#there's a certain way that people are taught to perceive and expect to perceive women

[cyberphuck]

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(tumblr cut off MOST of my tags in this, thanks Tumblr)

[spacelazarwolf]

I apologize you’ve explained this before but why do you think male/female socialization is bullshit? From the way I think about it isn’t it just the fact that certain gender roles are pushed onto afab and amab people by authority figures and thus society in general to dress a certain way, show or not show emotions, forced to cover up, etc? Isn’t this a thing that happens or is there another term for it

I agree that male socialization to justify describing amab people as inherently bad is wrong though. But otherwise isn’t this an actual thing?

i've sort of touched on it in other posts, but i'll use this opportunity to try and collect all my thoughts and expand on some things i've been thinking about lately. i can't promise it'll be all-encompassing, but i'll do my best.

i think when it comes to conversations about "socialization", we're having the wrong conversation. we shouldn't be asking "how did being 'raised male/female' make this person act?", we should be asking "how was this person affected by the gender roles they were taught growing up, and how did it intersect with other parts of their identity?"

to try to illustrate this better than just a wall of text, i'm going to give some examples of "traditional" gender roles that come up a lot in discussions about socialization, and how different people might be affected by them.

"female" gender roles

must be softspoken/speak when spoken to

under white supremacy, black women are painted as aggressive (which is seen as a bad thing) while white women are painted as docile (which is seen as a good thing). how would this gender role affect a black woman differently than a white woman?

jewish women who are raised in jewish culture are generally seen as much more outspoken than the culturally white norm. how would the expectation to be "softspoken" affect them?

how would this affect trans men who are raised with this expectation, but when they transition and are put in the societal role of "man" are expected to be more outspoken? or trans women who have this gender role used against them when they try to speak up?

must focus on being a mother

to society, giving birth is one of the pillars of womanhood. how would this affect a trans man who has given birth or wants to? how would this affect a trans woman who can't?

how would this affect a black woman who deals with racist rhetoric surrounding black people having multiple children? how would it affect a black mother who is afraid of bringing black children into a world that is not safe for them?

how would this affect women who don't want children? how would it affect women who do want children, but still want to maintain their life as an individual person and not just a mother?

must be nurturing and learn how to handle others' emotions

how would this affect women of color who are frequently burdened with managing white people's emotions in conversations about race?

how would this affect all trans people, both those who were raised with this expectation and those who have this expectation put on them later in life, whose safety can be compromised by perceived "outburtsts"?

"male" gender roles

must not express emotions

how would this affect men who are racial and ethnic minorities who are trying to talk about the oppression they face and the grief that comes along with it? especially those for whom showing intense emotions is perceived as aggression?

how would this affect trans men who transitioned later in life who now have to deal with people's negative reactions to them showing the same emotions they've shown their whole life?

how would this affect trans women who were raised with this expectation, and now have difficulty expressing their emotions even though the societal role they're in now "allows" for that?

must be a breadwinner and protector, regardless of personal cost

how would this affect trans men who have different safety needs than most cis men who are now expected to put that safety on the line? (remember malte c.)

how would this affect working class men who are not paid fairly, expected to work more for less, with less benefits and protections, and then don't get to connect with their families and friends the way they might want to?

how would this affect darker skinned men of color who are already at higher risk of police violence who want to protect their loved ones from harm but know if they try the consequences could be deadly?

must not show any femininity

how would this affect jewish and east asian men who are seen as inherently more feminine because of their ethnicity/race?

how would this affect queer men whose expression is more feminine?

how would this affect trans women who are still forced into the societal role of "man"?

how would this affect trans men, who are inherently seen as feminine because of their agab, or if they don't want to present entirely normatively masculine?

particularly when it comes to trans people, depending on when we transition, our agab can have very little affect on any sort of social conditioning we receive. for me, i came out and started medically transitioning when i was 28, almost 29. my life up until that point had been profoundly affected by misogyny and sexism. growing up in a conservative town, i'd been told by the culture that i lived in that my place in the world was to have babies with a nice man, and maybe do some music on the side. i experienced medical sexism that left me disabled, educational sexism that forced me to drop out, and those things are a huge part of why i am who i am today. so it does frustrate me when people say that because i'm a man today i couldn't possibly have experienced or been affected by those things, because those experiences supposedly belong to "women" and by trying to claim them i'm somehow defaulting on my claim to my identity as a man.

i can't change what i experienced or the way it affected me. but just because i experienced one thing doesn't mean that everyone who shares my identity has to have the exact same experience, or that everyone who is the "opposite" identity of me has to have experienced the opposite. the trans boy i know who came out at age 6 is going to have a very different experience. his teachers see him as a boy, he is growing up in a more progressive and accepting community, his parents are fierce advocates for him in social and medical settings, and he is going to have a really amazing life. the kind of life all trans people should be able to have.

my life experiences will be more similar to a trans girl who came out at age 6 and experienced growing up placed in the "girl" role than they will be to the trans boy who came out at age 6 and experienced growing up placed in the "boy" role. and that, to me, is what makes trans experiences so fascinating. the trans girl might not know what it's like to get messaging about having babies being your only role in life because you have a uterus, but those messages about having babies are still going to affect her because having babies is seen as the most womanly thing you can do, and people will use the fact she can't have babies to "prove" she's not a woman. women with uteruses who are infertile often experience similar reactions, people stripping them of their womanhood because they can't carry a child. the trans boy might not know what it's like to have high school teachers speak down to you and put you in the front row so they can look down your shirt in the middle of class, but he'll still know what it's like to have people try to prevent you from transitioning because of your physical capability to have children, and what it's like to live in a world that hates you and wants to punish you for trying to "rise above your station."

every human being experiences some sort of social conditioning, because that's how humans grow and develop. we look to the world around us to try to learn how to interact with others, what society expects from us, etc. there's really no valid argument for the idea that no one experiences any sort of conditioning when they're young, because that's just not how human brains work. it's just that it's not as simple as "male vs female socialization." there are dozens of ways that intersecting experiences like race, ethnicity, ability, neurodivergence, queerness, etc. can affect the way society sees and treats you, the way society expects you to behave, and the way society enforces that behavior. it's not black and white. nothing is.

the only person who can determine how your upbringing may have affected who you are today is you. other people might be able to make observations, but you're the only one who can connect the dots. if there are things you learned growing up that you find were not healthy behaviors or were ineffectual coping mechanisms, you can unlearn them. we are always growing and changing. i've said before, socialization is something that happens to you, not something you are. no one is trapped in their 14 year old self forever.

[sugarplumswan]

One thing I find particularly insidious about female socialization is the way women internalize sexism and then go on to perpetuate it against one another. Society doesn't grant women personhood by default, it sees them as objects, and from a young age girls are told that if they want to be considered people then they have to fight for it. They have to earn it. And as long as you're likened to another woman, AKA "an object", you are failing in your own attempts at being a person. There is then an intense pressure and desperation placed on the woman to set herself apart from other women which society is eager to provide "solutions" for. Shave your legs. Slather your face in makeup. Dress this way, but not quite that way, and definitely not that way. You silly thing, that's already out of season. Are you even trying? She is constantly asked to do more to prove herself, and nothing she does is ever enough. Patriarchal society cruelly dangles it's perception of personhood in front of her like a fruit atop a branch just out of reach. The woman then grows resentful towards herself for failing to live up to the idealized image society expects of her. Her behaviours become increasingly cruel and self-punishing, thinking that everything would be fine as long as she could force herself to be a certain way, that maybe she could finally become a person with just a little bit more suffering. In actuality, the woman is already a person. She was entitled personhood by being born a human. However, her conditioning is so strong that it becomes impossible for her to see this. Under these conditions, class consciousness among women becomes very difficult. Women are raised from birth not to see women as people. They are taught to assume women are objects. And so, when the woman engages with another woman, she begins to measure herself against the other, ranking their relative "personhoods". She becomes smugly self-satisfied if she believes she comes out on top, and despairing if she concludes the other woman to be superior to her in some way. If the other is perceived to be particularly bad at the performance of personhood, the woman might feel incensed to correct her behaviours, either through passive-aggressive pity or outright cruelty. This stems from a warped desire to improve her own image by correcting the overall perception of women in general. If the other is perceived to be particularly superior, the woman might feel incensed to attack the other and bring her down to her level. This stems from a desire to punish the other for acting above her station as an object. Either way, the woman's self-loathing is such that she feels an intense need to put down other women in order to elevate herself. True solidarity among women can only come about when women stop perpetuating patterns of thought engineered by patriarchal society to keep them down. First, the woman must accept herself as a person with no conditions. Her personhood is innate and entitled to her as a human and nothing can take that away. Similarly, she cannot augment herself to be more or less of a person by engaging in certain actions or purchasing certain products. Then, she must extend this understanding to all other women. She does not have to agree with them, or even like them, but she must be able to conceptualize them as whole beings with their own personhood. She can no longer treat them as if they are empty objects to project her own insecurities onto. Only once she has done the work to accept this can she become a positive force for change within her class.

[they-them-that]

Light trigger warning: gender roles, misogyny, transphobia

I love Ouran Highschool Host Club and with the Shoujo classic that it is, I adopted the general consensus that the show was "ahead of its time" with how it portrayed gender. Haruhi will always be a non-binary icon but upon rewatching it, especially after my own trans awakening, I remembered something that never sat right with me and that was how Tamaki treated Haruhi. My two cisgender friends didn't seem to pick up on the same problems even though they also consider Haruhi to be non-binary which made me think I was just projecting onto the anime. But another friend of mine later told me how it was much more "heterosexual" than she remembered that helped validate the feeling I had.

Although Haruhi doesn't like to make a fuss about gender, the anime does and it constantly reminds us that no matter what Haruhi feels, she is still a "girl". Tamaki is the worst offender of this mentality where even his entire perspective on Haruhi changes as soon as he finds out she's afab. A huge part of Tamaki's character is that he dotes on Haruhi "like a father" where his actions are actually founded on the authoritative, patriarchal belief that he needs to "protect" her because she is a woman. Not just protect her from actual harm either but from things like kissing someone and wearing a swimsuit...

Although in certain ways, we're supposed to laugh at Tamaki's overbearing nature, he's never actually taught to respect Haruhi's autonomy. In what felt like every episode, Tamaki fixates on Haruhi's assigned sex much to her annoyance. Yet rather than learning to look at Haruhi as a person regardless of gender, we're expected to see his obsession with upholding gender roles as a sign of affection. This felt clearest in episode 8, "The Sun, the Sea, and the Host Club!" where Haruhi confronts two men for harassing her female peers. She gets shoved into the water where Tamaki saves her but the conflict arises when he scolds Haruhi for standing up to men at all. The message emphasizes to us that "Haruhi is a girl" and it's something that she has to accept for her own well being while Tamaki's anger is meant to be perceived as chivalrous rather than patriarchal and heteronormative. The reality is, even if Haruhi was in danger, that isn't actually her fault but the fault of the men who felt entitled to women's bodies (something Tamaki is guilty of, even if not to the same level of aggression).

I still cherish OHSHC but it hasn't fully stood the test of time as I've been led to believe. That's not to rob gender queer people the comfort they feel from the show but that for myself, it's a bit hard to look past the cishet energy that the anime exudes. Although I see Haruhi as non-binary, the show doesn't seem to agree and goes great lengths to invalidate Haruhi's gender indifference. It's tragically common in anime and manga where trans-coded afab characters are reminded that they're still women and it's usually "proven" to them through patriarchal scenarios that put CIS men in a role of dominance. A lot of the time, these women are only gender nonconforming out of happenstance or circumstance rather than by choice, which even includes Haruhi Fujioka (she only cut her hair because there was gum in it). That's not to conflate gender expression with identity but it does feel like we're only being met half way, especially when the anime still romanticizes the gender dichotomy with Haruhi and Tamaki's relationship. I would've loved to see Tamaki be able to toss the notion of gender the same way Haruhi is able to and have that be the groundwork in which their mutual feelings blossom. Instead, it just felt like we got a man who stubbornly wants someone who grew up without gender labels to visualize herself the way he does, as a "woman".

