#specifically queer discourse is something I really try to avoid

[horsegirlhob]

Generally speaking I don't like to talk about really nuanced things on tumblr cause I think giving my two cents on the discourse of the day will just make people angry at me and ultimately make me feel worse. But god sometimes I really want to give my two cents on the discourse of the day.

[jellybeanium124]

I try to avoid queer identity discourse because it pisses me off, and so much of it (not all but a lot) stops affecting you the second you shut your screen off. I've heard of "bisexual lesbian" discourse and when I first heard that term I took the usual radical inclusionist approach of "well that don't quite make sense to me but it ain't my business." but as I've gotten a bit older, come into my own more as a queer woman, a bi ace woman specifically, I've started to understand that term in a specific way that makes it make perfect sense to me. idk if this is how other people are using it, of course, but I came up with an definition that makes sense, a definition I relate to a lot.

to start, there is no centuries old bisexual culture. not in the way there's gay and lesbian culture. before stonewall, your paths were as such:

not even realize you're not straight because of course everyone else feels affection for both sexes, you're perfectly straight though

realize and understand you're bisexual (granted, you might not have had the word) and stay in the closet to live a safe, heterosexual life and remain totally disconnected from queer culture

realize and understand you're bisexual and decide to exit heterosexual society to go be a part of gay and lesbian society

bisexual people, could, theoretically, live a very happy straight life and be in a happy, loving straight marriage and never feel a need to connect with other queer people. that's my dad. my dad's been happily married to my mom for over 25 years, and his bisexuality is effectively irrelevant to him because... he's married to my mom and they're gonna stay that way. what does it matter?

and so, now, in the 21st century, speaking as someone who grew up somewhere pretty accepting, you have a wider queer culture that encapsulates all queer identities, and within that you have the long-standing gay and lesbian cultures. there is like, idk, bisexual... things...?? cuffed pants or something, but like, the long-standing traditions and histories with my fellow queer women is the lesbian community. there is no separate subcommunity for bisexual women or asexual women. back in the day there was much less separation between these things. why didn't this woman get married? why did she become a nun? some nuns quite famously had a lot of lesbian sex and exploits. other nuns, I imagine, were there to be freed from the need for romance and sex at all, because the idea of either of those things repulsed them. they were just strange women. they were queer. the specifics were unimportant.

so, of course, I have a very strong affinity for the lesbian community. it makes me happy to see other women like me. I see pictures of middle aged butches and see what I want my future to be. if I want to go hang out with fellow queer women, I have to go find the lesbians. I want to be a part of that. I want to be a part of lesbian culture. lesbians writing about their experiences speak to me, they sing to me, it's a place where I belong.

I just like dating boys too.

some people think that's horrible, it's a betrayal, if I want to be a lesbian I have to swear off men forever. and it's like, well, ok, I dunno, I don't really resonate with the lesbian label if we strictly define it as a woman who only loves women. but other people on this site have talked about how the lines aren't so defined, how trans men will often find themselves coming and going and sometimes sticking around, and it's just fine. it's literally not a big deal. you're never gonna make clear cut boxes. in some ways, 8 billion people means 8 billion different sexualities. everything's fuzzy, it's annoying, I know.

so a bisexual lesbian? a bisexual woman who finds herself a part of lesbian culture, the lesbian community, the lesbian identity? it makes perfect sense to me. the way I like men has never been the same as straight women. even from a young age, long before I knew I was queer, I always knew I was into more feminine men. I've had a soft spot for boys with long hair since elementary school. other bisexuals have talked about this too. liking the opposite gender in a gay way. I don't want heteronormativity. I don't want that kind of relationship. I find myself wondering if I could even be happy dating a cishet man, because he wouldn't understand what I even want from a relationship. and he might be too scared to learn.

so a bisexual lesbian? a queer woman who wants to be around other queer women? it makes perfect sense. the details aren't that important.

this has all just been my personal thoughts and exploration and opinions. other people might have very different ones from me. maybe you resonated with me here, maybe you didn't. that's ok. I don't expect every single person who reads this post to agree with and completely understand my personal worldview and experiences lol, I just wanted to throw my thoughts out there!

[roundearthsociety]

This is going to be a tad personal but how do you manage to be trans and catholic? Some of the biggest anti trans voices like Matt Walsh, Michael Knowles and Desantis base their views off that religion. Many trans people on here, Reddit and IRL have nothing but disdain for Catholicism because of the Vatican’s statements and how they’ve been treated. Likewise, a lot of Catholics I’ve seen on tumblr, Reddit and various forums view it as a sin, mental illness or pedophilia and oppose affirming care as well as IVF.

I’m an American exvangelical, who does have some conservative Catholic family members, and I’m trying to broaden my perspective a bit rather than writing Catholicism off as an irredeemable, hateful colonizer ideology and viewing paganism and Reform Judaism as the only valid religions like most Tumblr users do. How do you put up with it when many refuse to affirm it, including the pope who’s still very conservative? I’m not asking to attack your beliefs but are simply curious whether there’s more nuance than people will claim.

This is something that's a bit hard to answer, as someone who's not that good a theologian nor that good at theory. Plus, I'm not side A, so I wouldn't be all that good at discussing Catholicism While Queer with you I suspect. Anyway I will be assuming you, the reader, have got some level of legitimate Christian faith. Because otherwise I'm not sure how to like. Give you that.

So let me preface all of this by recommending you look into queer Catholic organizations such as New Ways Ministry, or especially DignityUSA which I've heard good things about. There are also some Tumblr bloggers on the more affirming side of things, most of them aren't really doing all that much advocacy work either but you might find it interesting to scroll through, idk, and-her-saints or shoutsofmybones's blogs for example, and take a look.

Also: you don't have to give up on Christianity entirely if you can't / would rather not be Catholic! Even if the specific ritual and community aspect is especially important to you, the Episcopal Church is probably decently well implanted where you live and is worth looking into, especially since it doesn't have the embedded political elements that the US Catholic Church tends to have.

As for my own personal answer below - please don't bother to get mad at me for this, it's like 4AM and I'm not too interested in writing a thesis here.

Gender-wise it's honestly pretty straightforward. I know I function better being generally recognized as another sex than I was assigned at birth, with characteristics to match; everything else in terms of gender roles names etc is really just getting a lil silly with it ngl. This is neither especially uncommon nor especially new, and the generally recognized way to deal with this has long been to just let people do their thing. While there are issues with the way that's being done (hey! you should freeze your gametes if that's available to you! don't count on never wanting kids, especially if you're a teenager! trust me on this one.), a lot of the modern discourse around it boils down to "this is disgusting to me so it must be morally wrong". And like, I'm a biologist, I can't really find it in myself to be grossed out by this stuff anymore.

Anyway the Church is far from a monolith. Even at the institutional level there's plenty of tolerance; my home diocese is based in a large and ancient Mediterranean city so God knows it's had ages to get used to the weird shit, not counting the handful of trad strongholds. My understanding of the situation in the US is that it's Kind Of Really Not That though, so I'd strongly recommend heavily looking into your local Catholic diocese and parishes before making any moves, because Catholic faith and practice are a very community-bound thing and it's not really something you can do at a distance. Thankfully though, once you start avoiding the political activists trying to use faith as a means to an end (as is the case for most of the people you cite in your ask), you'll find that it's relatively more chill than you'd think. Let me elaborate.

My own case is complicated enough that I can't reasonably apply any of the details to this, but ultimately what's important to note here is that Christianity is functionally about how everyone is flawed, and everyone fucks up, and sure you'll be forgiven but you've got to own up to it first. The members of the Church, even the Pope, even (most of) the Saints in their earthly lives, are no exception. They can be misguided, fearful, or just plain hateful; in such circumstances, it's on them to do better, not on you to adapt to their flaws, and they know this if they're honest to themselves. This, in turn, must apply just as much to you and me; as a Christian, you (generic) have everything you need to do better, and to know anything that prevents you from loving other people is probably not the way to go.

But anyway yeah. I'm trans and Catholic because both of those are just kinda who I am, and I don't intend to stop being either because I'm not interested in replacing myself with the cop in my head. So the Church can have fun with that.

[mg-system]

We've been anxious to post about this but I'm going to try and keep this clear and avoid confusion. As a preface, please understand we've come to this decision for our own mental health and well-being.

I don't know if anyone has noticed, but we removed the "anti-endo" label from our pinned Post and DNI.

We've done this because we really can't handle it. Not to say that we're "hiding" anything, but because our thoughts and opinions are so varying that we cannot boil it down to a firm "this or that" stance without compromising some part of our opinions.

And frankly, we're tired of justifying something that's more complicated than that. Is there things we absolutely do not agree with? Yes of course. And the fact that we are absolutely against all forms of bullying and harassment hasn't changed.

