#stop gatekeeping queerness

[svnflowermoon]

btw please block me if you feel the need to gatekeep the queer community. cishet aspecs ARE valid and they ARE queer. the "they don't experience discrimination" argument is possibly the most stupid thing i have ever heard because aspecs experience insane levels discrimination and people are extremely dismissive of them. we our more than our suffering. our community is not yours to gatekeep it isn't fair to invalidate people's queer identities just because you can't fit them in your stupid little box of specific labels.

[cilil]

You know what? It's pride month so I'm gonna say how I feel.

Disrespectfully,

if you are one of the people who invalidate bi/pan/omni/etc women with male partners/who have had only male partners so far/who have male partners on occasion and think they are a "lesser" form of queer or "not queer enough" -

(therefore invalidating our queer identity) -

and then, after you have made us feel unsafe and unwelcome in our own community and forced us to withdraw, complain about the lack of queer of women in the community -

(therefore erasing us as well) -

I hope your self-fulfilling prophecy of self-pity comes true and you remain just as lonely as you have made others feel.

Sincerely, a bi woman🩷💜💙

[sailorsnightmare]

Last post unleashed the angry aroace in me regarding fandom reactions to aroace characters again so now I have to rant about it (as one does).

The canonical aroaceness of characters have always been heavily debated in queer and non-queer communities and it is ALWAYS aroace characters specifically.

For example: When Ryusui Nanami from Dr Stone stated he’s attracted to all people, everyone accepted and respected that he’s canonically Bi.

But when it comes to Senku repeatedly, physically AND verbally expressing his disgust with romance and sex, stating numerous times that he holds no interest in it, ending off the series with NO LOVE INTEREST, it’s suddenly a debate if he’s really aroace or not.

The second a character is aroace, all of a sudden they have to scream “I AM AROACE AND I DO NOT PARTNER AND I AM SEX REPULSED” for people to even fathom that they could be aroace, solely because gay pairings are more palatable.

And even then, tons of people won’t even respect it and will instead do anything they can to excuse dismissing said character’s aroaceness in favor of romance and sex AGAIN because “aroace people can be in romantic and sexual relationships too!”

Sure they can! That isn’t relavent here though, so stop using it as an excuse. When a character in media is explicitly aroace, why would you still go out of your way to force romance/sex into the characters identity? That entirely defeats the purpose of said representation.

If we had enough blatant aroace representation to be able to explore the complexities and varieties of aroace individuals that would be absolutely lovely! All kinds of aroaces deserve to see themselves shown in media we enjoy. But that isn’t the case here given that aroace rep in general is about as frequent as a droplet of rain is a desert during a drought.

Platonic relationships, familial relationships, queer platonic relationships, there are SO many different kinds of love out there that people refuse to explore despite the fact that they’re equally as emotionally impactful and important as romantic or sexual relationships!

What about platonic soulmates? Two friends who are bound to each other no matter the world they’re in?

We’re all familiar with found family, why not explore it more? Blood families even? Close-knit circles of longtime friends?

So many beloved troupes can be depicted and enjoyed in platonic means without erasing a characters aroace identity in favor of another queer one. We all deserve to feel seen in media we enjoy and we all have the freedom to choose how we consume said media, but please keep in mind that behavior like this is harmful.

No queer identity is lesser than another. Allow our community the joy of inclusion and please refrain from constantly coming up with excuses to erase an aroace character’s identity because you wish they were something else. This doesn’t happen nearly as often with other queer characters as it does with aroace ones.

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

What do you think gay men are attracted to in men that they can’t be attracted to in women?

It can’t be anything about femininity or masculinity obviously. That’s both sexist, and cultural so can’t be what drives men-only attraction.

It can’t be anything about stated identity because someone could lie just as easily as they could tell the truth in such a statement, and it makes no sense because homosexuality and heterosexuality exists in other species with no stated identities. It’s not like other animals without gender are all pan.

Saying idk it’s the vibes or some indescribable trait men have that women can’t but “I can’t explain” is a nonanswer.

Soooooooo what is it? Or do you think any sexuality but bi/pan is just cultural performance or an identity rather than an inborn orientation?

- [ ]

I've let this ask sit in my inbox for a while, but I think it's time I answered it, though the answer will most certainly not be to your satisfaction, anon, I'm afraid.

