they were normal women diving into a pizza and giddy with their own mischief. It seems like such a small gesture, valuable in that it’s a light hearted tidbit from an otherwise tragic story, but it is so much more than that. Expand the perspective and you’ll find it’s really the story of how a Native American woman was had her reproductive organs seared into oblivion against her will by white doctors, was neglected by nurses in a recovery room filled with strangers, and this woman still had the strength and spark to climb out a window and return with pizza to share with her sisters. Our solidarity is our fortitude. Native women have an incredible ability to come together and to accomplish incredible things. One of they key elements that allows us to do this is our ability to communicate with each other, and despite what modern white hippies may think, we can’t do that with telepathy and talking animals. I would not have been able to tell my grandmother’s story without calling her and having several lengthy phone calls. This chapter of our history is in danger of being forgotten. It’s imperative we learn as much as we can, but that is not enough. It’s through communication that bond over our people’s losses and triumphs and encourage others to learn along with us. If I am to end this essay with one request, it is that when you read this chapter of our history, please read it out loud.

—- This essay is dedicate to Janet Stork, I cannot give enough thanks to my grandmother for letting me interview her. Rather than mourn her loss, she seemed happy throughout every conversation, as if she was glad that someone wanted to hear what she had to say. This is such a sensitive topic, one that would make many young students here cringe and shy away from, but my grandmother made every conversation a comfortable one. No question was off limits, there was no withholding of details. I feel so lucky to have a grandmother like her, and I’m amazed that it’s through her strength I exist today.

[elementaryschooldropout]

okay so, i might actually write an essay about this because it's something i really care about so I'll be sorta short.

i will never identify with the modern colonizer influenced idea of womanhood, the womanhood associated with transphobes but more specifically the myth of womanhood created by trans exclusionary radical feminists.

i will, and always have, identified with the idea of womanhood that is shared with trans women, women of color, and especially trans women of color.

I'll call the former white womanhood. It's the concept that you are born a female and therefore a woman. That womanhood is innate and visible in your body, your bone structure, your biology; being a female is being a woman and that is simply how it is.

I am a cis woman. While I identify with the looser non-binary (as in not fitting into this stricr gender binary) label, I still identify as a woman. While I am non-white, I still identify as a woman.

I, however, was not born with this white womanhood I am told I should have. Why?

From an early age being a non-white child meant I never looked like the white girls I grew up alongside. I never looked like the *pretty girls* I grew up alongside. I was broad shouldered, taller, wider- I was covered in body hair before I was out of primary school. This was wielded against me.

Boys would make fun of me for looking like a boy, girls would make fun of me for looking like a boy, adults would also make fun of me. As I hit puberty this only escalated into them calling me a man. It didn't matter if I grew out my hair, if I wore women's clothes, if I put on makeup- I was still not seen as a *real* girl. This only got worse when my peers found out I was attracted to women.

I was called transphobic slurs. As an adult I've been called transphobic slurs. I've been "clocked" by cis women and trans women alike (whom are always white, keep that in mind.) I faced transphobia as a cis woman. Why?

Any woman of color who isn't blind will tell you that transphobia and racism go hand in hand. Famous black women are often accused of being secretly trans, you'll find this effects darker women who are least ashamed of their nonwhite features the most.

This is because this womanhood is based on the idea of what a cis white woman is. And they never had to question or fight that.

Women of color, trans women of color especially, aren't innately woman in the eyes of white womanhood. We have to fight for our right to be perceived as "real women." We never get to be girls. We're either a real woman or we're not.

In our spaces we have to redefine womanhood around ourselves. While white womanhood is sacred, our womanhood is something that people say encourages violence, that statistics show the act of simply identifying as a woman makes us more likely to be assaulted, that no matter our biology will always be in question. If we don't conform we are murdered or suffer socially.

The simple act of being a nonwhite woman, cis or trans, means that a space for your womanhood must be fought for tooth or nail. You aren't innately a woman. You are forced to think about your womanhood. What it means when your body is dehumanized, when you are accused of faking no matter how you perform, when the white womanhood you are told is the only way fails you. Everyday you choose to be a woman in the way you see fit in spite of how deliberately society will try to dissuade you and constantly fail you.

This is why white womanhood isn't real. It isn't a universal truth. It applies to this small group who fit into a narrow definition the rest of us are abused in the name of.

And that's why as a non-white woman, albeit being cis, my womanhood will always be that shared with my sisters rather than a myth that has only served to hurt and dehumanize me.