[stackslip]

im having some makima gender thoughts. idk how much of it is purposeful from fujimoto but..... i have Thoughts on how makima performs gender and especially like. Womanhood as Seduction/as Safety/as a Non Threat, but... only in the context of her manipulations as the control devil, especially towards denji and to an extent, aki. vs how shes portrayed in any other interaction or situation. in her moments of vulnerability and when shes terrifying and when she is NOT interacting with denji or aki or like, people shes specifically trying to manipulate. its not just the framing or lack of fanservice, but she feels and acts in a way thats so much more androgynous.

like, look at these! not just how shes dressed or even how she walks, but how fujimoto frames her in the first page vs the second! if she really were just his femdom fetish, page 2 should present her in a Oooh Femme Fatale way. in page 1 shes playing in the role of feminity that denji expects from her, the role of dainty and non threatening and caring, beautiful girlfriend/mother. and then in page 2 she doesnt have to do that. or even attempt to look threatening. she is herself in page 2, plans going perfectly, beyond harm or understanding.

and like, i really dont think this is fujimoto going "ooooh women fake and manipulative" bc again these moments of danger and of vulnerability.... are so different. because we know makima was raised to be Control, to pull puppet strings while being perceived as saintly and motherly and a damsel in distress and somebody who owns the situation but isnt a threat. because the other female characters are completely different, bar say reze who herself was raised to be the same kind of weapon that makima is. but power, quanxi, kobeni, himeno–not at all the same!

and like, since chainsaw man is about cycles of abuse, about imposed roles and failing to run from them, about the chains that keep you nice and obedient and subservient to the will and beliefs of those who hold your leash... makima is absolutely referenced as this. shes a direct foil to denji. part of her attraction towards pochita is how she perceives his utter lack of chains, how unpredictable he is, how he is not leashed nor holding any leashes. makima drops her gendered mannerisms and role once shes finished breaking denji and pochita comes out. the only other moment where shes framed as such afterwards is when she brings out the weapon hybrids who are devoted to her. after this, she fights with her fists, she is much more open with her emotions, she is nowhere as sexual or gendered even in how fujimoto draws her.

basically what im saying is that just as makima was taught to see every living creature as a dog for her to leash, and herself as beyond relationships or attachments, she was also *taught* to perform gender in certain ways, not just to "seduce" but.... to let people project onto her, to make them trust her and love her and fear her like good dogs. shes holds a mirror to their expectations in order to hide her web of puppet strings, and said expectations are, inevitably, gendered, tied to heterosexuality and ideas of womanhood as inherently feminine, caring, non threatening. but she herself–idk how she views herself in terms of gender. personally, i think shes thinking of how dog owners use body language and treats and orders in order to direct their dogs attention or correct them. and so often abused dogs do not trust human men.

[riverofrainbows]

I get kind of really annoyed with how much some people focus on and how much they ascribe to "female socialization", as well as how universal they apply it, especially in regards to trans men and transmasc people.

I do think that there is some aspects worth discussing of this, but like i said not in the way these people do it.

"Ooh everyone who is afab has these same experiences, we all know how it feels to (be harrassed, be catcalled, have our clothes policed, be told we're not as capable, etc)"

And like yeah probably a lot of people that are perceived as women have some of these experiences. Sexism and misogyny do exist.

But not all of us? And not all experiences? And while we're at it, not all trans men/trans masc people even grew up perceived as women if they came out as a child.

And they always take it to the next step that therefore all afab people share this communal trauma of men, which is where the radical feminism and terf ideology comes in.

This also relies on the assumption that all "female socialization" and "afab experience" is shaped by misogyny perpetuated by men. A lot of misogyny is perpetuated by women (for example the rampant diet culture that is especially put onto children perceived and raised as girls). A lot of strict gender roles for girls and boys are enforced by women, since the majority of child rearing is still done by women. Sure more men are misogynistic, and it's more often men who perpetuate street harrassment, yes. But that is not the only part of daily life.

And the next part is the assertion that "female socialization" that is put onto a transmasc person is then also internalised by that person. If you hear "girls should do this" but you know you're not a girl, you will not internalise it the same way a girl will. There is a bunch of gendered messaging that people will subconsciously absorb in some way, and yes how someone is treated in daily life affects them, but trans people will always have a different experience than peers assigned the same gender at birth, and even cis kids will have, sometimes strongly, varying life experiences. The middle class christian white cis het able-bodied neurotypical female experience that terfs and radfems trout as universal doesn't exist, neither for all women nor afab people, nor at all.

And whenever they try to draw on that supposed "universal trauma of men" to spread their ideology, to shape discussions and claim certain transphobic statements, it really stands out as odd to me because the emotional manipulation through reminding people of trauma or bad experiences they had doesn't work on me, so the base for their following argument doesn't exist.

I have had very little bad gendered experiences in my life. And i know i am somewhat just statistically lucky, because i know it does happen to people I'm not denying that. But i have very little negative impact of that proposed "female socialization", nor much of such a socialisation at all. And not in a tomboy 'my father taught me how to repair cars' way, i did learn how social rules apply to me while i move through the world perceived as a woman/girl and my parents also gave me information on that. But i never had much of what is usually claimed as part of growing up as an afab person. My parents never put gendered expectations on me. Never restricted my food, or forced me on a diet. Never policed my clothing, never policed even the style of clothing. When i started to dress masculinely after i realised i am trans, they never bat an eye even before coming out. They gifted me whatever was on my wishlist, both feminine stuff and remote controlled race cars (and mostly books). I have never been told i am less capable of anything, i actually always heard, from everywhere, that girls can be whatever they want, and that you can be a girl however way you want (and i never heard similar messaging aimed at boys in the scope of gendered messaging i witnessed. I was aware of sexism and that that's why it was especially aimed at girls, but i never heard any of that supposed already plentiful messaging directly told to boys my age). Our period products are and were always out in the open, my father was never weird about it and went with me to my first gynaecologist appointment. I would walk through the apartment half dressed in underwear to ask him to close my dresses. I never had many bad experiences with boys growing up, mostly because i also didn't know any boys; I went to an all girls school, i didn't have any friends so that included boys, i mostly just read books (and my parents never policed or even commented on what books i was reading. My father also recommended me his favourite scifi books, since i always loved fantasy and scifi). Most bad experiences growing up were with girls, through bullying and the girls in school finding me weird due to my autism and because i wasn't really girly or easily connected through girl experiences (i also thought I had internalised misogyny when it was just dysphoria). Most medical bad experiences were with female doctors and medical personnel, including two female gynaecologists. I have had a gross sexual comment made to me twice in my whole life. I never had a bad experience while dating because i have never dated anyone. The closest i have come to dating i did not have any particularly bad gendered experiences, nor really bad ones at all, just awkward experiences.

What i am trying to say with this is that i never experienced "the communal afab trauma" and i know that terfs and radfems are full of shit and purposefully ignore intersectionality and nuance, as well as don't actually care about women.

I did notice and experience some negative effects of sexism and misogyny in societal messaging, like the oversexualisation of female characters, awareness of gender stereotypes and strict gender roles, also i recently noticed i always buy tight or even slightly too tight clothing due to the way womens clothes affected me (that i wore until a few years ago). I am also acutely aware of the gender disparity in healthcare and medical research that is absolutely appalling. I am a feminist and I know that sexism and misogyny exist (and affect others often more than me) and i advocate against it wherever it's possible for me to do so. But i do not share some universal female/afab experience and most definitely not some "female socialization" the way terfs and radfems and those who are sipping the radfems juice claim the world works and try fo force onto trans people (especially transmasc people) in order to perpetuate transphobia of all kinds.

(because in the same vein, some mystical "male socialisation" does not apply to trans women and transfem people in the way terfs and radfems claim, nor does it exist the way they claim it to)

[mando-of-esverr]

::Esverr Planet Profile::

Type: Core Planet Location: Asvarian system Appearance: Earth-like with thin, wide space dust rings. Description: Set with wide, misty rings, and 2 moons, Esverr is one of the habitable planets of the Asvarian system. It is a fertile planet, rich in life, resources, and midichlorians, making it a prime breeding ground for force-sensitive beings. Thanks to its fertility and hospitable climate and environment, many races have migrated to Esverr, but those who are native and indigenous to the planet exhibit abilities far beyond their colonial neighbors.

Society: Esverr is ruled in a kind of global feudal system with each region of people ruled by a specific Royal House or Noble Family. Just as in a Monarchy, the Royals answer to the Reigning Monarch (be it King or Queen) and rule their individual areas as representatives of said Monarch. They are then able to institute Noble Families either through extended family relations (cousins, nieces, nephews, etc.) or by the Noble Appointment (a non-blood related family being appointed to Noble status). These Noble Families are then put in charge of various regions within the Royals' jurisdiction. Each Noble Family (depending on if they are a Greater House or a Lesser House) is assigned as stewards and representatives over the land/people of the area they are assigned to. Poor stewardship will get them Displaced (stripped of their rank as Nobility), while good stewardship will allow them to rise in rank from Lesser to Greater Houses according to their work and the state of their people/estate.

Over time, the Nobles Houses and Monarchy have become less bloodline-based and more of a meritocracy, with the Noble Houses representing the best in their region—both in colonized regions as well as Native tribes and peoples. —more to come—

People: In the Esverrean's indigenous culture are many classes and creeds, but the most notable of these are the Videre: a group of elite skillsmen trained to serve in the greatest capacity of whatever position they might fill. They were known for their excellence and precision, but more than that, they are known for their unusual eyes and abilities.

Though naturally force-sensitive, indigenous Esverreans don’t exhibit any active force skill or abilities like that of the Jedi. Instead, they display their force sensitivity in more passive ways such as through empathic connections and affecting the flow/nature of the force around them. Those who show more gift than others are praised and sent to be trained up in the way of Vidor or “law of sight”, “vision/sight code”. Through this code of honor and discipline, force-sensitive children are taught how to hone and master their abilities, respect and contribute positively to their communities, and become skilled and honorable men and women known as Videre.

Religion: Li'Proviiden (Worship of the Light side of the Force) Politics: —coming soon— History: The Clone Wars Originally part of the Republic, Esverr was a strong opponent of the Clone Wars based explicitly on their reverence for life, mind, and spirit, and the freedom expected by right for all three. They believed that having clones, born to live, serve, and die without any choice in their own actions, was reprehensible, abominable even, and refused to participate in the clone wars. Political alliances were strained when the Senate issued an order to have a garrison of clones situated on Esverr, claiming it was to protect them against the Separatists as Esverr did not have a standing army. However, this further drove certain Esverran factions to ally with the Separatists due to the overreach of the Republic and the perceived infringement on Esverran sovereignty and human dignity.

This led to this once peaceful planet becoming a bloodied battleground between the Republic's clone troopers and the Separatist droid armies. With the war tearing their people apart, Esverr was one of the worlds that were quick to accept the peace and stability the Empire brought. This was further incentivized as the Imperial forces and funds were sent to help rebuild Esverr after the war. However, enormous reformations were also instituted, namely the diluting of power of the Esverran noble houses and the restructuring of allowances for their force-sensitive cultural law-keepers and skillsmen, the Videre.

Initially, these were seen as fair requirements under the new government. However, not everyone was keen on the new restructuring and rules of the Empire. Once again, several of the Esverran house leaders felt that the position and sovereignty they previously enjoyed were under threat of Imperial infringement, just as it had been with the Republic.

This led to a few of the Nobel Houses, namely House Heraldy, to lean into Rebel sympathies. However, these sympathies would not go unnoticed and it would only be a matter of time before the Empire retaliated against these sympathetic Houses.

