#to be clear i know that trans people face violence (from men. to be even clearer) and obviously i am against that cause it's disgusting

[hard--headed--woman]

?? isn’t it a bit dramatic. isn’t it fucking dramatic. like is it really what oppression, discrimination and systemic violence are for you? wow you're lucky.

[lafemmemacabre]

@ People who’re not lesbians and want a better understanding of lesbophobia in order to extend better solidarity towards us:

(Repost from my old blog)

The first thing you have to internalize, is that the most recurrent themes behind lesbophobia are patterns of humiliation, punishment and denying us vulnerability.

The “mean” (arrogant and cruel) lesbian, and why lesbians must be “humbled down” (humiliated):

We’re perceived as offensively arrogant because under the patriarchy, women are supposed to be inferior to men, men are supposed to be superior.

One of the key roles of patriarchal manhood is to desire women exclusively. By taking on that role that’s supposedly only reserved for men, we provoke people to think “Who do they think they are? Do they think they’re equal to men? Or BETTER than men?“

Us not “giving men a chance” is seen as a cruel act, too. Even though straight men not giving men a chance, and straight women not giving women a chance, is them just knowing what they do or don’t want.

Because of our perceived cruelty and arrogance, we need to be humiliated back down into our proper place within womanhood.

There’s a reason why men tell us they’re going to make us “real women”, when threatening us from a distance, as well as when correctively raping or beating us. When it reaches a point in which they see us as incorrigible through humiliation, they kill us.

Projecting aggression on us, which must be punished:

Even other people who’re not cishets see everything we do or don’t do as violent, abrasive or aggressive. We’re seen as raging beasts.

Expressing my unattraction to men in public in the most neutral terms possible has been treated as me shaming people who are attracted to men (an attack), or as an attempt to hurt all men. It has been deemed homophobic or biphobic, too, no matter how careful I’ve been to not hurt other people’s sensitivities.

Don’t get me started on me not liking men on itself earning me being called a TERF no matter how clear I make it that I’m inclusive of trans women. This happens even to transfem lesbians ALL the time too.

Our mere existence is seen as an act of violence, as a threat, and our violent crime must be met with punishment, which can fall anywhere between isolating us, up to meeting us with concrete violence.

The emotionless, yet hysterical lesbian:

Since we’re violent beasts, we’re seen as emotionless. Since we’re unemotional, we’re unbreakable, which means that no violence we face is punishment enough. In consequence, when we’re subjected to violence, it’s minimized. Since it’s minimized, if we complain about it, we’re exaggerating. We’re being hysterical.

We aren’t vulnerable human beings with emotions in other people’s eyes. The only emotion people allow us is anger, and only because they can use it against us. Lesbian anger at being constantly humiliated and vilified is used to demonize us further.

We don’t need protection, we don’t hurt, so it’s fine to stomp on us, and if we complain, we’re exaggerating. Actually, we’re the ones being mean to whoever hurt us, by making that person feel guilty for a non-issue.

We ESPECIALLY don’t need help, much less to be rescued!

By being lesbians, in other people’s eyes, we’re making the statement to the world that even IF we were to not be completely unbreakable or unfeeling, we still don’t want to be rescued, we don’t want help. We did this to ourselves, in other people’s eyes.

When you see a lesbian saying or doing anything and start to feel indignation, to feel attacked, to feel threatened, to perceive them as aggressive, cruel or hysterical, ask yourself:

Is this lesbian being genuinely offensive, aggressive, cruel or hysterical, or is it ME who has lesbophobic bias I haven’t unlearned yet?

Is this lesbian actually exaggerating, or is it me who sees lesbians as unfeeling and unbreakable, so they shouldn’t be so upset anyway? If you stab a lesbian they won’t bleed, so why are they making a fuss about it?

[gay-otlc]

Okay I went ahead and deleted the previous man vs bear post, the wording was not ideal and it was honestly more of a vent than something I intended to get big. Here are my thoughts again, except calmer and more clearly worded:

I do understand the perspective of people who choose bear over man. I know it comes from a place of a lot of pain and trauma, and I'm sorry so many people have had to go through that. I think the sort of misogyny and violence that caused this trauma is horrific, and it needs to be talked about, and it needs to be stopped.

The choice of bear over man is largely driven by a belief that men are inherently dangerous. The belief that men, or people perceived as/believed to be men, are dangerous is also a major factor in transphobia, and has a lot of really awful effects on trans people.

Trans women aren't men, but can still be and are hurt by the demonization of men. If a cis woman believes a trans woman to be a man (either because she's transphobic and thinks all trans women are men, or maybe she's not transphobic but makes an incorrect gendered assumption based on the trans women's appearance, because not all trans women can or want to pass), she might then view that trans woman as a threat. This could lead to said trans woman being kicked out of or assaulted in spaces such as women's bathrooms.

Trans men are men, so hopefully it's more clear why trans men are hurt by the demonization of men. Some trans men are forced into "women's" spaces such as bathrooms due to transphobic circumstances, even if they pass as cis men. If a cis woman encounters a trans man who she assumes to be a cis man in a women's bathroom, this could also lead to said trans man being kicked out of or assaulted.

People of other trans identities, and intersex people, may also be incorrectly assumed to be a man, and because of that, could face transphobia if they choose to be in a "women's" space.

I don't think the individuals choosing the bear are necessarily transphobic, or that they're obligated to change their minds. I just think it's important to consider how your beliefs about men affect trans people.

[butch-gamedev]

Hi! I’m trying to get my bearings on the post about bimisogyny, and I want to know more on why/how it’s appropriating (copying?) the theoretical underpinnings of transmisogyny. Can you explain it more, or direct me to where I can learn about it? Feel free to say no, I just wanted to ask directly 👍🏼

(feel free to answer publicly or privately, either is fine)

So part of what's upsetting to me about the whole situation is that there's a significant corpus of *theory* surrounding transmisogyny, a great deal of analysis, and these attempts to equate things like "transandrophobia" and "bimisogyny" to it completely elide frameworks in what is very blatantly a game of equalization or minimization. Transandrophobia is a bit more blatant at this - attempting to set up an intersection of transphobia (real) and misandry (not, tragically), and with its proponents essentially openly using it as a point-scoring method against trans women (a fairly prominent proponent was outed as a serial abuser today, another recently instigated a fairly large outcry by feeling the need to draw over stats on violence against transgender people to suggest that it was undercounted against trans men but overcointed against trans women). I think most transfemimists rightly recognize that people who uphold "transandrophobia" as a legitimate axis of oppression are largely just reactionaries - it's true that trans men and trans women experience transphobia differently, but the idea that trans men have it worse is... unsubstantiated is a generous term. The sole function of the word seems to be as a method for transmascs to signal to each other their own transmisogyny.

"Bimisogyny" as a term I think is coming from a better place - bisexual women do, in fact, experience particularly heightened level of misogynistic violence. But... at the same time it's fairly clear that the coining of the word comes from a desire for equalization rather than the emergence of a real framework of understanding. The only substantive writing on the subject essentially gathers a bunch of statistics on the misogynistic violence bisexual women face, lists a couple patterns of fetishization and control from men, and throws its hands up. No motives or mechanisms are considered. This, combined with the author having a history of questionable analysis of politics surrounding sexual orientation in the past, kind of give the game away to me. If an actual understanding of bimisogyny had been set up or was being worked towards, the piece (and the general discourse surrounding it) would be centered on developing an understanding of why conditions are so dismal for bisexual women - who benefits from it, who enacts it, and how. This isn't to say that such a framework isn't needed, it's just to say that... as people use the word right now, it kind of explains nothing while trying to carry the same gravitas as transmisogyny. This is part of why people responding to me with "oh so bi women aren't allowed to talk about their oppression?" is grating because that's obviously not the function of using the term as things are now. I must also admit that the originating piece lingering overlong on anti-bisexual sentiment among lesbians and referring to "bi-exclusionary lesbians"... does not give much confidence either.

And one thing that's been glazed over is that understandings of transmisogyny aren't just "shit sucks for trans women, ergo we get a word", and even if I frankly have a lot of disagreements with the originating text, there is a great deal of insight on the cultural factors informing transmisogyny. Serano theorizes transmisogyny as the intersection of oppositional sexism (the belief that there are essentially two types of human being, split by reproductive capacity into two non-overlapping and distinct categories) and misogyny (the assertion of men's power through the negation of women). I don't even really agree with this reading - I tend to follow Wittig's stance that the establishment of sex categorization is itself necessary to facilitate misogyny and that sex is not in fact prior to misogyny but is constructed. I think Serano is a bit of a liberal, and naturalizes some things which are socially constructed as innate or predetermined. But the understanding that transmisogyny is rooted in the maintenance of sex as a system does hold water, and contemporary materialist feminists do consistently have apt analyses of transmisogyny through this lens (often centered around the positionality of transgender women as degendered women - women who are subjected to misogyny and misogynistic violence without the already flimsy defenses afforded to others through gender recognition). The narrative that transgender women are sexually threatening or gain benefits from supposed intrinsic maleness is itself used as justification to abuse us in a traditionally misogynistic manner. One thing that has been of particular interest to me is the tendency of non-female transgender people (generally trans men and trans-mascs) to leverage a female self-gendering willingly and temporarily for the sole purpose of gendering transgender women as male as a justification for dismissal, violence, or resentment. I think that this necessarily points to transmisogyny being useful as a tool not only for the construction of hegemonic male and female identity but also multiple transgender identities, but I don't want to get any further into the weeds right now.

