#with real acknowledgments of queer gender and sexuality

[silent-partner-412]

it’s sort of beautiful how stardew valley, a game made by a straight/cis man that is fairly heteronormative in a lot of ways, has become so beloved by queer people because of the few ways concerned ape chose to be inclusive. the fact that you can marry any marriage candidate as either gender was huge for me as a kid. the fact that several marriage candidates get special dialogue depending on if you’re a male or female farmer is really great, ca didn’t have to do that but he did. also, ca has completely embraced the modding scene, stating that one of the main goals of 1.6 was to make modding easier, which is an implicit acknowledgment that if there are parts of the game’s content that you wish were different, he himself supports you with open arms.

yeah, most of the writing itself is fairly hetero focused (and white, for that matter). all the pairs at the flower dance are hetero whether it makes sense or not, there’s no in game gay couples unless you yourself choose to marry the same gender, and any references to relationships in the game not focused on your farmer are almost always heterosexual, not to mention there’s really not a lot of genderqueerness period in the game. but honestly, i’m not too beaten up over it. i imagine ca probably wanted to stay in his lane while being as inclusive as possible, which i think he more or less succeeded at. i mean, no matter which way you slice it, this game is so meaningful to me as a gay boy and it probably always will be. the slight blemishes on the queerness of the game certainly don’t outweigh that for me.

[heating-element]

The problem with the concept of male socialisation is that it is based on a premise that is fundamentally innacurate, i.e. the assumption that your were raised as a Man and therefor your are, in action and thought at least, more or less a Man and in order to stop being a Man you have to remove this fundamentally Masculine thing that was somehow instilled in you

And yes, it is accurate that there is a series of processes in amab childrens lives that attempts to condition them into whatever their culture of masculinity is, but what it doesn't acknowledge is that the fundamental purpose of this is that you are meant to come out of it with an ability to perform whatever social function it is that designates you as a Man in your culture. That's male socialisation. It's the thing that allows you to signal to Proper Men that you are also a Proper Man so you don't face any consequences. However, when you are not a Proper Man, this is more or less impossible.

Male socialisation for transfems (and queer cis men to a lesser extent) is basically just a long series of friends, acquaintances, family members etc trying to shove you through a hole that you don't fit through. And there's only two things you can do, you can either cut bits of yourself off til you squeeze through, or you can just keep getting pushed, painfully and fruitlessly, and hope they give up.

And neither of these approaches actually works. Because of course, they aren't going to give up. Because, remember, a lot of these people pushing you actually like you. They think they're helping you. And in a way, they're not completely wrong, because being anything other than a Real Man is painful and difficult (largely due to these same people, but that's beside the point). So they aren't going to stop pushing you until you get away from them, a process that is difficult and painful and if you ever go back they will just start pushing again

But even if you shave away all the undesirable bits of yourself, and you cut your hair and grow a beard and wear the right clothes, it still doesn't work. Because you still don't fit right. And they know it. Sexuality and gender are two things that people have a very good sense for. And people will see it in everything. The way you walk, the way you speak, the way you hold a glass, the way you stand, the way your wrists move, the movies you like and the books you read and the colour of your shirt and how you style your hair and how you cut your nails and on and on and on. The very best you can hope for, after years and years of meticulous shaving away, is that you work yourself down from being a tranny to being a faggot. And sure, it is better to be a faggot, mostly, but you still aren't a Real Man. And so they'll keep pushing anyway.

Male socialisation is the process by which cis men become Men, but it's also the process by which transfems realise you aren't a Man, and you never will be, and people will always hate you for it. It isn't the process by which you gain some almighty Male Power, it's a process that uses that power against you because you can't wield it right

[lurkingshan]

A Brief History of Queer Representation in Modern Kdrama

Earlier this week, totally unrelated to Heesu in Class 2, @twig-tea and I were making a list of kdramas with proper queer representation, because Twig loves to track queer things and I love to make highly specific lists. In light of all the discussion around Heesu and its appeal to a mainstream kdrama audience, we thought it would be helpful to share as context for what Heesu’s creators set out to do, how it compares to Love in the Big City and its goals, and why both shows are so significant for those who are not as familiar with this media landscape. We wrote the below together (strap in, folks, it's a long one).

As always, let us be clear what we are talking about with this list. We’re only looking at modern mainstream kdrama, so this list is not inclusive of Korean queer cinema or QL dramas, both of which have a rich history of their own. And when we say queer representation, we mean canonically queer characters that are acknowledged as such in the text of the show, if not by saying the words, at least by openly acknowledging same sex attraction. If there’s anything we know about queer people on the internet, it’s that our community can read gay subtext into anything, but that’s not what we’re doing here. For this list we are only interested in depictions of LGBTQ+ people that are clear and spelled out for anyone watching a show.  In addition, for the purposes of this list we are talking about intentional inclusion of queer characters with a proper role in the story, not nominal nods to queer people existing (like every Hong Seok Cheon cameo in a drama), comedic gender bending without real reckoning with sexuality (ala The King’s Affection), use of queer people as the butt of a joke (glaring at you Vincenzo), queerness in psychosexual dreams to titillate and generate buzz (hiiiii Friendly Rivalry), or subtextual gay tension between two same sex actors who happen to have chemistry (waves hello to The Devil Judge). The point of this exercise is to chart the evolution of significant queer representation in kdrama—both good and bad—not to document every gay character that ever appeared for two seconds on screen. That said, while Shan has watched several hundred kdramas and Twig has tried to watch everything gay on the planet, it’s possible we missed something that should be here, so let us know if you think we did (though please do mind the criteria and don’t send us an impassioned essay about why Beyond Evil should count). 

With that, let’s begin our walk through of the last two decades of queer characters in kdrama. 

Coffee Prince (2007) 

Among the most famous dramas on this list, Coffee Prince kicked off queer rep in modern kdrama with a classic gender bender in which Go Eun Chan, a girl, pretends to be a boy for Reasons. But what made it stand out is that her love interest falls for her while he still thinks she’s a man and has a whole sexual identity crisis and bisexual coming out process. Choi Han Gyul (and Gong Yoo), you will always be famous! This show was sincerely groundbreaking, not only for depicting a male romance lead struggling with his sexuality, but also including lots of gender fuckery for the female lead. It’s still one of the most significant queer kdramas ever made.

Life is Beautiful (2010) 

This show is notable for how high it set the bar and how nothing has reached it since. Yang Tae Sub is our central character in this 63-hour ensemble family drama, and his arcs struggling with the closet, falling in love, coming out, commitment, and marriage (yes: marriage! In 2010!), are surprisingly realistic and touching without being too cliche. Kyung Soo and Tae Sub start as a casual hookup, and they have to recalibrate as their feelings change (and yes, they kiss on screen and the show is clear that they have sex throughout the series). They fight, they make up, and as their relationship deepens they have other problems in their lives they support one another through—their gayness is not the only or even the most interesting thing about them. It’s also notable that both of these actors (Song Chang Eui and Lee Sang Woo) were established kdrama stars before taking these roles. 

Secret Garden (2010)

This het romance features a side character (played by our beloved Lee Jong Suk) who is a young musical prodigy pursued for his talents by the second lead, a senior musician. Over the course of the story we learn that he’s gay and harboring feelings for his would-be mentor. His plot is minor, but he ends the story happy and successful in his career, if not in a relationship. It’s small scale representation in the grand scheme of things, but one of only a handful of decent depictions of a gay person in kdrama at that point.

Reply 1997 (2012) 

This wildly popular drama (at the time, it was one of the highest rated cable dramas in history) that spawned two follow-up iterations features a gay character, Joon Hee, who is in love with his long time best friend, Yoon Jae, and confides his feelings to their other best friend, Shi Won. Of course, this show is ultimately Yoon Jae and Shi Won’s love story, so Joon Hee does not get his happy romance ending, but his friends and the show treat him with kindness and compassion, and his character was well received by audiences. 

Reply 1994 (2013)

Similar to its predecessor, this drama featured a side character with a gay subplot, but this time it was more about questioning his identity. Bingguere is a character whose arc is all about his confusion and indecision, and that extended to his sexuality when he struggled to understand his attraction to the male lead. Ultimately, he moves past those feelings and we learn his partner in the future is a woman, and the drama doesn’t really clarify where his sexuality landed. It’s kind of weak in terms of explicit queer rep, but showing a man grappling with his sexuality in a very popular family drama still feels significant.

Seonam Girls High School Investigations (2014) 

While most of their content is limited to two episodes of this 14-episode high school drama, Eun Bin and Soo Yeon have, to our knowledge, the first lesbian kiss on Korean television, which earns them a place on this list. They are an established couple struggling with how their relationship is a risk for them (because it can be and is used against them). Their relationship doesn’t survive to the end of the series, but they are treated with compassion and their humanity is underscored by the narrative. They also spark an important conversation among the main characters about whether they should be helped because they’re gay, which was a little better intentioned than it was executed, but the show had the spirit. 

Perseverance Goo Hae Ra (2015)

In a show about aspiring musicians forming a group to take a second shot at stardom, Jang Goon (portrayed by solo idol Park Kwang Seon) is one of the core group members with a heartwarming arc about acceptance. His story is about his father coming to terms with him being an idol and being gay. He has a one-sided confession scene that is decently done, and the scene where his father accepts him knowing the truth (after having been outed against his will) is genuinely moving. It was also touching to see the girl who originally crushed on him support him once she found out about his sexuality. 

Hogu’s Love (2015) 

This drama was considered progressive for its time, as its core plot is about Hogu, a man who decides to support his first love when he finds out she is pregnant with someone else’s child. In addition to that, side character Kang Chul has an arc where he experiences attraction to Hogu and tries to sort out his feelings, considering whether he identifies as gay before ultimately deciding he does not. It’s not the best rep we’ve ever seen, but it was part of an interesting attempt by a drama to explore complicated social and identity issues.

The Lover (2015)

Lee Jun Jae and Takuya (played by Lee Jae Joon who was also in the gay film Night Flight (2014) and Takuya of jpop group CROSS GENE) are roommates in this series about four couples in an apartment building. Their story starts as a comedy, in which Jun Jae and Takuya end up in ship moments that are played off by the narrative as jokes and misunderstandings, but then they catch feelings for real. We see one of the characters struggle with his queer awakening and there is a happy ending. Using the actors’ real names was a choice, and led to some seriously disruptive RPF shipping; but it was refreshing to have an active idol not only play gay but in a romance with a happy ending. 