Fall of the Nobles After discovering that Lord Charles Heraldy had been secretly supporting the Rebels on his own home planet, an Imperial raid on his home was conducted with the intent of either capturing or killing whatever rebel insurgents he had been keeping there. This culminated in the deaths of Lord Heraldy, his wife, his eldest son, Augustus Heraldy, and presumably his daughter, Lavinia.

The upending of House Heraldy led to a split in the populous of Esverr, the Traditionalists vs the Imperialists. In the Traditionalist view, this was a betrayal, and believe the Heraldy family should have been tried by Esverran law instead of having a violent raid that killed all but two members of the Heraldy family. In the Imperialist's view, the Heraldy noble house was a symptom of a greater problem - the Noble House's discontent with their Imperial government and their greed for their previous standing threatening the hard-won peace the Empire brought.

With these tensions rising in Esverr, the Empire acted swiftly in the propagating of the Imperial narrative and the dissolution of the Esverran Royal houses. In addition to dissolving the Esverran ruling Houses, the Empire also used the Heraldy "rebellion" as further cause to dissolve the Senate, further solidifying Imperial power. Though Rebel cells were still present on Esverr, most who believed in the cause were forced to either submit or depart their beloved homeworld until its liberation after Coruscant in 8-9 ABY.

Unique Planetary Forces:

The Videre order was first established by the Jedi Marr Tuane and his padawan learner at the time, Essandar Kios, who crash-landed on the planet and were assisted by its natives.

With Native Esverrans being intensely force-sensitive but unwilling to join in the Jedi order, Marr Tuane endeavored to find a middle ground to help the Esverrans both cultivate their abilities and prepare them for others who may come to their world. Through this partnership between the Jedi and the Esverrans, the Videre were created - skilled men and women who use the force through passive self-augmentation rather than active external use.

As time went on and civilization advanced on Esverr, the Videre became a staple class of the planet, and a training academy was instituted to further its growth.

The Vidor Academy On Esverr, force-sensitive citizens are often sent to the Videre Academy for training and education. Through their training, their abilities often manifest in one of 3 ways: enhanced visual and awareness abilities (common: Scourmen), enhanced visual and psychic abilities (uncommon: Truemen), and enhanced visual, psychic, and force abilities (rare: Veilmen).

To accommodate the learning and honing of these different abilities, the Vidor Academy is divided into 4 Houses, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Fall. Spring for new pupils still discovering their abilities, Summer for those training as Scourmen, Autumn for those training as Truemen, and Winter for those experienced enough to train as Veilmen.

Each house depicts the season in which the apprentices complete the first leg of their training and enter the next leg via "Scourging", or the augmentation process to enhance/unlock their natural abilities.

This augmentation is done through the eyes (the most force-sensitive part of their body), causing drastic color and structure changes to the person's eyes, resulting in 3 distinct structures, connected to specific Videre abilities. The names of the Houses also correspond with the ingredients used for their scourging, since certain ingredients are seasonal and only available the in months associated with their houses—ergo their color association.

Light Blue: the House of Spring where all new pupils and apprentices do the first leg of their education until their first Scourging Ceremony which is done on the eve of entering their Next House.

Green: the House of Summer is for those whose First Scourging revealed them to be Scourmen. The scourging of Summer reveals the bright metallic-colored irises (usually gold) and dark-colored sclera (usually green) of Scourmen. It gives them augmented sight that allows them to see further, clearer, in the dark, and through certain biological objects and thin layers of artificial objects. They can detect even the slightest movement or irregularity present.

Though their force sensitivity is on the lower end of the spectrum, they still nourish it through the cultural Esverran connection, which allows them to detect other peoples’ presences around them. They are prime detectives, valued hunters, and exemplary bodyguards.

Red: The House of Autumn is for those whose First Scourgine revealed them to be Truemen. The scourging of Autumn changes the eyes of a Trueman, expanding their often vividly colored iris until the sclera is hardly visible while changing the pupil contraction into a slit rather than a circle.

It reveals not only augmented sight but also amplified psychic and empathic ability. As denoted by their names, Truemen can see and detect the true natures and intentions of the people and creatures around them. They can detect truths, lies, honesty, deceit, and the true thoughts and emotions one is having/experiencing at the present moment.

Some Truemen even have the ability to read the surface thoughts of one's mind as well as block the readings of others. They are incredibly valued and sternly trained in the values of honesty, integrity, and the importance of using their gifts honorably.

Purple: The House of Winter is for Veilmen; men and women of the Autumn and Summer houses who have become experienced Videre, ready to share their knowledge and teachings with their younger counterparts.

Veilmen are the elders of the Videre who have successfully passed the Final Scourging—the scourging that allows one to see the Force and the souls it moves through. They are the only class of Videre that has 2 scourgings and are considered sacred teachers, often performing the tasks of leaders, mentors, and clergy.

They are masters of spiritual matters and often guide and teach their fellow Videre in keeping close to the Light Side of the force, Clar'Proviidor. As such, they are regarded with reverence and fiercely defended by their peers and students.

Note: After the dissolution of the Noble Houses, the Vidor Academy was nationalized and put under Imperial direction, leading most modern Videre to be directed into Imperial service.

—more to come—

Further Notes

[wovetherapy]

(Internalized) Oppression

Skin-whitening products are used by a large proportion of non-European women (David and Derthick, 2013). The use of these products was recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a worldwide health concern (WHO, 2011). The WHO focused primarily on physical consequences (e.g., scarring, skin rashes, kidney failure) framed as a high mercury content problem. However, these products were also linked to mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. Ultimately, policies were enacted to limit the amount of mercury in the products – necessary, but failing to address the psychological ramifications of wanting to appear lighter-skinned, i.e., more white.

Reframing this skin-whitening issue from a “mercury problem” to that of oppression allows systems and institutions, historical and contemporary factors, to be addressed. The health concerns become no longer based on a sole individual’s decision to whiten their skin, but rather a cultural force which brings into question the desire for Westernization.

Oppression

Oppression is both a state and a process. It entails the existence of unequal group access to power and privilege as well as the maintaining of inequality between groups. There are many forms and tactics of oppression, from overt to subtle, and existing interpersonally, between groups, and within groups. Oppression can be established and maintained by force, deprivation, institutional/systemic laws, policies, “normative” practices, etc. Eventually, through consistently, aggressively, and systematically devaluing and dehumanizing the oppressed, the oppressor becomes the model of acceptable humanity (David and Derthick, 2013). In naming non-Western, non-White, non-male, non-heterosexual people, including those with intersecting marginalized identities, as the oppressed, it is important to recognize we collectively make up the majority of our world.

Internalized Oppression

Often, the pervasiveness of oppression leads to the belief of these practices by the oppressed and is internalized. Internalized oppression involves the devaluation and inferiorization of one’s self and one’s group. It may be unconscious and involuntary and can occur at a young age and potentially last a lifetime. No one is born with internalized oppression; it is part of the tactic of oppression, a way oppressors maintain domination over the oppressed. This tactic operates on an individual and group level to uphold power structures that benefit the oppressors. For example, internalized oppression may be a response to facing negative stereotypes and expectations upheld by the dominant, Western, culture.

Microagressions also perpetuate oppression and contribute to internalized oppression. Victims of microagressions may blame themself for being overly sensitive or delusional, questioning the reality and existence of oppression. The lack of a clearly identifiable source of oppression and discrimination leaves one without a distinguishable target to direct their anger, and so this anger is directed inwardly.

Experiencing oppression increasingly raises the denial the individual has about their own reality as an oppressed person i.e., the more racism one experiences, the more they may question the existence of racism, and the more fragmented their experience of themself and the world becomes. This can lead to self-destruction, violence towards self, self-denigration, and various other consequences impacting the individual and expanding from there.

Examples of what internalized oppression may look like

BIPOC disliking their skin color, facial features, hair texture, etc.

Women believing they have limited career options because they were taught they are not capable of certain tasks

LGBTQ+ folk perceiving and believing they are immoral, abnormal, unworthy, due to their sexual orientation or gender identity

Imposter syndrome - doubting one’s own intellect or physical capabilities e.g., feeling unworthy of one’s high-paying job, fear of being “found out”/exposed for who you really are

Colonial mentality - devaluing and objecting the norms and standards of colonized groups while valuing and celebrating the norms and standards of the colonizers

Denying aspects of one’s own cultural identity

Feeling ashamed or embarrassed when seeing members of one’s own cultural group

Increased relationship conflict and decreased relationship quality in same-sex couples

Impacts of Internalized Oppression

Culture

Internalized oppression prevents group members from connecting with one another, additionally causing intragroup conflict and fragmentation. Anger towards systems of oppression often manifests as internalized hatred. This anger is thus redirected towards those who remind the oppressed of themself, becoming a cultural phenomenon which may appear as alcohol and substance use, domestic violence, homicide, sexual assault, and other unhealthy habits and relationships.

Intragroup violence often occurs as members of one’s own group are viewed as inferior and less of a threat than the dominant group. This violence may also extend towards other oppressed groups who are equally, or more, vulnerable (e.g., homophobia and racism within BIPOC communities). Being oppressed and internalizing this oppression is an intergenerational issue, becoming a cultural norm persisting with the sentiment of “that’s just the way we are.”

Internalized oppression leads to the devaluation of one’s own group and rejection of one’s own culture. Oppressed peoples may begin to discriminate against one another and identify with and adopt the culture of the oppressor. This has large consequences on ethnic identity development and acculturative stress, which are linked to adverse mental health consequences.

Self-esteem

Feeling inferior, due to oppressive forces, alters one’s mental schema and frequently results in self-deprecating thoughts and low self-esteem. As this pattern continues, this self-schema is internalized and self-deprecating thoughts become automatic, aiding in the persistence of feeling inferior, as intended by the oppressors. This often results in the additional beliefs of being undesirable and not good enough, which can remain throughout a person’s entire lifetime if left unrecognized and unaddressed.

Low self-esteem has been linked to poor body image and eating disorders and high-risk behaviors along with low regard for life. Examples include high rates of dropping out of school, substance use, unprotected sex resulting in sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancies, domestic violence and other violent crimes.

Self-esteem is composed of personal and collective components. Developing a positive collective self and having a positive collective self-esteem is vital for mental health. Evidence shows that acculturation (assimilation to a different culture) with a lack of enculturation (the extent to which one adheres to one’s heritage culture) is associated with a plethora of mental health consequences such as depression and suicide.

Depression

Depression is a major component of being oppressed as well. Along with feelings of inferiority, it is common to feel shame, humiliation, learned helplessness, resignation and powerlessness. It generates a sense of mistrust and criticism regarding institutions and systems of power, and this can be continued through unrealistic expectations for emerging leaders. Constant expectation management and the creation and destruction of visions of liberation can lead to burnout and abandonment of hope. Internalized oppression may lead to the concealment and denial of one’s authentic identities, quelling the development and concept of self. Internalized oppression often keeps individuals from seeking help, increasing the risk for adverse physical, behavioral, and mental health consequences.

Ways to Externalize oppression

As internalized oppression is learned, it can also be unlearned:

Recognize roles of systems, institutions, and other individuals’ biases in discriminatory practices and remove self blame

Hold oppressive systems, individuals, and collectives accountable for these roles

Identify and name emerging feelings associated with internalized oppression

Understand how oppression works and create a mental map of what is within and outside of your control

Build community and be in conversation with those who understand and validate experiences of oppression

Speak with a therapist to help guide you through the layers of thoughts and emotions that may come up with this weighted and layered topic. Make An Appointment

[punchingup101]

Our Take on Feminism

By Isabel and Terrence

What does Feminism mean to you? How do you connect to it?

Isabel: To me, Feminism means the equality between all genders in regarding work, career, health access, and societal pressures. This means that equal opportunities and experiences are achievable by both those who identify as men, women, and other gender identities. But sometimes this can be complicated, for example just because different groups of people are allocated the same resources and opportunities does not mean that they are given fair or equal advantages over another group. This raises the question of equality vs equity. So I guess my answer would instead be that feminism, to me, means the equity of treatment for all genders solely based on gender identity. While I do believe feminism has some characteristics regarding equity between races and classes, which are also very important, that is not its main focus????