Our opinions do not change the fact that we can treat other individuals with human decency and respect. We can be civil, we can just block and move on if we see something we don't want to see or makes us uncomfortable.

We are not here to constantly advocate against endos or defend ourselves on this issue. We're just too exhausted and over it. We already have to advocate for ourselves IRL in regards to our queer identity and physical health. We are here to express ourselves as much as we can and enjoy our time here.

We will still take time to talk about system issues, but this topic will likely not be talked about much at all with exception of some topics (invading spaces one has been asked not to join, bullying..and these apply to anyone honestly, it happens in many communities).

I hope y'all understand. We just don't want to deal with THAT specific discourse more than absolutely necessary.

Please remember that not everyone effected by a disorder or everyone a part of a minority group has the energy and capacity to constantly speak up.

We're trying to get the MASSIVE amounts of discourse off of our feed, which is another reason engaging in this stuff is damaging us.

At the end of the day, we genuinely hope people can remember that we're all people, and some basic respect can go a long way, even if not everyone will take that respect openly and reciprocate. If anyone has any questions feel free to send them, just please do so in good faith/in a genuine manner.

(and we don't feel comfortable even using a term like "Endo-neutral", we just don't feel a label is necessary or good for us at all)

- co-host

[ouroboroslabratory]

Hello there, we're Ouroboros (feel fee to call me Uro if you need a shortener.)

Bodily an adult [19], disabled [more mentally than physically I think], queer beyond your comprehension, and 100% awesome sauce.

Use we/us and incidentally i/me. Use WHATEVER pronouns you think fits for us, we just ask you change it up and don't stick to one set of pronouns.

We largely plan on making emojis that lean more into personal "We do what we want first" and "requests" second. Requests are more like suggestions in the fact we're not guaranteed to do it.

We may make fandom related emojis on occasion; if you want to request something for a fandom but we haven't previously made anything for it feel free to ask if we're willing to do it! We usually only make things for media we already know, though.

All the important shit is below so there isn't a giant post at the doorstep of my blog when you go to look at it. It is long, but we appreciate the read.

This post is heavily unrefined, if you need clarification on something feel free to ask.

MEGA important emoji rules:

Please credit us in some way if you use anything we make; use uro_[emojiname] for discord emojis. (As of making this, we do not plan on making a discord server for people to join.)

Anyone can use what we make as long as it isn't being used inappropriately or in a way the average person would not actively condone.

You're free to suggest recolors and variations as long as you specify what you're talking about.

We avoid making emojis that we have no experience in/with, however that does not mean we do not make them. (This goes for things like disabilities, aids, whatever.)

Avoid asking us to make emoji's similar to another person's or outright ask us to redraw the emojis of someone you don't like.

We may lean into darker territory and even potentially nsfw territory. Nothing illegal (obviously) & no outright sex; posts will be tagged appropriately (do not interact with any nsfw posts here if you're a minor.)

Ouroboro's personal boundaries:

Our emojis are for anyone to use regardless of age, gender, whatever (though obviously with disorder specific ones it's preferred you have that experience to use them.)

"But Ouroboros that means... MINORS can use your nsfw emojis!>?!>!" Thank you strawman we just made up so we can say we don't care. As long as its emojis they put up in a personal server we don't care, and what people do with our emojis is out of our control once they're posted.

Don't add /nf to suggestions/requests it's a little redundant

For the love of the earth don't assume we're associated with someone, drag us into drama, or try to pry discourse out of us. We don't give a shit about drama or discourse and have bigger fish to fry.

Additionally we don't care about your personal beef with anyone else, please take it elsewhere.

Don't interact with us with the intention of becoming our friend on your accord, just because we may be friendly back to you is not an invitation to try and be buddy buddy with us. Like a dumpster raccoon it is our choice if we want to be "buddies" or not.

If you demonize cluster b disorders (or really any disorder in general) We're getting you with our awesome npd laser of "fuck you" that we got at the cluster b store.

We don't like you if you're heavily involved in discourse (SPESIFICALLY anti/pro ship). Especially don't interact if you go out of your way to label yourself as either/or, we know what kind of person you are.

As for other discourse. We don't care if you're pro/anti/neu endo, or consider yourself an endo system. Just don't bring that shit here that discourse gets tiring quick and it's really stupid.

We're good faith labels supreme, whatever if you can't tolerate people getting silly with their orientation on top of their gender just don't stone me because you don't like lesboys. Radqueers, rcta, and trans-id get out. We can smell you from here.

If you're anti-recovery please get out, sometimes things that seem harmless can still be dangerous.

If you're pro/neu contact for harmful paraphilias don't interact with us we don't like you.

Otherwise we generally just block if we don't want you to interact.

We reserve the right to block anyone and deny any suggestion/request.

Tags:

#♾️ ⌡ OUROBOROS LAB -> Made shit

#♾️ ⌡ OUROBOROS INTERCOM -> Text posts

#♾️ ⌡ OUROBOROS MAIL -> Answered asks

#♾️ ⌡ OUROBOROS CORKBOARD -> Reblogs

[chibishortdeath]

Dude, I go online to avoid my family’s awful political views and for some queer positivity and then that’s fucking ruined by constant discourse, and bickering, and people hating the shit out of each other for no fucking reason, and not being able to look up a specific identity label without seeing deliberately derogatory use of slurs against it, and every fucking random blog I think is safe and just posting positivity posts turning out to be an abuser with several Google docs discord screenshot compilations or out of nowhere they make something that isn’t a positivity post and it’s actually really fucking mean to one group of people, so I can’t fucking turn to anywhere just to hear someone say “trans people shouldn’t die and are cool” every so often because 90% of what I hear in my house on the TV on full volume so it reaches every fucking room is the opposite of that statement.

I go online to avoid stressful shit happening all the time and to engage with some things I like and calm down and for one of them it’s barely searchable because something I hate shares its name and a depressing amount of the fandom I already have blocked and one artist I do not speak to anymore for a reason’s artwork is fucking inescapable, the other is currently infighting about how they should all be allowed to excuse pedophilic content because it’s popular and “no real minors are hurt” and “y’all are just tourists” when the most recent shit to come out in the fandom was something using an actual real life child’s voice, and everything else I like never has anything new made about it or barely fucking exists, meaning oh boy yay what did I find today trying to look for relief? More stress!

I go online looking up art stuff because I need to actually start doing something as a job and wanted to know more about the community I’m getting into and how to actually make any kind of living doing it because it’s all I can fucking do and I need to get out of this house at least and my YouTube is just full of artists debating that adoptables (what I was thinking of starting out with) as a concept are all always a scam, and constant terrifying AI news, and people talking about layoffs and how bad the industry is, and whoops another animator you looked up to is confirmed without a shadow of a doubt a groomer and has deleted their account, and oh hey that person you thought was cool well it turns out they’re not never trust anyone ever, and all art tip help videos are like “you should probably have like three jobs” and “you can’t live on commissions :), anyway here’s how to make a comic it’ll take several decades for it to actually hit an audience, if you were born with a deviantart account day one and have been cultivating a fandom since 1999 that is, if not, don’t get discouraged! It’ll probably just take 70 more years and you just gotta work harder than your best!”, and if you ever have a question for any reason then get ready for the RpgMaker help subreddit specifically there for questions and for beginner dev help to not help you and be mean about it or the random artist you asked for tips to give you the same “just don’t stop believing in yourself :)” advice or sees that you want to do anything for a job and goes “oh, you poor (naive) thing :(, just forget it, it’s not gonna happen, just be a hobby artist on the side, monetize that hobby, and then work at (insert job I cannot physically do)”, so there’s nowhere to go for any of that ever.

I go online to try to interact with friends, but my family suddenly doesn’t like some of my friends, and it’s the Wrong Time™️ to interact with friends all of the time because I am almost always interrupted or piss people off because it’s too late at afternoon/night regardless if this is the only time I would be able to talk to someone because it’s when they’re off work or school or in a different time zone it’s always Wrong™️, and whenever anyone has time off of anything or is actually free to go interact in person something happens to stop it or I’m suddenly stupid fucking sick all of the time and can’t go anywhere, and then I do try to talk to anyone and it’s been so long I don’t know what anyone likes or is comfortable with or don’t share much in common or they have new friends I’ve never met before that share way more in common with them than I ever will, so all of a sudden I am staring at a discord so fucking afraid or too exhausted to just interact with my own friends properly and it’s middle school lunch period again where I sit and do nothing, say nothing, and no one around me notices when I’m not there.