Prison Playbook (2017)

Another ensemble show with a queer side character; Loony, one of the main character Je Hyuk’s cell mates, is notable for his queerness not being used as a joke and not being the core of the character’s arc. Instead, this character struggles with addiction and how that affects his relationship, which is only incidentally gay. His story is moving and well developed, especially considering the size of this cast, but it doesn’t get a ton of screen time.

Romance is a Bonus Book (2019)

The queer rep in this drama is minor but overall positive, as we learn that the male lead Eun Ho’s ex-girlfriend, who he is still friendly with, ended their relationship because she fell in love with a woman. The show presents her as a lovely person who helps the female lead several times and is happy in her lesbian relationship, and we even get to see her with her partner briefly. A small win for sapphic representation in a very popular Netflix drama.

Moment at Eighteen (2019)

Jung Oh Je (RIP Moonbin) is a side character friend of the main lead. His sexuality becomes part of the plot when he is confessed to by a friend of the female lead, and he admits that he has a crush on the second male lead (Ma Hwi Young). While the characters in the show are mixed in their response, it’s clear the story is on the side of treating Oh Je with compassion. 

Be Melodramatic (2019) 

This is an ensemble show centered on a group of friends who move in together to support a grieving young woman, Lee Eun Jung, and one of the housemates is her younger brother Lee Hyo Bong, a gay musician with a long-term partner. He is a side character and his most significant plot is about supporting his sister, with his sexuality and relationship part of his characterization rather than an active story thread. It’s a positive depiction and the way his sexuality is presented as just part of who he is felt significant at the time. 

Love with Flaws (2019) 

Joo Won Suk (RIP Cha in Ha) is one of the FL’s older brothers, and while not the focus of the drama he gets his own fully developed arc, including the mentorship of queer side character Choi Ho Dol. The queer rep in this show covers suicidality, the loneliness of the closet, bullying, solidarity, and fear of parental shame. That makes it sound depressing, but it’s a hopeful story about the character moving out of depression and into self-acceptance, has one of the best scenes depicting gay acceptance from a father in any show, and both Won Suk and Ho Dol have a happy ending (including for their romance). 

Itaewon Class (2020)

The first drama on this list to feature a transgender character, Itaewon Class is about a group of social misfits trying to launch a restaurant on a trendy street in Itaewon. Ma Hyun Yi, a transgender woman saving money for her gender affirming surgery, is among the gang. Her story is not a big focus for the drama, but she gets a nice arc about coming into herself and gaining recognition for her talents as a chef, and the other characters always respect her identity. It’s pretty solid representation for a side character.

Sweet Munchies (2020)

This drama tries to tackle the problems of homophobia and appropriating queerness but misses the mark on both. The queer character in this show, Kang Tae Wan, is here to function as a driving force and conscience for the main male lead and female lead; he’s essentially the second lead but never had a chance (though he didn’t know it, since the main lead is pretending to be gay for clout). Tae Wan is a good character, but the narrative doesn’t care much about him or about queer people in general, it’s focused on how heterosexuals experience queerness. Not exactly amazing queer representation, whatever its intentions.

Run On (2020) 

This drama features both a gay character and an asexual character, both of whom are written respectfully and get proper coming out scenes. There is also some messiness around one of the main characters appropriating queer identity as a way to avoid the pressures of her patriarchy, and the drama knows she’s wrong for that. This was one of the first instances of a kdrama acknowledging queer people as a regular part of the world around us and not singular oddities, and it was nice to see multiple facets of queer representation in one show.

Mr. Queen (2020)

This gender bender retains its place on the list because the main character (a man who awakens in the body of a Queen during the Joseon dynasty) openly struggles with his gender dysphoria as well as what it means that he’s attracted to a man, and these struggles are present for the bulk of the show. The character also has sex with both men and women while in that body. It’s one of the better representations of gender swap and feels queer, even when the relationship on screen has the guise of heterosexuality. 

Mine (2021)

In this drama about ambitious women married to powerful men who struggle to break free from their constraints, one of the main characters reunites with her first love—another woman. The drama follows Jung Seo Hyun as she struggles to acquire the power she needs to live as she wants, and she ultimately achieves her goal, reuniting with her lover at the story’s end. It’s the first kdrama with a lesbian character in a major role who gets her happy romance ending. 

Move to Heaven (2021)

Despite only being featured in episode 5, this was a good story that garnered a lot of attention in a popular Netflix drama, so for cultural impact reasons alone it belongs on this list. We start the episode with Jung Soo Hyun’s death, but this is a show about finding closure after death, so for once this death doesn’t feel like bury your gays. This is a compassionate tragedy in which we see how fear held Soo Hyun back from his relationship with Ian Park while he was alive, but his belongings at death indicate he was getting ready to face his fear and move to the US to marry Ian after all. Through the main characters of the show, Ian gets the closure of knowing Soo Hyun loved him. 

Nevertheless (2021) 

Yoon Sol and Seo Ji Wan have a typical plot for side characters (they’re in the female lead’s friend group) with a friends-to-lovers arc that depicts the fear and frustration when both friends are closeted and uncertain about risking the friendship but reach the point where they can’t pretend anymore. Since they’re both women, this felt pretty radical. They got a good romantic arc and a happy ending, if not a lot of screen time.

Under the Queen’s Umbrella (2022)

In this sageuk, the fourth prince is living a double life, hiding away makeup and women’s clothing that they wear in secret. The character is depicted as trans, but given the setting, explicit language and modern terminology (including altered pronouns) are not used in this side plot. When the prince’s mother finds out, she supports her child to have an artist paint a portrait of their true self, and ultimately, the prince leaves the royal family to go live a more authentic life in isolation in a bittersweet resolution. 

A Time Called You (2023)

The queer rep in this drama comes in the form of a brief backstory montage for two gay characters, one of whom (Yeon Jun) is in a coma. We learn that he ended up in this state after getting into a car accident while in the process of confessing to the guy he mutually liked (Tae Ha), who was killed in the accident. From there, Yeon Jun’s body is taken over by a heterosexual character (it’s a whole time loop thing). This entry is mostly notable for featuring a high profile cameo from Rowoon playing Tae Ha, and unfortunately, for being a fairly textbook example of the bury your gays trope. In 2023!

Wedding Impossible (2024) 

This disaster of a drama purported to finally feature a gay character in a prominent role that drove the narrative—in a story about Do Han pretending to marry his longtime friend to avoid being forced to marry another woman—but Do Han ended up a minor side character in his own story when the show chose to focus nearly all its attention on his brother’s het romance. Worse, the other characters treated him terribly and the story blamed every problem on his sexuality. This show was straight up homophobic and it was a significant regression for queer depictions in mainstream Korean media. 

Bitter Sweet Hell (2024)

image credit @respectthepetty

Choi Doi Hyun (played by Park Jae Chan of Semantic Error) is the closeted son of the main character, struggling with how hiding his secret affects his school life and his relationship with his family. His story ends happily with Jun Ho in the US, which felt like a win after the above history with kdrama, but because his secret being his queerness is hidden for most of the story, we don’t get to see it inform the narrative much except in retrospect. 

Squid Game 2 (2024)

The most recent entry on our list features Park Sung Hoon as Hyeon Ju, a transgender woman who enters the life or death game at the center of this drama to earn money to move to Thailand and get gender affirming surgery. While her inclusion wasn't entirely groundbreaking, Hyeon Ju was a well-developed character with a sympathetic backstory who quickly became a fan favorite, notable given Squid Game's popularity and broad international audience. 

Bringing Better Queer Stories to Mainstream Drama Audiences

With all that context established, we have been contemplating how queer creators in Korea can reach a wider audience with their stories and ensure queer representation in kdrama is both more common and more authentic. We look to Love in the Big City and Heesu in Class 2 as a start, as we would argue that both shows exist in the gray space between mainstream kdrama and kbl. They both leverage kdrama style and structure to tell queer stories that include, but are not limited to, gay romances. They both had unusual distribution and battled to even get released and in front of an audience, with LITBC rushing its episodes out amidst public protests and Heesu sitting on the shelf for two years before being quietly released on a streaming platform. And they both had goals to reach an audience beyond the usual BL viewers, albeit with wildly different tones and themes in their stories. The BL audience is too niche to effect the social change that queer creators are seeking, and the limited runtime, genre tropes, and laser-focus on romance means it is harder to make wider social and cultural points in a BL story (it doesn’t hit the same when gay characters are treated as human in a story that takes place in the no homophobia BL bubble). And as we’ve seen from this walk through the past, there are real limits to queer representation that is not created by queer people or informed by their lived experiences.

As you can see from reviewing this list, these two shows were the first kdramas in well over a decade (after the only other example, Life Is Beautiful) to center on a gay main character whose journey drove the story, and they were doing this in the context of a media landscape that rarely elevates queer people beyond minor side plots, still regularly fumbles on respectful representation, and in which representation seems to be getting worse. Love in the Big City set out to show a young queer man’s life in all its glorious messiness. Go Young was not an easy character, and the show did not hold back on his flaws or shy away from either the joy or the struggle he found in his sexuality. Heesu is about a younger character and so his struggles are centered around coming of age and first love, but it similarly depicts a beautifully flawed young gay man coming to terms with himself and asks the audience to empathize with and care about him as his loved ones in the story do. Where LITBC uses a unique storytelling structure to draw in the viewer and highlight what makes Young’s life feel different, Heesu roots itself in familiar drama beats and queer-coded side plots in the hopes that the audience will see and be comforted by the familiar in Heesu’s world. 

Both of these stories, in their own way, speak to a mainstream audience and ask for queer existence and queer humanity to be acknowledged. And this does not make them problematic as queer works, because they accomplish their goals of speaking to a wider audience while still being true to queer experiences. Given how scant decent queer representation has been in kdramas over the last twenty years (consider the size of the list above against the fact that there are well over 1500 modern kdramas, and so few of the above listed characters are mains or even significant sides in these dramas), more shows like LITBC and Heesu are needed to bridge this gap. We sincerely hope they find the support they need to get made.

