#the level of biphobia.... its getting to me today

[bisexualspace]

bi ppl especially in public spaces are just completely fucked no matter what huh. come out and you're lying/actually gay/actually straight/want attention. don't come out and you're 'queerbaiting', or 'appropriating queer culture'

an 18yo being forced to come out bc a bunch of ppl wouldn't stop harassing them. constantly talking about how him holding hands with a girl makes him straight. accusing a real live person of queerbaiting.

ppl don't owe you their sexuality. they don't owe you shit

[firelxdykatara]

Gun to your head, do you ultimately prefer Buffy or Elena?

YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME NORA IT ISN'T FAIR JUST PULL THE FUCKING TRIGGER- /hj

gods, ok, if i absolutely 100% had to choose... probably buffy.

both buffy and elena are SO important to me (there's a reason i imprint so heavily on female protagonists who go through extreme trauma and have extensive on-screen depression arcs but ahhhhh let's not unpack THAT right now--but lana lang and emma swan also go in that category, it's basically the easiest way to sell me on a show but let's move ON -cough-) and both of them are treated so unfairly by the writers/showrunners AND by the fandom, but i think at the end of the day i'd have to pick buffy because, overall, btvs is just better, in about every single category.

i never really got the sense, while watching btvs, that the writers disdained me, specifically, for enjoying their show and loving buffy summers. she gets put through SO much shit, and i have so much criticism alongside the love in my heart for how her friends treat her, how her mother treats her, how the writing treats her at points... but ultimately, she's still the focal point of the show. she is the pin on which everything hangs, and without her, it all falls apart. the show cannot exist without buffy summers, and it never tries to.

i may loathe joss whedon on a very personal level these days, but i have to admit that at least he understood that he couldn't carry on the show without buffy summers. his intention may have been to end the show with her death, but once forced to extend it, he brought her back--and that lead to her arc in s6 which is incredibly important to me, and i'm not sure i'd still be here today without it.

(which, again, we can leave packed lmao)

while i love elena gilbert so fucking much i can't breathe sometimes with it (yes i'm dramatic but listen), a lot of that is in spite of the way the narrative clearly wanted me to feel. there is so much scorn and apathy baked into nina's final two seasons on the show, and the fact that it even continued after that point is an insult to the work she put in and the character she played who was the central load-bearing pillar of the entire series.

granted, i got the feeling that the writers and showrunners just quit caring about anything at all with respect to the show, not just about elena, so maybe i'm reading more malice into what was ultimately just a lack of care. it hardly matters, because the result is the same--the series tanked, the two seasons without the main character were terrible, and the show is treated with well-deserved scorn in a way that i don't think btvs ever will be, despite public opinion having long since turned against joss whedon (also deservedly).

but the point here is that while i'm absolutely willing to put in the work to keep loving elena in spite of what the show did with her and her relationships in her last two seasons, that's a whole lot of work i don't have to do for buffy. granted i will still put a lot of time and energy into picking apart things that did not land well--Dead Man's Party and Empty Places, Seeing Red, so much about the way buffy is treated in the final season by her loved ones, ongoing issues with racism and biphobia throughout the series, etc--but it's a bit like the energy i put into atla vs vld. one of them is, overall, an excellent piece of media that didn't always stick the landing but still survives as a cultural icon for a reason, and the other is almost universally derided because everything that had been of value to the narrative was destroyed in universe by its end.

so yeah, i guess, tl;dr: at the end of the day, i'd pick buffy--because she comes from the stronger show, her arc ultimately had a purpose i can still point to even if i don't always agree with the directions the narrative took it, and i don't feel the same sort of enduring bitterness when thinking about her that i do when thinking about the show elena came from that did her so poorly and then ran itself into the ground completely in her absence.

[rebeldynasty]

Recently finished Bi Lives: Bisexual Women Tell Their Stories. Overall, despite focusing on the San Francisco scene, it was an interesting read with interviewees of various backgrounds and ages. It took place in the 90s but with a large focus on how the movement was affected through the 70s and 80s, so there were some...views that were a bit dated. Most of it was kind of repetitive in terms of these individual women's experiences, but two interviewees stood out to me the most. The first angered me. I'm sure many people know who Judy Freespirit was; I did not until I read her interview, then proceeded to look her up. What some people familiar with her might not know is that she was not, in fact, a lesbian by nature, but bisexual (obviously, as she was in this anthology). What struck me was her level of self-loathing around being bisexual, and how she essentially threw other bisexuals under the bus because:

1. She was too cowardly to admit to her lesbian separatist friends that she was herself bisexual.

2. Often held negative/dubious opinions of the authenticity of other bisexual women's claims to being bisexual; rather vocally, in fact.

3. Viewed them as giving power to "the enemy", a.k.a. "men".

4. Projected all her internal biphobia onto them by assuming it was harder to come out as lesbian than bi, completely contradicting her own attitude in point number 1.

So while I'm sure the lesbian/feminist camp would laud her as a hero, I can't. I can't, when she said nonsense like this (the times be damned).

The other, more positive one that caught my full attention was a woman named Pamela, who despite being at least a generation my senior, had such a remarkably similar awakening/experience surrounding it.

This latter was the pallet cleanser, as it were, for it followed Judy's. Without Pamela's account and some of the other more positive, interesting ones after it, this book might have left a bad taste in my mouth. But there was just something about seeing myself in her account, seeing how it liberated her to accept and embrace this part of herself, that gives me some hope for the future.

Even today, bisexuals still catch shit--both within and out of the LGBT community. But I can see that it's getting better; maybe not everywhere, maybe not for everyone--but it's come a long way since even this book, which was released in the late 90s.

My hope is to see an updated version in the near future. Perhaps, for those who still live, the interviewees can give an account of how much they and their views have changed.

All in all a solid read, and one I'd recommend to other bisexuals (particularly women, as they are the focus, though I'm sure bi men can find something within its pages too).

[la5t-res0rt]

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

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

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

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

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

so lets recap what exactly is he being harassed for

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

although this person would perhaps disagree

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

anyway

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

[cavehags]

you talked about how you feel like biphobia/lesbophobia are not 'real' in the sense that is just homophobia + misogyny, i was wondering if you feel like fatphobia is also useless as a concept? because the way i see it it's mostly misogyny, maybe men suffer a little from body image pressure but it's not at all the same level as what women go through, so i feel like saying fatphobia gives the impression that every fat person goes through the same

yeah, i do! i said this before here and here. and i know there was a third post too that was longer, but as i recall a man with a charlie day icon with a fairly popular blog felt that he was the single most special victim of fat-shaming in the world and consequently went apeshit on one of the post until i had to delete it to stop getting notifications sgjhklwghw. but my opinion stands. in the first post i linked, i wrote that i try to avoid using the word fatphobia (though of course sometimes i’ll reblog a post that says it!) because it seems like a useless word to me when most of the time we’re referring to a specific kind of misogyny. 