Anyways I'll skip all the other stuff. I kinda want to write a paper on it so if you're a woman of color or a woman with trauma or or a trans woman who's neither and you identify with this concept and these experiences message me or something if you'd want me to take down some opinions and quotes for a paper

[yikesola]

Phanfic Finder Fest 🥰✨

this was such an outstanding challenge, i loved digging into tags i wouldn’t usually (lookin at you, tentacles 👀) and finding pieces that fit the trope but often w a little twist— it was also interesting to see things i’d assume had loads of fic written for it (like Portugal 🌞) don’t have quite so much as i’d have figured ..... and now i’m itching to write and rectify that! i also loved digging into pieces that haven’t been commented on in years and that i might have missed out on if not for the fest 💞💞

1. Fake Relationship

“Everlasting Friend” (6k, M) by @tortitabby 

this is a trope that always delivers, i feel, so it was pretty hard to pick among so many great ones. in this fic, i especially love the motivation behind the fake relationship (phil wanting to just Show his family that he’s queer by bringing a boyfriend home, it feels very relatable, kinda mirrors what my own plan for coming out was tho i didn’t drag a friend into it alsdfjdjs) dan’s struggle was so well done, and i always dig a penpal plot! 👏😭

2. Dirty Dancing / Grinding

“build me up (like a sandcastle)” (1k, M) by @i-am-my-opheliac 

god there’s so much to love in this teasingly saturated fic 😩❤️ the atmosphere in this is so dreamy and ethereal, and often i’d think of a piece w this vibe as “cinematic” but this somehow feels even more intimate than that. the alcohol and the weed and the sweat and the sand, the whole piece really seems to exist in slow motion— it’s like a music video 

3. ft. Dan’s Family

“Formula Won” (3.3k, G) by @jamie-with-a-g  

love this fic’s sense of pacing and use of flashbacks (also love its justification for dan’s admittedly most het interest ✌️) and the blips we get of karen and baby adrian. i really loved this fic’s approach to dan’s father— it’s a very human take on dan’s father, where instead of a parent being placed on a pedestal or demonized, things are allowed to be more complicated than that. 💞

4. Tentacles

“Love a Good Tentacle” (386, M) by @maetaurus  

this was a short but sweet piece that let’s the reader fill in the blanks for themselves and works really well with the dialogue we have from the final golf video. was this an example of my timidity that i chose a tentacle piece w no sexual content and merely suggestive themes?? maybe! but it was a good fun fic for all that 💁🏻

5. Fic Set in 2011

“care for me when i’m drunk” (1k, G) by @boofphil

love this era, especially as it seems people tend to jump from 2009-2010 honeymoon days right into 2012 angst, and this was just such a tender and loving 2011 piece that really really works 😘 i especially adored the small moment when phil first calls and dan’s ready to laugh w him about how drunk he is, but dan immediately drops that when he realizes just how unwell phil is. very good taking-care-of-you conent :))) 

6. Portugal

“wouldn’t it be nice” (780, T) by opendoor

i wish i could have found the author’s tumblr, but this fic was an absolute delight that manages to capture the eagerness of dnp early days on this trip. it’s such a dreamy fic and i love just how enamoured phil is while also being nervous bc everything still feels so new, that momentary panic that occurs when you think you’ve siad too much but then dissipates when the other person says too much as well 😭😭 they cute! 

7. Cooking Together

“dinner for two” (1.5k, G) by Wiley(doubledoubleu)

this was suuuuuch a cute fic, and i’m terribly sorry i wasn’t able to find this author’s tumblr either, but this university au is just delightful. it’s maybe a stretch to call microwave dinners “cooking together” but i’m willing to make that stretch. ✌️❤️ i love that it was born out of this idea that like “no no, we’re just doing this because it’s convenient” even while they’re so smitten w each other 

8. Sex Toys

“it felt wrong (but it didn’t take long)” (1.7k, M) by @dipnpips  

have been on a wlw-dnp high since the feb fest and was so so pleased to stumble upon this one here! 👩‍❤️‍👩👯 i love Phreya‘s confidence throughout, and also loved what the fic had to say about the idea that Dani can be into sex while still being initially uncomfortable w the idea that she deserves pleasure as well, it’s a concept that perfectly balances Dan’s sense of not deserving some things w how different his experiences would be through the lens of womanhood. 

9. Multiple Orgasms

“let our bodies make memories” (3.4k, E) by @symmetricdnp

this is a fic that really stands out to me among the use of multiple orgasms where it was kinda situational and spontaneous— i feel usually the trope is utilized as part of a scene where the characters very much intended multiple orgasms, and there’s just something infinitely charming about the surprise involved in dan going for two here. their bants and characterization are perfection; i really love this one 🙌✨

10. First Person POV

“my talents include...” (1.3k, G) by @knlalla

first person POV is tricky to master but boy oh boy has ms katie done so 💞😭 this is such a cute explanation for a classic danny emo tweet, and i really really love that moment where dan, after having felt needy for the entire fic, immediately feels a little silly once phil asks him what’s going on. because even while wanting attention, sometimes it can feel like too much to ask for it. and i love that phil so readily gives it to him anyway!