[elexuscal]

the longer i stay in fandom, the longer i think a huge amount of bad takes and discourse come from an... abundance of identifying with a character

to be clear, i don't think it's bad to identify with a character. far from it! i think that's part of what makes fiction so powerful.

and it's only logical people often attach to a blorbo because they're just like me, for real. a person will see some element of themselves-- their race, their gender, their sexuality, their hobbies, their family life, their specific flavour of neurodivergence-- and something just resonates. it gives them a way to explore and name this important part of themselves, a part they maybe didn't even know existed before it.

and everything is well and good until some split between them and the character shows up

because of course, no character, except an explicit self-insert written by yourself, will ever be a perfect 1:1 for your own experiences. so sooner or later-- maybe in canon, maybe in a fanwork-- your blorbo diverges from your lived experience in a huge way.

I think this is why shipping culture in particular gets so toxic. While it is by no means the only way to indulge with shipping, a significant portion is 'if i was in that character's shoes, i would choose X'. the fight becomes for your own self-identity.

but this gets expanded in other ways. a character who is revealed to be black when the majority of the fandom had just assumed they were white. or revealed to be queer, or maybe the 'wrong' flavour of queer. or fuck, even some more innocuous part of their backstory, one that's nonetheless so meaningful for SOMEONE, but now it feels like the story is saying, fuck you, we're doing something else

i don't know. i just feel acknowledging this perceived-attack-on-identity helps me understand why people react it what seems to be such outsized way to canon and fanworks alike.

at the same time, i think it's a really important thing to check in yourself.

it's nice, to see a character who you identify with. who resonates with for being like you. but it's also nice to acknowledge and appreciate the way characters are not like you at All. how great it is to get insight into this totally different lived experience. and to muse on how wonderful that recognition might be for someone who does have that background.

[tirfpikachu]

are we just crazy or are lgbt spaces getting legit deranged?????

every unusual experience of sexuality/gender is a valid part of the bootiful qweer biodiversity of the world by default, but you can't be gay/bi/trans and not want to be called the q slur or see cishets say the q slur. and you can't say that you're afab4afab or amab4amab, that's just a creepy bigoted fetish you freak. unless you're transmasc4transmasc or transfem4transfem ofc, you get a free pass. but also kinkshaming is evil and deeply harms the most marginalized. but also make sure you don't have a fetish about genitalia... if you do, it's a "preference" not an inborn trait and you really can therapize yourself into liking it, just try hard enough. if you fail to you're a bigot, so just keep trying!! make sure to feel guilty abt it at least, you dirty homo. but getting beat up can be a cool sexual thing and bestiality or noncon is fine. but actual genitalia "preferences" are bigoted. if you don't call the genderqueer person pansexual instead of bi they'll chew their own arm off and hit you with it and call the cops but don't say you're a female trans man or that you're a trans guy lesbian or link it to being a female homosexual in any way ever okay?! you can't be at peace with acknowledging your sex/agab as a trans person!!!! or feel a connection to lesbian spaces as a trans man or gay male spaces as a trans woman!!! that's BIGOTRY and that's just feeding terf cunts you dumb theyfab. you can't link your cis womanhood to being afab AT ALL either bc that's transmisogynistic and dangerous rhetoric but every other group of gender marginalized folks can define their own identities and have a billion microlabels. you can't say you're not into girldick because not all trans women have dicks dumbass, surgical vaginas are defo the exact same as bio vaginas anyway so if you only like afab pussy & afab bodies you're a gross pervert mocking bottom surgery. and someone's upbringing as a male/amab or female/afab person definitely isn't a huge part of why homosexual ppl are into the same-sex/agab so you shouldn't give a single shit if a transbian flirting with you hasn't grown up facing misogyny or going thru afab/female body struggles or any of that, that has NOTHING to do with lesbianism between female ppl and has no bearing whatsoever on attraction you absolute psychopath. sexes/agabs is just a mix of detached body parts and you can play mr potatohead with it all and if you glued it good enough homosexuals wouldn't be able to tell at all that he used to be a mrs potatohead!! so they'd still hit that, right? homosexuals will go for anything anyway right?? homosexual love obvs can't be any deeper than genitals and fetishes. amab4afab ppl can be homosexual too anyway if they pass as gay irl too so homosexual isn't even a real tangible thing anyways it doesn't involve sex/agab at all and those ppl don't get to be their own specific oppressed class and do their own activism and have agency over their own identity bc they're super privileged worldwide and the enby living as a gender conforming woman in society dating a neckbeard looking for a third is more oppressed than a visibly gnc crossdressing bio guy holding hands with his normie bf. they might be gay but they're not qweer... except to the rightwing ofc!! oh and if you're trans and recently started passing as straight you're more privileged than an afab4amab couple who has lived as hetero til they transitioned! so shut the fuck up and listen to the New Gays. don't call yourself homosexual anymore or you're a cis bootlicker and if you're transmasc you're oppressing every transfem, including ones who have never faced misogyny irl a day in their fucking life!!! just be valid the RIGHT WAY!!!!!! be more queer you dirty normie homo!!!!!!

HAHAH i love it here

[biancasaidstfu]

This hard line being drawn on Jake’s sexual preferences in this blog is concerning. Gender identity and sexuality are fluid. Bisexuality is real. Why does no one here acknowledge that he could be queer and also in love with a woman; that those things are not mutually exclusive? Nothing that we’ve seen is enough to just decide Jake is gay and that’s all he can be. And doing so is digging your heels into the kind of ignorance Nic is constantly speaking out against.

Jake could be straight. Ive said this before. He could be anything, really.

But he’s not dating Nicola. I think that’s very obvious despite what gossip rag articles say.

[nekropsii]

Wild how when I call Shipping Culture oppressively pervasive and awful for any Aro/Ace with the gall to enjoy anything on the Internet, I get called a Fun-Hating Killjoy and told to just shut the fuck up or off myself, no matter how mild or polite my comment is. Wild how when I say a character either is textually Aro/Ace or is easier to read as Aro/Ace than Alloromantic/sexual, people start talking down to me like I'm a child who doesn't know anything, saying "Friendly reminder that Aro(s)/Aces can Date/Have Sex too, just like us Normal People!". As if I don't know anything about my own identity. Wild how when I do either of these things or even just say I'm not into a pairing or uninvested in shipping in general people call me fucking homophobic, even if the (at least popularly perceived - let's be honest, people are wrong half the time) genders of the characters is never once made relevant. Even though their reasoning for me being homophobic is lack of investment in a gay pairing they like, and nothing more. Wild how people throw little baby tantrums at even the gentlest criticism of Shipping Culture, or someone choosing not to engage heavily in it. Wild how they have the audacity to ask, with hostility, what the fuck Aro(s)/Aces are talking about when they say Shipping Culture is hostile to Aro/Ace fans, or ask what's wrong with them when they say that they aren't into Shipping.

It's almost like Bigots don't realize they're being Bigots when they do Bigotry, so just saying you're not a Bigot isn't enough. It's almost like Aro/Ace people know what the hell they're talking about. It's almost like we have a fucking point. It's almost like we're valid in expressing contempt and frustration with the constant expectation to engage with Romance and Sexuality at every waking moment, even if we're Romance and/or Sex Favorable. It's almost like we're tired of getting our identities erased, and we're tired of expecting to "act normal", and we're tired of just taking it when Allos use the Favorable members of our communities as a scapegoat for why they should be allowed to totally erase any of our representation just for their "Harmless Queer Fun" - deliberately, and I mean DELIBERATELY, failing to recognize or acknowledge the character's orientation, and how an A-Spec's personal relationship with and expressions of Love are going to look drastically different from an Allo person's - and call us the Bigots when we even glance in the direction of objection.

It's almost like Allo/Amatonormativity are oppressive forces.

Alloromantics/sexuals are constantly looking for any reason they can to call Aro(s)/Aces unloving, unfeeling, frigid, soulless, cruel. Inhuman. They're looking for any reason they can to call us whiny children, stupid, people who "just haven't found the right one", addressing us only as "Works in Progress", or someone who can have their sexuality corrected with the right stimulus - Conversion Therapy and Corrective Rape are okay when it happens to us, after all. Any reason at all to call us heartless monsters. AlloAces are confused children. They can be fixed. AroAllos are manipulative, unfeeling sexual predators. They can't be fixed - just kill them. AroAces are frigid, mean bitches. They can be fixed. God forbid you're Aplatonic. God forbid you're part of the Repulsed spectrum. God forbid you're one of the Loveless. God forbid you hold any pride in your identity, God forbid you don't keep your mouth shut, God forbid you critique the overinflated importance Allos place onto Love as a concept. God forbid you critique something as asinine and juvenile as fucking Shipping Culture. Do any one of these and you've put a bright red, blazing neon target on your back.

Wild how the only real humans amongst us are the Romance, Sex, and Friendship Favorable who put their head down and mask as Allo, and side with the Allos when their fellow A-Specs get too loud for the comfort of their Allo friend's delicate little fee-fees. After all, Vitriol and Harassment are warranted when an Allo's feelings get slightly hurt that an Aro person says, on their own account, to no one in particular, that they're sick of every tag being 80% Shipping Content. Which is a vehemently evil personal attack, clearly.

Wild.

[perseidlion]

So there's this character in Dead Boy Detectives.

He's:

Attractive

Flirts shamelessly with Edwin

Makes physical advances toward Edwin

Makes Charles jealous and "gets in the way of the main ship"

Is of indeterminate age but is possibly decades or centuries old

Can transform into an animal.

And it's this guy:

AND YET I have never seen any discourse calling Monty a creep and a predator.

Unlike The Cat King, he even kissed Edwin suddenly and without explicit consent. He also lied, manipulated and betrayed all of them and nearly got them killed. Yes, he said he didn't know Esther was planning on destroying them. But c'mon, it's Esther.

Somehow though, the fandom vilifies The Cat King more than Monty. I think the reason why is worth a long, hard look in the mirror.

The biggest difference between the two is TCK's sexual nature and his in-your-face queerness. Those are two things that have been historically vilified and othered about gay/queer men.

Even these days, through the whole "no kink at pride" discourse, this argument continues through respectability politics.