as for that specific kind of misogyny i’m talking about: a month or two ago, i read fearing the black body by dr. sabrina strings and i came to flesh out (pun unintended) my perspective a little from where it was when i made those posts in 2019. that book, which i highly recommend, lays out the extent to which weight bias comes from racism directed at black women specifically. we always hear that fat women’s bodies used to be considered desirable in pre-renaissance europe, and that’s true, but the reason that changed was due to the transatlantic slave trade, when europeans sought a way to justify the slave trade by classifying black bodies as scientifically inferior. enslaved fat african women like sarah baartman were used as exhibits at “freak shows” that white europeans could attend to objectify fat black women’s bodies and reify their own racism. out of this came a long stream of racist pseudoscience to “legitimize” these existing prejudices, which was supported by christian rhetoric about holy self-denial of indulgences, meaning food. this in turn created the association that fat people are immoral, ignorant, easily tempted, and more animalistic than thin people. so while racism inspired the prejudice, the message was clear to white europeans and americans as well: it’s shameful to be fat because of its association with blackness and respectable whites are thin. especially women.

anyway, any bigotry concerning people’s bodies will always hit women hardest because women are the ones whose bodies are objectified and must be considered desirable. dr. strings shows in her book (which everyone should really read) that when it comes to fatness, it was the racism that makes white people--as the title suggests--“fear the black body” that created the body value judgments that are sometimes called “fatphobia” today. women, especially black women, are the ones who are rejected and punished for fatness the most, and again you can see some examples of those punishments here. men can get by with fat bodies and experience some levels of job discrimination, some medical discrimination, certainly some social prejudice, and all of these things on a small scale, but it’s women who are expected to be small, controllable, and desirable, and we face the harshest penalties when we’re not.

so in conclusion: yes i agree! and i don’t use that word if i can avoid it. 

[lethbians]

can you explain what's going on right now? i keep seeing big IT blogs talking about some discourse or something but i have no idea what they're talking about other than it involves you lol

alright i like. i truly do not like having diScOurSE out in public because i’m not one to air out my dirty laundry 24/7 but seeing as how it was brought into public against my will i feel like the least i can do is clear up the situation for those who’ve been seeing the posts. 

i’m putting this under the cut bc it’s long. tws for some biphobia, brief mention of transphobia and, at the end, a rape mention. 

so if you don’t know: hi, i’m migz, i’m an it fandom blogger. its okay, i know, its really cool. part of my shtick here is that i like to turn normal thirst tags into works of art for the sake of comedy. perhaps you’ve seen some of my highlights from my “fhg” tag - perhaps your brain has been spared. either way, it became kind of “my thing” around the third or fourth week (mid nov) of me having this blog. at first, i tagged just about every ask i got mentioning the thirst tags with “bill hader” - they had to do with him, so why not tag him? it would draw more like minded people! about two days into that i got a message asking me to tag my nsfw. i am a big dumb idiot, and apologize for not initially doing it. i havent had a following bigger than like 10 in several years and completely spaced on basic etiquette. so by the end of november i was tagging everything applicable  with “notsfw” and “bill hader”. 

now you’re caught up.

on december 1st i got this message from user billhaderanti:

now i want to start by saying i absolutely was in the wrong here. i didn’t even think about how many people were being subjected to the asks i was getting - especially ones who had no idea they were all jokes. i don’t track the bill hader tag, so it just didn’t even occur to me - that’s ignorance on my part, and to anyone who was subjected to the terrors of me before my tagging system: i am genuinely sorry. i relay the same sentiment in my response, though you can tell i’m on edge.

and they replied:

clearly they Were offended by it but thats.. not the point. at this point, im feeling Really weird about the whole interaction, but still understanding, because again - i GET it. i know my posts are gross - that’s the point. it doesn’t make it excusable, though, which is why i understand why people are offended. so i responded with the only solution i Knew would keep us both safe and happy posting on our own blogs. 

so i thought this would be the end of things! i’d been pretty anxious lately already since i’d started to receive anons telling me i was gross and whore-ish for thirst posting in this way (i delete all of those, so if ur thinking about sending one, i guess no one’s stopping you but it won’t be seeing the light of the dashboard). i’m unsure if it was immediately or a few hours later, seeing as how i have a bad concept of time and the post-dates are right on the edge between nov 30 and dec 1, but i went to their blog - because anyone who has been on the internet knows the opportunity to vague post is near irresistible. and...what do ya know

fair! it’s their blog. however i am an emotionally fragile egg girl and immediately got freaked out. the odds that they were the only one who thought this were low. and, again, i’ve been very open on my blog about how important it is to respect boundaries; my posts are absolutely prone to breaking those boundaries people have created for themselves. 

so i made my own, semi-vague post, letting my following know (and i’m pretty sure i’d answered asks about it before, but this is going to be long enough w/o me searching those up too) that i understood if they wanted to block me or unfollow or whatever - people need to create their own safe spaces. the tension is pretty clear in the tags, i’m not trying to hide that. i felt that the way this woman slid into my dm’s was pretty abrasive (just my opinion/how it made me personally feel) and i let myself be a lil emotional about it in the tags of my post.

alright! maybe this is the end. maybe we both go our separate ways and post happily on our own blogs... except it’s not the end. later in the day (some of this was happening like 1/2am, so now its Day day, i believe - again, not good w time passage lol)

clearly, i’m upset. my groupchat double checked that i didn’t get too emotional in my response - did i mention im anxious about discourse lol - and apparently.. it did the trick. she didn’t message me again. great. it was over. 

at this point, i decided i needed to make an even bigger change. so a few days after i’d calmed down i created an entirely new tag for my thirst posts so if people hadn’t already hidden the notsfw posts or just blocked me outright, they’d have a third option to escape the madness. at this point, id had my blog about 6? weeks, but there were still 2k posts for me to sift through - some of them were completely untagged. i also had to do it post by post, because one of xkits features - the mass re-tagger - was getting blogs deleted for some reason, and i wasn’t going to do that. so i spent a few days going through all 2k+ posts, adding the “fhg” tag. 