And like really what the fuck am I supposed to do??? What the fuck am I supposed to do!!!!!!! I am trapped! I’m cooked! I can’t fucking do anything! Everything is out of my control all of the time!!!What the fuck is the answer! What the fuck am I supposed to do! What is the answer!!!!! What am I supposed to be doing and how do I do it! What is the right answer!!!!! What is the right answer!!!!!What the fuck am I supposed to do!!! I just wanna get the fuck out of here!!!!!! I’m so tired!!! I’m sick! What the hell am I supposed to do besides curl up in a ball and cry! Nothing stops!!! None of it stops! What the fuck am I supposed to do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[gryphonlover]

I was just thinking recently about how to be an ally to my queer friends on tumblr. Do you have any suggestions? What kinds of things would be supportive and gender affirming to you? How can mutuals support you?

The good news is that asking those questions is one of the most important parts of being a queer ally. 👍 Now this does get a bit long because I'm trying to explain as much as possible to give you a solid idea of how to approach things, so I'm putting it under a readmore.

General Advice

One way you can communicate that you're an ally is by making that clear on your blog. This can mean displaying an image like the straight ally flag, or just saying that your blog is a safe space for queer folks. I don't know how other queer folks feel about the straight ally flag, but I'm of the opinion that it's a great communication device, which is really what all flags are for in the first place.

Most queer folks will have their pronouns in their blog. It could mean that they're transgender or intersex, or it could mean that they're just an ally to those folks. You can't tell unless they let you know, but it's usually safe to say they are an ally at minimum. This means that putting your pronouns on your blog can signal that you're a safe person. It also frees us from the awkwardness that is asking for someone's pronouns, although it should be noted it is always better to ask than to assume.

Reblogging/liking content that's queer-friendly is another good way to show support. It tells people that you're safe and friendly, with the added bonus of interacting with a queer Tumblr's content. I'm of the opinion that it's good for everyone to mingle as long as no one is hurt in the process. I don't really see straight, cisgender folks do this, and I think it's probably because they don't really know any queer folks or they don't feel comfortable engaging with queer content. It can be awkward, but I think the only queer stuff I'd recommend straight, cisgender folks to avoid putting on their blogs is discourse, especially if it's nuanced because that gets really messy really fast and you might not have context for what's going on. But if you like a gay fanfic, or someone you know took some beautiful photos of pride? You're probably fine hitting the buttons on those.

Something that's recently popped up is a significant increase in bots distributing spam in queer tags. A lot of this spam is designed to look like transgender people in sexually suggestive and/or explicit photos. If you spot a post like this, and you're sure the account is a spam account, it's best to report it. Reporting the post and/or blog as spam and then blocking the bot account is the best thing you can do. If you're not sure, then just block the account and a queer person will probably come along and take care of it later. The bots are very problematic because they're taking advantage of the people whose photos they've acquired and they're putting mature content in the community tags without any content warnings.

If you don't understand a queer label, slogan, etc. you can either look it up on a queer wiki (like this one!) or just ask a queer person. Personally, I am more than happy to explain what I know if someone has a question. A lot of other folks are, too. They will let you know if your question is rude, but in general it's better to ask with a genuine desire to understand than to assume anything.

Supporting Me Specifically

I don't have my legal name listed online for multiple reasons, such as internet safety and the fact that it is a gendered name. I ask people to either use my username or call me Gryphon if they want to use an actual name I go by. I don't respond to names that aren't mine, so if you try to use anything else it just won't work. :)

In English, I generally prefer that people refer to me by using "they" instead of "he" or "she" because it's gender neutral. This is obviously an issue in gendered languages. In these cases, I normally use neopronouns. In Portuguese this means using "elu" instead of "ele" or "ela." It might take some practice to get the hang of, but it's the thought that counts.

Adding on to the previous bullet point, I don't normally use other gendered terms to refer to myself (with rare exceptions). In practice, this means replacing "man" or "woman" with "person." The same goes for honorifics. Instead of being "Mr" or "Ms" you should use "Mx." In Portuguese this means using "senhore" instead of "senhor" or "senhora."

I'm asexual. This means I'm not straight or gay, and is not something that will change if I have a partner. Straight, gay, and lesbian are, unfortunately, gendered terms and thus I do not use them. More detailed information is on a need to know basis.

TL;DR: The best thing you can do to show support is avoid using gendered language when you talk to or about me.

If you've read this far, I hope I've been able to give you some practical advice. If you have more questions, feel free to drop those in the askbox, comments, tags, etc. I've got plenty of time to write out explanations for people these days.

[fite-club]

genuine q, i don’t really have a stake in internet discourse so idk what’s going on. i saw the term “transandrophobia” for the first time today and saw you commenting so i scrolled through your blog. i saw you replied to an ask with ``their answer to “so which is it, are transmascs oppressed because we’re seen as men or seen as women?” is “whichever works best for my argument in that moment”`` which i’m kind of confused by. cause like i can see it varying on a case by case basis, if someone excludes a trans man from a queer space for passing too well then like i get that i don’t really think that’s oppression but just hurtful to be excluded from gay spaces. and if they’re perceived as a woman by someone else and experience misogyny like that happens too. i’m just confused on what the argument is, i’m not tryna be dismissive just trying to understand what’s like Going On with all the transandrophobia business. is it that people are claiming to be oppressed for being men is that the issue? just want some nuance cause i can’t grasp it from the random threads i keep finding

yeah parsing through “transandrophobia” discourse is hard because there’s not a consistently used definition or reasoning. the issue is, yeah, people claiming that they’re oppressed for being transmasc specifically (not not just for being trans). the fact that transmascs can be treated as men or women depending on the situation is proof in of itself that “transandrophobia” cannot exist, because the transphobia is motivated in different ways. we experience transphobia when we’re treated like women, and we experience misogyny when we’re treated lesser because of that. systems of oppression that target men like “androphobia” or “misandry” do not exist. the only people who actually hold bigoted views against men are radfems and TERFs*, who are not a majority capable of enacting any structural oppression against men. “anti-masculinity” is not a problem. a trans man might be excluded from a queer group for being “too masc”, but so would a transfem who doesn’t pass. every instance of discrimination against transmascs (besides specific details) is something also experienced by transfems or butch/gnc cis women. because the discrimination comes from misogyny and transphobia, not “transandrophobia”.

the reason why this matters at all is because it’s important to address transmisogyny in the trans community and “transandrophobia truthers” deny that transmascs have any kind of privilege over transfems. i speculate that the reason why terms like “transmisandry” or “transandrophobia” exist in the first place is because transmascs didn’t like admitting that they’re TME (transmisogyny exempt). TME and TMA were terms used by the transfem community to denote the differences in transfem and transmasc experiences. because they ARE different— the defining factor being gender. men have privilege over women; trans men are men and trans women are women; trans men have power over trans women. transfems get called baeddels and transandrophobes just for pointing that out, but it’s the truth. it’s gross seeing other trans guys deny that and avoid taking any accountability whatsoever— we aren’t incapable of being transmisogynistic just because we’re also trans.

*if someone seems to seriously believe that most people hate men and think of them all as brutish predators, if someone is trying to explain how everyone else in the world distrusts men both cis and trans, if someone is saying they’re tired of hearing that transmascs don’t face any oppression at all… that someone has too many radfems and terfs in their life/social circles. these are FRINGE, extremist, reactionary beliefs and they DO NOT reflect the community as a whole. if someone feels like these opinions are the norm, it’s because it’s their norm, which they don’t realize is a bubble.

[velvetvexations]

THAT SAID

I reread this ask again and I've been increasingly skeptical lately of pinning intercommunity issues on the white wing specifically. While white queer people are absolutely bad about a lot of things in a lot of ways these days I'm seeing it get thrown around more and more casually to the point where it frequently gets used on both sides of various arguments.

In transandrophobia discourse, believers point out how the logic of deniers ignores and would invalidate a lot of intersectionality, which I think is completely true. Then deniers, without even seeming aware of the claim on the other side because they don't read anything we say, say the logic of believers ignores and would invalidate a lot of intersectionality, which I think is completely wrong, but it's definitely not just white people saying that. There's no logical reason a self-identified TME who frames their transphobic oppression as wholly separate from masculinity in and of itself would not apply the same understanding to the oppression they suffer under racism, nor is there any reason, say, a Black woman couldn't believe that of Black men just the same as general transfems do of general transmascs. So I can't agree when people say "it must be a white person thing to say masculinity doesn't play a part in marginalization".

So like, idk, I advise caution whenever the subject comes up because I think it's totally possible to both dismiss legitimate issues and give cover to when PoC trans people are also making the same bad arguments that can easily get pinned to vague white people.

I avoid drag in general so I really have less than zero perspective on if this is or is not accurate to what you bring up, anon. It certainly could be and I'm not trying to say it definitely isn't, more data is needed. This is just something that's been on my mind lately.