[my-traumacore-sideblog]

feeling rly unsafe 2day, but it's specifically bc of being a trans guy, i keep seeing stuff from cis women abt how men r always the worst and how men hav a duty 2 make their lives revolve around women or else we're sexist, how apparently men need 2 all b willing 2 lay down their lives 4 any woman or else we're just as bad as the creeps who make ppl feel unsafe 2 go out at night and yes i said people not just women but they only want 2 acknowledge it when it's a cis woman that's the victim

i did not fucking sign up for this

i did not fucking sign up 2 sacrifice my life either literally or thru dedicating my life only 2 others just because the pronoun "he" fits me better than the pronoun "she"

i should not hav 2 worry that im an inherently bad person because of being a gay trans man

i should not hav 2 worry abt being perceived as a threat bc of being a queer man of colour

i've honestly started to hav thoughts abt de-transitioning not bc being a guy in the way i am doesn't fit me but rather out of fear of the scrutiny every action of mine will b placed under

i was sexually abused as a child but i guess that doesn't matter anymore because im a man now, boys don't cry they punch ig, apparently since im a man now it means im destined 2 become that which hurt me

all i want is to be a man, in a nonbinary way yes but still a man (demi-guy), i want to love men who love me back, i want to live a quiet life surrounded by love and happiness, i want to live a gentle life

but no.... because im a man now then apparently it must make me predatory in some way

i can't de-transition... i know i wouldn't survive emotionally... so i stick with it, with allowing myself to be a demi-guy.... but it hurts knowing that me being free is perceived as dangerous, that im seen as inherently a threat to women

edit: so a terf started clowning this post, just 2 make this shit clear, this is not a fucking debate blog this is a me posting abt my feelings blog, i would've thought the url "my-traumacore-sideblog" would've made that clear

also no racism and sexism is not the same thing

yes women face oppression at the hands of men and should be allowed to talk about it but men also face oppression at the hands of women and should be allowed to talk abt it, 4 men who r not in a minority group this is usually in terms of legal stuff (how r*pe is legally categorised, custody disputes ect) but this is even more of an issue and more every day when it comes to men in marginalised communities, yk like me, yk like what i was venting abt in my fucking post i should b allowed 2 talk abt my own oppression 2 and acting like me venting abt my own oppression in a post tagged as a vent post on my vent blog makes me the same as my white oppressors is not only terf shit but also racist and it shows a lack of political literacy, a woman has just as much capacity 4 violence as a man but a queer man of colour is seen as inherently violent and a white woman is inherently seen as always being a victim but ur ok w/ these white women using that power of perceived vulnerability 2 call 4 violence against queer men and men of colour and especially queer men of colour just say u want cis women klansmen and leave im not backing down from talking abt my own oppression bc of white woman tears

anyways person who clowed is now blocked so don't bother trying 2 respond 2 my edit

[degenderates]

transphobia specifically directed at trans men and transmasculine people is not transmisandry. it's not transandrophobia. there is specific oppression that trans men face, but it's not because we're men or masculine, as those two words imply. it's just fucking misogyny. "young girls are being brainwashed/groomed into being trans" = misogyny. "trans men with mental illnesses can't really know if they're trans or not" = assumes people they see as girls can't make their own decisions = infantilization of women = misogyny. "transmascs over-masculinize themselves to fit in" = demonizes gender transgression of anyone assigned female at birth = misogyny. "what if they decide to detransition and can't have children?/testosterone can cause infertility/testosterone can cause irreversible changes" = sees people with uteruses as vessels for babies and the patriarchy = misogyny.

internet trans discourse is stupid and i just want to shake people by the shoulders and scream that both sides of the "transandrophobia" debate are so fucking reductive. all of the above rhetoric is alive and well and the cause of a shit ton of anti-trans legislation, sentiment, and violence both nationally (US) and internationally, and i'm tired of people who aren't transmasculine acting like trans men automatically have male privilege just because we identify as men now. it doesn't change how cis ppl see us, and even if a guy has been on hormones for awhile, he's still affected by reproductive laws (hmm...correlation in US legislation/rights anyone?), as one example. this of course doesn't mean trans men can't have male privilege, but it's not the universal sticker of "this person is a man and therefore doesn't face x" that cis men have.

personally i am not a fan of the way "transmisogyny" is used as a specifier, because from what i've seen, the oppression that trans women and men (and nonbinary people, especially those who do hormones or surgeries), though different, all stems from misogyny. transphobia itself stems from misogyny. i don't like how "transmisogyny"--and especially its derivatives, tme/tma--imply that trans men somehow face less oppression than trans women. we are all one group and the insistence on dividing us into this ridiculous binary, one that is supposedly, to internet queers, the greatest divide when it comes to types of transphobia, erases factors like race and disability that i think have much more of a sway on how likely it is that a trans person will be a target. you think a black trans man transitioning now means he'll somehow be safer than a white trans woman? really????

before y'all turn this into the pancake waffle thing, i'm not saying the word transmisogyny is bad or that we shouldn't talk about the intersectionality of being trans and a woman. but the way the trans community, and by extension, the cis queer community, talks about it as if trans women are the only ones that are women, seen as women, feel connected to womanhood, adjacent to womanhood, and face all the misogyny related to those things is frankly one of the stupidest progressions of queer theory i've ever seen. intersectionality of gender identity, transness, and sexuality is so complicated, fluid, and personal in a way that a gender/sexuality intersection with race, disability, or class is not. while there are threads of connection between all of these things, the two "types" of gendered oppression, misogyny and transphobia, are so closely tied together and smushed together within the meaning of gender that efforts to put clear-cut terms and frameworks of intersectionality within that little shaken-up cocktail is going to be fruitless.

and y'alls insistence on doing so, trying to dumb everything down into rules that don't always apply and definitely don't match up with the way the actual world treats trans people, drives me fucking crazy.

[mmmthornton]

i don't hate gay people, i am a gay person and i.love gay people. i didn't smear her, i rightfully called her out on her transphobia, because people need to know she (and you) align yourself with those who smear people like me as pedophiles and rapists.

For context: https://www.tumblr.com/butch-reidentified/719311495708753921/pajrc1234-blocked-me-before-even-commenting-that I'm not sure why you sent this anon; i thought at first that maybe @pajrc1234 is a side blog but its the one you replied on? In any case, since my message to YOU was off anon and you used "I" to address yourself, for transparency I'm keeping your information here.

Hey, i'm really angry about this but I'm holding myself back from being mean and sarcastic to make a point.

The whataboutism? Stops fucking here. There ARE issues in the gay community. There ARE issues with lesbophobia, misogyny, there is petty drama, there is stupid bullshit, there is every conceivable kind of human flaw and foible to be found in human beings under the LGBT umbrella. Do you know why that is? Its because we're human beings, with all the variety that that entails.

That means that, for a community to still be able to come together, we need to recognize we'll bruise some elbows and even come across Genuine Bad Actors in all areas of life. We deserve to look out for OTHERS in our community by calling out behavior - BEHAVIOR - itself that is harmful.

What that does NOT MEAN. Is that you start a witch hunt, targeting almost EXCLUSIVELY same-sex attracted woman. for THINKING or ASSOCIATING with the "wrong" ideas or people.

Do you notice what I did there? Do you recognize theres a difference between "BEHAVIOR" and "THINKING"? or even "CRITIQUING"? Because I don't know that you do! And i don't know if a lot of the loudest voices in "queer activism" these days knows that either. Because it seems to me its pretty clear the people who are actually COMMITING the hate crimes that target gay people (uhhhh including trans women, because thats the only demographic anyone wants to talk about when they go into a lesbians inbox), are NOT people IN the community sharing tragic and traumatic events from their own lives.

Lesbians are members of the LGBT Community. Lesbians have a RIGHT to to be here, and we have a RIGHT to discus the things that are hurting us, same as anyone else.

What you DON'T have a right to do, is police the lived experiences of lesbians on the internet or otherwise, to play out your own victim complex. If YOU BELIEVE that eeeeveryone is out to get you, and that SOMEHOW the worst participants are lesbians on tumblr, I need you to know that is pathetic of you.

Women to start with - Cis women even, if you want to be specific - have the lowest possible numbers for violence. Cis women have the lowest numbers for supporting conservative ideas - by voting records! We have that data. Add on top of that, lesbians are a TINY minority of all cis women. So, a minority of a population that is more frequently targeted for violence is SO SCARY to you, that you HAVE to defensively smear their name before they can get you?