YEEHAW! a brand new tagging system, no more hopping into the bill hader tag (minus one or two really funny, not super explicit asks, like the bill hader farquaad meme), and, tbf, i’d completely put this woman out of my mind. i don’t seek out drama and do my best to stay in my lane. yesterday, i checked my activity for the first time in awhile since id put out a couple new original posts that had started to get traction and i Love reading tags. i noticed a mutual had @’d me, and realized i havent checked my @’s in...ever, maybe. i see a post from my good pal billhaderanti. 

since i dont follow them and never check my @’s, i’d completely missed it. however, once i did see it, i was horrified. id gone through all that fucking work to keep my blog My Blog and also respect everyone’s boundaries and it still hadn’t been enough. i’d been awake for almost 24 hours and went. a little crazy. and i didn’t reply immediately because i just had no words. i sent it to my friends because i... i just wasn’t going to be able to figure it out myself. 

there’s a lot to unpack in this post alone, but whatever, i’m gonna put my own grievances with the immaturity of 1. making a callout post to begin with when i’d been nothing but civil 2. making a callout post about something as (in the grand scheme of Life) minor as some tags where i refer to a someone’s genitals as a “whack pack” and 3. making a callout post in such a rude way - aside. at the end, she calls me (and whoever else!) a demonic mlw (man loving woman, we assumed, and then later confirmed with a post further back on her blog). 

which - yeah, we started scrolling. at first we were looking for more vague blogs, and then we just...started finding things. billhaderanti is a self proclaimed lesbian separatist, which... fine. but it’s already pretty clear that this woman hates me on some level simply because i am a bi woman (demonic mlw, remember!) which is just. damn man i can’t believe we are still fighting the biphobic fight lol. so the more we scrolled, the more we uncovered - and not just the biphobic / vaguely mtf transphobic things they posted (or put in tags), but we also found that they had their OWN thirst tags. certainly not as hyperbolically comedic as mine, but they were there, talking about his body and his person the same (and, frankly, a bit creepier for other reasons) as mine. 

there’s one post in particular that snatched my wig in it’s creepiness - and i say creepiness in the sense that it feels personal. like this woman feels like she knows bill to some degree where she can say these things. my tags have always had a sense of distance, as they’re written for humor. and maybe this particular post was written for comedic purposes, but it doesn’t read that way, and if it WAS, then she has no right to call ME out for MY comic tags and posts. 

i’ll let it speak for itself, mostly because i don’t want to read it again. 

i also won’t be going through her blog again to find the posts with biphobic and other Interesting:tm: tags because there are plenty and i just really! want to be done with the whole ordeal! her blog is public and i’m sure you can all find it and look to your heart’s content. 

feeling a bit feral and a bit pissed off now that we knew the depth of how rotten this woman’s vibes were, a couple of my pals made a post or two similar to what my tag’s are like except turned up to eleven (if possible) - and tagged them with “bill hader” (and notsfw!!). yes, a bit childish, but at this point, the entire situation was childish, and making jokes was truly the only way we were going to get through it. another vague post went up on her blog soon after.

talking down to us, calling us children, and then for whatever reason calling us virgins... whatever, weird post. around this time most of us (est) went to bed, because it was nearing 3 or 4 in the morning. 

and then today happened. i woke up fresh and ready for the day after a wonderful 4 hours of sleep and found that jane had made an incredibly intelligent post in response to the situation. i won’t ss it, but i’ll LINK in case you missed it. attached there in the reblog is my own response. i think they can speak for themselves. 

after that, things were kind of jumbled, since i wasn’t online a lot and when i was i was Not checking my activity simply because i was afraid of what i’d see. for the most part, it ended up just being support (which i am very grateful to all of you for - it means a lot that you all enjoy my content to any degree). 

there was some more vague posting from both “““““sides”””””” of the “““““argument”””””” - mostly just people restating the fact that this is a public space and we should All be aware of how we effect others. i still hadn’t heard directly from billhaderanti, so i assumed we’d all be dropping and disengaging and moving on. i still wasn’t blocked, though, so who really knew what would happen. 

eventually, it culminated in this last post. tw for mentions of rape

i’m going to start by saying that 

1. there are nearly no teenagers that were involved in this. im turning 23 in january and most of my friends are 20+. maybe one or two are 19. 

2. none of us sent any sexually violent asks - most of us didn’t send asks at all. i believe one or two of my friends admitted to sending asks however they assured me their nature wasn’t bad; as far as i know, everyone remained civil in whatever went on (again, unclear to me as to what was being sent; no one was actively posting or talking about it. if billhaderanti wishes to elaborate, they can, but i don’t have anything to put in). 

3. before i finish this, i would like to apologize to billhaderanti. as a comedian - not just my stupid tags, i mean in real life, too - i know that humor can hurt. it’s not always funny, it’s not just stupid hahas. sometimes things that are supposed to be jokes just hit people differently and cause bad things. i recognize that. i never meant to trigger you (if you’re reading this) or cause you any severe mental/emotional harm. i apologize for my humor bringing up your trauma, and i never meant for that. regardless of my own thoughts and opinions about the nature of my posts/the thirst tags themselves, they hurt you, and i’m sorry. 

anyway, i’m going to wrap this up (i’m bad at endings, what can i say! steven king and i took the same writer’s class!). if you read all this... sorry. i probably won’t be taking any asks about it, because i find the whole “drama” of this to be stupid and rooted in some seriously biphobic issues this fully grown woman has. 

tldr; i attempted to contain my blog so this woman could exist and function safely on her blog, but it wasn’t enough for her, so she called me out, and then some of the fandom called Her out for being biphobic and mean and overall just immature about the situation. as of now, she’s yet to block me, though her and her wife have blocked a few of my friends. her wife continues to clown on my friends. this post was made for clarity’s sake. the end, i’m getting a drink. 

[beesandbooks1]

Discussion: Give Readers Some Credit.

So. Let’s talk about readers, and authorial intent, shall we?

First a detour. Who here is familiar with the Hays Code? Just in case: in the 1930’s it was established for motion pictures in the USA and presented strict guidelines about what could and couldn’t be put into films. The Code lasted until the late 1960’s but its impact on film is absolutely still seen today, specifically in the rating system for films. The Hays Code dictated various moral guidelines that somewhat stripped viewers of film of their autonomy, implying that the general public wouldn’t be able to distinguish between good and bad or right and wrong without films making it very clear what those lines were. There was no grey area in the Hays Code.

Literature, for its part, has had various formal and informal rules and guidelines applied to it throughout centuries of publishing that dictate who can and can’t read certain topics. I’m not going into a history lesson on that, but suffice to say that at some point just about every person who wasn’t a white cishet man has had a restriction put on them for reading at all or reading certain things. Today, the big issues come down to censorship, banning books, and lobbying against books for a particular reason.

Censorship Today

Censorship is a big ticket issue today, both formally and informally, and internationally. I will admit to having limited knowledge and experience of the kind of censorship experienced in places such as China, but I am aware it is present, enforced, and potentially dangerous. Formal censorship worldwide comes in the form of preventing books being published or translated in the country at all, banning its sale in its original format, and sometimes going so far as to censor access to websites that sell the book and social media platforms where the book is widely discussed. Government level censorship of books generally is inspired by fear of what the books might inspire, from protests to full on coups. Usually, this act of censorship is indicative of larger systemic problems within the government not real problems within the book’s content.

Informal censorship is a bit more complicated, and comes about in a few ways, including straight out banning books in a community which I will discuss in the next section. Informally censoring a book usually comes from a community speaking out against something in the book or something about the author they are opposed to. This differs slightly from lobbying against a book because if a community quietly agrees to censor a book from those in the community that shouldn’t be exposed to it (whether with good intentions or not) they won’t also attempt to have the book banned elsewhere, or turn it into a political topic by protesting the books very existence. More on that later. Instead, this informal censorship is more in line with parents or groups of parents agreeing to forbid their children from reading certain books–usually for moral and religious reasons.