Honestly (and not an attack on you) i dont get why everyone is so hung up on drag queens being boring or uninteresting?? It’s just uncomfortable to me for queer people to point to other ostensibly queer forms of expression and declare with their whole chest how much they personally dont vibe with it. Especially bcs it was a black american crossdresser slave who initially coined the term “drag queen” i believe. It ust feels like another instance of white people shenanigans

Because it's easy to portray them as cis people appropriating trans culture or something asinine like that.

[rollercoasterwords]

I don’t have anyone else to ask, so here I am. What do you think about the term “boy lesbian” ? I just saw a TikTok where a person said they were a boy lesbian not a woman lesbian? I got the same vibe from that as when a lot of people on TikTok tried to say identifying as lesbian was excluding an it should be called non men loving non men?

well my short answer is that i think boy lesbians are cool + sexy + i wish they would all come over 2 my house so we could kiss w tongue <3 however i am sensing from ur message that this is perhaps a concept that u are a bit wary or skeptical about (? might be reading tone incorrectly but that is the vibe i'm getting lol) so i will put a longer answer under the cut:

so i feel like what you're asking when you say "what do you think about this" is essentially "do you think people should be able to call themselves 'boy lesbians'" which. is a source of online discourse that i typically try to avoid because i think discourse about who's "allowed" to identify a certain way in the queer community is basically pointless and does more harm than good. like, at the end of the day, there's really no use in policing who's "allowed" to call themselves what, because people can literally identify themselves however they want and you can't control that, because identity is an inherently personal and subjective experience. and so anytime people do start trying to strictly police identity + draw clear boundaries around who's "allowed" to use which labels, usually the result is just alienating and ostracizing other queer people who we should be in community with, as we share overlapping political struggles.

but. looking specifically at the term "boy lesbian" (and terms like it). i know a lot of people immediately get up in arms going "the whole point of lesbian is that there's NO BOYS!!!!!" but. personally i do not think that's true. every label currently used by the queer community is historically and contextually specific; most labels like 'gay' 'lesbian' and 'trans' are umbrella terms that include broad and varied communities of people who do not all share exactly the same identities or experiences. and the label 'lesbian' as an umbrella term has not always been used + conceptualized historically the way it's used today; it has also not always been 'exclusively women who aren't attracted to men' or whatever other definition people try to claim. many lesbians, especially gender nonconforming lesbians, have complex + nuanced + fraught relationships to gender + womanhood, and there has specifically always been a lot of overlap in (using today's terms) transmasculine and lesbian communities. leslie feinberg's stone butch blues comes immediately to mind as one example of lesbian experience that does not align simply or perfectly with womanhood and is much more nebulously transmasculine. at the end of the day, it's impossible to draw strict definitional boundaries around umbrella terms like "lesbian," because to do so will always inevitably fail to account for certain people who do identify with the term--and what right does anyone have to tell someone else that their personal experience of identity isn't "allowed?"

like - defining lesbianism as either centered around womanhood or positioned against manhood both inevitably devolve into gender essentialism. if you say "lesbians are women who love women," that requires you to provide a strict definition of "woman," something that is essentially impossible without resorting to gender essentialism. if you say "lesbians are nonmen who love nonmen," then you run into the same problem with defining "men." this is because both "men" and "women" are also historically + contextually specific umbrella terms used to define social categories of people, and not some sort of pre-existing inherent natural identities.

so then you might be saying--but wait a second, if all these labels are so fluid and nonspecific and personally defined, then what's the use of labeling anything!!! aren't you just saying that none of it means anything?!

no, not at all! what i'm saying here is that trying to draw strict boundaries around labels that have to do with gender + sexuality is at best pointless and at worst harmful, because gender and sexuality are inherently personal experiences and you can't police someone's own sense of self, nor should you try to. but there are three areas where labels are useful and do matter:

1 - personal value

labels are useful for individuals trying to understand themselves and how they relate to the world. people can find comfort or joy or simple understanding by labeling themselves in relation to the world around them; this sense of labeling is deeply personal and up to each individual in terms of how/to what extent they want to partake in it

2 - community

umbrella terms like "woman" "lesbian" "man" "trans" etc are all useful in socially specific contexts for identifying shared experiences + building community. if i say to someone "i'm a lesbian," and they say "oh i'm a lesbian too," i'm not going to assume that we have the exact same experiences of gender + sexuality that fit some made-up set of rules, but i am going to recognize that this person has certain experiences which overlap with my own, and we can build a community around those experiences. this is the way that basically any label works in a social context--if i say "i'm american" and someone else says "oh me too," i wouldn't just assume that we've had the exact same "american" experiences, because america is a vast country with a huge diversity of people + lifestyles + environments etc etc, y'know? social labels like these are useful for identifying broad overlap in experiences, but because they encompass such broad groups of people it's silly to try and make strict rules about who's "allowed" in the group--especially if your goal is to build community

3 - identifying + naming political struggles + oppression

this follows along the same lines as point 2 -- basically, most queer labels function as umbrella terms meant to bring together people of varied experiences + backgrounds who share common sites of oppression + common political struggles. like, historically, this has been the center of queer community-building--the fact that we are all being oppressed by the same people in overlapping ways. when i tell you "i'm a lesbian," that sentence does not tell you all that much about my own, individual, personal experience of gender. but it does tell you a lot about how i am politically positioned in the world and the kinds of political struggles i might face, and that's what makes that label so socially meaningful. like, the purpose of these labels is not to give everybody insight to the nuances of personal identity; it's to build community + identify our shared struggles with each other.

and i think one reason this discourse gets so heated in online spaces is that people get really angry about the idea of, like, "well what if someone calls themself a lesbian to infiltrate lesbian spaces!!!" which. i mean a lot of that fearmongering is rooted in transphobia quite honestly, but. at the end of the day, if someone is identifying themself as a lesbian, i'm going to assume that they have a good personal reason for doing so, and what matters to me will be knowing that we share a political struggle. i trust that if i encounter someone who's just trolling and "pretending" to be a lesbian or whatever i'll be able to recognize it and just....choose not to interact with that person. but honestly i don't even really think that actually happens--like i said, i think a lot of the fear that drives people to try and create strict definitional boundaries around the term "lesbian" is rooted in transphobia.

and i think something else driving a lot of this online discourse surrounding queer labels is like....this emphasis on identity labels as primarily a personal identifier rather than identity labels as primarily a community-building tool. like, there seems to be an emphasis particularly in online spaces + amongst certain groups of queer people to really want to micromanage identity + create specific rules + definition for each label so that, like, you're getting as much personal information as possible about someone who tells you that label, because you know they're following these detailed rules. but like. a) you truly are not entitled to personal information about anyone's individual experience of gender and/or sexuality and b) that's not the point of these labels!!!!! like i promise you it is so much more important to just accept that these are umbrella terms with nebulous boundaries so that you can take a step back and evaluate the social context in which they're being used in order to then build community. it is okay if there aren't strict rules and definitions! what matters more is being able to look at a specific contexts + the way a broad term can be applied differently in those specific contexts.

anyway. last thing i will say to this whole point is that i personally am someone who identifies to a certain extent with terms like boy lesbian or boydyke, in that my own sense of gender is much more centered around dyke than it is womanhood and i don't necessarily experience lesbianism as something centered around women/womanhood. my lesbianism feels more closely tied to gendernonconformity, genderqueerness, and overlaps a lot with experiences i've heard transmasculine people speak about. but lesbianism is still central to my identity, as i am politically positioned in society as a lesbian and it is the best umbrella term to give people a sense of my identity at a glance, and thus generally the best term for me to position myself within queer spaces + to seek out community. so i understand on a personal level why people might identify as a 'boy lesbian,' and hopefully from this personal anecdote you can understand why someone might too! if u have any questions or anything feel free to shoot me another message; i'm trying to cover a lot of ground in this response so i didn't fully expand on like. every single point bc that would have taken forever lol

[danggerine]

i made the mistake of reading the notes on a lot of trans naoto posts so now y’all get responses to some of the bad takes i keep seeing. buckle the fuck up

• “naoto’s arc is about sexism specific to the japanese workplace and calling her trans erases that to fit it into a western lens!!!”

you guys do know that there are japanese trans people right. like i agree that there are lots of issues with workplace sexism and gender roles in japan, but there’s also lots of issues with transphobia. y’all do know that you do not have to be white and/or live in a western country to be trans, and that queer stories and issues are GLOBAL stories and issues right.