Terrence: Feminism to me means treating all people the same regardless of gender, recognizing that everyone deserves equal rights, opportunities, and respect. It's about dismantling societal norms and expectations that limit individuals based on their gender, and creating a world where everyone has the freedom to pursue their goals and aspirations without discrimination. True feminism seeks to create a society where diversity and inclusivity thrive, where individuals are valued for their abilities and character rather than being confined by traditional gender roles. With me growing up with women and embracing feminism from a young age, I believe in advocating for the rights and empowerment of all, fostering a world where equality knows no boundaries, and where each person can flourish regardless of their gender identity.

What is an example of feminism you have experienced in your life? How does feminism affect you? 

Terrence: Growing up in a household with women exposed me to both the strength of women and the importance of feminism. With my dad taking long trips abroad for work, I grew up in the hands of my grandmother and mother. Similarly, I watched some of my cousins on my dad’s side grow up in households headed by single mothers. I first-hand experienced how, despite not having a man consistently physically present in our household, the women in my life were able to fill these roles in both me and my sisters’ lives. Growing up taught me that a woman is capable of doing everything that a man can. Given this, imagine my shock to find out the need for the feminist movement. How could you tell me men and women aren’t equal? My upbringing says otherwise…

Isabel: While I am a woman, I never knew about feminism until late high school. Looking back onto my girlhood, I do have experiences where I was treated differently solely on the fact that I was a girl. I was perceived as more sensitive, less qualified in school and sports, and expected to always be on my best behavior. Being Latina made a difference in these experiences as I grew up in majority non-Latino communities. It somehow allowed people to think they had the right to push me over, including my classmates and some immature adults. So yes, in my short life I have had uncalled for experiences with misogynists. Due to this, I make it a mission to help raise my brother and future children into people who are respectful and view women, as well as others, as equals. 

What are some examples of traditional gender roles you have heard of or experienced growing up? How can we go against these? 

Isabel: Whew, maaaaany. I’ve been told by my family members that I shouldn’t dress a certain way, “you look like a man in that clothes”, that I should style my hair a certain way, “long hair would make you look more like a girl”, that I should behave a certain way, “don’t be loud or talk back, act like a lady”, that I should engage in certain activities, “go clean and cook”.  While I do enjoy girly outfits, having long hair, being quiet, cooking, cleaning, and being around babies, being told all of these things makes me want to do the opposite of what is expected. Maybe I just enjoy rebelling and creating chaos??? On the other hand, I have also heard family members say similar things to my guy cousins. “Where are the h*es?”, “when are you getting a house?”, “get to work, you’re lazy”, “Help me fix this”, or “don’t cry, be a man”. 

Terrence: I will personally say that I’m lucky to have grown up in a family that values women for who they are and encourages freedom and equality. A few gender roles I see outside that I’ve seen my family work to correct in our household include cooking/cleaning, sports, and emotional expression. From a young age, my parents worked to teach me and my sister how to cook and clean, emphasizing how everyone ought to know how to care for themselves, despite them being traditionally feminine tasks. Similarly, my parents enrolled both me and my sister in sports, emphasizing how everyone ought to take care of their bodies, despite it being a traditionally masculine activity. Additionally, my parents encouraged both me and my sister to learn how to express and articulate ourselves emotionally, despite emotional displays being a traditionally feminine act.

How would you like to see the feminist movement grow? 

Terrence: What I want to see is simple. I want to see the women of today and tomorrow treated equally. I want to see gender roles as less of a social construct and more of roles assigned to individuals based on their skills and interests. Isabel: Like Terrence, I also want to see the women of today and of the near future treated in a way that allows them to have the same opportunities and experiences as men without having to go out of their way to make it possible. I would also like to see the movement  grow as a community that is more inclusive and less anti-men. I know not every feminist is anti-men, but there are many feminist that fit this trope and create a stereotype for other feminist. 

Conclusion

Both Isabel & Terrence: To us, feminism is the idea and upholding of equality between all genders. Feminism, to us, means not having to worry about ourselves nor the women around us facing additional life challenges on the basis of factors outside of their control. Throughout both of our life experiences up to now, we relate to the idea that feminism has a room in both of our families as there are prominent gender roles associated with our cultures and familial beliefs. For example, men are generally regarded as strong, dominant leader figures charged with decision making where women, on the other hand, are generally regarded as subservient and caretakers/nurturers. Although biological factors play a role in the skills and traits acquired by each gender, it is the rigid societal barriers, which turn these differences in biological factors into blatant sexism.

[zoewilkinson]

Blog Post 6 - How Women Are Represented in Games

The way women have been stereotyped and represented in video games and media for the last few decades is something that will likely always be a major topic of conversation. Women have often been oversexualised and often portrayed negatively. This is not only damaging to the women who see themselves represented this way, but also to the way others perceive them in the real world, creating harmful stereotypes and the objectification of women.

The Male Gaze

The male gaze has a major impact on the way female characters have been designed previously. The concept of the male gaze was coined by Laura Mulvey, a British film theorist, in her journal “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (Mulvey, 1975). Mulvey discusses the gendered issues in films and visual media at the time, which opened up the conversation in the future for how the representation of women still hasn’t changed. The male gaze reinforces the gender stereotypes and creates a power imbalance between men and women. When female characters are designed to have an exaggerated appearance with dramatically enhanced features and minimal clothing, it further pushes unrealistic beauty standards onto women and fetishises them as something there purely for the visual appeal of men. The negative representation of women has a real-world impact, teaching young girls and women that their value is based on their appearance, as well as giving men and young boys certain expectations for how a woman should be perceived, especially in the gaming community.

Even when a female character is meant to be the main protagonist and presented as powerful and breaking out of gendered stereotypes, the appearance is still often unnecessarily sexualised. A game that stands out to me when thinking about a strong female protagonist is the Tomb Raider series. Focusing specifically on Tomb Raider: Underworld (2008) Lara Croft is a powerful, strong and intelligent character and is the sole focus of the story, and in my opinion is a source of female empowerment. However, this to me is slightly overshadowed by the way she is oversexualised and clearly targeted at the male gaze and has been since the original game (McInnes, 2016). While it isn’t the main selling point of the character, she is still designed to have unrealistically enhanced features that are used to appeal towards male players, almost implying that having a female protagonist wouldn’t be interesting enough if she wasn’t sexualised or visually appealing. There is a notable improvement in the design of Lara Croft in recent games, where she has more realistic proportions and more covering clothes, so it’s clear that as an industry we are along the right track for improvement, but there is still a way to go.

Another aspect of female representation in games I want to touch upon is the way games targeted at younger girls are also often based around appearances. I vividly remember growing up playing online games solely based around makeup, fashion and appearances, with very few games targeted at young girls being about anything else. While I don’t think this is a major problem or even something to stop, I do think that it further pushes gender stereotypes onto girls, being taught from a very young age that it’s expected that they wear makeup and dress a certain way to meet gender expectations. However, I do remember feeling excited to play games like this and enjoying them, so I don’t think that they’re the sole root of the problem, and that it’s something women are just taught throughout their lives through different media sources or influential people in their lives.

It's important to point out that while there is still a long way to go, the gaming industry as a whole is making efforts to address these issues and create more positive representations of women in games. We’re seeing many more games where women are presented as strong and capable of the same things we’ve seen from male characters previously, instead of being shown as weak side characters or damsels in distress. In the article “Female Representation in Video Games: How Are We Doing?” (Hamilton, 2019), Hamilton states that “75% of women and girls who game indicate that representation of female characters in video games is important to them.” (Hamilton, 2019). As a female character artist who grew up never seeing myself represented, I agree with this statement, and I’m really passionate about this topic because I want to see a serious change in female representation in the future. In my own work, I have been considering ways of creating female characters with more masculine features, or different body types and clothing choices to start showing women in different ways than usually expected, making them be known for their strengths or personality traits rather than purely their physical appearance.

Bibliography

CRYSTAL DYNAMICS. (2008) Tomb Raider: Underworld. [DISC] PlayStation 3. London: Eidos Interactive Limited

Danylova, A., 2020. Gender Struggles: Female Representation in Video Games. [Online] Available at: https://inkspire.org/post/gender-struggles-female-representation-in-video-games/-M7d51VKbu2OSfnfQ9am [Accessed 23 December 2023].

Hamilton, J., 2019. Female Representation in Video Games: How Are We Doing?. [Online] Available at: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/audio/female-representation-in-video-games-how-are-we-doing- [Accessed 23 December 2023].

McInnes, L., 2016. Lara Croft and Gaming: Feminism in a Hyper-Masculine Industry. [Online] Available at: https://pitjournal.unc.edu/2023/01/06/lara-croft-and-gaming-feminism-in-a-hyper-masculine-industry/ [Accessed 23 December 2023].

Mulvey, L., 1975. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Screen, 16(3), pp. 6-18.

[uf200singleproject]

The Impact of the Stigma: Societal

Progress for any social or political movement will naturally fluctuate, and that is certainly true of the single positivity movement. Between “spinsters” coming into the public eye as an undesirable group and the efforts of women like Susan B. Anthony, there was resistance and advocacy. Between the definition of the “New Woman” and the release of Disney’s Brave, there was resistance and advocacy.

We have seen positive change, but there is still resistance on the ground, and single women continue to experience it on scales from societal to internal.

In Lisa Lynn Hancock’s dissertation “How Women Experience and Respond to Singlism: Stereotyping and Discrimination of Singles,” for unmarried individuals, there are tangible repercussions to being single, as supported by a range of literature on the subject: “discrimination has been demonstrated to manifest in inequities in pay, housing rights in the military, promotions at work, subsidized employee benefits, Social Security benefits, estate taxes, capital gains taxes, insurance, housing, in vitro fertilization, adoption, family care leave, travel packages and experiences, club memberships, and even expectations for longer work hours.”1

As long of a list as this is, it wasn’t at all difficult to visualize how each category is impacted for those unmarried. Many of these programs were set up with the nuclear family in mind, and the societal expectations that come with marriage and parenthood have room to bleed through in spaces that weren’t.

And Hancock’s research didn’t end there—as of 2005, “researchers were still finding participants more likely to describe singles as lonely, shy, unhappy, insecure, and inflexible.”2 And as of 2013, “Narrative research revealed that single women were generally perceived as less happy, having fewer social skills, being less successful, being flawed, and having less life satisfaction than married women.”3

While a decade has passed, when it comes to a cultural mindset, I think it would be overly optimistic to believe that these perceptions have fizzled out so quickly. I wanted to hear firsthand what it was like to be on the other end of these assumptions over time, so I reached out to a family friend for an interview. Michelle is in her late 40s and unmarried, though she had been engaged in the past. No matter what question I asked, the most prominent topic in our conversation turned out to be religion, and for good reason. We were both raised Christian, and I was unsurprised to find that she one of the primary struggles she encountered—both in getting engaged and breaking it off—was religious pressure to marry from both her family and community.

In the West, I can imagine that this brand of religious pressure and traditional obligation is common for single women to experience. But Michelle and I agree that certain perspectives surrounding gender roles along our religious lines have noticeably lightened over time. She told me that in her community, around the time she got engaged, “people started to figure out that women could help out without a husband, and that women could preach, and that nothing had caught on fire since they started, so it would be fine.” It's a great thing to see this kind of change in real time, but Michelle made sure to tell me that even as certain people grow and change, "when something is taught for so long, there's plenty of judgement left over." That line was especially impactful to me because, though I'm not sure she meant it this way, that leftover judgement can often come from yourself. 1. Hancock, Lisa Lynn. How Women Experience and Respond to Singlism: Stereotyping and Discrimination of Singles. Walden University, 2017, p. 8. scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/3994/.