First off, I'm a bisexual man, and so I definitely don't have any first hand experience of experiencing attraction to only one gender. And in these things, first hand experience is all that matters.

Secondly, as for other species, I have insufficient information about zoological studies in this field, but I don't think it's as simple as you make it sound (this isn't intended to be hostile, I'm just wondering)?

As for the last part, I certainly don't presume to define sexualities as fitting strictly into one of the boxes of culture, identity or inborn orientation. I'm sure that there are more perspectives on this than I can imagine, and I'm equally sure that the experiences of these queer people are valid.

Mainly, the reason I decided to answer this despite it being a non-answer, as you said, is because I do have something to say.

I'm not in the habit of forming opinions of subjects that I have insufficient information about. I know that being seen as neutral is often vilified. I've been in that position, being angry about people's neutrality regarding topics that to me seem obvious. I no longer agree with past-me on that stance.

I would rather not, in my ignorance, cause damage. I think that people with very strong uneducated opinions cause a good deal more harm than those who stay silent in a conflict they know nothing about. Of course this won't be true in all cases.

But personally, I prefer handing the mic over, as it were, to people with more experience, knowledge, sensitivity and perspective about the issue than I.

So, yes, I'll have to go with a very unambiguous lack of an answer here. I simply do not know enough about this, anon. Non-answers, I'm afraid, are going to be inevitable in deeply personal discussions such as these. These non-answers are invariably better than the divisive discourse, invalidation and gatekeeping that occurs a lot.

Let's all be a bit more okay with saying I don't know. I'm trying to be more okay with it every day. I cannot educate myself perfectly about every single relevant topic. I think that's alright. I hope it is.

[haventacluewhatimdoing]

'Oh you listen to x so you must be gay' 'every queer person knows the lyrics to y' 'only straight people don't know what z means' 'you can always find the lesbians at the bar because of a and b' shut up shut up shut up

[chloefraazers]

if you’re in a fandom and seriously upset enough at people shipping different fictional characters than you that you have to make posts about wanting those people to die, maybe it’s you who has a fucking problem?

[phoenixcatch7]

Persephone captain marvel au. Hear me out.

Associated with duality, reincarnation, resurrection, childhood innocence (and it getting ripped away by adults), and her 'counterpart' Kore, which is her in her returning aspect of spring, youthfulness, new life... Come on. Is that not the closest thing to Billy you've ever seen in ancient Greece? Where he gets his powers?

It all starts with Teth Adam, and his devastation at the death of his son. He finds the old paths, breaks them open, and storms down into the underworld to demand him back. His is not a new story.

But where Persephone might ordinarily be inclined to ease her husband's scorn, give the troubled mourner a chance, she is speaking to the champion of magic, the world's mightiest mortal. The chance of success is too high. The challenge would not be enough. The death was too high profile and would risk too many attempting to follow in his footsteps. The man is too unstable, too powerful, too close to the heart of magic for it to be safe - for any of him - to grant his wish and risk his false hope.

They deny him.

Enraged, implacable, Teth Adam lashes out. The battle is long and drawn out, neither side tiring even as both weaken, but Persephone, in either form, is not one of war, and she is felled as her curses shatter, her furies tossed aside like dolls. The sound of Hades' scream as Adam's surprise leaves him open flattens the rubble of their throne room.

The wounded champion escapes, hounded by cerberus and skeletons instead of his son's shade, as her husband crashes to his knees beside her. She has not a mortal soul, and thus will be going where even Death cannot reach.

But Adam killed the goddess of reincarnation, and Billy has odd dreams. He's pretty sure he needs to ease up on the stress. He's restless in winter and distracted in summer, he can sleep outside in howling storms as long as he's tucked snug in the boughs of a tree, he's had the luck of never tasting a rotten fruit. Sometimes it feels like there's ghosts in his hideouts and the kids at school try and bribe him to curse their enemies.

When he chosen to be Captain Marvel the wizard chokes on his own speech when the smoke clears. They stare at each other.

"Well," says Persephone, "that was unexpected. Hullo."

"Hello," the wizard replies, "I was under the impression..."

"I don't think the laws of interference quite apply until I'm immortal again," he says.

The wizard's relief is palpable. It's understandable, he looks ready to keel over from old age. "Can I ask...?" he gestures at the new body. It takes a second to understand.

"Oh, I'm a boy now. For a while."

And that's that.