An example of informal censorship from my own life: when I was attending Catholic school as a preteen The Golden Compass was released as a movie. The school itself never released a statement or talked about the book or movie, and the farthest I got to an adult’s opinion on it was when someone asked my religious studies teacher about it and she pointed out that the books are fiction so did it really matter if the subject matter went against religious beliefs? However, the parents of my classmates at least were scared. My mother received an email from a concerned parent who was encouraging all the parents in our class to prevent us from seeing the movie, and that if for some reason one of us did see it to keep it to ourselves so as not to encourage the rest of the kids to want to see it too. This act of informal censorship resulted in a group of preteens who probably didn’t even care about this issue being prevented from reading Philip Pullman’s works or seeing the movie based on them. The parents didn’t want to try and get the books removed from the public library or the movie taken out of theaters, they just wanted to ensure their children were never exposed to it.

Fun fact: the day my mother read that email she came home with the full set of His Dark Materials and later she bought me the movie on DVD.

Banning Books

Banning books is a lot more straight forward than the degrees of censorship. Most readers are familiar with the idea of banned books. Books tend to be banned from smaller communities, such as a town’s library and school, but are rarely enforced at a higher level without censorship getting involved. I’m going to be using “banned books” to refer to that lower level, not government level censorship. Thus, banned books are still purchasable in this context through retailers such as Amazon and chain bookstores.

A banned book can be banned for any number of reasons. I see banned book lists often enough that have things such as “unrealistic female characters” referring to The Wizard of Oz. Many readers who chance upon one of these lists tend to take pride in having read much of its contents, especially depending on the context of the book bans. Some book bans are focused on schools and keeping “unsuitable” material out of students’ hands. This ranges from “this book is too pornographic to be appropriate” to “this book encourages witchcraft and we can’t have that!” While there might be something to be said about schools having age appropriate books available in the library–if the oldest kids in the school are ten then maybe Stieg Larsson’s books aren’t a priority–many book bans are comical in their ridiculous reasoning.

Book bans come from a combination of underestimating the critical reading abilities of others and from fearing what those others might do with the knowledge the book contains. For example, a highly misogynistic person might not want books that portray women in positions of power to become available for the next generation of young girls. They both underestimate the girls’ ability to choose a lifestyle for themselves by assuming any fiction they consume will immediately shape their decision making, and they also fear what the girls might choose to do if presented with the idea that they have options. While many book bans sound like silly reasoning, a lot of them are insidiously chosen as a form of disenfranchisement. Preventing Black readers from having positive role models from authors of color, for example, assists the school to prison pipeline.

Lobbying Against Books

Lobbying against books is where book banning gets more serious. This is the middle step between book banning and book censorship, really. Lobbying against a book is when a group or sometimes an individual take it upon themselves to ban a book for their own community and then try to get it banned on a larger scale. Now, there are times that lobbying against a book is actually done with good intentions and not with the intent of banning or censoring the book. There are times where the author reveals themselves to be…lacking in some way, and that may have affected the writing they produce. I know I’m dancing around some authors in particular, but I didn’t make this post to call out specifics so.

An example of a bad lobbying idea: An upcoming YA release is announced and hyped by excited would-be readers. The book sounds awesome! It’s written by a new author, has really good Own Voices representation, and presents a unique story. It is largely regarded as an excellent contribution to literature by bookish folks. A conservative parent purchases the book upon its release with the intention of giving it to their daughter, and due to their household rules about book content the parent reads the book first to ensure it complies. The parent discovers that the book contains a relatively mild romance plot, but that the main character does have sex in this plotline, though the scene is hardly explicit or erotic. Conservative parent is very worried that reading about the idea of sex will inspire their daughter to have sex and decides this book is dangerous and not suitable for their daughter. Unfortunately, with all the excitement over the book, the daughter keeps asking to read it. Perhaps her friends have all read it, perhaps it’s being pitched by the school library as a great new release, perhaps it’s being developed into a film or TV series that her classmates are excited to watch. The parent now starts telling other parents that they shouldn’t allow their children to read this book or watch anything based on it, largely out of fear that their daughter will be exposed to it somehow. Other conservative parents jump on board, banning the book from their households and attempting to have it banned altogether so as to prevent their kids from getting their hands on it. Perhaps the ban makes it through the school and the public library, but the local Barnes and Noble continues to sell copies and they’re going fast. In order to get the book taken off of a chain store’s shelves, the parents now have to lobby to have the book banned on a much larger scale, so they do so. All because they don’t want their teenagers having sex yet.

An example of a good lobbying idea: A really popular author has come out with a new book. This is his fourth book, and many readers are excited to get a copy and devour it. Book bloggers and other voracious readers have torn through the previous three because they’re witty, have appealing characters, and a unique worldbuilding set up. However, a bisexual reader immediately recognizes that this fourth book has the main character being extremely biphobic. The biphobia is upsetting for the reader, but they persevere because up to this point the main character has been a good role model and perhaps the biphobia is a character flaw that’s going to be called out and corrected. It is not by the end of the book, and the reader is now uncomfortable. Unsure. The reader tells other bisexual readers to be careful, that the content can be triggering due to its biphobia. LGBTQ+ readers in general are warned and slowly become cautious about the books and author in general. The fifth book comes out, and the bisexual reader timidly approaches it with an open mind, hoping that it was just a multi-book character arc. The biphobia continues, reinforced by the positive reception to the character in the fourth book. It’s clear that this is here to stay. The LGBTQ+ readers who are aware of this problem start to speak out, asking others to critically read this book and not internalize the biphobia in it. The author doubles down on the biphobia, defending it when criticized. Now more readers speak out, pointing out that this is potentially harmful, asking other readers to be very critical when consuming the author’s works and to consider ending their support of the author over his remarks.

Why all of this sucks

Ultimately, a lot of this comes down to stripping readers of their autonomy. Think about people who argue that some books are bad because a character in them does bad things. The majority of those that read the book probably recognize those bad things for what they are, and know that the character is nuanced and not always right. But there are those that would lobby to have the book removed from all reading spaces because the character that does bad things might be appealing to an impressionable reader and encourage them to do bad things. This is a very narrow-minded view that is also highly condescending. Teenagers can read a book where a seventeen-year-old has sex without immediately going out and having sex themselves. Readers in general deserve the credit to know that not everything that happens in fiction is realistic or positive. If a reader can tell the difference between reality and fiction, they can certainly make their own choices in real life without being unduly influenced by the actions and thoughts of fictional characters.

This belittling fear that certain readers are too impressionable to be exposed to certain media is astoundingly simplistic. We have to give readers more credit than that. Sure, there will be books that need to come with content warnings, trigger warnings, and disclaimers. There are some authors whose racism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism (among other things) leak into their writing and those books when read need to be read with the knowledge of that. There are even some books that are irredeemable from that standpoint and it is absolutely a valid choice to refuse to read books by an author whose morals go against your own. However, not everything someone views as morally wrong is also unnuanced when presented in a text. Additionally, not every reader takes what they read at face value. Many readers appreciate a well written villain while also recognizing why that character is a villain. Many readers also appreciate flawed main characters who aren’t always correct but are allowed to make mistakes.