2-3. Hancock, Lisa Lynn. How Women Experience and Respond to Singlism: Stereotyping and Discrimination of Singles. Walden University, 2017, p. 33. scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/3994/.

[olderthannetfic]

post/692135292953624576: what OTNF is talking about isn’t an *essential* part of gender or biology. What she is talking about is basically how a child is trained/encouraged to behave generally. And society does differentiate between how AMAB and AFAB children are expected to behave. Undoing all that baggage and differentiating between “I want to be this kind of person” and “I do this because I was taught to” is a lifetime effort. It doesn’t make someone less a man or woman to not have the 1/2.

--

post/692135292953624576: training as other men or women. (And NB folx also have complicated relationships with it). And there are cis men and cis women who don’t exhibit the expected behaviours (frequently they are subjected to mocking by society). TL:DR OTNF is talking about nonessential, socially imposed differences in how we raise children based on how we perceive their gender and how that influences their adult life. NOT “men are this by definition” vs “women are this by definition.” 2/2

Well said.

And I specifically would not use 'masculine' or 'feminine' or any terminology like that because the traits I'm thinking of most are some fairly invisible ones that aren't the stereotypical masculine/feminine ones.

Let's talk about a specific practical example to illustrate:

You might stereotype women as "nurturing", but you probably don't stereotype them as "better planners".

One area I've noticed a lot of trans women struggling in is the kind of gendered expectations and behavior outlined in that feminist comic You Should've Asked.

Part of being socialized female is being asked to take on an unfair burden. An adult is rarely interested in taking on this burden consciously and all at once. Even if they were willing, their ability to quickly absorb all that teaching is not great. A lot of the trans women I've known are understandably annoyed when a bunch of expectations slap them out of nowhere and those expectations seem shitty, boring, and hard. They often push back because it's "unfair", not realizing that the cis woman they're talking to has already been doing all this work.

What they don't realize is that this burden is part of passing. Not jumping in to shoulder the mental load pre-emptively and unconsciously makes you read as other in a lot of cis woman-centric social spaces. It makes you less comfortable to be around. Specifically, being socialized female means having an unconscious impulse to jump in and do certain things that is hard to stop yourself from acting on. When a group is only people who are like this, no one is taken advantage of. When anybody who does not participate enters the space, they start taking an unfair chunk of the attention/time/free labor from other members. The immediate unconscious instinct for self preservation says to get rid of the person hogging the resources. That person may have no idea or actively not want this to be the case, but since it involves everybody's bad unconscious behaviors, it is very, very difficult to put a stop to even if everyone knows what's going on and is working on the problem.

So on top of whatever transphobia and other issues a trans woman faces going into a space full of cis women, she may also come across as a boor simply because she hasn't been socialized the same way through no fault of her own. Trans men and other AFAB trans people, meanwhile, usually give off the same unconscious cues and fit in more smoothly.

Sure, not every individual, but I've seen this pattern constantly in nerd spaces among people I personally know, and I'm not talking just one or two examples either. I think it's particularly stark for rich, white trans women who previously appeared to be cishet white men at the top of the heap with few of these kinds of social expectations thrust upon them. Times a billion if they were socially awkward in the first place and society let them get away with not painfully learning things they're bad at because they passed as a man. They may have been personally kicked around by life and treated like shit for not being masculine enough or been secretly internally tortured by the ill-fitting role they were trying to play, but institutional problems haven't really hit them until now. The struggles of female socialization have often been fairly invisible to them.

I very, very persistently see this pattern where trans women are now rejected by their former supposed peers, but whatever group they'd theoretically join that's more woman-heavy also rejects them for giving off unfamiliar social cues. (And yes, sometimes transphobia, but it's not always and only that.) It's sad and it sucks, but it's not entirely on this new group for failing to recognize them as women.

I'm sure similar things happen in the other direction to trans men, but I don't tend to personally observe them.

Anyway, the point is that Contrapoints and other such women can come off as abrasive or odd to a community that runs on socialized-female social norms. Our desire to be inclusive and respect people's actual genders is a good thing, but it can make us nervous about discussing how often this kind of rejection happens and why because the minute you do, people start wondering if you too are a shitty TERF. I don't mind people sending me asks asking for clarification. Being nervous makes sense because the world is absolutely full of transphobic messages. I'm just saying it's tricky to discuss because of this.

I've seen some criticism of Contrapoints that was actually relevant to her, but a hell of a lot of it is basically "She reads wrong, and it makes me uncomfortable".

IDK if I'd like Contrapoints as a friend in person. I love her as a youtuber, but I think that, in person, her social patterns and the milieu that she clearly comes out of would not mesh well with my social circles and the experience of growing up AMAB vs. AFAB is why.

[hearth-and-veil]

You grew up evangelical baptist like me. Can you talk about how that contributed to your sense of modesty? Because I grew up the exact same I could tell you the conference, and I don't feel like covering up. Part of me says youre contributing to slut shaming and part of me says you aren't.

Before anybody gets mad at Anon for saying this, please take a sec and remember that in evangelical and conservative Christianity, modesty IS about slut shaming. It isn't some beautiful act of devotion to God. It's about not being perceived as a whore so that a man will want to marry you and stay married to you.

I really feel your struggle because I had it too. And I still have it sometimes, living in a Bible Belt, because I will often end up as the object against other women and girls are negatively compared. It feels truly awful because my personal choice is being held against other women.

First and foremost, I actually cover up because of the sun. I show more skin on a rainy day than a sunny one! I have PMLE, EDS, and I take meds that increase UV sensitivity.

That said, I do have a personal sartorial code of what I consider acceptable for me (and only me!) to wear. It isn't religiously motivated but I would be lying if I said it wasn't religiously influenced.

I grew up with my body being a shameful stumbling block for men and boys, not a beautiful creation of the Divine. I was responsible for my body, but it didn't belong to me. It belonged to my father (per the church, my dad never acted that way) and to my future husband. It was like being a valet - the fancy car didn't belong to me, but it was my fault if someone else dinged it!

I also grew up with all the bad metaphors. I was candy that needed a wrapper, a flower who had to protect my petals, pearls that needed to stay in a jewelry box. Anything but a person, basically. And it anything happened to me, I was to blame. And if a boy or grown man stumbled, I was responsible for his sin.

I was only allowed to wear certain types of underwear. I had to wear a bra once I hit puberty, even though I was completely flat chested, because my nipnops might show. Kitten heels only, nothing over 1 inch (kitten heels are somehow more demure than flats). My underwear couldn't show through my clothes (ie nude under white, black under black, etc). No straps were allowed. No panty lines (this was only enforced in church for me). My skirts and shorts had to reach the top of my knees. My sleeves had to be at least a handsbreadth. I couldn't wear a neckline more than a handsbreadth beneath my collar bone. No skin-tight clothes.

There was never anything but shame, even though my parents weren't actually *that* bad, comparatively. What I was taught was that I was better than other women and girls since I covered myself and they didn't.

There was a lot of "what was she wearing" and "why was she out that late" and "well what did she expect, going to a bar, alone, dressed like that?"

And honestly, as much as saying this pisses some people off, I was and am treated better when dressed modestly. It's disgusting but it's true.

So yes, of course all of this shaped my thoughts and feelings about modesty. I still wrestle with some internalized misogyny because of it. The difference now is that I do it for completely different reasons. I don't do it out of shame anymore. I do it for my own physical and mental comfort. I want my body to be mine; to be private to me.

Regardless of the disheartening fact that I am used by people to put other women down, I personally am not contributing to the slut shaming. My personal choice to cover up doesn't change anyone's mentality. Somebody who already feels that way, already feels that way. No one is going to look at me in my long sleeved maxi dress in the middle of South Carolina's summer and say "You know, until I set eyes on you, I thought women should be free to wear whatever they want, but now I think anyone who doesn't dress like you is a whore." That's not how any of this works.

For my part, I rip people a new one if they ever dare say that shamey shit to my face. If somebody says they want their daughter or granddaughter to dress more like me for X terrible reason, I'm liable to cuss them the fuck out and show them exactly how immodest I actually am.

I don't know if this is a helpful answer, but it's the only one I've got.

[thechekhov]

Hi! I saw on a post that you're agender and I'm kinda questioning my gender (again) but what interested me more about that post was that you said you believe that gender is a social construct and I'm not really familiar with that theory. I was wondering if you could explain to me what the whole idea is? (bc I kinda only feel like a have a gender in social situations? In my head, my dreams and how I picture myself in the future, I'm genderless idjskahwksjejensj) Sorry for bothering you if I did.

This is a BIG topic and it opens a LOT of wormholes. 

We’re gonna do this in pie slice statements that will hopefully help explain what I mean. Please keep in mind I’m going to simplify many things for the sake of readability.

1) What is a social construct? 

Social constructs are ideas that are negotiated by social groups. Something being a social construct does not make it ‘not real’. 

For example, money is a social construct. Yes, we have cash - coins, credit cards - but these are physical props that are REPRESENTATIVE of the idea of currency. You have some form of credit to your name - the money is a socially agreed-upon idea of value being represented by bills in your hand, by numbers in your bank account. 

[Description: Two humanoid figures are standing side by side. The right-side figure is holding a rock in its hand. 

Right side figure: Let’s agree that this shiny rock is worth 2 sheep.

Left side figure: Sounds fake but ok.]

Technically, countries are also social constructs. We, as a society, negotiate what a country is, and this can be changed.

[Description: Two figures are standing on either side of a dotted line drawn on the ground. The left figure is pointing down at it while the right figure watches, its arms crossed.

Left figure: Let’s pretend that everything on this side of the imaginary line is mine.

Right figure: ...ok but my house is over there.

Left figure: ... for 3 shiny rocks you can come visit.]

Does that mean canada isn’t real? No. (I mean, obviously canada ISN’T real, but we all agree to pretend it is.) The thing that makes it real is that we are in agreement, and all follow the social rules of pretend to make it seem like the Canadian border, the idea of Canadian citizenship, etc... is an objective fact. (It’s not. These are in fact, negotiable limits and parameters. We have laws in place to define it in legal terms, but those laws can be changed, or may change in the minds of communities. That’s why it’s a construct.)

By that same token, I hold the view that gender, as we largely perceive it in modern society, is a construct. Why? Because it is not inherent; we, as a society, negotiate its meaning. 

2) What is gender? 

People will probably fight me on this and that’s fine, but here’s my (simplified) understanding of gender (from someone who personally has none)

Gender is a social category negotiated by cultures based on your assigned or desired role in your community that influences, among many other things, your physical appearance, your role in family units, your expected position in jobs, etc. 

How I think it happened:

[Description: Two figures are standing on either side of the panel, both holding children-looking figures. The one on the left is wearing purple. The one on the right is wearing green.

Green figure: Hey, I’ve got an idea. What if we separate the babies into two groups based on physical traits they have no control over?

Purple figure: Wh-- okay...?

Green figure: And then limit the jobs they can do and the community ritual involvement available to them based on that!

Purple figure: ... I feel like this is going to backfire on us someday.

Green figure: Nah, it’ll be fine.

The past panel is a dramatic closeup on the purple figure’s face - which is featureless - betraying a deeply doubtful emotion. It says nothing.]

Important points to remember: what gender looks like, what the limits are, what the expectations are... are not inherent to any human biology. We make up gender roles. This is evident in the fact that across the world, gender roles differ by culture. The positions people of a certain gender are allowed to take up are different. What is perceived to be ‘girly’ or ‘boyish’ is different across cultures. 

Simply speaking - currently the (western) model we have, dumbed down, is:

You are assigned male at birth because of physical characteristics

You are raised being told to ‘toughen up’ and ‘boys don’t cry’ and encouraged not to show emotions

You are taught to wear male-coded clothes and discouraged from female-coded fashion choices

You are given more opportunities to participate in sports, encouraged to engage in physical activity, etc

You are not expected to need time off for child-rearing 

Here’s where gender as it works in society breaks down into being not a real thing but instead something we thought up: 

Nothing about having a penis necessitates wearing pants. Nothing about having XY chromosomes means you need to keep your hair short. Nothing about your genome makes the experience of nail-polish different for any human being. 