Simply put, a short little twink with a crush is a non-threatening gay man, while TCK with his overt sensuality and gender non-conforming clothing represents a threat. Monty's advances are seen as cute, while TCK's are predatory, even though Monty propositioned Edwin with a kiss as surely as TCK overtly propositioned him.

If TCK's sexually-charged flirting bothered you in a way that Monty's advances didn't (despite the fact the audience knew that at least at first, Monty's advances were a big old lie) ask yourself why that is. The reason is probably that you were taught to fear and vilify overt displays of queer sexuality . Even queer people need to unlearn this particular bias.

And just to cover all the bases, I will shout again that The Cat King is a fae/trickster and that Edwin's punishment was proportionate in that context. Edwin used magic and confined a creature he knew to be as intelligent as a human and was punished for it with a very long leash and a (totally doable) task. It was a task designed to make Edwin see the cats as individuals instead of tools to help him close a case. The sort of fiction that DBD has its roots in (and the source material) is full of these sort of eye-for-an-eye type of punishments with magical creatures.

Just to be clear, I don't think we should be vilifying Monty, either. You can't 1:1 fictional scenarios onto real life and apply our standards of morality to them, especially not in a setting with man-eating mushrooms, ghosts, and transforming animals. All the conflict these two characters brought to the plot was necessary. If everyone acted with perfect morality all the time, fiction would be incredibly boring.

And IF you did apply RL standards to fiction, you would have to acknowledge that Edwin's crime of binding and forcing a fully sentient being to give him information violated just as much consent as TCK putting that bracelet on Edwin. And that Monty was just as "predatory" as The Cat King, if not more so. The Cat King, at least, never lied to Edwin, while everything about Monty was a lie from the start.

[velvetvexations]

@ The butch thing

"BUTCH (n. , adj.) : (n.) Usually a female homosexual who is the more aggressive and masculine partner in a social or sexual relationship; a female homosexual who assumes the responsibilities of the husband; a male homosexual who appears masculine; the opposite of a 'fem'. Some male homosexuals may assume the 'butch' role to conceal their homosexuality from heterosexual friends. (adj.) Masculine or mannish.

BUTCH IT UP (v.) : To behave in a masculine manner. For a male homosexual, to appear 'straight'; for a female to be aggressively mannish." — definition from Anthropological Linguistics, vol. 13-14 (1971)

That's an example from more than 50 years ago and it explicitly includes gay men in the definition.

The word butch has never been exclusive to lesbians and has been widely used in gay male communities for decades. In fact, it's even considered part of Polari (historical gay slang from 19th and early 20th century). You will find books like The Butch Manual (1982) that use the word exclusively to refer to gay men. The word is also used among QPoC in ballroom culture to refer to gay men, who are called Butch Queens.

According to the work of Marlon M. Bailey (scholar of African-American and LGBT studies), who studied ballroom culture, in the gender system of the ballroom scene, the word "Butch" is literally the gender term used for trans men, just like how "Femme Queen" is the word for trans women. (see : Butch Queens Up in Pumps : Gender Performance and Ballroom Culture in Detroit, by Marlon M. Bailey (p. 40) ; Black Genders and Sexualities, by Shaka McGlotten and Dana-Ain Davis (chapter 14)...)

Proeminent TMoC in ballroom (Reese Pandavies, Duchess Ebony, Reno Prestige Wright...), walked as Butches in balls. This is part of the history of the ballroom scene and shouldn't be erased. More recently in the 21st century, the Butch category has split to create a "Transman" category, because trans men were perceived as getting some sort of advantage at looking masculine when competing against butch cis women (you can hear Sean Ebony Coleman and Shady Prada, two trans men from the ballroom scene, talk about it in the short video "Changing Butch Realness Category" from the Ballroom Culture History Channel). So now there are often separate "Transmen" categories. Language and labels evolve.

The word "butch" has a long history among gay men and trans men, including MoC in the ballroom scene. You don't get to rewrite history and erase that to pretend it has always been some sort of lesbian-exclusive word, let alone a recent one. It is really disrespectful towards all the trans men in history who have fought, been beaten, jailed and died under that label.

It's just like how we now consider drag queens and trans women different categories that shouldn't be conflated, but trans women can still be drag queens, and a lot of "drag queens" in history were actually trans women / transfem. It's generally considered transmisogynistic erasure when people act like, say, Stonewall was just about gay men and that the people in the riot were all cis gay drag queens. And acknowledging all that says nothing about the fact that trans men can also be drag queens.

Maybe you don't like the fact that trans men are sometimes mentioned alongside butches. You don't have to like it, but you cannot behave like that and straight up rewrite parts of queer history, especially when it's black queer history.

fascinating

[dresshistorynerd]

Roughly 10 Cool Historical Queer Figures More People Should Know About

Part 1 - From Ancient Era to Early Modern Era

In spirit of Pride Month here's some snippets of queer history I think are interesting.

I've been working on a series of deep dives into interesting historical queer figures, but I haven't had the time to continue my list after the first entry about Julie d'Aubigny. I do want to continue with it, but I came to the realization that I will never have to time to do all the cool and interesting figures in depth, since there's too many, so I decided to do a list with brief descriptions about some of my favorite figures who are not that well known. Some of them are more well-known than others but I think they all deserve more acknowledgement.

I was able to trim down the number of figures to (roughly) 20, which was still too many for one post, so it's two posts now. They are in chronological order, so this part is set mostly before Victorian Era and the second part will be from Victorian Era onward.

This list is centered around western history (but not exclusively) because that's the history I'm most familiar with, though it's definitely not all white, since western history is not all white. I will be avoiding using modern labels, since they are rarely exactly applicable to history, rather I will present whatever we know about these figures' gender, sexuality and relationships. If there's information about what language they used about themselves, I will use that. Often we don't know their own thoughts, so I will need to do some educated guess work, but I will lean towards ambiguity whenever evidence is particularly unclear. If you are the type of person who gets angry with the mere suggestion there's a possibility that a historical gnc person might not have been cis, I encourage you to read my answers to related asks (here and here) first before sending me another identical ask. Try to at least bring some new arguments if you decide to waste my time with your trans erasure.

1. Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum (latter half of 2400 BCE)

Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum were ancient Egyptian royal servants, and possibly the first recorded gay couple in history known by name. They shared the title of Overseer of the Manicurists in the Palace of King Nyuserre Ini. They both had a wife and children, but they (along with their families) were buried together in a tomb. The tomb decorations show them similarly as other afterlife couples.

2. Marinos the Monk (c. 5th-8th century)

Marinos the Monk was born as Marina somewhere in eastern parts of Byzantine Empire, likely in the Levant. He was from a wealthy Christian family, possibly Coptic. Assigned female at birth his widowed father planned to marry him off and go to a monastery himself, but he convinced his father to take him with him dressed as a boy named Marinos. His father agreed and they were accepted as monks. After his father died many years later, he continued his life as a male presenting monk. Later he was accused of fathering an illegitimate child with a daughter of an innkeeper, which was not possible, but he didn't revoke the accusations, instead he begged for the abbot's forgiveness for "his sins". Marinos was banished from the monastery and became a beggar. For 10 years he raised his alleged illegitimate child as a father, until he was allowed to return to the monastery and do penance. Only after his death the abbot and the monks discovered his genitals and his inability to father children and were distraught for punishing an innocent man for 10 long years. The real father was discovered and along with the innkeeper and his daughter they all came to honor Marinos' grave and ask his forgiveness. He was canonized as a saint for his sacrificial selflessness, modesty and humility and honored across the Mediterranean from Ethiopia to France.

3. Mubārak and Muẓaffar al-Saqlabi (c. 10th - 11th century)

Mubārak and Muẓaffar were co-rulers of Taifa of Valencia in Muslim Spain. Al-Saqlabi means literally "of the Slavs", which in Al-Andalus was a general term for enslaved northern Europeans, as the two had been enslaved as children. They were in the service of another al-Saqlabi, a chief of police, and they worked they way up as civil servants till a local military coup in 1010, which resulted in them becoming the emirs of Taifa of Valencia. English language sources often describe them as "brothers" and "eunuchs", which gives the "historical gal pals" trope a concerning twist, but contemporary Muslim sources wrote fawningly about their passionate love, trust based on equality and mutual devotion. There was a popular genre of homoerotic poetry in the Islamic world at the time and poems in that genre were written about celebrating Mubārak and Muẓaffar's relationship. In 1018 Mubārak was killed in a riding accident and Muẓaffar shortly after in an uprising.

4. Eleno de Céspedes (1545 – died after 1589)

CW: genital inspection

Eleno was born in Andalusia, Spain, to an enslaved black Muslim woman and to a free Castillian peasant. He was assigned female at birth, given name Elena, and branded as a mulatto born to a slave. She was freed as a child and married to a stonemason at 15-16 years old. When pregnant, her husband left her and died a while later. Later Eleno testified that his intersex condition became externally visible, while he gave birth, and he became a man. He left his son to be raised by a friend and traveled around Spain. After he stabbed a pimp and ended up in jail, he started presenting as a man and openly courting women. Eventually he taught himself to be a surgeon with the help of a surgeon friend.

When he married María del Caño, his maleness was questioned and he was subjected to genital inspection multiple times and it was agreed by doctors that he had definitely male genitals, possibly also female genitals. After a year of marriage the couple was accused of sodomy. Eleno was tried by the Spanish Inquisition and subjected to more genital inspections, during which no penis was found. He claimed that his penis had been amputated after an injury. He defended himself in the trial by arguing that his intersex condition was natural and he had become a man after his pregnancy, so his marriage was legal. He was sentenced only for bigamy, since he had not confirmed that his husband was dead and punished as a male bigamist with 200 lashes and 10 years of public service to care for the poor in a public hospital. His fame attracted a lot of people wanting to be healed by him, which which was very embarrasing for the hospital so he was sent away and eventually exonerated from his charges.