Grow the fuck up. I don't actually believe you're "afraid" of violence from lesbian women. I think you just found a way to be a bully and have your victim cake too. Women aren't required to be extra special niceys to you, the only thing we have to do is survive amidst the other factors that make that difficult, and honestly if you have to turn any attempt at LGBT healing into "But what if you maybe someday possibly align yourself with my actual enemies?!" I think you're a wuss. If you actually cared about chasing out bad actors and right wing extremists, you wouldn't go after the demographic that is the LEAST likely to vote republican.

You don't go after the real enemies, because you KNOW that men are more likely to be violent and abusive and harass you and do all the things that you accuse "TERF"s of doing. You're more afraid of them than you are willing to face the problem, and women are an easy target to you because of that. That is the definition of a coward. Hell, that's probably what got you so mad! @butch-reidentified was in a horrifying situation and survived, WHILE helping someone else, and it triggered you so badly you just dug deep into your ugly woman-hating soul to immediately slander her name and make it about YOU.

You. Are. Pathetic. Get better or shut up.

[mueritos]

I sent your post regarding destigmatizing transmasculinity to everyone I know because it hit the nail on the fucking head without diving into weird "Therefore, it is trans women's fault" rhetoric that I see a shocking increase of on this website. However, I do notice a lot of discourse regarding the relationship between gender and race being led primarily by white trans people who have fundamentally different interactions than I do, and I've had plenty of arguments about how no, black transmasc people don't have privilage over black transfem people because being percieved as a gnc black woman or a black man are equally dangerous (speaking as a butch black transfem). Thoughts?

First off, thank you for reading the post and sharing it. My main reasoning behind the post was because I was also frustrated by the white dominant ideology regarding trans identities, especially in regards to gender and race (and in how they use trans women as a scape goat for transphobia and colonialism). Gender is racialized, and unfortunately white trans people view their gender as outside of race because they already epitomize normalcy in terms of race. I want to also make it clear that I don’t speak for Black folks, and I’m simply relaying information of what I have learned over the years of interacting with Black communities, the history I have learned in my courses with Black professors over the years (both focusing on queer theory and Black history in the US), and the books I have been reading for my own research. If i have any information or ideas incorrect, I would be happy to adjust them accordingly ^-^

The lack of critical gender reading is also another issue within the community in terms of why we have so many issues with white trans people speaking over BIPOC trans people, especially Black trans people. I find that white queer people seem to only read about white queer people, and never want to explore outside of that. No Audre Lorde, no Bell Hooks, no Ida B wells, no Sojourner Truth, no June Jordan, no Marsha P Johnson or Slyvia Rivera, no Essex Hemphill or Arturo Islas, nothing. Race is already difficult to grapple with for white people, and they believe our shared queerness is enough to unite us all under the same struggle of sexual and gender oppression. This isn't true obviously, and quick historical knowledge about the history of ballroom, urban culture in cities, the policing of BIPOC bodies and identity in bars/clubs/street corners, even going further with the women's suffrage movement being anit-Black and saying that they supported all women (many suffragists tokenized Black women), but did not want Black men to have a vote/power, etc.

The history of the US has always made gender racialized. From the moment Columbus stepped foot into the Americas, thought the Natives were “sodomites” and “hemaphrodites”, they thought them overtly sexual and called them animals for their lack of clothing. The same was applied to Black people in the US; their dehumanization was racialized just as much as it was gendered; Black women were seen as “jezebels” to justify the sexual violence against them, and Black men were viewed as “beasts of burden” to justify the labor and the hypersexuality imposed onto them. Everything that gender is today has ALWAYS been because of white people. Theatre in the 20s and 30s used Black face to show “pansy” behavior against “normal heterosexual behavior”, making it clear that normal = white (my sources here are based on Michael Bronski’s A Queer History of the United States). This is quite literally not that hard to understand, but unfortunately white ideas about “male privilege” and misogyny fails Black communities, especially trans Black people.

Male privilege seems to only exist at it’s rawest form in white cisgender heterosexual men. White cisgender gay men are close after; historically they have always been able to obtain employment and housing and resources at rates much higher than even white lesbians throughout history. Anyone outside of this scope, however, does not have male privilege, and even Brown men, despite living and participating in the patriarchy (like we all do), don’t experience male privilege the same way white men do. Sure, maybe Brown and Black cisgender men will not have much trouble getting employment compared to Black and Brown women, but the rates at which they are policed, both by institutions and society/people, also places them at a disadvantage. BIPOC men experience a racialized manhood, one that inherently has already failed them on account of not being white.

This is why intersectionality is important, and white people just don’t have a good grasp on it, no matter how many times they watch Kimberle Crenshaw’s TEDx talk (lol). When your gender isn’t racialized, you have no reference for what a racialized gender feels like. Yes, female presenting and GNC presenting and “non-passing” BIPoC individuals face more discrimination and oppression than BIPOC men, but not all BIPOC men are cisgender, heterosexual, monogamous, or “male” presenting. I always say no bigot is going to ask what identity you are before calling you a slur, and the same is just as true for BIPOC queer people. No racist is going to make sure to ask if you’re Black or mixed before calling you the “correct slur”, many of them see anyone who is outside the white heterosexual cisgender norm and go with the first slur they can think of. THAT is why there is no clear hierarchy in terms of how much oppression you face according to your identities when you’re a queer BIPOC. Yes, colorism, yes cisgender privilege, yes heterosexual privilege, yes, this is why intersectionality exists, but I don’t believe oppression should always be quantified when it comes to racialized gender and sexuality. BIPOC queer people are already well versed in intersectionality; we already care and cherish for each other based on our shared struggles. I’ve quite literally heard more discourse regarding transmasc vs trans femme privilege from white queers than from BIPOC queers. THAT says enough about the difference of where our respective communities are at. BIPOC queer people are already leagues ahead when it comes to intersectionality; white queer people are still stuck quoting Kimberle Crenshaw on their email signatures. 

I’m not sure if I answered this to the fullest of my abilities, but I wanted to make the effort to give you my thoughts. I thank you for such a wonderful question. I am not the first or last person to talk about this, and I encourage anyone who wants to do more research to look into the various authors I have mentioned, as well as BIPOC creators online. I also recognize that non-Black folks have their duty to learn about this as well, and if I can contribute to that conversation for other non-Black people so that they are more compassionate and understanding to Black experiences, then I’m grateful to have expressed my thoughts. (ps, if there r any spelling mistakes, im sorry, but I dont proofread my asks before sending them off)

Like I mentioned before, I’m happy to adjust and correct myself, This is a very complex issue and takes relearning years of history. It’s not easy, but it’s possible.

Have a great day my friend!

[winterwerewolf]

Coming to terms with being a man.

I am certainly not the first to bring it up and I will not be the last but: The hardest part for me personally as a trans man is not the fact that I experience severe gender dysphoria, it's the fact that being male/masc or a man has been so severely demonized by queer people that were supposed to be my friends, my found family, that it steered me right back into an even bigger closet for 8 years. Yeah. 8 fucking years. I knew I was a man when I was 12 years old and aside from the obvious hostility I faced because of garbage cishet people it was even worse through non-cis, non-het and non-cishet people.

I see others like me trying to raise awareness for this issue only to be shut down as someone who "whines and bitches" or even "tries to separate and divide the community". Every time an issue is brought up by trans men we are accused of "looking for issues where there are none", we are accused of "attempting separatism" and accused of "stealing other peoples spotlight" by OTHER queer people no less and all of this gets sort of covered up. As if queer people cannot be evil. As if being queer and specifically being trans somehow absolves you from being a massive bitch and asshole towards other trans people.

You do not have to punch me in the face to make clear you want me to face/experience violence. You don't have to say "I hate trans men in particular" for me to know that you do. When I found the Hashtag Transmisandry and Transandrophobia I cried tears of joy because there was finally a group of other men and mascs who have very similar experiences to mine. I am thanking y'all on my knees and kissing your hands for being brave enough to share these awful experiences even when faced with hostility and scrutiny and even though retelling also means reliving them to some extent. My point here is: Queer people who are hostile towards me have always had this weird victimhood complex of "I was affected by the patriarchy therefore it is my right to hate men." When I dared to point out that I also have experiences with the patriarchy (as does every member of society btw, there are no people unaffected, they are just affected in different ways) I was told to shut up and sit down because I could not possibly understand what it feels like to be raised in a misogynistic society. As if I am not viewed as a woman by transphobes and alike. As if I was not raised "like a girl". As if I had no fucking first hand experience and still do because I do not "pass".

I was there in the boat with you and you decided that, no, actually I never fucking was because what, it challenges your narrative about trans men experiencing zero oppression?

Anyways, this is long and ramble-y enough as it is so to finalize this emotional mess: Fuck TERFs, TIRFs and Baeddals or whatever y'all decide to name your cute little hateful-group next for making me feel like I have no voice, no right to love myself, like I am somehow rotten through and through. Fuck you so hard.