All of these are arbitrary traits we decided were allowed or not allowed to a specific group of people based on entirely unrelated physiology. 

Even if we delve deeper, there is MORE variation among individuals of the same ‘sex’ than there are, on average, of members of the ‘opposite sex’ when compared to each other. 

Many people use the excuse ‘women are physically not as strong as men’ to say that this has an evolutionary aspect driving these cultural, historical, socially-constructed gender requirements. 

But if there was a physical reasoning behind the culturally-set gender-limited job expectations, then we actually WOULDN’T need a traditional binary gender system to sort ourselves into categories. It would simply be decided as a meritocracy - stronger individuals, regardless of gender, would be given physically-demanding jobs. (Also we know that many jobs thought to be ‘traditionally male’ are just the result of sexist bullshit, so this reasoning doesn’t fly any further than I can throw it which is, coincidentally, not very far. Politics is one such area. Doctors are another. We can go on but I think you get my drift.)

My own example of this is an anecdote when my grandparents came to visit my partner and I in Japan. While we were driving down to Tokyo, my grandmother - who has a PhD in entomology - began to say that driving is a masculine activity and women shouldn’t be driving as it was ‘un-woman-like’. My partner almost immediately fired back that in Japan, studying insects or having any interest in them whatsoever was considered a heavily masculine-coded activity. In Russia, there is no such assignment, and my grandmother was left silently blinking in confusion, unable to come up with any excuse except ‘well, all cultures are different, I suppose...’

Do either of these things inherently have a gendered aspect? Of course not! But we assign gendered ideals to them anyway.

3) If gender is made up and constructed by society, then does that mean trans people aren’t real?

No.

Even if you agree that gender is a social construct, trans people are still real. TERFs don’t get a pass. Why? 

Because gender - as a social construct - still affects our everyday lives, dictates our social position in our community. Transitioning is still a thing that has to happen. The fact that you are NOT easily able to decide your own gender and are ostracized for wanting to transition, abused for dressing the way you want to be perceived, and bullied for wanting people to refer to you with different pronouns - all those are the effects of a social construct that has very REAL impact on our lives.

This is also why I dislike defining trans-ness by dysphoria. Because transgender people are not only their suffering - the suffering is coming from the outside!! Many trans people remember not being concerned about their gender identity in their childhood, because they did not yet perceive the world as being hostile to their desire to fulfil a specific role in society. The issues and self-hatred and dysphoria begins when they express wanting to be themselves - a life which they are forbidden from pursuing based on physical characteristics they were born with.

Does this mean we should try to remove gender from society? If we constructed it, we can deconstruct it, right?

Realistically, I highly doubt this is possible. Gender is so ingrained in our daily lives that it would be difficult. Nor, I would say, would it be necessary to achieve world peace. 

Having social groups - having gender - isn’t inherently a bad thing. The bad thing is when we limit those social groups to specific basic human rights, like voting, or when we forbid them from transitioning from one to another based on things that are out of their control. 

Also, I’m not saying genitals and secondary sexual characteristics aren’t real. Please don’t bother sending me that angry message, I’ll ignore it, I promise. 

But the concept of gender IS something we thought up and maintain and negotiate with each other to this very day. It’s not granted to us by a higher power, nor is it a constant, unchanging thing. It’s a part of the human experience and like everything, it has the potential to evolve - as a concept in our communal memory, as well as on an individual level, for people who feel they want to be perceived differently. 

Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk!

[ververa]

Twist In The Sobriety

Request: something sweet and fluff with mina about her insecurity and reader being understanding and saying that she loves her, you can take it wherever you want, smutt or not, I would just love something sweet.

A/N:@honeysorwell​ I hope this can do! Sorry if this is shit. Also I’m deeply sorry it took me so long. I’m just really discouraged and I’m kind of struggling rn. Anyways, hope you enjoy it!

Wilhemina Venable x reader

Word count: 5 500

Wilhemina Venable was a professor of literature, who held the position of pro-rector for over two years. Wilhemina was known as a very strict, demanding and cynical woman. Some even considered her mean. She was respected by other professors and hated by students, as she was the one ‘ruining’ their plans. She came off as an unapproachable  woman, who had a heart of stone and no mercy. She always wore dark purple or black suits, had her dark hair pulled back in a bun and she never smiled. Most people felt intimidated by her, but you were fascinated. For you she was the most perfect woman you had ever seen. You really wanted to get to know her, but it wasn’t possible. Wilhemina spent most of the time in her office and you only saw her passing by from time to time. Though you were very observant, so you obviously made some assumptions.

You hoped that one day you would be able to meet her. You were fantasizing about how your first meeting could go, though none of those scenarios came true. The reality totally surprised you as you met her when you least expected it.

Wilhemina rarely had classes, she almost completely gave up on teaching after she became a pro-rector. She did lectures for a small group of students, who displayed advanced level of required subjects. Other than that Wilhemina barely left her office and if she did - it was only to inspect the condition of the university and to check if certain rules were followed by students and professors.

It was one of those days, when she actually got bored. She decided it was a good time to inspect one of her colleagues. In fact, Wilhemina didn’t care about what was going on in the classrooms as long as no rules were broken. She usually went there only to make herself feel better or eventually meet those students who were noticeably superior to the group.

She had heard quite a lot about you from other professors. They were always praising you and she got a bit curious. It had been a long time since anyone managed to make any impression on her. It was really hard to do it, and she started believing that no one and nothing could ever impress her again. Yet then she met you.

You had a lecture with one  of the professors that you truly despised. The man was over 50 years old. He was arrogant and overconfident, but what you hated the most about him was that he had no respect for women. He kept insulting and abusing female students for years, though none of them was brave enough to stand up to him. That was until you. You had been brought up in a family of lawyers, so holding various kinds of discussion was something that you had been taught for years. You had no trouble objecting him and then finding arguments to prove your point. Normally you tried to control yourself and be respectful, but that time was different. That time you got too angry to hold yourself back.

Wilhemina didn’t like to rush. She took her time getting to the right classroom and used the back door, so as not to interrupt. She had expected yet another boring lecture, but to her surprise she found you arguing with her colleague.

“I fail to understand how some of you, men, can be so narrow-minded. You classify women only in two categories - fuckable and non-fuckable. But let me tell you, there is more than that”

Venable scanned the room trying to understand what was going on. She decided not to interfere, because your speech sounded pretty interesting and promiscuous.

“Let’s take Miss Venable for example. You are all sure that you know her, but the truth is you only get to see the surface layer. And you are too oblivious and unintelligent to even consider that there is something more. In result you totally misunderstand her and perceive her in a wrong way” 

“That’s enough. Sit down Y/N”

“No”

“Sit down!”

“I’ll sit when I’m done”

“You’ll regret it. You’ll get punish for your insubordination”

“It’s not insubordination. We’re just having a discussion and you’re calling it an ‘insubordination’, because I’m right and you don’t have any arguments. But of course, I understand it’s hard to admit that you’re just a fool with a low self-esteem, who tries to compensate  for it by using young students and turning their life into hell if they refuse to have sex with you”

“Miss Y/L/N as a future lawyer you should know how to keep your head right, but apparently you’re not able to. I’ll not tolerate such behaviour in my classes. That’s why I think you can’t continue the course”

“Oh, I’m very calm. It’s you who takes it personal and reacts emotionally, because you can’t stand the fact that women can be more powerful. What hurts you the most is that you’re intimidated by us, by Miss Venable. And if that wasn’t enough she also took the position that you aspired to hold. And now I beat you, using the right arguments - the same as she beat you thanks to her qualifications. But of course, it’s our fault, because as women we’re supposed to serve you. I’m sorry to inform you, but the medieval times are over”

Wilhemina stood there shocked. She finally understood why everyone was talking about you. She hadn’t heard such kind of argument in a while. And you talking about her in such a way truly impressed her. Of course Wilhemina wasn’t the type of person who would admit that you made her speechless, so she composed herself and slowly approached you.

“Oh, and one more thing” you continued not realizing Wilhemina was there “Next time I find out you tried to abuse any woman, I’ll report you to Miss Venable. You’ll have a chance to ask how she's doing...”

“I’m good. Thank you” Wilhemina said as calm as possible - trying to hide her amusement 

You slowly turned round only to see her looking at you.

“Miss Venable…”

“Miss Y/L/N, it’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you”

“That’s… umm… that’s my pleasure” you said a bit dumbfounded

“Wilhemina… I can explain” your professor began

Venable said nothing, but you could notice how her hand clenched on her cane. She slowly approached the man and looked into his eyes.

“It’s Miss Venable” she emphasized her name hitting her cane on the floor “I'll make it clear, so there will be no misunderstandings. I’m truly disgusted. Your explanations do not interest me at all. And you can be sure I’ll raise this issue during the meeting of the school board”

You didn’t expect her to be there. You didn't necessarily want her to hear what you said and you obviously didn’t know how to act after that. Normally you would come up with something, but Wilhemina gave you no time.

“Miss Y/L/N” she moved closer to you

Venable looked at you, but you didn't lower your eyes like your professor. It felt weird - almost as if her big brown eyes could look right through your soul, but you held her stare anyway.

That was unexpected. Her stare was like a weapon. It made everyone feel intimidated and thereby proved that Wilhemina was in power. Everyone always averted their eyes, except for you. 

“Miss Y/N would you care to follow me to my office?” she asked, but by the tone she used you could tell it was an order not a question or request

“O-of course”

You followed Venable - counting all the tiles on the floor on your way, trying to compose yourself. Being alone with her had been something you wanted, but you weren’t really sure where that could go at that point.

“Sit down” she demanded and you did it immediately - this time not needed to be told twice. Wilhemina sat down as well and looked at you carelessly swiveling her cane.

“So…” you started after a moment of silence that for you seemed to be a bit too long

“So” she repeated doing her best to contain her amusement with your nervousness  

You were looking everywhere, but her face. Yet even though you weren't looking at her, you could feel her eyes on you. You shifted feeling slightly insecure under her stern gaze.

“You are quite a unique specimen, aren’t you Miss Y/N?”

“I… I guess I am...” you said scratching the back of your head

“I must say, I’m pretty impressed with your gift of the gab”

“Well… I must say, I wasn’t quite expecting you to hear all that?”

“Why is that? I’m glad I did. Though, I really felt quite distressed learning some of those things”

“Umm… Does that mean I won’t be expelled or suspended?”

“Oh, of course not. We can’t let ourselves lose such precious students as you”

Your eyes widened. That definitely was the last thing you had expected to hear.

“Of course, it’s understandable if you won’t want to attend Mr Smith’s classes. And if that’s the case, I’d help you to prepare for the exam instead”

“Yes. That’d be great!” you exclaimed probably a bit too enthusiastically “I mean I’d really appreciate it, Miss Venable”

Wilhemina nodded. She didn’t show any kind of emotion, but she seemed pretty pleased with your response. 

“Alright then. We shall start on Monday. Meet me at the library. 8 a.m. and don’t be late” 

-

Going to the university wasn’t a dream come true for you - at least not at that time. You wanted to take a gap year and travel. You wanted to see the world, meet people, party, fall in love. Though your parents were against your idea. They basically made you go to the university and study law. They had already had everything planned for you. You were supposed to become a lawyer, just like your father and then work in his office. That for sure was a good plan, but nobody asked you if that was what you wanted. It obviously wasn’t and you hated it. All the lectures were boring and most of your professors were assholes. That’s why spending time at the university was like a torture for you. Though after you started your lessons with Wilhemina it became more bearable.