As bloggers we are in a position to point out the nuance in such books. Reviews are excellent for helping readers figure out whether a book will be too far over the line for their moral compass, if there’s something in the text that matters for them or not. However, we have to give readers some credit. Just like in communities that would censor and ban books, sometimes book reviews overlook nuance. They make hard lines around characters saying that something is problematic and therefore the whole text is corrupted, or misidentifying an action or a thought as a moral or ethical opinion. I am not exempt from this, there are certainly times where I draw a hard line in the sand that I refuse to cross for any book regardless of the praise it receives. But I also recognize that there are other readers who will cross that line and read certain texts and find value in them where I didn’t. I have to give those readers credit and believe that they will also be able to see the negatives of the text and not internalize or forgive those.

[emilyrosebass]

Can a show be successful simply because it has a great queer storyline?

I’m always in search of realistic depictions of LGBTQ+ characters I can actually relate to. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve watched my fair share of Blue Is the Warmest Color, but like any other self-respecting lesbian, I want more. 

In that sense, The Bisexual is a f*cking masterpiece. Inspired by the life of Desiree Akhavan (director of the show and its lead actress), the Hulu series follows Leila, a—you guessed it—secret bisexual, eager to explore the full range of her attraction. But unlike the typical bi narrative, The Bisexual flips the script: Leila has been living life as a lesbian, but when her long term partner Sadie proposes, she asks to take time apart from their relationship, partially to take her shot at dating men. 

The Bisexual is a comedy-drama, and yet, it’s not really all that funny. Or dramatic. That is, unless you’re also a lesbian currently dating a man, which I am. In which case, it’s hilarious. 

The lesbian-cum-bisexual experience is an incredibly niche perspective I ache to see on screen, and The Bisexual fills the role to a T. Layered and nuanced, the show captures the good, the bad, and the ugly consequences of coming out for a second time. 

I—I mean, uh, Leila—gets flack from both her circle of lesbian friends and her straight roommate Gabe, nevermind from herself (internalized biphobia, anyone?). The label carries unrelenting stigma, in Leila’s own words, “I’m pretty sure bisexuality is a myth. Yeah, it was created by ad executives to sell flavored vodka.” As she comes to terms with her own sexuality, low-ball criticism is hurled her way from every direction: Gabe suggests she’s slept with half of London, presuming she has no standards and must be attracted to everybody; ex-wife Sadie accuses her of being a liar and a “pretend” lesbian; even Leila’s best friend confesses, “Nobody’s going to be honest with you, but it does change things.” 

Leila finds herself in scenarios only a “lesbisexual” can understand. Her first hookup with a man is a complete disaster. When she admits she’s never done this before and doesn’t know what to do with her hands, he says he’d always dreamt of ~deflowering~ a lesbian but imagined it would be hotter. When a fling with another guy comes to an end, Leila desperately crawls back to Sadie seeking familiar validation (Because if one relationship with a man doesn’t work out, you must have really been a lesbian all along, right? Pick a side!).

It’s hilarious to watch Leila navigate her newfound life as a bisexual. As she alternates between spending time with the straights and her old gay friends, it’s clear there’s an immeasurable cultural divide. On one hand, she hangs with the familiar queer artist circle, making appearances at parties with strictly creative dress codes and obscure performance art. In the next scene, she’s at a straight club, her level of discomfort only comparable to the way a vanilla cishet might feel in a leather bar. 

The show is peppered with references to queer culture, and despite being a bit on the nose, they’re amusing if you’re in the loop—My favorite being when Gabe joins Leila’s friends at a dyke bar, and when two of her friends are compared to Dana and Shane, she turns to him and says, “Just ‘cus one person made one L Word reference today doesn’t mean you get to go back to all your friends and say all lesbians do is talk about The L Word.” 

Despite my obvious admiration, The Bisexual is by no means universally liked, earning only 3/5 stars on IMDB. Critics have called the show “a comedy-drama whose time has come,” “inconsistently amusing,” and “hit-or-miss,” criticizing its lack of hardhitting punchlines and expected comedy-drama antics. 

And I get it. I don’t enjoy The Bisexual because it’s a show for everybody. I like it because, in essence, it’s both written about me and for me. This is a rare representation of a bisexual woman’s experience that I believe has value in the world, especially amidst a sea of tacky gay romance films. If you’re not also a bisexual lesbian, the show may not be cut from your own cloth, but nonetheless, it adds to the richness of our collective cultural fabric. 

Criticism of The Bisexual must be unpacked: Does a show need to be palatable to all audiences in order to be good? Does every gay reference need to be footnoted for public consumption (*But I’m a Cheerleader (1999), 1:22)? Do queer people need to be understood by the mainstream in order to be accepted? Or can they simply just...be?

I argue in favor of content by and for queers. Straight people watching gay films might inevitably miss some of the jokes, but that doesn’t mean the show should be thrown out. After all, we’ve sat through decades of stories that weren’t meant for us. 

So to all you IMDB haters, I say: So what if the series isn’t for you? It may not be the comedy of the century, sure, but The Bisexual is at the very least validating. And for me, that’s more than enough. 

[fantroll-purgatory]

Hey, as someone who’s still going through the slow process of conceptualizing a bunch of Pride trolls, I can vibe with this guy! I’m going to put a big ol’ trigger warning up top here since I openly discuss issues of homophobia and transphobia in the review below. Please stay safe!

(tw: mentions of homophobia and transphobia)

Universe:Beforus

Hmmmm. If he’s Beforan, I might even say that his outfit is too conservative! While a sample size of 12 isn’t that big, what we’ve seen of Beforus is that trolls will take the aesthetic of a subculture and hit it HARD.

Name:Gaeiiy Ryggtz

Hah. Okay so this is obviously a fun name. If you wanna go a little bit more subtle, I would suggest Getran (gay/trans) Ynemak (backward surname of Frank Kameny, who was one of the first folks to file a claim against orientational discrimination in a U.S. court)

Age: 6.5 Sweeps

Theme: Colors and everything related to it,like rainbows or prisms

Got it! As I said before, Beforan trolls tend to have a specific subculture around which they’re based rather than a more nebulous theme, and based on the original name you gave him it’s pretty clear what that would be. That said, since the rainbow is for the entire LGBT community, I would consider possibly making your troll trans/nonbinary!

Goal and story: He is a mutant who likes being a mutant and would fight against the hemospectrum hierarchy and make every caste to be equal in power,for this, he must spread the love to make Beforus a beautiful place.

Quick note: the goal is for what you want us to do in our review! Since you haven’t specified, I am assuming that this is a general review of everything you’ve submitted.

Before I dig into the meat of the rest of your bio, I want to address this part, because based on what we’ve seen of Beforus, it does not broadcast its oppression as clearly as Alternia does. Where Alternia is an out-and-out fascist dictatorship, Beforus’s Condesce (if she is indeed called that) is an adult Feferi Peixes, whose views on the hemospectrum have more to do with coddling those who sit below you on the hemospectrum. How might your troll fight against that system?