• “naoto isn’t a man, she just pretended to be one to get respect in a male-dominated field, if you say she’s a trans man you’re ruining that whole character arc about accepting your true self!”

here’s the thing! the way that character arc was done was fucking transphobic! the trope of a woman going into disguise as a man for safety/respect/etc is tried and tested, it shows up literally everywhere, and the trope itself is not inherently transphobic. HOWEVER, when persona 4 incorporates Really Obviously Trans elements into that trope, like chest binding and literal gender reassignment surgery, then we have a problem, because now you have a cis character going through a trans narrative in the name of insecurity.

p4 does everything it can to embody the typical narrative of a young transitioning trans guy: binding, changing your name, revising official documents to be known as a man in work and school records, dressing masculine, and forming a shadow literally based on transitional surgery. plus the stuff naoto’s shadow says isn’t about being “a weak little girl” or “no one will ever take you seriously when you’re just a little girl” like you would expect it to be for someone who’s arc is supposed to be about dealing with misogyny, it’s all “you’ll never be a real man,” “you can’t cross the boundary between the sexes,” “no one will ever see you as you are” comments. you know, textbook trans guy insecurity. but the game backtracks on that and says naoto was just insecure about being a female detective and wanted people to take them seriously, and that they should get rid of these feelings and accept their true, female self.

and this is where the problem lies. when you write an obviously trans-coded narrative, but make the character experiencing it an insecure cis person or someone trying to avoid discrimination, you say either 1. trans people are really their assigned gender and are just insecure, but accepting the gender they were given at birth will make them happier and more confident or 2. being a trans man is a way for cis women to escape misogyny. 1 is obviously stupid and has been talked about by plenty of people, but 2 is a BIG problem and a wild assumption to me. being a trans man is seen as an “out” for naoto, or a solution to a problem, as if once they’re a man they’ll face no discrimination whatsoever, when in reality things like getting their gender marker changed in official documents that would allow them to go by “he” and wear the boy’s uniform at school and passing well enough to be seen as a boy in public would be a HUGE ordeal that includes a lot of stress and rejection and danger. realistically, naoto is putting themself in a really precarious position, because if they are exposed as actually afab to the media, to the detective agency, or to the school, they are set for a hell of a lot of ridicule, discrimination, and potential physical danger. but persona 4 doesn’t reflect this at all, because it’s transphobic and thinks that being trans is the easy way out for cis women experiencing misogyny!

• really any argument that boils down to “naoto is a cis woman in canon whose struggle is about sexism, not being trans”

like i already addressed enough of this, i think, but what really gets me is that kanji’s arc is fucked up in a lot of the same ways naoto is and no one is clowning on posts about kanji being gay? his shadow is a very clear (and offensive) gay caricature, and his narrative is very much one about a mlm guy experiencing homophobia from his peers and acting out because of that. and yet the game backtracks to saying “oh no it’s not about liking men, kanji is insecure about his femininity and softer hobbies because of toxic masculinity” and then literally uses naoto to refute his queerness because “look the only guy kanji was ever shown as attracted to was ACTUALLY a woman all along and now that kanji knows she’s a girl he can be openly attracted to her!” in canon, naoto is about as cis as kanji is straight, and yet EVERYONE is on board for portraying kanji as gay in fan works like it’s not even a question, but there has to be a huge debate anytime anyone wants to call naoto trans. legitimately, i think i’ve seen someone argue about kanji being mlm on a post...once? ever? meanwhile every post about naoto being trans has to have a horde of discourse, i’m literally already prepping for the bad notes this post will get because y’all cannot leave this ALONE

in conclusion, i am not saying that everyone has to think naoto is a trans man or forcing anyone to stop liking a character in the way they want or anything like that. i am saying that the naoto’s canon character arc is transphobic and if you’re trying to fight with trans people about how they want to reclaim something that uses a lot of their experiences, don’t.

[dream-sans-mogai]

BYF/DNI

Preamble: I do not consider my dni to be a hard limit for multiple reasons: I allow anyone to reblog my flags to their hoarding blogs, I may make any exceptions I deem necessary and I am open to respectful conversation from those on it for small things i.e clearing up some credit for a flag/term, questions, etc but I am not open for discourse or heated discussions concerning things on my dni. Don't speak to me expecting to potentially change my mind. I will not change it concerning these things. If you want me to elaborate on a topic, I will but don't come at me with negative energy expecting me to return good vibes.

There are many beliefs I have that I have not listed for my own comfort and to avoid further discourse. I'm here to make terms, flags and have fun, not defend my beliefs to anyone with a bad faith question. If you have a question concerning a topic not listed, feel free to ask it but do not expect an answer. Im fine to clarify some things and not others and if my not clarifying my stance on something is a deal breaker for you to follow me, then I'm sorry but you'll have to move on. I'm not here for your comfort and peace of mind, I'm here to make flags and have fun doing so. Now let's get to the meat and potatoes.

Lastly....

I do not identify with any inclu- or Exclu- labels as I find they are far too subjective and I have bad experiences with both. I think both sides of radinclue and radexclue are far outside of the realm of decency and find them both nonsensical with no grounding in material reality. I also don't agree with many to any *blank*queer labels, especially those passive to material damage and the critical inclusionist title is equally muddled and subjective. Don't call me any of these, I don't identify with any of them and I'm not inclusionist coiner or an exclusionist coiner. Keep your bullshit labels that basically mean nothing other than to other LGBT people other than yourselves over bullshit. They are virtue signally labels that mean nothing in real life and exist purely to give each other an "acceptable" target to bully. Fuck off.

DNI:

Terfs/swerfs/transphobic radfems/baddels/transradfems

Transmysognists and Transandrophobes/use "biologically male/female" or "they fab" language

Think transandrophobia doesn't exist

Truscum/transmeds/anti-non dysphorics/try to police or gatekeep hrt/gender affirming surgeries or believe no one under 18 should have access to any form hrt/surgical transitions/think cis people shouldn't use or have access to hrt/gender affirming surgeries.

Pro-youth lib but like in that way. Not in a "emancipate hurting 16 is a good thing" way more in a " 14 yr olds can consent to sex and should have access to porn" kind of way. You know those people.

Anti-neopronouns/anti-xenogenders/anti-pnc people/ anti it/it's pronoun users/ anti-he/him lesbian or she/her gay, anti-genderfluid/bigender gays and lesbians/etc.Try to police anyone's pronouns really other than people using slur pronouns for slurs they can't reclaim or hearing folks using hush/hushs n stuff.

Think butch/femme are lesbian exclusive or twink/bear are gay exclusive.

Think "men dni" or "woman dni" are valid things, especially when used to exclude or police multigender/genderfluid people from gay/achillian or lesbian/sapphic spaces. One gender dose not cancel out the other.

Proshippers/anti-antis/pro-fiction/darkship, supporters and those neutral/neutralship

Fujoshi/fundashi/lolicon/shoutacon

Zionists/Pro-isreal/Anti-palestine/anti-ceasefire/Anti-Disestablishment of isreal. No two state solutions on stolen land!

Map/pear/Necro/zoo/anything other than anti-contact/pro-para pride (paraphilies are ok to interact but if your encouraging people to act on them or make flags and stuff, are "contact complex", then you fit my dni)

White fundamentalist christians/carry christo-fascist shit like how everyone should be christian/Proselytizers/Claim people can become "possessed" specifically by "demons"/get offended by heathencore or anti-christian establishment art and sediments (cry me a fucking river over nun lingerie or spray painted church walls wah wah wah)

Cishet white men. Sorry, I make the rules.

Racist/anti BLM/anti acab/ Nazi/ conservative/republican/copaganda apologist or consumer, yes even critically

Transx/trans id/transrace/trace/transabled/trans species/trans age/radqueers/radfreak/warqueer(this dose not include otherkin/therians, chronisian pple or people with age weirdness due to system related things)

Anti-mogai/believe all microlabels are inherently harmful(why tf are you following me??)

Culture vulture/use cultures you don't inherently have a right to

Disrespect victims while engaging in true crime content/hit on serial killers

Fetishize poc/disabled/LGBT/etc.

You disrespect others for using flags by problematic creators when the flag/identity it's self is not problematic

Anti-recovery/ completely and totally anti-psych (the psychiatric field needs to be improved, not destroyed)

Militant/political vegans/meat is murder people (stop being racist. Your quinoa made from child slavery and your out of season pineapples made by laborers in foreign countries with no rights isn't cruelty free, Courtney.)

Pro-ana/pro-mia/th*nspo/fatphobic (people who are "pro-for-me-not-for-thee" or otherwise self-recovery neutral but pro-recovery are on thin ice but welcomed)

"tulpamancers"/"willogenic"/"trans-did". We are endo neutral as long as you are aginest calling people traumascum and don't think you have the same or similar experiences as those with actual did/osdd or think every system space should be inclusive of all endos. We allow all sides of syscourse to interact so long as you don't fakeclaim people(you can fake claim tulpamancers and willos, they arent real by admission lol), dont encourage splitting or disassociation ( encouraging people to use a harmful coping mechanism is anti-recovery and harmful asf :))and are respectful of others.