You weren’t wrong saying that there was more than Venable let people see. And whether she liked it or not, you noticed everything. Every little detail about her. From the way she moved or shift her cane to the changes in her voice tone when she spoke. You could see beyond the thick walls she had been building her whole life and you absolutely loved every second of getting to know her better. She was an incredibly intelligent, independent and strong woman. She always talked so passionately about all the things related to the subject she was teaching. And even though law wasn’t really her thing, she was doing a really good job teaching you and helping with all the stuff. In fact she was better than your other professor. You loved listening to her calm voice and it didn’t really matter what she was talking about. Just the fact it  was no other than Wilhemina Venable made even the most boring thing interesting.

Wilhemina couldn’t deny that you were full of surprises. After everything she had been through in her life she didn’t think there was anything more that could make her feel astonished, but there you were. You were an eloquent and ambitious person. She knew that at once, but she had no idea how hot-tempered and sassy you could be. She got to see that side of you after some time, when you got more comfortable around her. But she didn’t mind. In fact your dry sense of humour, which perfectly matched hers, made her like you even more. You might have been sarcastic or even arrogant at times, though you never disrespected her in front of others. It’s not that other people did. They wouldn’t dare to disrespect her, because they were all afraid of the consequences. Though it was different with you. You were the one who truly respected her and you did that not because of fear, but because in your eyes she deserved that respect. And much to her dismay, it made Wilhemina feel different about you. There was just something in the way you rolled your eyes or made some snarky comment. Something that made her unable to get you out of her head. Wilhemina wasn’t sure whether she liked it or not or whether it was something good or not. The only thing she knew was that you, with no doubt, were the one who could push all her buttons down.

As you got to know her better - teasing Wilhemina became your new favourite hobby. She always knew what to say, except for those moments when she was with you. And you loved seeing her being frustrated or rolling her eyes or when she unsuccessfully tried to tell you off. She may try to seem mad, but you knew that deep inside she liked it as much as you did. 

-

“Do you want me to be honest, Miss Venable?” you started one time when you were in the library

“No” Wilhemina said not averting her eyes from the book she was reading

“Well, I’ll say it anyway”

“I had no doubt you’d do that” she sighed

“Oh c’mon. You love listening to me and my theories, Willy” you used the nickname knowing it would draw her attention

“How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?” she asked closing the book

“I’m sorry, I don’t take orders” you shrugged “In fact I barely take suggestions”

Wilhemina shook her head.

“You should have been born with a warning sign”

“Shit happens” you laughed at her comment

“Apparently”

“Anyways…”

“Y/N” she cut you off

“Yes?”

“From the bottom of my heart - I don’t care”

“Well, I respectfully don’t care that you don’t care”

It wasn’t possible to tame you and Wilhemina knew that, but she couldn’t let you see how much she actually liked it.

“I was wondering what kind of music you like” you started 

Wilhemina looked at you with anticipation. You rarely dared to make any assumptions about her or if you did you didn’t share them with her. You were usually making fun of other people, so she was curious where your conversation was about to go.

“And?”

“Well, Miss Venable, you seem so calm on the outside, but I bet that behind closed door it’s all loud music, leather and BDSM”

Wilhemina stared at you in silence. Her brown eyes did not blink even once as she examined you. Her serious face expression caused a shiver run through your body. Did you cross some line?

“I… I mean you... just give that kind of vibes… I mean no offense…"

"No harm done"

"Okay. Good" you said looking at your hands instead of looking at Wilhemina as you’d normally  do.

It didn’t happen often that you shy away or get insecure. Your silence was always very suspicious and it usually led to more snarky comments. But it was different that time and Wilhemina knew it. She knew that you got shy and she couldn’t help, but used it against you.

“You are right in fact”

“I am…?” your eyes widened

“Yes, except for the part with leather…  I’m not a huge fan of latex you know”

You blinked completely dumbfounded. You couldn’t quite process her words and so you just stared at her. 

“Oh my, did the great orator lose the ability to speak? Did I make a counselor-to-be speechless?”

“Yes, Miss Venable. You kind of did" you admitted not looking at her, feeling your cheeks slowly turning light pink. You rarely felt embarrassed or confused, so in that very moment Wilhemina felt kind of bad for you. A part of her was satisfied with succeeding and making you shut up, but  there was also that bit of her that found you adorable. She hated seeing a frown of concern on your face, so she decided to act.

“Well” she stood up “You are fine Y/N. I’m just messing”

“So, it’s not true?”

Venable was about to say something, but she closed her mouth without making any sound. She was hesitant or couldn’t find the right words - you weren't sure which one. You kept looking at her as she was moving around the table, that the two of you were sitting at. She walked slowly, her heels and cane clicking on the floor making your knees feel weak.

“To some extent it is, I think” she said finally

“W-what do you mean?” you asked turning round to look at her

“Well” she placed her hand on your shoulder “I do like loud music” she continued playing with the strand of your hair “I listen to classical music mostly, but I like rock too...” she said, but stopped as she looked at your face. 

Wilhemina didn’t know why she was telling you all that, but it felt right. And the smile on your face definitely was worth the effort.

“It’s actually a long story” she said after a long moment of silence

“Now, that you started you have to tell me. Please, please Miss Venable” you looked at her pleadingly

 "I…Would you like a cup of tea, Miss Y/L/N?"

"With you Miss Venable I could drink anything" you joked, but you actually meant that. And you just kind of wished Wilhemina knew how happy you felt whenever you were with her.

-

Wilhemina had been through all of that before. At some point she realized that her heart beating faster every so often whenever you appeared wasn’t just a coincidence. Such kind of tune was known to everyone, including Venable. She was well aware that she wasn’t able to win that war, no matter how hard she tried. That’s why she hoped that particular tune would never play again - at least not in her heart. Yet you appeared in her life. The battle had begun the moment she met you. You were like a hurricane that rearranged her molecules. You were the twist in her sobriety that she wasn’t ready for. And there she was - fighting with herself. It was her and no one else burning in her own hell. She knew that fighting it was a lost cause, yet she still tried to play that game. And she was doing her best, so as not to get too carried away. 

-

“Which part of following the rules you don’t get Y/N?” Wilhemina asked as you appeared in her office with the same enquiry for what felt like a hundredth time

“I understand everything. I’m not asking you to break the rules” you said innocently “I’m only asking to bend them a little” you added smiling

Wilhemina sighed shaking her head.

“Rules are rules” she stated not looking at you, knowing that if she did, she wouldn’t be able to remain cold anymore

“Oh, c’mon dude!” you said out of habit

That’s when she looked at you. Her eyes narrowed into a glare and as they met yours, you immediately realized your mistake. It wasn’t the first time that something like that slipped and you knew for a fact that Wilhemina hated it. She kept trying to cure you of using such kind of sentences, though apparently it didn’t go as well as she thought.

“I… I mean Miss Venable” you corrected yourself

She really wanted to play it cool and remain indifferent, but that pleading look on your face was too much to take. How she hated you for it.

“Why would I agree?” she shifted, sitting more comfortably in her chair

“Because… deep inside you have a heart of gold?”

Wilhemina raised her eyebrows.

“I’m not convinced” she was about to go back to whatever she was doing before you interrupted her

“Ugh… You’re so stubborn” you rolled your eyes

“I told you to stop doing that”

“Doing what?”

“Rolling your eyes at me, Miss Y/N”

“What? I… You never told me that?”

“Well, I’m telling you now”

“T-that’s… Ugh… Fine! I have better arguments”

“I’m all ears”

“First of all, our library needs renovation, but school obviously doesn’t have enough money. So, the plan is…”

Wilhemina kept listening to you, as you were explaining all your ideas to her. She tried hard not to show any kind of emotion, but since you appeared hiding and avoiding her feelings became rather difficult.

“Are you always such a smartass?” she asked unexpectedly 

“No…” you answered a bit dumbfounded “Only when I want to impress you” you added shrugging

Your answer took her by surprise. She really wanted to hold it back, but couldn’t and chuckled. Her cute, genuine laugh made you smile.

“OH.MY.GOD. So, you do smile and laugh” you teased

It was the first time ever that Wilhemina expressed a kind of emotion other than anger, dissatisfaction or boredom. It was new, it was different and it was all because of you. Being around you she couldn’t suppress her emotion, but she was enjoying it more than she would ever admit. In fact, she liked herself better when she was with you. And she obviously couldn’t say ‘no’ to whatever you asked her for - no matter how ridiculous it was for her. 

“Wow… Miss Venable smiled at me” you kept teasing “I’m flattered”

“I didn’t ask for your insight” she said not looking at you 

"Don't worry. It hurts a little less each time" you smiled at how flustered she got

"Keep teasing and there will be no film night or whatever other shit you come up with" she said crossing her arms

"So you agree?" you beamed

"You wouldn't leave me alone if I said 'no'" she answered playing with her pen, trying her best to focus on it instead of you

"Thank you!" you moved quickly and before Wilhemina had a chance to comprehend what was actually going on, you kissed her on her cheek. Her eyes widened. That unexpected move made her feel a thousand of butterflies in her stomach and much to her dismay she didn't know how to get rid of that weird feeling.

"I swear to God, Y/N, I'll strangle you" 

"Is that a promise?" you bit your lip

It took everything in Wilhemina to remain unimpressed and didn't let her feelings show. 

"You're walking on thin ice, Miss Y/N" her voice was calm and the usual grave expression was back, but you could notice how the corner of her mouth twitched a little as she spoke

"I'm aware of it. That's professional risk, Miss Venable" you said with pretended dignity at which Wilhemina rolled her eyes

"Don't you have somewhere else to go?"

"Perhaps, I do"

"Then perhaps you should go"

"Perhaps I should" you said, but kept standing there and looking at her

"Out! Now! Before I lose my patience and decide to throw one of the books at you"

"Umm..." You tilted your head to one side "You wouldn't do that. You like those books too much" 

You were right - she wouldn't do that, but not because of her love to the literature. She wouldn't do that, because she liked you. She liked you more than her books, in fact, and hurting you was the last thing on her mind.

"Okay, I'm leaving" you said finally

"Good" she nodded

"Oooh, one more thing" you stopped at the door and turned round to look at her one more time

"Yes?"

"You have a beautiful smile, Willy" you said and left not waiting for her response

As you closed the door Wilhemina sighed. She stopped holding herself back. She touched her cheek and a wide smile appeared on her face at the thought of your kiss.

"You'll be the death of me, Y/N" she said to herself

Wilhemina was used to being on her own. She devoted herself to her career and didn’t feel like anything in her life was wrong or missing. In fact she was convinced that everything was in place. She never wanted to need someone ever again, but that changed when she met you. Wilhemina knew it. She could feel it, though she still couldn’t accept it.

You were everything she had been avoiding. You were loud, you were talking almost constantly, you couldn’t sit still even for a minute, you were annoying, stubborn, arrogant, sarcastic and funny and charming… She tried to hate you, but it wasn’t possible. You had awaken something inside her. Something that caused her walls to tumble down. You were the only one, who had such effect on her and she truly wanted you in all possible ways. Yet at the same time Wilhemina was scared. She had had her heart broken before, because she had let herself be led astray. She was afraid of getting burnt again.

Besides that she believed that being with you wasn’t possible. Why would you even like her? She was a horrible person. She could be really mean at times and was capable of truly anything. Ever since she had got her heart broken she treated people more like punching bags. She could cut them into pieces with her words alone and that was exactly why she was on her own.

Wilhemina never truly gave a damn about her bad reputation. She didn’t care what people thought or said about her. But since you appeared in her life she was, in fact, constantly worrying about what you may think when and if you found out about certain things she had done. She often wondered how she had became so obnoxious. Or what was it with you that made her act different. She didn’t mean to care so much. She didn’t mean to be lenient with you. She didn’t mean to enjoy your company. And she definitely didn’t mean to fall for you. But she couldn’t help it and so she hated herself for loving you.

-

A film night at the university was one of your many ideas that Wilhemina agreed to. She didn’t like it, but for the sake of you, she couldn’t say ‘no’. Though she made it clear, that it was just a one-off deal and you wouldn’t be allowed to do something like that ever again. Her statement didn’t really bother you. Wilhemina always said things like that, but then changed her mind because of you. You knew she had a soft spot for you and you often wondered how it would be to be with her. Yet you didn’t dare to do anything, afraid of scaring her off or losing her trust.