5. Chevaliére d'Éon (1728-1810)

Charles d'Éon de Beaumont was born to a poor French noble family. In their 20s they became a government official and at 28 they joined the secret spy network of the king, Secret du Roi. They became a diplomat first in Russia and later in Britain while they used their position to spy for the king. Rumors circulated in London that they were secretly a woman. While in London they had a falling out with the French ambassador, accused him of attempted murder and published secret diplomatic correspondence. They were instead accused of libel and went into hiding. After the death of Louis XV in 1774 and the abolishment of Secret du Roi, d'Éon negotiated with the French government of the end of their exile in exchange for the rest of the secret documents he possessed. D'Éon took the name Charlotte, claimed she was in fact a cis woman - she had pretended to be man since a child so she could get the inheritance - and demanded the government to recognize her as such. When the king agreed and included funds for women's wardrobe, she agreed and returned to France in 1777. After that she helped rebels in the American War of Indepence - was not allowed to ]go and fight too, ghostwrote her not super reliable memoir, offered to lead a division of female soldiers against the Hasburgs in 1792 - was for some reason denied, attended fencing tournaments till 65 years old and settled down for the rest of her years with a widow, Mrs. Cole. After her death a surgeon reported that she had male primary sex characteristics, but fairly feminine secondary sex characteristics, like round breasts, which might suggest she had hormonal difference/was intersex in some way.

6. Public Universal Friend (1752-1819)

Public Universal Friend, or The Friend or PUF, was born as Jemima Wilkinson to Quaker parents in Rhodes Island, USA. Jemima contracted a disease in 1776, gained intense fever and almost died. The Friend claimed that she did die and God sent the Friend to occupy her body. The Friend didn't identify as man or a woman, and when asked about the Friend's gender, the Friend said "I am that I am". The Friend didn't want any gendered pronouns or gendered language to be used about the Friend. The Friend's pronouns, according to the writings of the Friend's followers, were "the Friend", "PUF" and possibly he. First recorded neo-pronouns perhaps? The Friend also dressed in androgynous/masculine manner.

The Friend started a bit cultish religious society disavowed by mainstream Quakers, The Society of Universal Friends, which I can only describe as chaotic good. The Friend first predicted a Day of Judgement would come in 1780 and when 1780 came and went, the Friend decided it was New England's Dark Day in 1780 and they had survived survived the Judgement Day so all was good then. The Friend preached for gender equality, free will, universal salvation (Jesus saved everyone and no one will go to hell) and abolition of slavery. The Friend persuaded any followers to free their slaves, which is probably the most chaotic good thing a potential cult leader can do with their influence over their followers, and several freed black people followed the Friend too. The Friend advocated for celibacy and was unfavorable towards marriage, but didn't think celibacy or rejection of marriage were necessary for everyone else, so it feels more like a personal preference. Many young unmarried women followed the Friend and some of them formed Faithful Sisterhood and took leadership positions among the Society.

The Society of Universal Friends tried to form a town for themselves around mid-1780s, till in 1799 the Friend was accused of blasphemy. The Friend successfully escaped the law two times. First the Friend, a skilled rider (what's a gender neutral version of horse girl?), escaped with a horse, then after an officer and an assistant tried to arrest the Friend at home, women of the house drove the men away. Third time 30 men surrounded the Friend's home at night, but a doctor convinced them that the Friend was in too poor health to move but would agree to appear at court. The Friend was cleared for all charges and even allowed to preach at the court.

7. Mary Jones (early 1800s–1853)

Mary Jones' origin is unknown, but she was an adult in 1836 in New York, USA. She was a free Black person, who preferred to present as a woman. She was sex worker by trade and used a prosthetic vagina. As a side hustle she would steel her customer's wallets, and usually they wouldn't tell anyone because it was 1830s and inter-racial sex and prostitution were illegal and everyone was repressed. Smart. Get your coin, girl. However after one of her more shameless customers discovered his wallet with 99 dollars inside had been replaced with a different man's empty wallet and contacted the police, she was arrested. The police discovered she had male genitals and when they searched her room they found several more stolen wallets. She appeared in court in her female presentation and when asked about her dress, she said that prostitutes she had worked with encouraged her to dress in women's clothing and said she looked better in them. They were right and she had since presented as a woman in her evening profession and among other Black people. She was convicted for grand larceny and sentenced to 5 years in prison. Later she continued to present as a woman and practice sex work, for which she was arrested for two more times.

8. George Sand (1804-1876)

George Sand was pen name of Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil, a French Romantic writer. Amantine was high-born with a countess as a grandmother. George wrote about themself with alternating masculine and feminine language, using feminine language when talking about his childhood, but masculine language often other times. Their friends also used both masculine and feminine terms about them. Victor Hugo for example said about them: "George Sand cannot determine whether she is male or female. I entertain a high regard for all my colleagues, but it is not my place to decide whether she is my sister or my brother." George preferred men's clothing in public, which was illegal for those seen as women without a permit, but they didn't ask for permissions. They alternated between masculine and feminine presentations. They were outspoken feminist, critic of the institution of marriage, committed republican and supporter of worker's rights. They were married at age 18, had two children and left their husband in 1831, but legally separated from him in 1835. They had many affairs with men and some with women, at least with actress Marie Dorval. Their most notable relationship was with Frédéric Chopin, but they fell out before Chopin's death.

I fucked up the numbering first and put less entries to this list than the second one (which I have not finished), but 8 is kinda roughly 10 right?

[genderqueerdykes]

i want to see more asexual, aromantic & aspectrum representation this year during pride month 2024. we've been made to feel like we're not queer at all, and when we are seen as queer, we are pushed to the VERY bottom of the priority list, seen as not as queer as others, or not a priority because we do not suffer from any kind of oppression.

i want to break the silence on this matter this year. even if an aspectrum person isn't affected by any sort of societal oppression, they still deserve to have a space to talk about how they experience their identity. having a complicated relationship or no relationship at all with romantic feelings and relationships in a society that guilt trips people into developing romantic relationships starting in their teens is not in line with our societal view of what is "normal" and "correct". constantly being told that you "haven't found the right one" is harassment.

Not experiencing sexual attraction, refusing to have sex, or having a complicated relationship with sexual feelings is 100% queer and outside of the norm in a sex-obsessed society that guilt and mocks people for not having experienced it, and at the worst of time, forces it on people, telling them that they'll have a changed opinion of they just experienced it for themselves. being guilted or forced into interacting with sexual media or having friends try to force you into sleeping with someone is harassment and assault.

having a complicated relationship with gender that results in someone feeling agender, whether they have no gender at all, or have a gender that feels partially agender and partially another gender often results in someone being told they're confused, or have no idea what they're talking about. many people refuse to acknowledge someone who totally lacks a gender identity, or identifies with gender neutrality.

aplatonic people are frequently told they are losers, or just have anxiety or are experiencing their feelings due to depression or something similar. aplatonic people are told they do not understand their own feelings, when it is a very valid experience to not experience platonic feelings or have a very complicated relationship with them that leads one to feel happier not engaging in those relationships.

these are very real issues aspectrum people face. even if an aspec person doesn't face these problems, they are still queer. they are still aromantic, asexual, agender, aplatonic, or some other like of aspec. you don't get to tell them how they experience their identity, and you don't get to tell them they're not queer or don't experience hardships and denial of their identity. i want to see more people talking about and accepting these identities in 2024. no more pushing aspectrum people to the back, we are here in the front with everyone else, shouting alongside you. we all deserve to be heard- including asexuals, aromantics, agender people, aplatonic people and other aspectrum folks. we are all shouting for our rights together. let's shout for each other, too.

[writinginaforrest]

Yes, I’m Transgender, but I’m not “Trans”

(31st Aug 2024)

When I think about this too much, I always come to the conclusion that I have got some internalised Transphobia. I identify as Male. I use He/Him pronouns. I dress in a way that conforms to the Gendered Norms of my culture. I’m just a guy. When “Trans” is added as a descriptor, not only does that become a thing about me, but it also sets me aside from other men. I’m not a Man, I’m a Trans Man. I’m a pseudo-masculine thing. When people realise I’m Transgender, I feel Castrated. That sounds pretty dang transphobic, doesn’t it. 

The way people have expected me to be Trans often Superseded what Transness is to me. I had a lecturer in college who insisted that my depression was, In part, a result of my going home every day to a family who did not know I was Trans. She sat there and looked me in the eyes and I watched myself in the reflection of her eyes becoming an anecdote in real time. I’ll always be her “Trans Student” who did remarkably well in her class before dropping off in his second year when he got a different teacher. For reference, my family may not have known that I am Trans, but It’s very rare that my deadname is used in my home. I’m referred to by my Middle name almost exclusively. Jeff (Jeffrey). And in reality. Transness was not something that was always on my mind and even now, I can be sure that it was not fueling my depression. My Undealt with sexual trauma? That’s a different story. But my being Trans wasn’t it. I didn’t even think about it that much. I still don’t. It’s not something that is an integral part of me. I would be no different If I had been born Cisgender. 

And that’s the thing. “Trans” carries a lot of weight to it, doesn’t it? A lot of people really connect to it on a level beyond it being simply a descriptor. It’s a culture, an experience, a mindset, an ideology, and what can I say to those people? Well done? Thank you? I don’t really have much to say, and that’s part of my problem. A lot of Trans artists are, at least partly, inspired by their queer experiences. I’m an artist (I yell into the void) and yet nothing about being Queer inspires art within me. I have nothing to say. My art would be the same if I were Cisgender. If I were Allosexual. I would be the same because I am not these descriptors that have been decided for me based on the way I live my life. 

“Trans” has become a commodity that I can’t escape. It’s something I’m supposed to stick on my laptop. It’s something I’m supposed to pin on my wall. It’s a lifestyle. A trait. A Community. A Culture. An Ideology. A Concept. An Abstraction. It’s everything and it’s nothing. I’m supposed to disclose it with pride when I meet new people. I’m supposed to warn Littluns about the dangers of not expressing themselves and being comfortable in their identity when I can’t even deliver on that. I’m supposed to do all these things. 

But no one is asking me to. 

No one is telling me to be “Trans”. 

I’m looking around at all of my Trans brothers and sisters and wondering if that’s behaviour I should emulate because I  have a) no frame of reference and b) no connection to Transess as a concept. I feel like I’m doing a disservice to those who feel a connection to it as a concept, when I only see it as an adjective. When I try to remove myself from it as much as possible. And again here comes the internalised Transphobia knocking at my window.