Think "system resets" or "gateway systems" or "median systems" other made up neospiritual white stolen shit is real. You do not have a portal in your head and my alters did not visit you. That's not how reality works. Get outside please.

Own, operate or support " headmate creation blogs". That's now how a mental disability works, appropriator.

Irls/Factkin/ship irl people/rpf/insist on being called your kins in all contexts (Sorry I'm not calling you kokichi or Shadow when we are talking about shit happening in Palestine.)

Are or support perisex "afab transfems/transwomen" and "amab Transmascs/trans men". If you don't experience trans mysogny, you can't be transfem and perisex afab pple don't experience transmysogny. Same as if you don't experience transandrophobia, you can't be Transmasc and perisex amab pple don't experience transandrophobia. Afab trans woman/transfem and amab trans man/Transmasc are Intersex community originating terms to decide our experiences and they were stolen. You cant be (peri) afab and a trans woman, ur just a cis woman suck it up.

Radqueer, safequeer, xenosatanist, supporter or neutral

Supporters of anything of the above/allow interaction of any of the above because you are complicit.

Or if you consume these fandoms/content(even if you "consume critically"):

Dreamsmp/Dream/jschlatt/technoblade/tomminnit

Harry Potter/jk rowling

Hetalia

Shane dawson

Taylor swift

Jeffrey star

Pewdiepie

Jenna marbles

BTS

Helluva boss/Hazbin hotel/Viziepop

Your boyfriend

Yandere sim/yandev

Camp camp

Radio-mogai

Or if you ship:

Bakudeku

Anything with endeavor

Dreammare/any incest sans x sans ships.

Fontcest(yes, that includes crossversal shit like kedgeup or honey mustard. It's still a papy and a sans)

Any adult with any minor/pedophilia

Incest

Abusive ships( if your glorifying them. If you don't ship them lovingly and your not trying to make them look healthy and happy, ur cool)

Animal/monster x human couples where the animal/monster doesn't pass the harkens test aka has equal or above human sentience, is an adult for its species and is capable of both understanding and communicating consent.

[stomp-that-ho-regard]

mircallablue asked:

Hey, if its cool with you I want to respond to your last anon, because they said some things I kind of disagree with (or at least they said some things I think it's important to phrase more clearly). Gonna risk doing it off anon because I'm a masochist I guess.

Firstly, Imodna really isn't a b/j apology ship, and I'll explain why. CR doesn't give a fuck about what its fans think, and doesn't make decisions to keep them happy. At least, not in *that* sense. If they cared about b/j or b/j fans, they simply wouldn't have done those characters dirty in the first place. What CR *does* care about is keeping its toxic fans on board, while also making money and building "the brand". And they want "the brand" to be as market friendly and un-offensive as possible. That's why they got rid of Brian. That's why their queer rep is either subtext and tragedy (for mlm) or hypersexual and tragedy (for wlw). That's why the anti-imperialist theme got dropped in campaign 2. That's why they never address the white-washed art. CR is 100% aware of the discourse surrounding the b/j retcon - how could they not be? They're aware of the god damned Imogen glasses discourse ffs.

For this reason, I honestly believe that imodna is at least partially intended to just be shipping bait. But not for b/j shippers - it's for b/y shippers. CR knows it needs to have *something* queer, because it's a supposedly left-wing company, and fortunately, b/y shippers have more than proven that they will go feral over crumbs. So - Introduce two women, have them hold hands, have them share a bed, but avoid defining the relationship for as long as possible, and occasionally no-homo or gal-pal them if they start to get to close to each other. And don't mention *anything* mlm unless it's dead in a backstory or it's so vague it has to be clarified on twitter after the fact JKR style. This is why Marisha interrupted Robbie so bizarrely on the new talk show - he was about to mention Dorians crush on Orym - so Marisha had to leap in and make it hetero as abruptly as possible, so much so that even Robbie and Matt were stunned. CR just wants to keep pathetic b/y shippers "manifesting" every week like they were at the end of campaign 2.

And anyone who thinks CR doesn't make decisions like this is honestly so naïve as to be pitiful.

Secondly, the problem with b/y isn't that it's sexual, there's nothing wrong with that - the problem is that it's ONLY sexual, despite trying to convince us that it's true love. I bet if you were to count, B/Y honestly probably said less than 500 words to each other 1-on-1 before saying "I love you", and I think that's probably being generous. This, as I've mentioned many times before, is a very common trope that straight people fall into when they try to write/portray wlw.

BY shippers will misrepresent this criticism of BY by saying that "b/j shippers think BY is a lesbian ship for straight people", and that's a strawman at best (or sometimes, as the anon pointed out, they'll just throw wild accusations at the wall to see what sticks). You *could* say that BY is a lesbian ship *by* straight people, which is factually correct, and this trope is why we say that. That's why Marisha said, VERBATIM "my feelings just kind of transferred". Because to her, the fact that it was wlw was all that mattered by that point. The specific women in the relationship had become irrelevant. b/j is what happened naturally, and b/y is what *had* to happen for corporate reasons. I notice that b/y shippers never talk about or acknowledge that line... I wonder why...

Thirdly, yes, it is completely pathetic that some b/j shippers would get sucked in by CR again, but honestly, it's shocking to me that anyone would. Because, it is genuinely 100% in-character for c/ritical role to just start pretending, at any moment, that Imogen and Laudna have never been room mates. They've literally done exactly that before. Imogen and Laudna might go the next 41 episodes without having a single 1-on-1 conversation, and CR fans who ship, say, imogen and dorian, will call you delusional if you try to point out how weird it is. That's exactly what they did to b/j, and that was after *99* episodes, not a measly 20 something.

I bring this up because I feel like a lot of people still don't get that THAT'S why b/j shippers reacted the way they did. It has nothing to do with the ship not becoming canon, most of us never thought that would happen anyway. We just noticed that it was a literal retcon, which has continued to this day (the Kamordah M9 animated recap, for example). We made such a fuss about it at the time, mainly to get the reassurance from others that we weren't *losing our fucking minds*, and of course, very many b/y shippers were (and are) happy to leap in and tell that we're mentally ill. Or call us lesbophobes. Or anti-sex. Or infantilising. Or predatory. Or TERFs. Or saying we hate Laura. Or saying we worship Laura. Or accuse us of sending death threats. Or literally just pick a bad thing out of a hat, honestly. Anything to make it so that CR hasn't done anything wrong.

Well, everything you’ve said here is spot on, as usual. And hey, just for the record, feel free to come off anon more, if you want to. No one’s gonna be chewing anybody out on here lol We’re all in the same boat.

I do have some things to add...

“For this reason, I honestly believe that imodna is at least partially intended to just be shipping bait. But not for b/j shippers - it's for b/y shippers. CR knows it needs to have *something* queer, because it's a supposedly left-wing company, and fortunately, b/y shippers have more than proven that they will go feral over crumbs.” Yeah, that could be what’s happening. I think CR mistakenly believes that the BY shipping fandom is comprised of most, if not all, of the queer women in their fandom. So yes, they could believe they are playing to a perceived majority; to keep them watching, and buying merch, and to get free promo out of them. The problem with that though is that, right now, as I’ve pointed out before, there are a LOT of BY’s who want nothing to do with Im/odna. Mainly because they know how many BJ’s ship it. They might find the dynamic cute, but refuse to actively ship it because they despise the idea of BJ’s ever possibly being ‘rewarded’. So, I don’t know how well that plan is working or will work out for CR. Even still, I do recognize that CR has become more PR-conscious as of late, so this could very well be just that; a PR move (naively aimed towards BY’s).

“You *could* say that BY is a lesbian ship *by* straight people, which is factually correct” This is really something they don’t want to accept. That these are straight women attempting to play out a lesbian romance. The amount of outrage you’d get from stating this directly to them is astonishing. They are so convinced Marisha is bi and they will live and die by this so-called ‘fact’ even though she never actually said it anywhere or even implied it. I think the one thing that they keep basing this on was something from the Q&A panel the cast did just before the live show in Chicago (Feb ‘20). No one had any audio or video of this, so no hard receipts. I think someone complimented her on the way she was playing Beau and wondered how she got it so right or something. And she said one sentence, no elaboration, “Yeah, you know, I went to college.” I remember that bit because people kept repeating it over and over as if it meant something. She never went into detail. Never said/implied she had crushes on her friends, or ever had flings or actual relationships with women. It was just “I went to college.” (To me, it didn’t confirm that Marisha is bi, it confirmed that she’s a tone deaf straight woman who experimented once in college and now believes that she totally understands what it’s like to be a lesbian.) But of course, the fandom took it differently, and it’s the only thing they have so they’ve held onto it with a vice grip ever since. With Ashley, I’m not really sure why they think she’s bi. She’s never said/implied it. It seems like her voicing Ellie in T/LOU and being moved by the love story bringing comfort to people means she can’t possibly be straight. Apparently to them, actresses can’t just be good at their jobs, something more has to be going on there. And that’s why the second you mention them being straight, especially Marisha, they lose their fucking minds. They’ll insist that it’s OBVIOUS that she’s bi, and somehow make you feel stupid for not believing that she is.