[pashterlengkap]

Man who killed Muhlaysia Booker is going away for a long time

Kendrell Lyles, 37, was just sentenced to 48 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges in connection to the 2019 murder of Muhlaysia Booker, 22, who was transgender. In early 2019, a horrific video was shared online showing Booker being beaten on the streets of a Dallas neighborhood. In the video, a man starts to beat her, and later others join in, kicking her and holding her down. She tries to get away. A group of women surrounds her and carries her to a car. Related: Police arrest suspected murderer of trans woman after catching him in a lie Antonio Currin said he was at work at the time of Chyna Long’s murder, but investigators proved his alibi false. After the attack, she had to be taken to the hospital and treated for facial fractures. Her arm was also in a sling. Get the Daily Brief The news you care about, reported on by the people who care about you: Subscribe to our Newsletter The video made national headlines and brought attention to the violence Black transgender women often face. Her family said she was attacked because of her identity. A month later, she was murdered. Booker was found dead from a gunshot wound on the morning of May 18. A witness saw a car that Booker entered late the night before in an area of the city frequented by sex workers. The description of the car matched Lyles’, and both of their phones showed that they were at the same location when she was killed. Her body was found a few miles from where she entered his car. Lyles pled guilty to murder just as jury selection was set to begin for his trial. He is also charged with the murders of Leticia Grant, 35, and Kenneth Cichocki, 29. Both of those people were killed in May 2019, like Booker. “No amount of time can bring Muhlaysia back, and although we wish the sentence was capital punishment, our family can finally have some sense of closure knowing that justice was served and he can’t cause any more families hurt and pain,” said Booker’s mother, Stephanie Houston. Lyles’ attorney said that the sentencing “was the right result” and that he didn’t know the motive for the killing. Edward Thomas, the man who beat Booker a month before her death, was cleared of felony assault and convicted of misdemeanor assault. At Thomas’ trial, the jury heard that Booker backed her car accidentally into someone else’s. The driver held her at gunpoint to get her to pay for the damage and wouldn’t let her go. A crowd gathered, and someone offered Thomas $200 to beat Booker. “He threw a punch, he threw 20 punches, he threw 26 punches,” prosecutor Robert Withers said. During his trial, Thomas’s lawyer, Andrew Wilkerson, repeatedly misgendered and deadnamed Booker in an effort to make the altercation seem like “mutual combat” between two men. He argued that Booker was at fault even though Thomas beat her because she tried to leave the scene without exchanging information, and he downplayed her injuries as “scratches.” When the prosecutor read Booker’s name and birthdate into the record, another defense attorney, Michael Campbell interrupted: “Read the sex! What does the sex say?” Speaking at a rally after the beating, Booker told supporters: “This time, I can stand before you, whereas in other scenarios, we are at a memorial.” http://dlvr.it/SzK2Y6

[tempestgnostic]

lily alexandre was right when she talked about how pitting ‘binary’ trans people against ‘nonbinary’ trans people is not only unproductive but also completely ignores the fact that many, many so-called ‘binary’ trans people will never be seen as fitting that binary. this is expecially true of trans women, who are denied their womanhood constantly—at least until it can be used to inflict even more cruelty upon them. meanwhile, i’m a nonbinary butch who looks like a man, by all accounts, and the greatest issue i face personally is not violence, but erasure and invisibility. our experiences are different in many respects.

yet, there are trans women i know who would technically be considered ‘binary’ (the more i say it, the more it breaks down as a useful category) who identify as lesbians, but would be put at risk if they tried to enter lesbian spaces because their gender expression leans masc. even the most allegedly trans-friendly spaces can be horrible to people who don’t fit their idea of what their gender should look like. this is true of many butch trans women—by virtue of their transness, they go from “one of us” to “one of them.” i’m not a woman, and they’re not men, but we’d both receive the clear message that we do not belong.

none of us fit the binary. that doesn’t mean we have to identify as nonbinary, obviously, but we will never fit the binary because it wasn’t made with us in mind. stop making the assumption that being a ‘binary’ trans person offers guaranteed protection of any kind from the forces that strictly enforce that binary.

[cuntess-carmilla]

@ People who’re not lesbians and want a better understanding of lesbophobia in order to extend better solidarity towards us:

The first thing you have to internalize, is that the most recurrent themes behind lesbophobia are patterns of humiliation, punishment and denying us vulnerability.

The “mean” (arrogant and cruel) lesbian, and why lesbians must be “humbled down” (humiliated):

We’re perceived as offensively arrogant because under the patriarchy, women are supposed to be inferior to men, and men are supposed to be superior. One of the key roles of patriarchal manhood is to desire women exclusively.

By taking on a role that’s supposedly only reserved for men, we provoke people to think “Who do they think they are? Do they think they’re equal to men? Or BETTER than men?“

Us not “giving men a chance” is seen as a cruel act, too. Even though straight men not giving men a chance, and straight women not giving women a chance, is them just knowing what they do or don’t want.

Because of our perceived cruelty and arrogance, we need to be humiliated back down into our proper place within womanhood.

There’s a reason why men tell us they’re going to make us “real women”, when threatening us from a distance, as well as when correctively raping or beating us. When it reaches a point in which they see us as incorrigible through humiliation, they kill us.

Projecting aggression on us, which must be punished:

Even other people who’re not cishets see everything we do or don’t do as violent, abrasive or aggressive. We’re seen as raging beasts.

Expressing my unattraction to men in public has been treated as me shaming people who are attracted to them (an attack), or as an attempt to hurt all men. It has been deemed homophobic or biphobic, too. No matter how careful I’ve been to not hurt other people’s sensitivities.

Don’t get me started on me not liking men on itself earning me being called a TERF no matter how clear I make it that I’m inclusive of trans women and the fact that I’m nb. This happens to trans lesbians ALL the time too.

Our mere existence is seen as an act of violence, as a threat, and our violent crime must be met with punishment, which can fall anywhere between isolating us, up to meeting us with violence.

The emotionless, yet hysterical lesbian:

Since we’re violent beasts, we’re seen as emotionless. Since we’re unemotional, we’re unbreakable, which means that no violence we face is punishment enough. In consequence, when we’re subjected to violence, it’s minimized. Since it’s minimized, if we complain about it, we’re exaggerating. We’re being hysterical.

We aren’t vulnerable human beings with emotions in other people’s eyes. The only emotion people allow us is anger, and only because they can use it against us.

We don’t need protection, we don’t hurt, so it’s fine to stomp on us, and if we complain, we’re exaggerating. Actually, we’re the ones being mean to whoever hurt us, by making that person feel guilty for a non-issue.

We ESPECIALLY don’t need help, much less to be rescued!

By being lesbians, in other people’s eyes, we’re making the statement to the world that even IF we were to not be completely unbreakable or unfeeling, we still don’t want to be rescued, we don’t want help. We did this to ourselves, in other people’s eyes.

When you see a lesbian saying or doing anything and start to feel indignation, to feel attacked, to feel threatened, to perceive them as aggressive, cruel or hysterical, ask yourself:

Is this lesbian being genuinely offensive, aggressive, cruel or hysterical, or is it ME who has lesbophobic bias I haven’t unlearned yet?

Is this lesbian actually exaggerating, or is it me who sees lesbians as unfeeling and unbreakable, so they shouldn’t be so upset anyway? Because if you stab a lesbian they won’t bleed.

[nothorses]

This thread on Twitter (also give @Azure_Husky a follow!!)

Linked Article Transcript below

Content warnings for transphobia against transmasculine people, including violence and harassment It's easy to say that transmasculine people get male privilege and face less oppression than many other trans people, but only if you don't actually listen https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/9/1877651/-There-is-a-hidden-epidemic-of-violence-against-transmasculine-people

I hear pretty constantly from transmasculine people about the violence they face from cis people and the erasure, condescension, and "suck it up, you're the oppressor now" attitudes they get from other trans people. 

We are failing the transmasculine parts of our communities. We are failing our brothers and masculine siblings. We need to get better at listening to transmasculine people's concerns and working together rather than fostering hierarchies of oppression within transness 

Once transness is involved, shit gets complicated. Simple responses of "misandry doesn't exist because men have the power" assume transmasculine people have access to the same privileges as average cis men when frequently they don't. 

One of the saddest things about being someone who talks about this is that i regularly get transmasculine people giving heartfelt thanks for the smallest mentions of their needs & concerns bc they're so used to transfeminine people ignoring their existence or being antagonistic 

We need to do better. I refuse for some of us trans people to base our fights for equality and justice by stepping on the needs of other trans people. 

I see transfeminine people I care about and respect who will sometimes share "let's make a world without men" type things and like I have had these feelings too, I struggle under misogyny and have a bunch of bad experiences with (cis, especially but not exclusively) men. *and*- 

- i've seen too many of my transmasculine siblings' hurt as they are constantly lumped into "just as bad as cis men" baskets (which I also have feelings about but is a larger topic I think) & have heard from too many transmasculine people who have spent years in denial bc of this 

I've heard from too many transmasculine people who have put off transitioning, tried to avoid accepting their gender, because they internalized the constant stream of this shit. And I love trans people too fucking much to keep letting it go. 