If we want an example of how such a society might look in regards to gay and trans rights, let’s look at common criticisms of liberal politics with regards to the LGBT community, which includes support for trans people if(f) they “pass” completely as the “opposite” gender to their assigned one (a standard which is much stricter than for cis people), and support for same-gender attraction so long as it’s tucked away and isolated from straight society (a standard which can be further evidenced in biphobia towards multi-gender attracted people for “muddying” what should be clear-cut waters). All of this tied up with a biiiiig heaping of disdain for gender non-conforming people.

So how might we translate these norms to Beforus? Perhaps trans people are, once again, only accepted if they “pass” completely as the “opposite” gender to their assigned one, such that nonbinary people and trans people with a more complex understanding of their presentation are pushes either to stop identifying as trans/nb or to allow a better-versed highblood to “help” them fit into such gender norms.

Sexuality tends to be trickier since it’s stated (though not implied 🙄) that trolls are largely bisexual and preference for only one gender (though lbr it’s mostly for one’s own gender) is considered odd. I will get to that a little bit later in this review!

Strife Specibus: Flag Specibus,he uses a flag to fight.

Love it. 🏳️‍🌈

Fetch modus: Help, I have no ideas.

If he’s rainbow themed, how about a Colorblock Modus that captchalogues based on predominant color? Only problem is that whenever he wants to retrieve something the modus ejects *everything* of that color. I can also see it being weaponized in a fun way!

Blood Color: Rainbow =D

I still don’t really know how to *do* rainbow, since I feel like it would show up as sludge in his veins? What would it mean in terms of psychic abilities or resistances or strength or even his place in society? We assume that he wouldn’t be killed for being a mutant, but being a rainbowblood stretches the bounds of Beforan rules that if find difficult to incorporate into this review.

Based on the sign you gave him below, it looks like you wanted him to be a mutant limeblood, basically. Which works, but I also feel that that is a common choice when people want to justify their mutantbloods to us, if only because Karkat and Kankri are our obvious examples.

So here’s where I wanted to get back to the same-gender attraction thing, because I think it plays well into how to make this choice.

You say you want a mutant, you say you want someone who works toward justice, and you say you want a gay man.

We can do all of that if you’d allow me to make him a jade/teal cuspblood.

Teals are very strongly about justice, and it fits well for his theme as someone who is working to make Beforus a more inclusive place across the spectrum.

Jades are also a good pick since they’re associated with rainbowdrinkers, which gets you a stone’s throw from this blood color. THey are also heavily heavily coded as gay-equivalent, especially when we consider the Friendsim info that jadebloods are forbidden from pailing by tradition on Alternia, which is pretty obviously a direct parallel to gay marriage. Given that we’re on Beforus, it’s likely that such pailing is accepted, but even in today’s society we can see that the right to marry is often brandished as a sign that we’ve “won” and no longer need to fight for our rights.

As a cuspblood, where does that leave your troll? Where does he fit within the codified hierarchy of Beforus?

Symbol and meaning: Canpio, sign of the effervescent.

…This is a first, but I’m not sure I agree with any of the three things you combined to get your sign! Firstly, I did change his blood color, so that’s on me. Secondly, as someone who’s trying to change the hemospectral hierarchy, he’d be a Dersite for sure. Finally, I don’t know that he’s a Light player? I think I see where you’re coming from since his theme was rainbows and prisms, but you haven’t built a character particularly hellbent on collecting information.

That said, I don’t particularly want him to be a Blood player, lest he become dangerously Karkaty. So how about we invert the difference and see how he fits as a Breath player? Someone who pursues his own individual freedom, but incidentally gives others the strength to move forward as a consequence?

If we go with that, he’d fall somewhere between Libun, Sign of the Escapist, and Virun, Sign of the Eager. Vlibrun, Sign of the Eagcapier no wait that doesn’t sound great.

Trolltag: chromaticJusticer

Tips the hand a little too readily, in my personal onion. May I suggest prismBreak [PB], like prison break, both in terms of destroying the hemospectrum and it terms of freedom from the unjust?

Quirk: wr1te2 1n ^ll 12 c^2te2 ^nd u2e2 pr12m2, ^l2o nub2 (=B.

That is a lot! But then again TEREZ1 PYROPE SUR3 4S H3LL EXISTS so who am I to judge. That said I’m finding the quirk a little bit hard to read, so if I may suggest it be A Lot in a different way:

WR1TE2 1N △LL C△P2 △ND U2E2 PR12M2 TO CONVEY HI2 MULT1CHROM△TIC 2PLENDOR

The introduction of caps and the change of the carat to a triangle makes it harder for the eye to skip over the quirk when it appears.

Special Abilities: I was thinking of him having the abilities of all castes while still looking like a canon mutant (Karkat or Kankri) but I don’t know if this would be a lot.

I think it would indeed be a lot, and you would have to figure out how such a being would change things in Beforus! Beforus is still based on a fairly rigid caste system, and they wouldn’t see a rainbowblood and think “oh shit let’s just let this dude be in charge of everything!” He would be coddled by his “superiors!” How do you think your supposedly peaceful troll would get out from under that thumb while maintaining his pacifist leanings?

Lusus: I don’t know what kind of Lusus would fit him,but it’s also rare for mutants to get chosen by one,so I can stick with him being Lususless.

Sure! I will say that if he’s a jadeblood cusp he could possibly just like. Grow up in the caverns with some lusii that haven’t picked grubs.

Interests: Gaeiiy likes to experiment with lights while he isn’t fighting highbloods,he collects prisms and has a big collection of LEDs,lasers, flashlights and other things that emit lights.

Personality: He is the center of the universe and others find him interesting and kind,he is full of joy and cheerfulness,he is also peaceful and it’s hard to make him cry or make him mad.

So why, then, is he fighting for anything? His soul is not at unrest. Perhaps this speaks to a personal failing, but I find it deeply difficult to fight for things that don’t upset me on some level. I also don’t quite understand the “center of the universe” thing – are other trolls content to let him do as he please? Again, why is he fighting if he faces no opposition?

If you wanted to swing this in one direction, it could be that he’s so unplugged from the real-world oppressions thrust upon other jadebloods (thanks in part to his tealblood status) that he is complacent. This would definitely make him likable! He’s like, a jade, but not one of those jade jades. He’s actually cool about it and stuff. And while such an attitude may cost him the friendship of fellow jadebloods, who needs ‘em? Look at all the friends he has! He’s colorblind, he doesn’t see blood, he doesn’t understand why people want to rock the boat. (Note: if you take this tack then you may need to change a whole lot more about the character because this is no longer someone who is interested in fighting the status quo! That version of your troll would be a Prospitan for sure.)