These were tags in the notes of a post calling out the people who were calling out Marisha after she bragged about ‘accidentally’ showing an IT guy her NSFW BY lockscreen. From user c/upcakesandhags...

From user s/hmendrickthemagician...

Here’s just a taste of how deep into this some people are...

Good god. That one tweet saying the whole cast is some form of queer, except Travis lol

Please tell me when and how the fandom collectively decided that the cast is now filled to the brim with marginalized people? Could this possibly be yet another way for them to try to shield CR from criticism? Like, if they insist hard enough that the majority of this cast isn't straight, maybe people will stop saying mean things about them? Even if they aren’t majority straight (which I highly doubt based on all of the constant missteps), that wouldn’t change anything. Someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity doesn’t exclude them from being shitty or from making extremely shitty storytelling decisions.

“Marisha said, VERBATIM "my feelings just kind of transferred". [...] I notice that b/y shippers never talk about or acknowledge that line” Oh, some of them did at the time. But they dismissed it, like they did everything else she said. Claimed they didn’t understand what the problem was and that this kind of thing ‘happens in real-life all the time’. I’d really like to know what alternate universe they’re living in.

“b/j is what happened naturally, and b/y is what *had* to happen for corporate reasons.” And I think one of those corporate reasons was FJ. BJ happening would throw a wrench into CR’s main m/f ship, and that would be blasphemous. They couldn’t allow that. As we all know, any show’s most popular m/f pairing needs to be protected at all costs, like it’s some kind of priceless treasure. (This is why I keep comparing CR’s storytelling tactics to scripted TV. The patterns are the same.)

“many b/y shippers were (and are) happy to leap in and tell that we're mentally ill. Or call us lesbophobes. Or anti-sex. Or infantilising. Or predatory. Or TERFs. Or saying we hate Laura. Or saying we worship Laura. Or accuse us of sending death threats. Or literally just pick a bad thing out of a hat, honestly. Anything to make it so that CR hasn't done anything wrong.” This is what it’s like to become the fandom’s punching bag. But I don’t think BY’s are just doing it to protect CR, it’s also simply because we don’t agree with them. This is their retaliation for us not worshipping BY.

Here’s an old post from l/uck...

She was talking about us. Maybe her and her BY cronies should ALSO stop pretending that all queer women share a hive mind. And accept that not all queer women feel the same way about every f/f ship. Accept that not all queer women believe BY is the ROMANCE TO END ALL ROMANCES and THE BEST REP WE’VE EVER SEEN and that they shouldn’t be required to believe that in order to avoid harassment. But the BY’s don’t have enough self-awareness for that. Again, ‘rules for thee, but not for me.’

[mourningmogaicrew]

Hey I’m Mourn and I like queer stuff

[Header ID: A group of moon jellyfish. They are clear with blue light reflected through them and floating in dark water.

Icon ID: The glosquidcatic flag. It has 5 horizontal flags that are gray-blue, blue, teal-gray, gray, and dark gray. There is a light blue catgender symbol in the middle with 2 glowsquid drawings around it. End ID]

 My pronouns: All sfw neopronouns. If you have a mental disability and can’t use neos then please use they/them or it/its. My pronoun page is here.

Accessibility: I try to put IDs on all my flags and symbols. I previously used my typing quirk on this blog so my old posts look weird but there are translations (block the #mourn’s typing quirk tag to avoid them completely). I censor some potentially triggering words with number replacements for letters and a translation is here if you need it.

Asks/requests are closed!

What you can request: I will coin terms (or pronouns), create new symbols or flags, and combine flags.

Request rules: I am willing to make flags/terms for everything except nsfw or exclusionary things, mental illnesses, or identities relating to real people (including content creators). I also don’t make stimboards and I no longer make barcode headers. If you send in a request involving a fandom that makes me uncomfortable I’ll just deny it so don’t worry.

More blog info and my DNI is below the cut.

Discourse: I am a queer inclusionist, meaning that I support all good-faith identities and experiences. Do not come to me trying to invalidate my or others’ terms. I also refuse to discuss ship/syscource or transx terms.

Tone tags and trigger/content warnings: I don’t/can’t use tone tags (because of my neurodivergency) so please don’t ask me to and just assume I’m being genuine. Generally triggering things are tagged but feel free to ask for something specific.

Interaction info:

-Please tell me if I say something accidentally offensive or post inaccurate info.

-You can post about things I’ve coined, make alternate flags and symbols, and use my flags in edits, but I appreciate being tagged or credited. (Just because these are really unknown terms and it’s hard to find mogai info on the internet.) Do not repost my flags or terms without credit.

-Do not definition change or steal my terms. You can put them on the LGBTA/LGBTIA/Ezgender wikis if you want.

-I don’t usually reblog things, even if you tag me sorry.

DNI if you are only going to harass/hate me, if you are pro irl 1ncest or far rightwing, or are an exclusionist/anti-mogai.

[yoitscro]

I still haven’t watched the video...BUT.

While I’m still of the belief that Sarah Z probably shouldn’t have posted some “rise and fall” video on Homestuck --which uses the traction of 4/13, a positive day for a fandom that likes to eat itself, to give attention some to criticisms involving speculative allegations-- , I’ve seen more anger from people that I frankly don’t trust being upset about it being a “hit” video to tear down WP, and jumping the gun to the point of threatening legal action, versus actually seeing casual watchers talking about the discourse; more so about nostalgia and “ah, homestuck exists still”.

I assume the paranoid jump on the video is because of casual watcher’s potential reactions? But there’s, also, more reactions toward the team’s response versus what the team + team friends were presumably worried about...so like. I guess the fire being fueled is ironically only being fueled because it’s being blown out of proportion, and thereby brought to peoples attention through *that*.

Sarah’s video is not 100% right. There are false facts from what I’ve seen briefly of. I personally don’t think that a person who’s read Homestuck but has only existed in the fandom space primarily during certain years has the same, fair perspective as a current homestuck that’s been aware of the environment going on, especially on Homestuck Twitter. Instead of things being made in 10 days, apparently, and there not being any effort to reach out to anyone on the team before presenting information, I would’ve just, you know, not done that. At least give it a shot, you literally lose nothing but avoid many things later.

The team has also faced blatant threats and harassment, which isn’t the same as other queer or poc people criticizing how homestuck handles content in their own space, but it exists. There’s certainly a reasonable, human reaction that I get, which come from the anxiety of being put on the spot by a something-thousand subscribed youtuber while you’re trying to figure things out in the background as things have been quiet, right after the turbulent year of 2020. I’ve actually been really frustrated that people haven’t considered that and that these reactions are coming out of nowhere. There is a trauma to consider since this is not the white guy taking the brute of stuff despite people using Hussie’s name as a synonym for the team.

There’s also the fact that Gio was apparently not asked to be used in the video beforehand? At least that’s what I’ve heard, which if true was an oversight, given how one may want to ask “hey, i’m making a video on your articles which could absolutely put you in the center of this since I’m using your online identity; let me get your permission at least.”

That said, based on audience reaction, and how it’s been the opposite of what a handful of people associated with officialized content expected, which is the reason things are being targeted right now, I feel like this is an...overreaction. 

Again, I haven’t watched the video. But the video existing with the whispered points it’s brought up is the reason that things exploded yesterday. I’ve seen more dislikes of Sarah’s video from a loud minority who, 1. are people who refuse to ever criticize the issues with Homestuck for actual years, and 2. people who have watched 20 minutes of it and heard what they wanted to hear, versus seeing the criticism acknowledged by everyone else, outside of an acknowledged comment before moving on. The reaction is what’s giving it the most attention, actually.

Apparently in the video she mentions how she’s not trying to enable any harassment, states that somethings presented are just speculation, and doesn’t namedrop anyone specific?

That seems like a cliche way to act like someone can’t ever respond to stuff like this, but that’s usually saved for smaller followed beef on tumblr or twitter. Not a company or it’s contracted IP.