I get that for many of our communities there can be some incredible trauma around masculinity, either because it was enforced on us against our will or due to violence and/or sexual assault. And i don't debate the validity of that trauma. 

And also we can't extrapolate our trauma into "this segment of trans people, by virtue of their gender, is worth less (or worthless)". 

I mean if we want to dig into it, a lot of us transfeminine people get attacked by transphobes under the auspices of trauma regarding specific genitals or gender expressions or body types. And most of us can agree that their trauma doesn't mean they get to denigrate us. 

Honestly I'm tired. And also I acknowledge that my tiredness about this cannot be even a mild fraction of the exhaustion of the trans people targeted and erased by this must be. 

So I'm calling on y'all and asking you to please do better by *all* trans people. I get the joy and relief in venting about men. I do. We live in a misogynistic society and a lot of us suffer under the hands of a specific gender and sometimes we need an outlet. 

But at the very least please be aware of when your venting is in a public space where it *is* going to harm and affect others, and specifically other trans people (since I don't have the spoons to get into a larger discussion about cis men currently) 

Know that every time we make vent-jokes (or not jokes) about how everyone who is masculine is worthless to us, we are directly damaging other trans people, and possibly painfully forcing some to deny themselves or stay closeted because who would want to become The Enemy, right? 

And I feel like I *have* to keep talking about this because if transmasc people stick up for themselves, I see how often they get shot down as just another "not all men" concern troll or like they're trying to talk over feminine people 

Hell I've seen threads where a transmasc person starts the thread to talk about transmasc issues and *still* people have declared it derailing or speaking over others. How do we address their oppression if they aren't allowed to discuss it anywhere? 

So as a transfeminine person I've got allyship privilege here where I may be condemned as having internalized misogyny or being an assimilationist or something but at least I can't be seen as just another dude talking over women

(i use the binary language there thoughtfully bc a lot of these Us vs Them dichotomies tend to erase nonbinary people or pretend that all nonbinary people are centre or feminine of centre on the gender spectrum) 

Just. Do better. Please. Like. Just listen to transmasculine people with an open heart for a bit and hear the intense transphobia and discrimination they also face and consider the impact of your words on them. 

It sucks to see people who are generally caring and thoughtful about many types of oppression just.. Let it all go when a chance to lump transmasc people in with The Enemy comes up. 

Addendum: I've had a couple people express concern that I'm saying that transfeminine people shouldn't address when they are facing transmisogyny from transmasculine people and I hope that it is clear that isn't what I am saying at all. 

Transmasculine people can be transmisogynistic, absolutely! I've had experiences with that too. What this thread is about is the fact that for *some* people, transmasculine people as a whole are considered less marginalized by dint of their masculinity and it isn't that simple. 

So saying broad statements about transmasculine people isn't "punching up". Its horizontal violence if it's coming from other trans people or can be punching down if it's coming from cis people. That is what this thread is meant to address. 

By all means we should be discussing and addressing transmisogyny. But transmasculine people discussing the specifics of their own concerns isn't in and of itself transmisogyny. We do no one any favours by trying to silence that. 

This thread isn't about transfeminine people never speaking ill of transmasculine people or vice versa. Its about calling-in a specific subset of transfeminine communities for treating transmasculine people as a whole as disposable and The Enemy.

[irregularcollapse]

I don’t know that this review will be as coherent as I promised, because I’m not sure that I can organise my thoughts about MANHUNT by Gretchen Felker-Martin. Maybe the long and short of it is: trans women deserve the world.

MANHUNT is an apocalyptic horror set in a world where a virus infects anyone with high enough testosterone levels and turns them into rabid monsters. Beth and Fran are two trans women who hunt down these feral men, harvesting their testicles for one of the most readily available sources of oestrogen. A harrowing accident brings them together with Robbie, a trans man living in isolation and picking off the packs of feral men who cross his path. The three must fight for their lives against not only the monsters created by the virus, but those who would seek to exploit them, and the army of murderous TERFs set on taking over everything.

This book was written in response to that horrible genre of gender-based apocalypse fiction that fails to account for trans people, but above everything it feels like a love letter to trans women. These characters are rendered so tenderly, so carefully, and your heart will just break for them. I’ve been musing a bit lately on the loneliness of queerness, even once you’ve found community, and I think that Felker-Martin captures this feeling perfectly. It is also an astute portrait of the TERF “movement” and rhetoric, words lifted directly from their mouths; the stretch to outright violence is not so implausible as people may think.

This book does what all good horror should do, which is to present the face of humanity. Yes, it’s gory. Yes, it’s gruesome. But it is written with absolute love for these three trans characters, who are all so complex and beautifully realised. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a hopeful book, because there is definitely a bleakness here and it is clear that even the strongest spirit can be broken by relentless violence. There is love here, and humour, and affection and solidarity, but there is horror. There is tragedy.

I didn’t think the apocalyptic horror with balls on the cover would make my heart ache so much, but here we are.

[book reviews at lesbeebooks on instagram]

[jockpoetry]

supernatural sees women as a tool for development and strengthening of narratives/motivation and dean sees his body as a tool. is that anything?

When I saw this ask I really made the 🥴in real life. So, yeah anon, I do think there’s something to this.

Quick Disclaimer before I actually launch into my thoughts™: A lot of my read of Dean stems from my experience as both an oldest daughter and a transman. Being the oldest daughter was an experience I lived for many years, but I am also a man. I wasn’t raised as a man, I wasn’t socialized as a man, and even though once I came out upon reflection my masculinity was obviously there. Like I was a man™ before I knew I was a man. Even when I actively tied my identity to femininity for a long time! A lot of my prideful moments were based around statements like: “I was the only girl who (fill in the blank).” 

So I am just putting that out there before I launch into my spiel about Dean/Gender/Tool because they all interlock for me. 

I am also going to apologize in advance because I know this has fully gone off the rails and I’m not even done writing it yet. If this is incomprehensible ! Well, happens to the best of us.

First off, most importantly I guess before we discuss womanhood and Dean and the way both are utilized on the show I need to say that I personally don’t subscribe the whole Dean is female coded thing. 

It’s a read I can absolutely understand. But for me..he’s not. 

He’s a hypermasculine man to the point that when (and because he is written as a punchline, as the stupid™ brother, as the whore™, as the mother/father™, as daddy’s blunt instrument™, etc) Dean deviates from the pre-accepted definition of hypermasculine it’s Wrong. 

It’s Instantly Feminine. 

I think the internet has made the world very black and white, or blue and pink maybe. This point, I think, colors a lot of these discussions. Dean cooks, he cleans and so therefor he’s female coded. When that really just feeds back into the whole toxic masculinity loop. You can’t be masculine and cook and clean and cry. That’s for feminine people only. 

I get the argument! I do, I just think that Dean’s actions are not inherently feminine, it’s just in the vacuum of Female and in the Absence of Traditional Masculinity it makes sense to assign him female coded and move on.

IN FACT the way that Dean is the action hero of the show, the Masculine™ one on the show - but he cries, and he rages, and he cooks (Again and Again) and cleans (Again and Again). The fact he’s macho and confident but he has so little self esteem. Is frankly insane to me. You have this blaze of glory character who is so depressed that they have him kill himself. Twice. In explicitly “I hate myself, I hate hearing all the things I hate about myself, I want to destroy myself” ways. 

On just a regular ol’ network show that is just ungodly bad at times. They let their Male Hero cry - all the time (if I linked every example of this the essay would be...longer than it already is, but just take my word for it). Dean tears up and grieves and shows more than just Angry Horny Violent™ (he shows plenty of that, don’t get me wrong) but he’s Emotional (Again and Again and Again). In many different ways!

I mean, beyond even just tearing up, they make their Male Hero™ face sexual violence in pretty, uniquely horrifying - and queer! - ways.

Let’s make it clear, they did a lot of this unintentionally. 

Or they do it as a joke. 

Off of dean for a moment to say women are plot devices in this show. I could probably count on one hand female characters who have sincere depth to them that have roles outside of progressing plot, filling a filler episode, and who are still alive. Like even characters such as Charlie who are wholly developed, and interesting, are only remembered/mentioned/utilized to progress plots or fill an episode out - and then she dies. For pain™ for plot™ for no other reason than to traumatize a character. 

Which let’s also make it clear Dean’s trauma is also only used as a plot device (as is Sam’s but in a different way, and Cas’ trauma is a whole other barrel of fish we’re not gonna dive into right now). Like wholesale full stop they don’t actually care about what happened to him. Unless it’s relevant in an episode. 

Oh that boys home he was left at when he was 16 for months? Sure we’ll sprinkle that in in the back half of the series. Oh he was covered in bruises and said it was from a hunt (when it’s clear contextually they were from his father but saying the fantastical but true is easier than saying the uncomfortable but true). As Dean says though the story became the story, he was sixteen. He just went along with what John said.