On the other hand, how can we take someone joyful and likable and give them reason to fight highbloods? Well, they could be someone who joyfully fights highbloods when they try to stomp them down! There are some revolutionaries who might like that very, very much! And while it’s true that he’d need to feel very strongly about the cause to fight someone, it doesn’t have to be the driving force behind his actions! He can fight highbloods because he loves having his own independence, away from coddling bluebloods who think they know what’s best for him! And this makes him likable because people are inspired by his gumption and his brazenness in flaunting the rules!

Lunar Sway: Prospit.

Like I said above, I have reasons to believe he’s Derse unless you think he’s okay with the current system.

Title: ??????? Of Light?,but I also get some heart vibes from him.

And as above, I think he’s actually a Breath player! If I had to guess, he might be a Knight of Breath, fi you want to write an arc for him where he initially *doesn’t* want to rock the boat to take his freedom, but eventually grows into it.

Land: Land of LEDs and Storms.

A land full of Christmas like decorations and full of clouds that are telling you to give up on your quest,but Gaeiiy knows that even being stroke by a ray won’t stop him from ascending.

This one doesn’t need to change the name even if your Aspect does, since Storms can absolutely be a Breath thing. I do wonder what his quest would be, though…maybe he needs to part the clouds just enough that Skaia can reflect a rainbow against the torrent? It doesn’t necessarily mean your troll needs to *do* the quest; it just needs to be there.

Let’s get to this young man’s redesign. As always, we’re going top to bottom!

The most important design note I went into this redesign with was “LGBT solidarity,” which meant trying to hit that very fun “plausible deniability” look where strangers can ascertain that you’re *some* type of LGBT but have no real way of telling exactly which of those letters apply?

Horns - I edited these from Equius’s robot horns because there are some headcanons that these represent the “ideal” troll horns. I added a hook at the end of the rear horn for that signature jadeblood flavor! Also I added a piercing to the right horn similar to how gay men in the 90s/00s had one in the right ear to signify their gayness. (Which was fun because I was googling “which ear is the gay ear” like I was in 7th grade again lol).

Baseball cap - This one is adapted from @emspritesblog, which is unfortunately kind of dead now. I liked the fact that you had a rainbow on his shirt and I wanted to pay tribute to it somehow, so I added it to the back of the baseball cap using the blood colors closest to those of the original Pride flag!

Hair - I used a template from @fantrollartroom and made it curlier, because the asymmetrical undercut is like *the* look as far as I know.

Eyes - I wanted to nod back to the fact that you wanted a Karkat-adjacent design, so I edited his eyes for your troll.

Mouth - …and the mouth. But I added some fangs for that jadebloodyness

Binder/tank and symbol - I took the jade and teal symbols I suggested and tried to smoosh ‘em together a little bit! 

Flannel - ahhhh the flannel of plausible deniability. I made is a jade/teal gradient to emphasize the cuspiness. It’s Vriska’s jacket but with all the colors swapped out.

Overall outfit - I use @fan-troll sprites quite liberally to make coherent outfits, and cannot recommend the sprite sheet enough! Since the clothing doesn’t *quite* fit a standard sprite it kind of forces you to learn some spriting as you go, which is a pretty good way to get incrementally better over time.

That concludes my review of young Gay Rights [sic]! I hope my suggestions were helpful, and thank you very much for sharing him!

-TR

[kentonramsey]

The TikTok Algorithm Knew I Was Bisexual Before I Did

Despite being a Social Media Manager and having an embarrassing relationship with my screen time reports, as soon as I became aware of the rise of TikTok, I promised myself I would never get into it. I spent an hour on it about three months ago and managed to feel older and more irrelevant than I’ve ever felt, even though I’m 26 and live online.

But a few weeks ago, in a desperate bid to escape some of the unhappiness of having spent three months in my apartment, I re-downloaded the app. The bar was low—at most I was hoping for a dog eating a corn cob. I got the comedic relief I wanted almost immediately.

The TikTok algorithm is smart. Or, at least, I think it is. Over the past few weeks I’ve continued liking the things that I like with abandon (e.g., rollerskating, sweet moments with elderly folks, teens being teens). There are obviously problems in the way the algorithm machinates in that, depending on who you are and what you like, it can reinforce and cater to your worldview in an unproductive way. But it can also be illuminating. My feed has become curated so specifically to my tastes that it has alerted me to parts of myself I hadn’t fully embraced yet: It’s a medley of absurd animal videos, spooky happenings that are more than likely hoaxes… and queer femmes.

@catherinesofia3945

she really said “sexually…???” anywho i came out to my mom today with cupcakes #fyp

♬ original sound – catherinesofia3945

The first video I liked was of a young woman coming out to her mother with cupcakes, which spelled out “I like girls” in frosting. After she sets up the camera and nervously walks her mom through the three-word phrase, her mother gives a gruff, awkward but ultimately accepting-enough response. “Sexually?” she asks. They hug. The daughter’s excitement in sharing who she is with her mother is palpable, but at odds with its lukewarm reception. Something catches in my throat still when I watch it.

The more queer content I was served, the more I engaged. I liked videos of best friends declaring crushes on each other, which has since become an entire theme of video content on the platform. I liked videos from lesbian women married for 23 years sharing their love stories, so tender they made me cry in 15 seconds. I liked videos that made me laugh about clichés in the queer femme community (you will not find me at a Lowe’s, but you will 100% find me in the skate parks, thrift stores, and your local “forest”).

@officiallydiane1

How hot is she?? Just introducing my baby. #gay#pride#lgbtq#love #23years

♬ original sound – officiallydiane1

I’m not going to say that TikTok knew I was bisexual before I did, because I’ve had inklings for a long time. I’ve spent years denying them as the maxims of internalized biphobia dominated my conscience. Queerness was celebratory, lovable, beautiful for the people I care about, but would it be that way for me? Would the people in my life still accept me the same way? Would the love between me and a partner still take the same shape? And would my life be harder?

I’ve seen women here and there in the past, but quietly. I faced an unreasonable amount of denial about my sexuality in the past because of my background and my known desire for men. I’ve undergone enough self learning to finally acknowledge my queerness for what it is. I’m not officially “out” with everyone I know. I guess, in a way, this is it.

Spending time on TikTok has opened my eyes to the glorious breadth of identity, presentation, and sexuality in the world. I don’t mean that I was unaware of it before, per se, but the narratives I see on TikTok are uniquely joyful. I sound like a millennial when I say that for so long I associated queerness with hardship, having seen and felt the painful stories of some of my closest friends in coming to terms with their identity in their families and communities. This is not to say that stigma, trauma, and fear don’t still exist in these spaces. I know they do, tragically, and at varying levels based on which family, community, and to which identity you belong.

Queer TikTok has given me the gift of believing that my bisexuality can be a source of light, not a burden. It is a unique space of celebration, expression, empowerment. How strange to think that a platform I formerly avoided ultimately gave me the push I needed to come to terms with who I am? In a way, it makes a lot of sense. It’s my job—and my passion—as a Social Media Manager to invest time and energy in emerging social spaces to see how new stories can be told.