I’ve seen the people say it wasn’t that bad and have honed in on WP + acquaintance reactions versus what was said in the video. It was just something that was posted on a day where so much other 4/13 stuff was going on, which could’ve been given attention instead of one person’s video, which was apparently 2 hours long, and was already being venomously hated before one would’ve been able to watch it in full? (The idea of the anger coming from those who haven’t watched the video is...not surprising. There have been people put on blast for HS opinions for just a sentence.)

The kickstarter update’s response could’ve been posted itself, versus all the stuff prior and after it (the supposed legal action), but I honestly think that it shouldn’t have taken a breadtuber’s threat on Homestuck’s reputation for fans who ACTUALLY engage with it to have communication with what’s been going on, which we’ve been asking for for years. There’s a trust that needs to be rebuilt on both sides, be it from entitlement, elitism, or bullying, and this did not help.

I don’t like that Hussie only speaks up when a boiling point is reached, and people who work on his team are beyond gone or dealing with the fallout with how he’s neglected his IP and the fans that’ve somehow stayed to support it; crowd control and community management is important, and every other indie creator or small team on the internet who thinks ahead has been getting this. And I honestly hope that anyone who is legit having a terrible time producing HS content considers whether or not they should continue to stick around, for their own mental health.

If by a week from now we’re talking about the reaction of the video and the video itself is potentially long out of people’s mind well. That’s the point of this rant.

and on the other side, quoting a friend:

Sarah z's video didn't need to be released on a day of celebration for a healing fanbase and that video regressed that and caused the official team to have fucking public panic attacks.

Not a great 4/13, tbh.

[rainbowsky]

More on the Fan Fic issue

I have a few more asks about the issue raised the other day, some of which are long and go into detail on the 'wars' that have been happening on Twitter and AO3.

Sorry for grouping these but I wanted to put it all under a cut because these are long, and also in case people don't want to dig into these issues (which would be understandable).

Anonymous 1 asked:

"I am very strongly of the opinion that the BJYX term is still a fandom umbrella term" I agree. Mainly because Bjyx is the most popular. Many antis always say bjyx, and have no idea the others. So sometimes it's easier just to say bjyx instead of explaining all three. I myself more like "who cares as long as they happy." So I enjoy Yizhan in all contexts. Many bxgs I know also like that, mostly ibxgs. I think deep down all bxgs (no matter which position they prefer) just want Yizhan to be happy

Not sure we can be so certain about that last part, Anon (I think for a lot of people GG and DD are just characters in a smutty story they have in their heads), but I agree about the term being popular regardless of the type of fans people are.

From what I can see the BJYX term seems to be used 80-90% umbrella, 10-20% dynamic in both international and c-social media (for every 10 times you see the term used, only one or two of those usages - probably less - are referring to a dynamic). This is my totally unscientific estimation, but I think even 10-20% dynamic is being generous. The number of people who are fixated on a sexual dynamic aren't nearly as large as they'd like to believe.

Anonymous 2 asked:

about the promptfests - i’ve been on twitter since early 2020 and what i’ve noticed is that this influx bjyx-only promptfests started gaining speed once lots of rational voices started leaving the fandom recently either because a) new interests have caught their attention or b) the toxicity of the popular bxg circles on twitter have become too much to handle.

gdgdbaby was usually the organizer of dynamic-inclusive events, and she’s received lots, and lots, and lots of backlash by bxg, sometimes even by accounts with thousands followers, for using bjyx as a catch-all term. and as her interest in yizhan has since waned—hopefully for reasons unrelated to fandom toxicity—many of the people who were attracted to the welcoming environment she created distanced themselves as well.

zsww/lsfy fans have become an outnumbered circle who try their best to create exclusive events to avoid the “is bjyx a catch-all term” discourse, but never seem to gain as much traction as gdgdbaby (who has a sizeable following) or those who host bjyx-only events (who also have sizeable followings).

meanwhile the dynamic war has only become more and more hostile and bjyx is clearly the more populated group… ao3 is simply a battlegrounds, if i may dramatize the situation a little for the sake of humor, and the promptfests are a reaction to this irritating t/b discourse that has made bxg twitter completely inhospitable for me…and lots of other fans too.

(i’ve also noticed a huge reinforcement as of recently where ppl will call gg laopo, a milf, an omega, etc even outside of rpf (i.e. posting pictures of him at events and saying he looks pregnant or he’s going into heat) and it’s just… uncomfortable.)

(also please note i have a biased account of all of this drama bc many of my friends were harassed over it, and anyone who disagrees with my take may feel free to interject.)

I took the liberty of adding paragraph breaks because they are pretty important for some readers, particularly ND readers like me.

It's sad to hear how fucked up everything has become, but I'm not even remotely surprised. Toxicity leads to toxicity, and the whole idea of dividing up a RP fandom by sex position was misguided from the outset - no matter why it was done or how good the intentions might have been.

And yes, like I said, these people aren't just framing things this way for fan fic. This is how they talk about IRL GGDD.

I had written a lengthy essay here about homophobia in the fandom but deleted it all. Perhaps I'll post it separately at some later point. Suffice it to say that this stuff creates a climate that's often hostile for queer people. So much of it is deeply homophobic, whether people are aware of it or not.

It's really sad to hear about gdgdbaby being mistreated in any way. Anyone who steps up and sticks their neck out to help organize and coordinate activities that benefit a broader group of people should be celebrated and supported, not run out of town by an angry mob.

I've read some of her stories and even have one or two on my rec list. And here's someone who is not only writing good works, but also supporting others to write more good works. Such a shame.

Anonymous 3 asked:

Hello Mr. RBS! I think I can chime in a bit about the fanfic topic as I’ve watched this all unravel on twitter (where a majority of authors/readers are). I apologize if this gets long but it’s been something that’s also been on my mind.

I want to preface this by saying that I’m not a fan of the distinctions of dynamics as, like you said, the supposed line between real life and fanfic is long gone, so I’m not trying to be biased against one group over another.

Short answer to the question of, “is this retaliation?” : I do believe it is. (From here onwards I’ll be using bjyx as the dynamic term just for the ease of simplicity.) To understand why, I’ll have to explain with a bit of background info. On twitter, I’d say that there’s a quite large divide between bjyx and zsww/lsfy. That itself isn’t really a problem because people are free to like what they like and associate with whoever.

However there is a big problem where bjyx people are not just bjyx but also anti-zsww/lsfy. To the point where I’ve seen people say that they feel physically ill when they accidentally read zsww. I don’t think this type of behavior should exist in any dynamic bc in the end GGDD are real people with a real relationship behind this content and it’s just a gross fetishization at that point.

With all this happening, zsww/lsfy people have gotten more outspoken on how GG is often portrayed in those types of scenarios, mainly the over-feminization of him, bc it’s not just done in the context of fanfic but regular discussion of GGDD at this point. This tension between the dynamics kind of boiled over when the pregnant xz fest was announced, as you can take a guess at how that went over with zsww/lsfy people. lol.

But around that same time, another zsww/lsfy event was announced (I’m not sure if it’s the one anon was talking about) but the creator of the event suddenly got a ton of backlash for excluding bjyx, with the reasoning that bjyx is technically a part of lsfy. But the event was done to highlight zsww/lsfy (as all specific events are) bc the community and content for these dynamics are much less than bjyx.

Which is how we come back to the starting point of, is all this recent bjyx stuff retaliatory. I believe so bc the events (preg fest, dark event) are very specific prompts that target exactly what zsww/lsfy people have been outspoken against.

As to the point anon made about trying to drown out the tags, keep in mind that zsww/lsfy content is very minimal compared to bjyx and has only just recently started to gain more traction. I think most people would love to just peacefully exist in their own circles but I don’t see this problem between dynamics disappearing anytime soon.

Like I said with the above Anon, I've added paragraph breaks for ND readers.

What a mess.

I have absolutely nothing useful to say here about the fandom on AO3 and how it's managed by community members, but I do think it's unfortunate that people choose to be war-like rather than make space for diverse voices, and I think it's a real shame that some people have been essentially run out of the fandom because of this garbage.

Thanks for giving some context for how/why the major shift in tone of fan fic lately. I had no idea any of this was going on.

I urge people to work hard to give space for all voices and perspectives, and not just the ones they favor. I'd also urge people to reflect on how their thoughts, behavior and actions in the fandom might affect queer people in the fandom.

As always, we have no control over what other people do, say or think. All we have any control over is how we respond to what other people do, say or think. Hopefully we'll chose the path of peace and try to avoid fan wars or fights that only ruin the experience for everyone.

I guess one thing I'd ask any of the Anons who have written me about this issue - or anyone who has thoughts about it - is, what can we as readers/fans who care about diversity of voices and perspectives do to support that here and on AO3, without getting involved in any kind of war?