We only see Dean ever truly rage at John, by the way, when either Dean is dead (when he’s between life and death and he rages at John, right before John “apologizes” for traumatizing him, for putting too much on Dean’s shoulders, and fucking dying) or John is dead (the Djinn episode where Dean is straight™ and John is dead™ and he goes to his grave and just yells and rages like he should have to his father in the real world).

Dean’s trauma from being both tortured and torturer in hell? Yeah, we don’t talk about that after it’s Relevant™. Even though it’s clear - especially in the demon!dean, mark of cain era, all those years later - Alastair still has his hooks inside of Dean. I stopped watching originally after s8 ended. I was fed up with the show, and with this whole renaissance I’ve been doing a rewatch and I’m into season twelve now and it really has never come up again. 

Even when he had the mark of cain and he was tasked with questioning and accused of torturing it was “the mark has changed you” and not “you were victim and victimizer in hell for forty years, which is longer than you’ve been alive on earth” (and, was about as long as he wound up living. Which is desperately sad.

Because we talk about Sam’s desire for a “normal” life but, Dean wanted out too. He was tired in the first few seasons of this show, he never had a chance to taste freedom (we don’t count the boys home, because that was a different kind of regimented life, and it was a false freedom) the way that Sam did in Flagstaff with Bones or at Stanford with Jessica. Love for Dean is sacrificing, it’s putting himself/his happiness/his well-being last.

Because Dean only knows love in the context of violence (like all of these fun examples, for starters) is a phrase that I’ve said a lot both in private chats and on here, and I absolutely think it goes to him being a tool (a blunt instrument, a plot device, so both textually and metatextually) instead of a person. Which Cas sees Dean’s shame/guilt and sees that side of Dean because he touched his soul, and saw more than just the Righteous™ man, more than just the tool, he saw A good man, not a machine. 

On the other side though you have how “bad guys” view Dean: Desperate, Sloppy, Needy, Dean’s hole (Again), which is again so wildly counterintuitive to the story of a Macho Man Hero™. You’re using vocabulary that is both queering him and feminizing (and I know this a meme format, but sincerely it is done in a derogatory way it is feminizing. It’s breaking him down to bare parts, to a sloppy hole). 

My whole rewatch I have been absolutely fascinated by how identity and free will is utilized/conceptualized on this show. Castiel has been my main focus, but Dean and how he is framed by himself and others is...fascinating - and frustrating. The writers inconsistency lends itself not only to this unintentionally queer character, but also one that again is incredibly easily read as a non-traditionally masculine character.

As a feminine character.

This show has so few female characters that of course it had to foist the roles/behaviors/plots that a female character might have onto a male character. Which I think is part of why reading Dean as trans (either transmasc, or transfemme) is so easily done like.   

Half of these are shit posts, but you can find trans allegories/textual evidence in this show again, again, again, again, and again. And this is unintentional, they don’t want you to look at Dean and see woman, former future or present. Like a lot of these I’m sure are punchlines for them, because women/queer folk are punchlines to them. 

Sometimes the only women in an episode are random witnesses who get two sentences of dialogue, and then the main guest character is a man. Who flirts with Dean, and Dean is receptive to it. 

They paint themselves into a corner, there are female Rabbi. So easily could Aaron have been a woman instead of a man, but they made the choice to play up the HaHa Dean & Men card. 

Because, again, Dean has filled the slot of Woman™ of Female Lead™ and the flirting would’ve been straight if Dean was a woman. It’s a plot device, they needed to have the guest character be disarming, be cute, make the main character flustered. 

It’s just the main character is a man, because they’re allergic to women. But they still need those female plots, tools of femininity, to move their show forward. I mean I am a big subscriber to transmasc Jo (no idea if anyone else is with me on this one, but let me explain). Jo is in love with Dean (concept) not Dean (actuality). Which, we’ve all had our eggs cracked by someone like that. We were in love with them until we realized we just wanted to be them.

He loved her like a little sister, she loved him like a lost idol. He’s a golden calf and she dies for him, because she believed in him, she was the original character dashed at the altar of the Winchesters. 

I fully believe if she had lived and if this show had a crumb of actual good writing Jo could have been a deeply compelling transmasc character. But I also think she’s a fascinating inversion of Dean. Dean is a Masculine Character who subverts Toxic Masculinity, Jo is a Tomboy™ she’s not your (if you take it straight, literally and metaphorically) average female love interest. She’s angry, she’s not soft at all, all edges and corners and thorns. She isn’t helpless, she’s stubborn but not in a “you’re going to get punished for this” way. She’s right when she’s stubborn. She’s helpful, she’s a martyr. 

I could do a whole other essay just on Jo (and Ellen, and Ash, what a fucking trio!) but needless to say Jo was one of the first...plot device feminine tools sacrificed to this show. She was a regular, she was unique, she was an engaging character, and she still died (to progress the plot? no. for man pain? yeah, for like three episodes maybe, and then it’s forgotten just like the rest of Dean’s trauma, as we mentioned above). 

Dean and Women and Love is a very interesting tool used too because. Boy they sure try to make Dean love women and it fails in small ways, and in big, meaningless, failed het domesticity (again) ways. Not to mention whatever Lust (in the form of a woman) having no effect upon him, when they could have used that moment to assert his Masculinity and Heterosexuality. He behaved normally? And...also...whatever the fuck the Adios thing was!

Like they have these opportunities to make him Traditionally (toxically) Masculine, but make the choice to...not? To soften him. Because it’s a tool. He’s their female lead, textually he had to take on the role of mother(/father) to Sam, but...I mean this is a million miles long already. I know, but we absolutely can’t not talk about his Paternal/Maternal behaviors. (Which appear again and again again and again, outside of his relationship with Sam even/especially). He’s the mother hen, sage, safety net, beacon, home to so many side characters they meet.

I mean in many ways Jody is also a Dean comparison. Lost her family. Found a new family. She is non-traditionally feminine, but easily flustered and Silly™ (let’s just drop the entire sex talk over family dinner scene with Alex and the boys and looking to them for help, even though she was already a mother, and she’s a cop, and a hunter and this confident no nonsense individual.... She’s not). We are meant to see her as this hard ass, but she makes extra food for the boys to take back to the bunker. She’s deadly in a fight, but also still easily overwhelmed and put into damsel mode, and she cares so much even in the face of adversity.

It’s also fun to see how Jo | Jody are reflections of Dean at different points of his life. Younger, cocky | Older, settled.

Even when the text tries to tell us that he’s not.

When it reminds us that he’s violent. That he is his father, even if he says that Sam is more like John (which was reflexive, which was angry because of Adam and how Sam was behaving like Dean in that episode, and yes there are parallels to be drawn between Sam and John, the show barely dives into them). Instead we’re told that Dean is John (Again and  Again and Again and Again). 

So intensely that a fanfictionalized version of the Winchester Gospels makes it an entire fucking musical number. 

And yet, despite the texts insistence to make Dean Macho Man Father Reborn™ We get this Dean who is silly (and directly compared/contrasted to the female character in this scene), soft, in heels, nagging, and... Sully (you know Sam’s imaginary friend who has the same Haircut Dean has, who is a softer, shorter, friendlier, campier, version of Dean who was a replacement For Dean until the real one let Sam back in? That? Sully?) it’s hard to take them seriously. 

Hell, even when he was A DEMON? What did they do? They had him sing off-key drunken karaoke, they had him doing this ! Like that’s your hero, unhinged, free to be as bad as he could be, and you put him in a cowboy hat in a romance with the king of hell. 

The Female Lead, everyone. Who’s biggest betrayal(s) comes at the hands of his love interest (again, a man even though it was an angel who could’ve taken any vessel! who could’ve been recast, who canonically dies admitting his love to Dean - that one), who he tries so hard to be loyal to. 

The contradictions of his character are laughable. He is so emotional, but if he is engaged about his emotions? He shuts down, or he’s exasperated about being asked about them. It really is Female Lead/Only Here For The Plot disease, because everything is more important than him. How’s he doing? Doesn’t matter outside of the context of how x character is doing or that y character is dead. Or his emotions only matter if they’re done in penance. 

They also really do frame him as Pretty Boy™ in a violent way, or in a derogatory manner. They’ll give us homoerotic shots like this or these and never really acknowledge how these are gay shots. Sorry the gun scene is a a straight up sex scene, the beer sip spilling out over his mouth is oral, the scene where Cas fills up Dean’s glass with whisky is also a sex scene, they do this shit on purpose but accidentally queer it up. If Dean was a woman these scenes wouldn’t even matter. They’d be passing moments, but because he is not just a man but A Man™ they’re insane to see.

Not to mention all of these scenes and all the ones I haven’t linked where Dean dresses up. He performs masculinity, but he performs femininity too. He’s a plot device that is slotted in to whatever role they need. He’s Super Straight Butch Man™ but coaches the lesbian on how to successfully flirt with a man. He’s Action Hero™ who sits through a montage with the same lesbian and yays and nays her outfits, and enjoys himself.