I’m an artist, A filmmaker, and a writer. I’ve never felt compelled to tell Trans stories. Is it because I don’t want to be pigeonholed into this idea of Transness that again, supersedes my own, or is it because I’m ashamed of it? Am I acknowledging that I am more than a Trans artist or am I just not taking pride in the fact that I’m going to have to live with being Trans for the rest of my life? It’s not something that goes away. Trans doesn’t stop. I Will always be Transgender and I have to cope with that because I am male and I was not born that way. 

I don’t Identify with Queerness. I don’t identify as Transgender. It is something I am, a thing that I cannot help. I Identify as Male, Transgender was just something that came free in the post. I didn't understand the terms and conditions of it. I'm dyslexic, you expect me to read the fine print?

Where does this end? What’s the accumulation of all of this thinking? I do not know. It doesn’t end. The debate where I am my own interlocutor only ends with more questions that I must ask myself. 

[imaginative-123]

The Yaoi Community is so ignorant to the issues other gay men faced from toxic yaoi fangirls

Warning: Minors do not retweet, interact or like my posts if I found out you're a minor you might get blocked.

Btw I'm not using f*joshi bec I found out it's a misogynistic term so I'll use Yaoi fangirls although the people using that term when it comes to criticism for Yaoi Fangirls may not realized it's a sexist term and I used that word before and not realizing it was sexist, just bec you may not seen a yaoi fangirl assaulting gay men for not having sex that doesn't excuse blind ignorance of sexual harassment gay men faced from yaoi fangirls. Also I'm not ignoring if there are other queer women who experienced being assaulted by men and I've seen other women who have issues with men in how they seen lesbians and I think they deserved better, also I used to consumed real life gay porn from websites in the past not until I found out recently that there are few stories of gay guys who tell their horrifying stories from the sex industry that includes a gay sex worker who was abused from his work and disliked Hazbin Hotel's depiction of SA and his thoughts on Poison, it just pisses me off that the Yaoi community will be ignorant to bad behaviors the community has been criticized for years by gay men who have valid criticisms so that they can defend themselves of using terms like Misogyny or the classic "You just hate women that can't enjoy BL!" When there's problematic behaviors in the community that's been a problem.

Yes the women who did this to him is Sexual Harassment, it's gross.

For the last comment there are guys I've seen who were also hated for fetishization, there are people having heated discussions on that from what I've seen.

Also this is the worst one bec this is really disgusting, an asian man was being helped by a man on his chest bec I believe this is related to injury from the Olympics and guess what the toxic yaoi fangirls make art and sexualized him. This is Online Sexual Harassment, this is distasteful to be honest, poor guy he deserved better.

This comment definitely surprised me

Hello?! Just bec there are certain men who did bad things to women that doesn't mean other women can do bad things to men, can we acknowledge that Sexual Harassments on both genders is bad?

This is all I have to post, I'm a Yaoi fangirl for all these years ever since I started as a teen, I used to have sh#tty views on men in the past during my Yaoi and Proshipper phase back then but as of growing up I'm starting to try and be open about the real issues in real life and I'm trying my best to be open and understanding as possible, and btw I'm no longer a Proshipper and I'm still a Yaoi fangirl but as someone who is part of the community, I can't just ignore the issues and normalization of bad behaviours and sexism of the community which is unfortunate it gives the Yaoi fangirls who don't participate in bad behaviours a bad name and it's sad bec there are times I feel ashamed of being a Yaoi fangirl, and what I'm hoping is that the Yaoi Community should call out bad behaviours instead of trying to act like being innocent all the time and did nothing wrong but also try to blame Misogyny as a defense card when people criticize their bad behaviors. Also Toxic Yaoi fangirls who participate in bad behaviours can be Misandrists themselves towards straight and gay men. Yes Misandry exists, stop trying to tell me it doesn't exist it's like saying Misogyny can't exist, Sexism in both genders can exist in Society.

The reason I brought up Hazbin Hotel bec I'm going to make a second post about Viv's sexist views on gay men since I've made a post on Helluva Boss and that second post on Hazbin will take time since I have college workload to do in Thesis and Foreign Language and Visual Effects. So if you're interested reading my analysis and criticisms of Viv's work here's the link.

[yudrein-aile]

Second Gender Manifestations, Sexual Assault and the Law: Omegaverse in Turning

I got too invested after an earlier elaboration. As always, chapter references are in brackets.

Content warnings: human experimentation, rape, mutual-non con, assault, childhood sexual assault. Please be mindful while reading!

I’d be lying if I said that this topic has been haunting me since I started reading Turning. I picked this novel up specifically because it had the Omegaverse tag and I found myself intrigued. Would this story play it like most BL Omegaverse, following a more “traditional” set up or if the author was going to do something fun and new with it?

And new it was, brand new in fact. The concept of Alphas and Omegas is brand new in Turning. By the time the story starts, they’ve only existed for two years – and that is without knowing quite how long it took the population to figure out that second genders had even manifested. Kishiar awakened and went through his second gender manifestation at the same time (160), and is one of the first confirmed second gender Awakeners in the world (115), but Kishiar awakened as a male Alpha, which, from what we know so far, doesn’t appear to deviate as much from being a cis man in the first place.

Still, second gender manifestations were new, and immediately cause panic.

The Emperor of the Orr Empire and the Pope officially declared it the "second gender bestowed by the gods," and the general populace, who had been terrified that their own bodies might change at any moment, were greatly relieved. (3)

Second genders are not well received. Yuder tells us that in the first timeline, people are quick to start to discriminate against Omegas, who are believed to awaken weaker abilities and have weaker physical abilities. Their heat cycles are also stronger, as is their scent, quickly leading to the belief that they are sexual deviants, who can’t control their own scents, which can be detected even by non-Awakeners (3). This eventually leads to Omegas also being excluded from the Cavalry, despite the head of the Cavalry being an Omega himself (3).

Yuder was praised as the strongest Awakener on the continent, but even he wasn’t free of discrimination:

There had been countless people over the years who looked down on Yuder, an Omega, for being the leader of the Cavalry. Among the Awakeners, there were many who refused to acknowledge him. (4)

Not only is Yuder an Omega who allegedly slept his way to power – more on that notion later – but he’s also a “broken” one as he doesn’t perceive scents or experience a heat cycle. (4) All of this reveals a prejudice that mirrors real-life misogyny well enough, which is quite fascinating considering Turning itself appears to have little societal misogyny, women are fully legally equal citizens to men, and a woman inheriting titles or such is not forbidden, but even welcome in some cases (Myra el Herne) and they are even high-ranking in the army while married with children (Meghna Cuglieva). This makes the particular discrimination Omegas face quite interesting as it appears to not just be a straight-up copy of discrimination that women already face.

And clearly, even within the Awakener community, there grows a perception of what Omegas should be like. Yuder, during his time as Commander, had to deal with people sneaking into his bedroom “claiming they could suppress the scentless Omega Commander with their scents” (190) aka attempting to “fix” him, not unlike the rhetoric used particularly around queer people. While Yuder speaks of “suppressing” here, to me, it reads more as though their intention was sexual assault. The fact that Yuder’s solution to this was beating them up until their “dicks were broken” (190) appears to support that.

One, further, explanation for the discrimination Omegas, particularly male omegas, might face is the fact that they can get pregnant. While there appears no disgust per se at the notion, Lenore and Beltreil’s conversation about Kishiar’s second gender, at the very least, drips with mockery, it is a worthy consideration:

"I'm not sure. Didn't uncle say it's difficult to distinguish just by appearance? But I would prefer it if it were the Omega." "Why is that?" "Wouldn't it be nice if God granted at least the mercy of nurturing an imperial heir directly to someone who is destined not to have children? Especially considering how blessed he is."

Clearly, they are making fun of him here, especially since Kishiar is considered Tall Handsome ManTM, but perhaps in there lies the truth, that even the body of a man like him could be changed without his input, feminized in a way. It is in particular why I love Kishiar so much when he interacts with Yuder, all typically “feminine” character traits, interest in fashion, dancing, being chatty, are regaled to Kishiar and not Yuder. But also I would kill for an Omega Kishiar AU in case anyone feels inspired. Moving on-

We know that talking about second genders becomes a taboo topic within years of them becoming more common knowledge as Yuder notes that, opposed to now, two years after they appeared, “in a few more years, openly asking about someone's secondary gender would become impolite” (20). Yuder calls this current state of talking about it easily, without shame or stigma “liberating” (20). Perhaps the closest real-world comparison to this is going from trans* friendly space where discussing gender happens nearly casually, to being thrust into the open world, where every discussion of your gender is immediately tied to an expected performance and tied to a sexual connotation. But we’re not here for the real world, but for this fantasy novel so let’s continue and take a quick look at how second gender manifestation actually works.

Second Gender Manifestation aka Puberty, but WorseTM

In chapter 156, Yuder summarizes quite neatly what they know of how second gender manifestation works.

Being an Awakener did not necessarily mean one would undergo second gender manifestation. Furthermore, those who did experience the second gender manifestation didn't all manifest in the same way. Typically, signs of upcoming changes would manifest as persistent low-grade fevers or pain over a few days, followed by a slow transformation while being sick for nearly a week. However, there were individuals who unpredictably spewed out all the pain in a single moment, undergoing a sudden change. […] The onset of the first in-heat period after manifestation varied as well. Some would not experience their first in-heat period for a long time after the second gender manifestation, while others would enter their in-heat period immediately after. The cause of this variance remained unknown despite research from previous lives. The only known fact was that those who awakened their power and experienced second gender manifestation simultaneously underwent the transformation with the least amount of pain. (156)

So what I’d argue second gender manifestation boils down to is:

You’re sick.

It hurts, depending on your combination of awakening/manifestation, that could be a lot.

You manifest as either Alpha or Omega.

You get a scent out of it.

The other important note that Yuder notes pretty much from the start of the novel is that no Awakener of the opposite gender should be present during the manifestation (28) as this causes “problems”. Problems is a very mild way of paraphrasing “sexual assault”. But let’s take a step back before we address that part and take a look at 3. first.