Until green lantern is killed in battle.

[x-v4mp3y3lin3r-x]

if you're deconstructing your ideas of binary gender and binary sex— you also have to deconstruct your ideas of binary sexuality and romantic attraction, too, fyi

[eroticlizardfiction]

Bisexual women with boyfriends are SO much louder than bisexual women with girlfriends. Gatekeeping isn't real and no one cares about your boyfriend just shut up

[granturn]

[image description: two images from Black Sails edited for the Barbie meme. Anne is wet and gripping both of her swords. One image says, "This Barbie is not adhering to your modern queer terminology". The other says, "This Barbie is choosing violence if you gatekeep her".

/end ID]

Do I think she's bi? Sort of.

Do I call her a lesbian? From time to time.

Does it matter? No, because it's the golden age of piracy, and these terms don't exist and if you asked her what she identified as, she'd look at you like you were stupid and say, "a fucking pirate".

[dr4g0nflyg1rl]

sometimes i love just being completely mindless and obedient. i need a pretty girl to tell me what to do and baby me and praise me the entire time. being a bottom is exhausting

[caffeine-n-words]

Enjoying Queer Content Is Not Fetishizing Queer People

So, lately on Twitter there's been a lot of drama surrounding a VA who has made a lot of inflammatory comments in an effort to promote his own book.

"How A Cookie Tried to Sell a Book" sums it up pretty well. The article mentions that his best-known voice acting role is as Cream Unicorn Cookie in Cookie Run, and the only other known role (as per behindthevoiceactors.com) is in Given, a BL game. I've seen people here claim he also had a role in Genshin Impact, but that's not listed; however, JD Riley's article mentions that a Genshin Impact VA did come to King's defense.

(Also, yes, we're all reeling from the irony that one of his roles was in a BL game, and he's trying to tear down BL to promote himself. Gross.)

I'm sure this is all well known, but I wanted to provide context for this next statement: People who enjoy queer content, including fujoshi and women who do not identify as fujoshi, are not fetishizing queer people. They literally cannot be, because the people they're reading about aren't real.

Why is that important? Let's look at the definition of fetishize:

make (something) the object of a sexual fetish (women's bodies are so intensely fetishized) and

have an excessive and irrational commitment to or obsession with (something) (an author who fetishizes privacy)

Typically when people talk about cishet women fetishizing gay men by reading BL or MlM, they're talking about the first definition.

Fetishizing would be objectifying real gay men. Reading about fictional gay men in a relationship isn't objectifying real gay men. Reading about fictional gay men having sex isn't objectifying real gay men. Enjoying a fictional relationship between fictional gay men is not objectifying real gay men.

This also applies to other queer content.

In fact, continuing to insist that cishet people, women in particular, aren't allowed to read/view/enjoy queer content encourages the idea that somehow our content is dirty or needs to be hidden away from "the straights." This actively discourages having our communities accepted and normalized.

For example, queer romance should be just as available on bookshelves as cishet romance. If we put say, ten mlm romance books and ten cishet romance books on a table, people are going to see and buy them, including people who aren't in the target audience. If we keep insisting that people who aren't the target audience (in this case, fujoshi and other cishet women) aren't allowed to read the mlm romance books, fewer will be sold. If fewer sell, the store won't buy as many to put out, or just stop stocking it altogether. This encourages the idea that that content is gross, unsuitable for sale or view (even though that's not why it was pulled), and feeds into existing homophobic propaganda.

If someone actually fetishizes a real queer person, by all means, call out their behavior. It's harmful; it actually negatively affects a real person.

But let's stop it with "cishet women aren't allowed to read/watch this fictional content because it's fetishizing real gay people!" It's a false statement and getting tiresome.

[entropy-sea-system]

Objectum and os/or, objectophilia, etc DO count as queer if one who ids w them considers themself queer.

[witsserviceablesubstitute]

Tumblr is the queering the text website and queer interpretation of media is expected here (and honestly a nice reprieve from the hostile homophobia getting bolder in the mainstream). However, I've been seeing a common knee-jerk reaction circulating and wanted to offer a rebuttal:

The Crisis of Male Friendship

[untimelyambition]

actually so insane how big renee rapp has gotten like what do you mean shes not underground anymore

[auressea]

feeling petty and vindictive..

gonna search the "qslur" and "q slur" tags for people to block.