Fuck he loves dressing up, he feels better in these costumes because performing a character is easier than being himself. Because who is Dean? He’s a tool, both textually and metatextually. It is exactly how the women and because of the women on the show that Dean is the way that he is. If there was a more steady female presence Dean would not be half as much of a plot device or half as camp/gay/feminine/non-traditionally masculine/queer coded as he is. 

In conclusion....

[robininthelabyrinth]

My prompt is just more trans au. Various people reacting to baobei. Just i love trans au so much thank u for this gift.

Baobai Pt 1 - on tumblr, on ao3

-

“Oh, hey, you have a kid,” Wei Wuxian said, out of lack of any other conversational topics that weren’t ‘so are you here to kill us all?’. Kids were usually a good, neural topic, especially when they were that small. “Look at her, she’s so tiny! Her parents know you brought her out here?”

“She’s da-ge’s,” Lan Xichen said with a smile and a nod towards Nie Mingjue, who as tall and terrifying as always. He was glowering at the half-grown radish fields as if he was personally offended by them.

“Congratulations, Chifeng-zun,” Wei Wuxian said to him, hoping to stave off any impending violence. The baby was young enough that the mom was probably still in isolation recovering, and maybe hadn’t consented to said baby being brought to the Burial Mounds of all places - certainly Wei Wuxian wouldn’t have agreed to cart a small infant all the way from Qinghe, and he’d thought mothers preferred to remain near their children in the few months after birth - but Wei Wuxian was not really in a position to object.

Certainly not after the quick work Nie Mingjue’s saber made of all of his defensive arrays. That man was scary.

“Thank you,” Nie Mingjue said, and it was awkward for a moment until he added, “Pain in the ass to acquire.”

That made everything better: Wei Wuxian knew how to deal with snark. “Oh yeah? Carried her yourself, did you?”

“Ten fucking months,” Nie Mingjue said, and Wei Wuxian laughed and shot Lan Xichen a wink, figuring that his stupid joke about having given birth to A-Yuan had made the rounds. Funny, he wouldn’t have pegged Lan Wangji to be the sort of person to pass on jokes…

At that point, Nie MIngjue twisted his head around to look at Wen Ning and Wen Qing, who were hovering nearby, trying to hide A-Yuan behind their legs, and said, “She’s your cousin three times removed, if I have my family tree down right, so stop being queasy and let the kid come see her.”

“Fuck,” Wen Qing said, and abruptly sat down. “I’m sorry.”

Wei Wuxian had the distinct feeling he was missing something, especially when Wen Ning’s expression shifted from equally puzzled to outright horrified.

“It’s not exactly your fault, you’re not soldiers,” Nie Mingjue said, and glared at the radish field again. “But in all seriousness: let the kid see her.”

Wen Qing waved a vague hand at A-Yuan, who correctly interpreted it as permission and zoomed over to the baby as fast as his little legs could carry him. He was in that another-kid-how-cool phase that all kids had, and babies were a particular fascination.

“You’re cousins?” Wei Wuxian asked Nie Mingjue, feeling a bit weird about. Three times removed wasn’t close, but still…of all people...“With the Wen sect? You?”

Nie Huaisang made a strangled noise that from anyone else Wei Wuxian would have said sounded a bit like he was going to imminently stab someone.

Nie Mingjue just gave Wei Wuxian a look like he was an idiot. 

“No,” he said very slowly. “I’m not.”

Wei Wuxian continued not to get it, right up until he glanced at Wen Ning who mouthed a name at him and – wait, but no, that’s impossible – but he’d have to be – wait, he was from Qinghe –

Wei Wuxian suddenly noticed that he had sat down on the ground as well at some point.

“Pain in the ass,” he said blankly. “Right.”

Nie Huaisang was glaring at him like he really was going to pull out his never-used saber to start chopping Wei Wuxian into bits, and honestly that might be a preferable option to the sheer awkwardness of having just put two and two together like that in front of so many people. Maybe he could use demonic cultivation to open the ground up beneath him? It’d never been done before, but then again, that was most things he did…

“Why are people so weird about babies?” Nie Mingjue complained, picking up the baby in one arm and a giggling and blissfully ignorant A-Yuan in the other, swinging them both around a bit. “They’re like – lumps of little people. We were all babies once. It’s not that weird.”

“You heard him,” Jin Guangyao said to Wei Wuxian with a smile that looked like it had daggers in it. “It’s not weird at all. Right?”

“Right!” Wei Wuxian said hastily.

Apparently scary people flocked together. Though, did that mean there something he was missing about Lan Xichen..?

-

Lan Xichen smiled at Jin Guangyao, who smiled back. That was really the only good thing about these discussion conferences, he thought – they were long and draining and he had to meet a lot of people he didn’t want to see (Sect Leader Yao ranked highly), but he got to spend a great deal of time with his sworn brothers, which he didn’t often manage. And, really, that made everything worth it.

“How are things going?” he asked in an undertone, scanning Jin Guangyao with his eyes. Madame Jin did not have the reputation for being a kind woman, especially not about her husband’s affairs, and he couldn’t help but worry.

“Manageable,” Jin Guangyao assured him, though it wasn’t really that comforting. “It helps that this conference isn’t at Jinlin Tower – less to arrange, less work to fall on my shoulders. It’s positively easy by comparison. When did you arrive? We’ve been here for a shichen already, setting up.”

“Just now. They’re still moving our things into our rooms –”

“Er-ge! San-ge!” Nie Huaisang’s voice rang out, sharp and clear and murderous; they both turned to look at him at once to try to determine if it was the sort of murderous that meant someone had bought out a painting he’d liked before he got there or if it someone had actually offended him. He had a fixed smile on his face, which boded no one any good. “I was just looking for you. I want to chat.”

“What happened?” Lan Xichen asked, looking around – they were more or less alone, and a quick hand-seal made it so that they wouldn’t be easily overheard. “Did someone do something to Baobei…?”

He couldn’t believe they still hadn’t named her, the poor thing.

(Jin Guangyao had briefly been lobbying for them to name her A-Shi, but then Nie Mingjue told him that if he wanted to have a girl named Nie Shi he ought to man up and sire her himself, and ever since then Jin Guangyao had been proposing different names entirely. Possibly he was concerned Nie Mingjue would take back the offer if he used up the name.)

“Surely not,” Jin Guangyao said. “In the middle of the Lotus Pier…?”

“Not Baobei,” Nie Huaisang said. “But your father just figured out who carried her, and he just – he put his hands – he said he had the right to check on account of da-ge having misled them –”

Lan Xichen observed, a little distantly, that he’d previously thought that the phrase ‘seeing red’ was an exaggeration, rather than a perfectly accurate description.

“Did da-ge rip him to pieces?” Jin Guangyao asked, sounding as if he was very much in favor of that result.

“He did not,” Nie Huaisang said. “You know how he is during these conferences; he’s far too reserved. Slapped his hands away but didn’t do anything else about it.”

“Surely that would put an end to it…?” Lan Xichen suggested, mildly hopeful, but the expression on Jin Guangyao and Nie Huaisang’s face did not fill him with much expectation.

“He’ll try something,” Jin Guangyao said flatly. His voice tremored briefly, full of rage even he couldn’t hide, and he gripped his hands together tightly. “He will try something.”

“Sect Leader Jiang will help us keep them separate for the conference,” Nie Huaisang said. “He still hasn’t figured out the details of Baobei’s parentage, I think he’s convinced himself that men just bear children – in some way that man is as dumb as a rock, same as when we were teenagers, I don’t know how anyone is that gullible – but he’s offended on da-ge’s behalf anyway. But when the conference is over for the evening…”

“It would be unfilial of me to plan my own father’s assassination,” Jin Guangyao said, and his eyes slide towards Lan Xichen, questioning. “But if you wanted to have a theoretical discussion regarding the security system at Jinlin Tower, and the weaknesses thereof…”

“Yes,” Lan Xichen said, putting aside all concerns regarding the morality of assassinations, and found that he didn’t regret the decision one bit. He’d barely tolerated that lecher when he had no choice, when he was Jin Guangyao’s father and a powerful sect leader. But putting his hands on da-ge – thinking of doing more – “Let’s have that...theoretical discussion.”

“I knew I could count on you two,” Nie Huaisang said with satisfaction. “So here’s what I was thinking –”

-

One of the worst days of Nie Huaisang’s life started quite normally – waking up when his brother lifted him bodily out of bed and slung him over his shoulder.

“Da-ge!” he yelped. “Da-ge, no – it’s too early –”

“If you stayed up late, that’s your own problem,” his brother said with the sort of purposeful cheerful sadism that only a person who actually enjoyed waking up with the sun to go train could employ. “I told you yesterday that we were going to be training this morning.”

“But da-ge –”

“You missed the last three days. You’re not missing today.”

But it’s so fucking early, Nie Huaisang thought despairingly, drooping into dead weight over his brother’s shoulder – not that that helped, of course. His brother was too damn strong.