Wilhemina, of course, couldn’t and didn’t want to show how much she enjoyed seeing you so excited or listening to you talking about that one particular film you chose, so she made much of an effort to hide it and kept complaining. Though you were way too happy to care about it. You completely focused on organizing everything, so that everyone, including you and Wilhemina could enjoy it. You put a lot of effort into that, that’s why you were a bit upset when Wilhemina said nothing and kept ignoring you for almost whole evening. She seemed pretty wired, so you didn’t push. You tried your best to give her space, though you failed miserable as the movie that you had chosen ended and another one, picked by one of your friend, turned out to be a horror.

You hated horror movies and you never watched them on your own. But there you were forced to watch. It wasn’t even the middle of the film and you already couldn’t take it. Wilhemina, on the other hand, seemed completely unmoved. She just sat there and kept watching without any particular expression on her face. Though she did show some emotion, as unexpectedly, you hid your face in her arm - gripping her hand and clinging to her like a child. You were close. Very close. And Wilhemina wasn’t ready for it. She didn’t like when people were that close to her. She knew you didn’t do it on purpose, but couldn’t help and got tensed or maybe even a bit mad.

“Y/N, could you move out of my space?” 

“I… Sorry” you moved immediately 

You internally cursed yourself for acting like that, especially around Venable. You didn’t want to make her feel bad, but you knew you did. You tried to focus on the movie or rather on not freaking out because of it. Though it turned out to be too much for you. You couldn’t keep watching it and you definitely couldn’t hide in Wilhemina’s arms, so you decided it’d be better for you to leave.

Wilhemina watched as you grabbed your things and left without any explanation. At first she was sure you went to the toilet or somewhere, but more and more time passed and you didn’t come back. She began to worry and felt a bit guilty. Without thinking much she stood up and went after you. She slowly wandered through the corridors, wondering what she should do when she finds you. Was it her fault that you left? Should she have not acted the way she did? And why did she even do that? She was longing for your touch. She wanted you close, but then she pushed you away. Wilhemina carried on scolding herself for her behaviour until she found you in the library. You were sitting on the desk and  looking out of the window.

“Y/N?” she called your name closing the door

You jumped at the sudden sound.

“Oh my God” you placed your hand on your heart

“I didn’t mean to scare” she said worriedly

“It’s fine”

“Are you alright?” Wilhemina asked approaching you

“Yeah… I just don’t like horror movies” you shrugged

Venable nodded stopping right next to you. There was a moment of silence, that Wilhemina needed to think through her next move.

“So…” she started

“So” you repeated, remembering that your very first conversation was almost the same. The only difference was that then you were the one who were nervous back then.

“Would you mind if I stay here with you?”

“No, Miss Venable”

“Okay”

You could say something was bothering her, but you knew Wilhemina wasn’t the one to talk about her feelings, so you let it be. You said nothing, just kept looking at her trying to figure out what was going on inside her head.

Wilhemina stared at an old bookcase in front of her. She was lost in her thoughts - recalling her past, wondering how she always ended up making bad decisions, making the people, who cared about her sad or how they always left her. She knew that she was mostly bad and kept pretending, because she didn’t want people to know her. Yet, somehow, you managed to break through her defense and you made her someone new. You took her self control and made her forget to play her role. She loved that feeling, but still she was worried, afraid of making yet another bad decision.

Venable could feel your eyes on her. You were staring all the time, so she turned to face you.

“What?” she asked coldly 

“Nothing” you smiled to yourself and averted your eyes

“It’s not nothing. Tell me”

“I… You are just… so perfect”

Wilhemina looked at you. There was some kind of fear mixed with shock in her eyes.

“Trust me Y/N, I am not”

“Why would you say such stupid thing about yourself?”

“Just look at me...”

“I’m looking at you”

“And what do you see? For people I’m just a horrible, heartless woman… And my disability…”

“For God’s sake, if someone is truly disabled in our university, it’s professor Smith, who suffers from the lack of working brain cells. You’re fine Willy. You’re so very fine that it hurts when you say such things about yourself”

“You’re too precious to know what I’ve done in my lifetime… and, selfishly, I’ve grown to enjoy your company so much that it would tear me apart if I lose you over my past”

“Stop it. You are amazing. You are the most powerful, clever and beautiful woman I’ve ever known. You’re the best thing I’ve seen in quite some time, Willy…” you said biting your lip

“I swear to God, if you call me that one more time…”

“Then what, Willy?” you asked arching your eyebrow playfully

“Then I can’t be held responsible for my actions” she said and kissed you

You smiled against her lips. She was about pulling back, but you held her in place to kiss her back. And for a moment she forgot to worry.

Tag list: @midnight-lestrange​, @natasha-danvers​, @stopkillinglilyrabe​

[vampish-glamour]

I agree with most of your views (Including nb’s using labels like lesbian), expect for the views on nb existence. The reasons I see most is that it doesn’t make sense or that nb’s are using gendered terms so they must be gendered or that it’s just people uncomfortable with the gender roles so I‘m just offering another perspective. 🧷1/?

I’m nb because the idea of being male/female gives me dysphoria. It’s not about the gender roles or anything, it’s the idea of having male/female genitals or being perceived as male/female. I try to portray myself as androgynous as possible. I have shorter hair in a pixie cut of sorts, I bind, I avoid wearing things that may make me seem more feminine or masculine, I wear gender-neutral clothing, I don’t use gendered terms like lesbian or gay man. 🧷 2/3

I admit that it may be some internalized transphobia or something but it’s just better for me and my mental health to just use the preferred name/pronouns and try to look as androgynous as I can. As for it not making sense, the human brain is complicated and not everything that it feels or experiences is going to make sense scientifically. It doesn’t make it not real, though. 🧷3/3

I appreciate you sharing your perspective!

I do want to say that “it not making sense” or “enbies use gendered terms therefore they aren’t genderless”, while being common points, is a bit of an oversimplification of things.

A lot of us don’t believe in nonbinary for scientifically based reasons—an example being that the way brains in relation to sex are understood currently makes the concept of a genderless/sexless brain unlikely to exist. (Here’s a really good post about it. And another, because both of these put it scientifically much better than I could ever put it.)

“It’s just being uncomfortable with gender roles” is true for what a lot of us think, though. Because this can go from small things like not being comfortable with traditional clothing, to not liking the societal view of certain body parts.

My opinion on nonbinary “dysphoria” is that there’s likely better explanations for it than being gender dysphoria in the way trans people experience it. Like body dysmorphia, internalized sexism, internalized transphobia, or even just distress around not wanting to be seen the way society views your sex. I think this especially because the vast majority of nonbinary people, in my experience, are female. And there are a lot of societal perceptions of female anatomy that don’t exist for male anatomy.

Here’s my line of thinking;

Gender dysphoria for a trans man would be distress over not being male. From what I understand, his brain would know his body is supposed to be male, and be able to pinpoint things that make it not male. Breasts, genitalia, higher voice, different bone structure, all that sort of thing. The brain would not recognize this as the male body it’s expecting to see in the mirror.

The key point is that the brain is expecting male features instead of female ones.

With nonbinary dysphoria, how would this work? If we say that a hypothetical genderless brain exists, what would it be looking for? How would it determine what a nonbinary body would look like, if nonbinary is not a human sex like male or female are? And how would one achieve a nonbinary body? Take away the breasts and be smooth like a ken doll? Are curves able to be considered nonbinary? How about muscles? And what about skin texture, body/facial hair, smell?

Breasts, genitals, curves, muscles, skin texture, body/facial hair, smell, etc. Are all things trans people take into consideration when transitioning. They’re things that can make somebody appear more or less male or female. Again, since there is no nonbinary sex, this is impossible to pinpoint for the idea of nonbinary bodies.

So, this is where my idea that nonbinary dysphoria is actually something else comes from. Because nonbinary dysphoria works so differently from trans gender dysphoria that I find it hard to consider it the same thing.

I think it’s really important to take into consideration other possibilities. I mentioned social implications/views of certain body parts, and I want to elaborate a little on that.

I’ll use female parts as an example, since I did say they tend to get more of a hard time than male parts.

Female bodies tend to be hyper-sexualized, and put into a very specific box of “submissive sexual object”. Breasts aren’t seen as ways to feed a baby anymore, they’re seen as sex objects. Female genitalia is mostly just reduced to a hole for sexual purposes. Women are expected to be hairless, smooth skinned, curvy in the right places yet still skinny, etc. I truly believe that this impacts how women see themselves and their bodies, including feeling detached from or uncomfortable with them.

So a female nonbinary person might feel greatly uncomfortable with their female body because of subconscious discomfort with how society has taught them to view their body... but also feels uncomfortable with having a male body because they’re not trans. This puts them into a place in the middle—not feeling comfortable being either male or female—that might feel like nonbinary dysphoria, despite not actually being gender dysphoria.

I really do recommend checking out the posts I linked above though, because this is all just my thoughts. Both of the posts talk about the more scientific side of things instead of just opinion or my personal like or thinking.

“As for it not making sense, the human brain is complicated and not everything that it feels or experiences is going to make sense scientifically. It doesn’t make it not real, though”

I agree, but as mentioned before, as science understands the human brain right now—nonbinary brains are very unlikely. It’s not that scientists are marvelling at a miraculous unexplainable phenomenon, they’re saying “here’s how we believe the brain works”, and people can easily make the conclusion that the current understanding makes nonbinary brains unlikely. So it’s absolutely fair to make the claim or theory that nonbinary is not a real biological thing, based on current scientific understanding.

I approach nonbinary in the same way I approach the existence of a god. Meaning, my reasoning for not believing in a god is pretty similar to not believing in nonbinary.

I, and many other atheists, don’t believe in a god partly because of lack of evidence. We don’t want to accept something as reality when there’s hardly anything to prove it to be real. In this case, there are many scientific theories that either better explain, or completely disprove things said in religious texts. This doesn’t mean that if there were rock hard evidence we’d plug our ears and ignore it. But until then, saying “I don’t believe in a god” is a fair statement because there’s no evidence to say otherwise.

The same goes for myself and others who don’t believe that nonbinary is a real biological concept. We don’t want to accept something as reality without evidence. Especially not when there are scientific theories that provide better explanations for nonbinary dysphoria, or disprove the idea of being biologically nonbinary. This doesn’t mean that if there were solid evidence for nonbinary dysphoria and being biologically nonbinary, we’d ignore it. But until we get that solid evidence, saying “I don’t believe in nonbinary” is a fair statement.

Just because nonbinary is something that people hold dear to their hearts as an “identity”, does not mean it is free from skepticism. People are allowed to be sceptical of claims that don’t hold factual weight. Whether that be claims of the divine like god, claims of the occult like ghosts, claims of fantastical creatures like rainbow unicorns, or claims of humans being genderless.

The problem only arises when people start blatantly ignoring scientific evidence or claiming it’s false without providing reason for that claim.

As far as it being better for your mental health goes, I understand. But I do encourage you to look deeper into the issue, because ultimately it’s better to identify what could actually be going on instead of just going with the easiest answer.

And keep in mind that just because you do something for your mental health doesn’t mean others have to accept it as reality.

However, I appreciate that you don’t use gendered terms. Even though I don’t exactly believe in nonbinary as a real thing biologically speaking, I don’t have as much as an issue with people who actually are consistent with it and are respectful to gay people as I do with the people who aren’t. And I certainly hold more respect for nonbinary people who genuinely believe they are experiencing gender dysphoria and don’t disrespect gay people or enforce gender roles than I do for the “I’m nonbinary because I like dresses AND suits and I’m also super gay!!” Types.

My thoughts on this are a bit hard to explain, as I’ve said with a lot of things it’s very clear in my head but hard for me to put into writing. So I hope that at least some of this makes sense lol.