To boil it down, Alphas are capable of impregnating anyone of the opposite gender, while Omegas can get pregnant, either regardless of their first gender (3). Canon does not exactly elaborate on what that means for Alpha females or Omega males, beyond their body changing somehow. (I mean. 618 does, uh, imply cervix penetration IMO but let’s leave that discussion for another time.)

Yuder notes that “most Alphas felt a distinct desire only for Omegas” (37), but considering Yuder brings that up in the context of it being unfathomable why Kishiar is flirting with him, I’d not exactly consider that truthful, but more a reflection of Yuder not being able to grasp why Kishiar would want to do anything with him without his second gender manifestation forcing them. Additionally, at the time the novel was still going to include the concept of Betas.

Now, let’s get back to the word the novel continuously avoids, whether that is intentional, or a reflection of Yuder’s point of view, but even without spelling it out: rape is more than just alluded to.

When Yuder departs East with Gakane and Jimmy, Kishiar warns him that Jimmy shows signs of second gender manifestation. Yuder’s reaction to that is worrying whether this might prompt his own second gender awakening as there are rumors that somebody experiencing second gender manifestation might trigger another (112). This is more or less confirmed later during Beltreil’s research (132).

His second, more concerning worry, is whether Gakane, an Alpha Awakener, might become a threat if Jimmy manifests as an Omega (68). Why is it a problem if Gakane is there if Jimmy, who is twelve, manifests as an Omega? Yuder speaks of the need to be strong enough to isolate them (68). What this spells out to me is, in the end, Yuder worrying about whether Jimmy’s second gender manifestation would trigger Gakane and whether this might escalate into Gakane assaulting him. This is, frankly speaking, absolutely horrifying. Jimmy is a kid, everyone treats him like a kid when it concerns potentially emotionally damaging topics (67) and Gakane is probably even more of a green flag than Kishiar.

Yuder is, plainly, worried about an instinctual reaction and lack of control. Now the question is, is this realistic?

Hate to say it, but Turning hasn’t really given us much to prove the opposite. First of, in universe people don’t know much about second gender awakening in the first place, never mind what it means for someone so young.

It is said that when Jimmy manifested “many were worried about his manifestation at such a young age, [but] Jimmy rather enjoyed it” (116). This does fit a little more with the vibes we get when Gakane and Jimmy talk about his second gender manifestation earlier. When Jimmy worries about his manifestation, he links it to becoming an adult. That reads a lot more like the discourse surrounding preconceived notions about what starting to menstruate is like/means (89). So it could honestly be that Jimmy, or any kid, awakening as an Omega around an adult second gender awakening triggers more “yeah that’s a kid, gotta take care of the kid” instead of anything sexual, but neither we nor Yuder knows that.

What we do know is the opposite.

Yuder is more than just apprehensive of his own second gender manifestation. During the first timeline, Yuder’s second gender manifestation is sudden and overlaps with Kishiar’s near heat, causing Kishiar to lose control. Yuder describes him as “beast-like” (301) and he hardly has any memories of the incident.

While he was tangled up, he did not know whether the place had changed or whether days and nights had passed, but he continually felt as if something inside him was being ripped apart and was being messily mixed with something that came from outside. The pain, as if something unseen and ragged pieces were arbitrarily stitched together. (301)

None of the words Yuder uses to describe his second gender manifestation are kind. If anything, they make me a little nauseous.

Yuder, however, could not comprehend the 'pleasant moments' they referred to. He failed to see what was refreshing or enjoyable about losing control of oneself. For him, being a second gender Awakener was a source of agony. The single heat experience that had come and gone with his manifestation was a source of shame, and the powerless time when he could not control himself was a horror he did not even wish to imagine in dreams.

He speaks of pain, a loss of control, shame – it summons the image of suffering from the aftereffects of a date rape drug. He barely remembers what happened to him, he recalls the dizzy aftermath.

Why did the traces of that path feel like screams? […] It was the pain of a naive and awkward emotion dying. He didn't know what he had hoped for, but he knew he hadn't wished for this, and thus, a mournful moan escaped him. (613)

Yuder very much did not consent to this and didn’t want it – and neither did Kishiar! Turning has done an incredibly good job at leading up to this, pointing out the loss of control. Much earlier already, Yuder remembers part of the conversation he has with Kishiar in the aftermath, during which Kishiar apologizes and affirms it’s not Yuder’s fault and also that he doesn’t know what happened, but that he will figure it out (142, 159). We know Kishiar figured something out for sure, even if not everything, but that also makes you wonder. We know they kept hooking up, we also know that Yuder carries the trauma of that experience with him. When he experiences his second gender manifestation in the second timeline, he’s afraid and thinks the outcome is almost inevitable.

"Yuder Aile. Whatever you're afraid of now, I promise it will never happen. Won't you trust me?" [...] Overwhelmed by heat, self-loathing, and confusion, Yuder sighed and closed his eyes. Even his gasping sounds felt disgustingly repulsive, making his stomach churn (160).

It’s not, but we also know Kishiar was holding himself to an unexpected degree and had the luck of not being near his own heat cycle.

Additionally, we know that Yuder wants guidelines on how to handle second gender manifestations because of incidents in the first timeline. It’s not entirely impossible that similar situations of (near) mutual non-con happened.

And this, finally, brings us to a part of the novel that I honestly when I read was appalled, but didn’t fully grasp until later.

The Apeto Experiments

Beltreil’s experiments are absolutely horrifying. We don’t actually see the experiments themselves, but we learn the results of his experiments. The goal was to figure out whether Awakener children could fix the curse on their bloodline (462), which is why they were so keen to get second gender awakeners (95).

What Beltreil concludes from the experiments is this:

Second gender manifestation in one Awakener, can trigger the same in another non-manifested one. (132)

In Alphas and Omegas who have reached their mating cycles, sexual attraction always occurs, though to varying degrees. (184)

Even if one party is not in heat, sexual attraction can occur, but the probability of copulation appears to be extremely low if one party is in a normal state. (184)

Pregnancy does not always result from copulation between Alphas and Omegas who have reached their mating cycles. (184)

Physical reactions manifest such as scent, along with heightened senses, sexual arousal, excessive protectiveness, a sense of unity surpassing camaraderie. (184)

Awakeners who have manifested their second gender become vulnerable during heat. (184)

The chance of a child being born between second gender Awakeners is extremely low. No child has been born safely, resulting in either miscarriage or in the sudden death of the parent. (462)

And then we have to ask, how exactly did Beltreil conclude all of this? Well, the way he came about his results is written down quite directly.

He had gathered powerless commoners who had Awakened from all over the empire, almost kidnapping them. Initially, he attempted to transform himself into an Awakener by exchanging his blood with theirs, but after failing, he moved on to forcing Awakeners with second gender to conceive children, with the intention of observing the process. (462)

Or to put it more plainly: He locked them in a cell and forced people to rape each other, probably either under conditions similar to Kishiar and Yuder’s case waiting for them to lose control, or by forcing them. During the trial, one Awakener brings up many dying due to “vomiting blood due to the drugs they were forced to consume, drugs that were purported to induce heat period” (209).

Just carefully read through the list above, and try to imagine under what circumstances you’d find the conditions for this. While we can’t be sure this is particularly correct – Kishiar notes how inhuman the conditions of these experiments were and that these writings should not be believed – he does put some belief in it, considering how careful he is not to knock Yuder up (462, 620).

Beltreil started his experiments a year ago, so just a year after Awakeners appeared. For there to be miscarriages to happen which even resulted in the death of the parent, suggesting they probably happened later during the pregnancy, he probably rather quickly stopped the whole blood transfusion and switched over to assault. In the first timeline, Yuder never learns of this, but he isn’t particularly shocked this was happening either. At the very start, Yuder already notes that some omegas “were even kidnapped and used as sexual playthings by aristocrats who coveted rare and peculiar possessions” (3).

So now let’s talk about what the Orr Empire (didn’t) do about this.

Laws and Regulations in the Orr Empire

So Yuder notes that “in the past, laws could only be established after numerous accidents had occurred” (38) and that he “had gone through a lot of trouble to push through regulations and laws related to the second gender, against the opposition of greedy nobles” (68). From this we conclude that in the first timeline, due to Kishiar mcfucking dying, Yuder was the one pushing for laws and regulations regarding second gender manifestation, but probably Awakeners in general.

They have to deal with kidnapping, human experimentation, slavery, assault – a continuously long list of hurt. And this is in the Orr Empire – the best place to be an Awakener on the continent. Every other country is worse, except, perhaps, Nelarn later on, because Ejain is an Awakener himself.

One of the issues Yuder also had is that “there were hardly any scholars conducting proper research on the abilities and physical changes of the Awakeners and it was nearly impossible for the leader of the Cavalry, who came from a commoner background, to correct misconceptions and prejudice alone” (68).

This is important because this means that the preconceived notions of Awakeners are what determine the law. Omega Awakeners are weak, Awakeners in heat are sexual beings.

Yuder notes that “rumors began to circulate that perverse, wealthy individuals were buying Omegas for their alleged enhancing or aphrodisiac properties, even though no evidence supported such claims” (585).

If you really want to push it through, then laws and regulations are needed because otherwise you could – and I’m sure that in universe they did – argue that it isn’t assault if an Awakener is in heat. They’re asking for it, after all.

And Yuder in the past did what he could, from having rooms set aside for people to safely spend their heat for example.

During his time as a Commander, Yuder used various local branches as shelters to protect Omegas going through their heat periods. Anyone experiencing an impending heat period could visit a Cavalry branch, receive sleeping medicines, and use the isolation facilities. (585)

The fact that this was necessary, speaks miles about the conditions at the time were like. So it makes sense that Kishiar, now in the second timeline, quickly wants to bring about proper laws concerning Awakeners as there is “still no formal law concerning those with the second gender” (520), even if we know that by 583 they’re working on it – one can only assume that once Kishiar and Yuder get back from the North, Keilusa’s clean up will have included some changes towards that.

Conclusion

Do I have a final conclusion? This is already 2k longer than I wanted it to be. I think in the end, what this essay boils down to can be summoned up as “the treatment of second gender Awakeners was horrific” and “a lot of Yuder’s reactions and beliefs regarding his own second gender (manifestation) can be directly traced back to this.