“Are you sure you’re not taking out your feelings about getting fat on me?” he asked, poking at his brother’s somewhat-rounder-than-usual waist. “That peacetime bulge of yours hasn’t gotten any smaller, you know…”

In all honestly, Nie Huaisang was delighted by the small swell of his brother’s usually flat stomach. His brother wasn’t vain – his body was a tool shaped for purpose – and the idea that his brother had finally let go enough, whether by eating more or resting more, to actually gain some weight…

“Whatever you say, pork bun,” his brother said, and Nie Huaisang yelped and hit him because he was not a pork bun! No matter how pale or chubby he might become!

It was a hot day, which of course made going through the steps of training even more miserable than usual. His brother was patient as always, showing him the steps and then making him repeat them a few times before starting up his own morning training routine; after a while, they both got into a nice rhythm, swings and chops.

Training wasn’t that bad, especially when it meant he could spend more time with his always-busy brother. He still didn’t like it, and obviously he had a reputation to uphold, and yes, it was obnoxious to get up early...but it could be worst.

And then, just as Nie Huaisang was turning to tell his brother a joke he’d heard the day before, he saw his brother abruptly turn pale and fall over.

He even dropped Baxia.

“Da-ge!” Nie Huaisang screamed, a thousand ancient fears rearing their heads at once, and he rushed over at top speed. “Someone get a doctor! Quick!”

Not a qi deviation, not a qi deviation, don’t be a qi deviation, he prayed, dropping to his knees next to his brother, who was already waking up – eyes clear, not red, and looking more confused than anything else. He’s too young, I’m not ready, I can’t lose him, not him, not yet, please –

On Nie Huaisang’s instructions, some of the nearby retainers helped Nie Mingjue back inside, even though he was insisting that he was fine.

“You collapsed,” Nie Huaisang snapped at him. “In morning training. You are going to see a doctor, and that’s final.”

Nie Mingjue held up his hands in surrender, looking amused at Nie Huaisang’s uncharacteristic fierceness. His amusement faded into sympathy when he realized why Nie Huaisang was so tense – their father’s death had hit them both hard – and he pulled Nie Huaisang into his arms for a hug.

“It’s not that,” he said confidently. “Not yet. The doctor will tell you.”

The doctor’s face did something funny, though, when he listened to Nie Mingjue’s pulse. Not the oh-no-it-really-is-a-minor-qi-deviation sort of funny or even a nah-total-fluke-you’re-overreacting sort of funny, more of a what-the-fuck sort of funny.

“What is it?” Nie Huaisang demanded. He knew enough medicine – the entire Nie sect knew enough medicine – to understand most basic diagnoses, as well as what they might mean for future health. “What type of pulse?”

The doctor hesitated.

“Well?” Nie Mingjue said. “Spit it out.”

“…a joy pulse,” the doctor said. “About five months, I’d guess.”

For a moment Nie Huaisang didn’t understand. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what a joy pulse was – he did have female friends, some of whom were now mothers – nor that he didn’t know that his brother was capable of carrying, he’d known that forever.

It was just that his brother was an antisocial misanthrope. He didn’t have any lovers, as far as Nie Huaisang knew, which meant he shouldn’t have a joy pulse. 

Besides, five months ago they were still at war! His brother took his duties far too seriously to waste time on a battlefield dallying with someone, anyone, and especially not if there was a major battle around that time. Five months ago there must have been one – which one was it?

Five months…the main force of the army had gone up from Xingtai to Shijiazhuang six months ago, and then there would have been – Yangquan.

Yangquan.

When his brother had been duped by false information into leading an attack on what should have been a mostly abandoned outpost, but which turned out to be in the middle of being reinforced by Wen Ruohan personally – when his brother had been captured – tortured – and even -

“Shit,” his brother said, presumably realizing at that exact moment that Nie Huaisang was capable of math and also dates and possibly even logic. “Doctor, you can go, thank you.”

Nie Huaisang didn’t even hear the doctor leave.

“Huaisang…didi…” His brother was trying to pull him into a hug, but Nie Huaisang didn’t want one, struggling unsuccessfully to get away. He didn’t want to be any closer to – to that – to the creature sitting his brother’s stomach, weighing him down; to what he’d thought was a sign of peace and good times and what was actually nothing more than yet another scar left by the war.

He’d actually been happy about it, and the thought twisted his stomach.

“Can you get rid of it?” he asked, voice strangled. “You can, right? It’s still early…”

“Five months is pretty close to quickening,” his brother said, wincing. “After quickening, the medicines don’t work as well. It might not be that easy.”

“Do you know how dangerous childbirth is?!” Nie Huaisang demanded. His mouth was moving on automatic; he wasn’t even thinking about what he was saying. He wasn’t thinking of anything, anything at all, because if he was thinking he’d have to think – he’d have to – his brother – “What if it kills you? You can’t let them kill you! Not after everything we did to avenge A-die!”

“I’m not going to die,” Nie Mingjue said, holding him tightly, his chin on Nie Huaisang’s head the way they always where when they hugged. “I’m a very good cultivator, Huaisang. My golden core will keep me healthy, even if I start bleeding…it won’t be like your mother. I promise.”

Nie Huaisang started shaking. “Da-ge,” he whimpered, pressing his face into his brother’s shoulder. “Da-ge, tell me…”

“Anything,” his brother promised, and he’d regret that promise in another moment, Nie Huaisang knew, the question would only cause him pain, but he needed to know. The second they were out of this situation his brother would clam up, pretend that nothing had happened and that it was all fine, so if he had questions – and he did – then he needed to answer them now.

“Was it – who was it? Was it him?”

His brother stilled.

“You said you’d tell me,” Nie Huaisang reminded him.

“…I don’t know,” his brother said. “I don’t – it could be. But it might be – someone else.”

There had been more than one, then. Nie Huaisang swallowed back bile, wanting to be sick. His father’s murderer had forced himself on his brother, and he’d let others do the same, and now they had to deal with the fallout.

“I want to kill them,” he whispered. “I want – I want them dead – all of them –”

“If it’s anything, I’ve made a pretty good head start on that already?” his brother offered, and of course his brother was trying to find some levity in a terrible situation. “We broke them, Huaisang. Even if some individuals remain, there’s no Wen sect left. If I do end up keeping it, the child won’t have a paternal family to lay a claim – they’ll be surnamed Nie. Another Nie, like you and me. You’ll be their uncle; you have to forgive them, it wasn’t their fault...you have to spoil them rotten.”

His brother’s thumb wiped away some of Nie Huaisang’s tears.

“You’ll be a good uncle, didi,” he murmured, pressing his lips to Nie Huaisang’s brow. “If the child is surnamed Nie, that’s all that matters.”

“People will know,” Nie Huaisang pointed out. “About you, about…I’m not the only one who can do math. We won’t…it can’t be kept quiet, can it? People will know. About you, about - what happened.”

“Let people know,” his brother, brave as ever, said with an indifferent shrug. “What do I care? In the end, it’s just another way to show that even when they threw everything they had against me, I still won.”

-

“What a charming child you have,” the young man from the mountain – Xiao Xingchen, he said his name was, and he was already famous despite having only been around for a few months – said, smiling down at her. “She’s beautiful.”

Nie Mingjue was not currently feeling especially kindly disposed towards human reproduction at the moment, being currently heavy with his second – the world needed more Nies, he wanted more Nies, children to keep Nie Huaisang company if that qi deviation he was promised ever actually turned up, and he had a very good list of cultivators with various pros and cons willing to help him introduce some more diversity into the Nie bloodline to try to minimize the chance of future qi deviations for his descendants, but at the same time he hated waddling around like a stuffed hippo with a bunch of people insisting that he not even think of physical exertion – but he nodded his thanks regardless.

At least for once someone wasn’t going to comment about the child’s parentage, he reflected wryly. There was only so much purposeful playing dumb a man could do, and the first year or so of his little baobei’s life – by the time they’d finally gotten around to trying to name her, the nickname had stick so firmly that they’d succumbed to reality and made her given name A-Bao, though of course, it being Qinghe, no one actually called her that – had really strained his tolerance in that specific regard. 

It was the quickest way to avoid awkwardness, to pass along the information while avoiding conversations he didn’t want to have, but still…

Nobody brought up on a celestial mountain would know about Wen Ruohan, though. He was pretty sure of that.

“And I see you’re expecting another? Sometime soon..?”

“I am,” Nie Mingjue said. “Soon enough.”

Not soon enough. He wanted to go back to training – why did he keep getting high blood pressure no matter how much medicine he took?

“I see,” Xiao Xingchen said. “You’ll have to let me give you a gift of some sort. Do you have a favorite form of cloth?”

Nie MIngjue blinked at him. “Cloth?”

That was a strange gift. Did Xiao Xingchen think that his sect was so poor that he couldn’t cloth a child?

Xiao Xingchen – who was really quite young – blushed red, the color going all the way to his ears.

“I’m sorry for my presumption,” he said, then hesitated, before saying, very delicately, “Have you finished preparing the nest for the egg, then?”