I didn’t expect for my own story to be revealed to me in the process. But I’m so grateful it was.

Graphic by Lorenza Centi.

The post The TikTok Algorithm Knew I Was Bisexual Before I Did appeared first on Man Repeller.

The TikTok Algorithm Knew I Was Bisexual Before I Did published first on https://normaltimepiecesshop.tumblr.com/ The TikTok Algorithm Knew I Was Bisexual Before I Did published first on https://mariakistler.tumblr.com/

[diegoluina]

i wrote this for an essay competition, but...

When I was five I cried myself to sleep every night, my stomach twisted in knots as I tried to keep silent. This isn’t me, I would say to myself. This is the wrong body. I am a boy. But no matter how much it hurt to keep this truth inside me, I already knew that I could never tell my parents.

When I was 10, they gave our class the “sex talk,” and I shuddered at the thought of ever giving myself to someone like that. They told me I’d get over it.

When I was in middle school, I sat in high school listening to some girls giggle and chat about how they couldn’t wait to finally have sex with their boyfriends – no matter what their parents said. I’d dig my head into a book and think, Yeah, maybe one day I’ll do that, too, but I’d still feel that deep tug in the pit of my stomach.

When I was 15, I sat at the dinner table with my parents as my dad told a story about how, when he was in high school, he and his friends from the football team would go downtown and beat up “the queers.” My mom and my sister laughed, but I just stared down at my plate and thought, If you knew who I was, would you beat me up, too?

When I was 17, I went to college as far away from home as I could get and I finally listened to myself. I let that tight ball in my chest unfurl and began to learn to love myself.

When I was 18, I came across the term asexual online, and I knew that I was not broken. Even if I couldn’t come out offline, I knew that there were others like me and that was enough for me.

And now I’m 20 and I’m told that I don’t belong in the one place I thought I finally might. I have seen countless LGBTQ+ blogs proclaim their inclusivity while in the same breath telling ace and aro people that their identities do not inherently make them a part of the community. That to be ace and aro is to be not quite “queer enough.” That “cishets” don’t belong in the community, but oh wait, the A stands for Ally.

I believe that, although the LGBTQ+ community was created with the purpose of creating an inclusive space, this space was only truly inclusive for some. Did lesbians not have to fight to be included when gay men were prioritized? Did trans people not have to remind cis queer folk that they exist even though the LGBTQ+ movement was started mainly due to the work of trans women of color? Don’t many qpoc face racism even today within the LGBTQ+ community? Gatekeeping has been present in the community since its very inception, but that does not mean that we cannot do better.

We need to do better to include ace and aro people, but also to include non-white, mentally ill, autistic, and disabled (etc.) LGBTQ+ folk in the community. Inclusion does not “water down” the community or “open us to exploitation at the hands of our oppressors.” A black gay man deserves the same level of recognition in the community as a white gay man. An autistic nb person deserves the same respect as an allistic nb person.

We cannot ignore the intersectionality of our identities and we can no longer focus on cis gay and binary trans people as the core of everything LGBTQ+. That is, other groups face different types of oppression based on their different LGBTQ+ identities and the intersections of their gender and sexual orientation with their other characteristics.  A bisexual woman faces feminized biphobia, not feminized homophobia due to her being “50% gay.” A nonbinary person may not face the same kind of transphobia that a binary trans person faces, but that does not mean that they are “less oppressed.” Each identity faces its own struggles. Being ace doesn’t mean I have “straight privilege,” it just means that if I am silent and choose to ignore who I am (even at great personal expense), I can “pass” as “one of them.”

Even if I were not trans, even if I were not pan, my ace-ness and aro-ness are enough.

I am enough. We are enough. We belong.

[tenbees]

this bi woman i know told me to my face that its harder to be bi than it is to be straight or gay, because people expect you to either be attracted to men or to women. so if a woman says she’s only attracted to men, then people dont question her.  if a man says he’s gay, people dont expect him to talk about women and wont talk about women with him.  but bi people confuse people because they’ll talk about their attraction to men and then to women and people dont know how to treat them. oh, and if people assume she’s straight when she’s only ever talked to them about men (and excessively at that, even her straight friends have told her to calm down and not obsess over men as much as she does), it hurts her feewings :’( and you cant tell bi women in ~wlw~ spaces that you dont want to hear about her male celebrity crush/her boyfriend, because bi woman being attracted to men is just as queer as her being attracted to women!

i told her that the pressure isnt to pick either or, its to pick the opposite. that bi women are pressured to only act on their attraction to men, because that saves them from being dirty homosexual sinners. that no one says to a lesbian ‘oh thank god you’re only attracted to women, now if you were attracted to men too then we would have a problem’ that’s just such a fucking idiotic thing to think. why the fuck would a het society punish the women who are still attracted to men more than the women who are literally incapable of it?  in what world outside your oppressive lesbian fantasy is society pushing women to denounce their attraction to men and only date/have sex with women?  where the fuck is this happening? has this happened to you in person or have you only read people complaining about it happening theoretically online? and the fantasy that bi women are the only ones who have their sexuality doubted! lesbians are told its a phase too! lesbians are told the right dick will come along and we’ll learn to love men! lesbians are told we should just give men a chance!

she told me that she’d never thought about it, but that she might ‘concede’ that there’s actually pressure for bi women to choose men because it’s socially acceptable, that she’d have to mull it over. mull it over? like do you live under a fucking rock? she’s never dated anyone but you have to know on some level, logically, that society treats het relationships differently from gay relationships, or you’re just being deliberately ignorant because then you won’t feel as ~valid~. no ones gonna see her and her future boyfriend walking down the street and harass them because they can sense a ~queerness~ to their relationship.

she said it’s easier to be gay because you have to be open about it. that you’re doing what society doesn’t want you to do anyway, so you might as well embrace it. do you think i came out of the fucking womb flippantly talking about being a lesbian, that i didn’t suffer first to get to the point i’m at today where i come off as nonchalant about it? do you honestly think it’s easier to have to choose between saying i have a girlfriend, outing myself in the process, not knowing how strangers will react, and having to lie about 90% of my personal life for my own safety? do you know how suffocating the weight of that constant lying is? i honestly think you can’t understand it unless you’ve experienced it for yourself.  i can’t talk about my life without outing myself as a lesbian. i can’t exist in public with my girlfriend without outing myself as a lesbian. and being able to pick and choose who you feel safe coming out to because you’re only anecdotally attracted to women and probably wont ever date one is a privilege.

i honestly feel no solidarity with your average bi woman. they experience the smallest bit of homophobia, relabel it biphobia, and then act like gay people couldn’t have experienced the same thing. they refuse to consider that gay people are even bigger targets, at that. we’re also told it’s a phase. we also have our sexuality ignored. we’re also told to pick a side--the right side, that is, being heterosexuality. we’re also ignored in ~queer~ spaces--but because same-sex attraction will always be shunted to the side in favor of het attraction, which they apparently feel is their god-given right to talk about no matter the circumstance. i don’t have anything in common with a woman who is functionally straight.