[weemietime]

Blorbo

- Shayne or Weemie

- He/him, 33, Canadian

- ISTP, 8w9, sanguine

- Irish, French, Polish, Jewish

- Queer

- Find me on Reddit, and YouTube

- I run a mental health support group on Discord called Treehouse, the politics is kept low-key, moderates and progressives and allies are all allowed, people of all races, religions, sexualities, genders, etc are welcome. Our bread and butter is trauma and disorders that are caused by trauma such as cluster B personality disorders, OCD, certain psychotic features, attachment disorders, dissociative disorders, etc.

Posts about

- DDR, mutual aid, pragmatic pacifism

- ACAB, restorative justice, prison abolition

- Trauma, mental illness, indoctrination

- Zionism, New Iran, Land Back

- Diplomacy, international humanitarian law

- Post-economy, evolution beyond money

- Climate change, environmentalism

- Perpetration induced traumatic stress

Disclosure

- Religious Conservative Jew

- PTSD, SZPD, OCD, ADHD

- Physically disabled, chronic pain

- Former violent offender

- Sober addict

- I have a cortical visual impairment and visual agnosia, so sometimes I will misread or not see things properly. If I ignore or don't see something of yours it isn't on purpose.

Inline Tags (Theme)

#weemie #jumblr #hamas

#ask #mutual aid #szpd

#ocd #ptsd #lgbt #politics

#antisemitism #ableism #israel

Common Questions

What is antisemitism?

"Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities." IHRA, International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance

Antisemitism is spelled as one word, without the dash, as it is not bigotry against all Semites (Arabs + Jews), it is solely about Jews.

Is antisemitism the same as antizionism?

The 3-Ds of antisemitism are Demonization, Delegitimization and Double-Standards. If your criticism of Israel doesn't apply to any other country, if the way you talk about Israelis doesn't match how you talk about Russians, Iranians, Chinese, etc. then it is antisemitism.

What antisemitism is not

Criticism of Israel on its own (i.e. crimes, gov't, policies)

Palestinian self-determination

Palestinian flags, pride, culture

Criticism of religious Judaism (i.e. trauma, harm)

Is accusing Arabs/Muslims of antisemitism racist/Islamophobic?

It is racist to accuse Arabs of being de facto antisemites.

It is racist to presume Arabs are all Muslim as well.

It is not racist to acknowledge that Islam is foundationally taken from Jewish texts and histories, which have been misinterpreted and abused to justify antisemitic violence. It is not racist to hold Islam accountable for the imperialism that pervades its evangelical arm.

Just like it isn't racist to do the same for Christianity. And we hold this standard for Judaism as well. Just like it isn't antisemitic to criticize the harms that Jewish religion has caused for others (such as LGBT), it isn't Islamophobic to do the same.

How prevalent is antisemitism?

It's baked-in to two of the world's major religions, Christianity and Islam. Unfortunately that means antisemitism is the de facto sentiment of a majority of the world's population. Antisemitism is one of the oldest, longest hatreds. That means we are often subjected to historical revisionism, such as denying the severity of the Holocaust, or publishing encyclopedias, textbooks, as "information" with clearly antisemitic content pasted over real events. 

A good example is a look at the Wikipedia article for what Zionism is.

This clearly shows that Wikipedia is being subjected to antisemitic historical revisionism.

What is the alt-left?

We will use the BITE model for indoctrination as popularized by Steven Hassan in Combating Cult Mind Control. BITE stands for Behavior, Information, Thought, Emotion. The most common form of indoctrination is called a thought-terminating cliche, or a fallacy-fallacy.

For example:

P1: "Israel is committing genocide!"

P2: "How many people have Russia killed so far"

P1: "500,000"

P2: "Do you think Russia is committing genocide?

Should we eject Putin from the UNSC?"

P1: "That's whataboutism!"

Resist this "whatabousim" idea, as it is designed to terminate all objections to clear hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is different than whataboutism, because it is a double standard, one of the 3-Ds of antisemitism.

So what is Zionism?

Zionism is the acknowledgment that Jews are the indigenous population of Israel, who have a right to self-determination in their homeland. Zionism is extremely broad. Some people don't even require Israel to be the Jewish country (their goal is simply safety and community for Jews world-wide, in Some Place), but this is a more secular argument.

Some people believe Zionism is only applicable to Jews (i.e. you cannot call yourself a Zionist if you are not a Jew), others are OK with goyim using the term as well. You'll have to feel that out, as both sides of the equation have a right to exist. Personally I use Zionism in as broad a definition as possible, so it does include non-Jews, with the exception of Messianic Christians, and evangelical hoo-hah.

When you're discussing Zionism with a Jew, especially as a non-Jew, you need to listen to what they describe Zionism as. It is de-legitimizing (another of the 3-Ds) to claim that Jews can't be trusted to point out antisemitic rhetoric. Jews define antisemitism, and we define Zionism. They are words about us, for us. 

In some cases people will say wrong dumb shit, so refer back to the first part of what antisemitism isn't. E.g. if someone (even a fellow Jew) says holding a Palestinian flag is antisemitic, they are actually being antisemitic themselves.

Is goy a slur?

No, in fact the term "gentile" was popularized by the KKK. Gentile is based off of a Christian scholar's interpretation of the term goy (Saint Jerome). Goy simply means "nations", as in non-Jewish people. Goyim/goy is not a slur. Some people might use it derogatorily, the same way Black people might speak negatively about white folks who have been racist to them.

It's still not a slur. We prefer to use goy because it is our word, we like it, and it doesn't have a history of being lobbed at us by mask-wearing wizard KKK freaks. Terms like "zio", "zionazi" etc are also slurs developed by David Duke.

You're a conservative who believes in prison abolition and social justice blah khadl blargo de glarm hlblehgah?

Conservative Judaism is a progressive, egalitarian denomination of Judaism. We believe in conserving the spirit of the Torah, but produce adaptive Responsa as we gain more scientific and social understanding. it is not Republican/political conservatism.

Why do you post all these gibberish asks by idiots?

That's actually the reason I am here! To do outreach to people who are brainrotted. I was an extreme kid. I was indoctrinated into a violent armed gang at age 8, and we had a lot of the same ideology.

Violence is cool, and our enemies should die and be hurt, brutality should be rewarded, etc. I want to dismantle this pipeline. I want to use my experiences to be a force for good, because that gives meaning to my life.

But I get that it's annoying to constantly read bullshit, so you don't have to follow me!

Is Israel committing genocide?

As it stands now, I'm keeping an eye on things. The simplest opinion I have is that we don't have any real data to work with, so we can't make conclusions. But we do have testimonies, believable ones, from people who were there and who are documenting the Likud war crimes.

So far, there is not conclusive proof that Israel is committing genocide in a systematic way. Some Israeli politicians are saying genocidal rhetoric, (one egregious piece of evidence is Halevi's statements that bombing Gazan civilian areas would "soften the battlefield," which is an open statement he made to media, this would mean he supports giving orders to deliberately target civilian areas - this is genocidal!) but this is separate from genocidal actions.

It's possible the answer to this question will change to yes and I have always been open about that. And if it does become yes, I will say yes.

[genderqueerdykes]

trans women & transfems have to jump through near impossible hoops to be gendered correctly and seen as real women. it's very true, very present in just about every pocket of society in general including trans spaces. it's so hard for other people to accept trans women as real women no matter what they do. this is important to discuss. there is something else to add to the conversation of the struggles trans people face, which is that trans men & mascs also have to jump through these same hurdles

if a trans man is not a hyper masculine or "normal" level of masculine cis passing dude, they're misgendered. if trans men do not or refuse to appeal to toxic masculine standards of what a "real man" is they're misgendered and disregarded as a stupid cis girl who's too stupid to think for themselves and is misguided and doesn't know what manhood "really" means. if trans men don't painstakingly try night and day, increase their T doses and focus on doing nothing but masculinizing, going to the gym, having only "male" interests. hanging out with only cishet men. if they don't do these things, they are not seen as men at all and are viewed as dumb cis girls.

if they're a masculine trans man, they're a "Confused butch lesbian" or a "tranny dyke". if they're a feminine trans man, they're called "quirky cis girls who need to feel special" or "transtrenders". if they're a gay man they're called a "tranny fag" or a fujoshi or a cishet woman. if they're genderfluid or bigender they're either called "AFAB" enbies or cis girls wanting to be special. if they're a feminine nonbinary person, they're called a quirky cis girl wanting to be special. if they're bigender they're called a quirky cis girl who wants attention. people threaten trans men & transmascs with corrective sexual assault in order to "force them to realize they're just stupid women", and unfortunately, this happens within the queer community as well as the tons of people outside of the community do it, mostly in both rad fem & specific transfeminine circles, though many other people do it as well.

trans men & mascs are constantly reduced to their genitals. people will say it's great for transfems & trans women to have penises, but it's gross for trans men to have vaginas. trans men who do have vaginas are reduced to them, and referred to in very disgusting, sexualized fashions when that trans man never consented to that or asked for it. trans men & mascs are reduced to sex objects & being women if they have vaginas. they're just stupid cis women who need to be fucked in order to remember that. if they have penises, they are mocked and told their penises are gross, among way worse things.

are we noticing a pattern here?

trans men & mascs have to perform to the most extreme toxic masculine standards in order to have anyone, cis, trans and everyone else to accept that they are masc/a man. when someone finds out someone is a trans man and/or masc they instantly start finding ways to reduce them to "quirky cis girls". people start instantly finding ways to misgender and de-gender them and all kinds of invalidating things such as questioning everything about them and treating them like they're too stupid to think for themselves.

trans men & mascs also do not have it easy and its okay to say that. i'm not saying that trans women & fems don't face these exact same things with being gendered correctly in fact, i'm saying they're very similar and just as bad. these are serious things to discuss at once in order to reveal just how bad transphobia is and how many people it affects. it's okay to talk about these things at the same time, it provides insight into what is happening to other trans people as well. we all have unique struggles. its okay to acknowledge that, and use words to describe it so that we can create open ended discussions and long lasting conversations that prove that what we are going through as a community is brutal and eats us alive.

we are all struggling. let that unite us so we can provide safety, comfort, understanding, and protection. the more we understand each others struggles, the easier to protect each other becomes, and it is a mutual thing, it is not purely one sided!