#yes even people attracted to the same gender whether that’s exclusively or not

[hotsugarbyglassanimals]

Acht hating the blatant PDA with Pearl and Marina was only funny to me when I thought of Acht also being sapphic in some way, but some of you are actually making that joke homophobic and it’s really uncomfortable

[fe-smashorpass]

Hello!

Inspired by other smash or pass blogs, this one is about Fire Emblem characters!

My name is Mod Garn and I use she/her!

Will only be posting characters who are 18+ but since this is Fire Emblem not everyone has a canon age. Even if they do, a character's age can be called into question. TL;DR I'll be arbitrarily judging a character if they look old enough for this. If you think a character should or shouldn't be here, I am sorry.

I will be doing almost every character in the franchise, including from the mainline and spin-off games, one off generics, the cipher exclusives, and manga exclusives.

Also I am splitting up characters who are technically the same character but under different identities.

Characters that will be excluded are:

underage characters (as mentioned before)

characters without a decent (or any) picture of them

Characters who share the same portrait as each other since that will be redundant

Generic portraits for classes, so if a character uses a generic class portrait (ex the 10 elites from fe3h) they won't be included (the only exceptions are Abysskeeper and Gatekeeper)

I'll be posting 3 characters a day, alphabetically, at 12PM EST.

Also thank you to reddit user u/Just_Nefariousness55 for making this post compiling every character in the games. My life was made so much easier because of you.

Also I made this uquiz and I would appreciate it if you took it :)

FAQ under the cut

Q. Why are people smashing/passing X character?

A. IDK!!! Maybe to piss people off. Maybe the character is not as hot as you think. Maybe something else. Baseline is… I don’t know!

Q. Why? A. Because I can

Q. Can you add a “not attracted to character’s gender” option? A. No I don’t think it’s necessary to have, you can just press “pass” or not vote at all

Q. Why is fe2 Nuibaba your pfp? A. It funni

Q. IDK this character, can I still participate in the poll? A. Sure! You can decide whether to smash or pass just based on looks

Q. Can I explain the reason why I would/wouldn't smash? A. Yes cause I'm nosey

Q. I don't care for the other things on this blog, what are the tags for the smashing or passing? A. #fe smash or pass and #fire emblem smash or pass are the tags used for the actual smash or pass polls, in case you don't care for the random bs I sometimes post on this blog

Q. What’s the age limit of the polls? A. I’d rather not have any underage people rebloging/commenting/liking on the smash or pass polls (for y’all’s safety)

Q. What will happen once you’re finished with all the characters? A. I’ll do the generic portraits for classes and idk what will happen afterwards

Q. Are you a fan of Digimon? A. Yes :}

[keelanrosa]

started reading the cass review because i'm apparently just Like That and i want everybody crowing about how this proves sooooo much about how terfs are right and trans people are wrong to like. take a scientific literacy class or something. or even just read the occasional study besides the one you're currently trying to prove a point with. not even necessarily pro-trans studies just learn how to know what studies actually found as opposed to what people trying to spoonfeed you an agenda claim they found.

to use just one infuriating example:

Several studies from that period (Green et al., 1987; Zucker, 1985) suggested that in a minority (approximately 15%) of pre-pubertal children presenting with gender incongruence, this persisted into adulthood. The majority of these children became same-sex attracted, cisgender adults. These early studies were criticised on the basis that not all the children had a formal diagnosis of gender incongruence or gender dysphoria, but a review of the literature (Ristori & Steensma, 2016) noted that later studies (Drummond et al., 2008; Steensma & Cohen-Kettenis, 2015; Wallien et al., 2008) also found persistence rates of 10-33% in cohorts who had met formal diagnostic criteria at initial assessment, and had longer follow-up periods.

if you recognize the names Zucker and Steensma you are probably already going feral but tldr:

There are… many problems with Zucker's studies, "not all children had a formal diagnosis" is so far down the list this is literally the first i've heard of it. The closest i usually hear is the old DSM criteria for gender identity disorder was totally different from the current DSM criteria for gender dysphoria and/or how most people currently define "transgender"; notably it did not require the patient to identify as a different gender and overall better fits what we currently call "gender-non-comforming". Whether the kids had a formal diagnosis of "maybe trans, maybe just has different hobbies than expected, but either way their parents want them back in their neat little societal boxes" is absolutely not the main issue. This would be a problem even if Zucker was pro-trans (spoiler: He Is Not, and people who are immediately suspicious of pro-trans studies because "they're probably funded by big pharma or someone else who profits from transitioning" should apply at least a little of that suspicion to the guy who made a living running a conversion clinic); sometimes "formal" criteria change as we learn more about what's common, what's uncommon, what's uncommon but irrelevant, etc, and when the criteria changes drastically enough it doesn't make sense to pretend the old studies perfectly apply to the new criteria. If you found a study defining "sex" specifically and exclusively as penetration with a dick which says gay men have as much sex as straight men but lesbians don't, it's not necessarily wrong as far as it goes but if THAT'S your prime citation for "gay men have more sex than lesbians", especially if you keep trying to apply it in contexts which obviously use a broader definition, there are gonna be a lot of people disagreeing with you and it won't be because they're stubbornly unscientific.

Also Zucker is pro conversion therapy. Yes, pro converting trans people to cis people, but also pro converting gay people to straight people. That doesn't necessarily affect his results, i just find it funny how many people enthusiastically support his findings as evidence transitioning is… basically anti-gay conversion therapy? (even though plenty of trans people transition to gay? including T4T people so even the "that's actually just how straight people try to get with gay people" rationale for gay trans people is incredibly weak? and also HRT has a relatively low but non-zero chance of changing sexual orientation so it wouldn't even be reliable as a means of "becoming straight"? but a guy who couldn't reliably tell the difference between a tomboy and a trans boy figured out the former is more common than the latter + in one whole country where being trans is legal but being gay is not, sometimes cis gay people transition, so OBVIOUSLY that means sexism and homophobia are the driving factors even in countries with significant transphobia. or something.) anyway i hope zucker knows and hates how many gay people and allies are using his own study to trash-talk any attempts to be Less Gay. ideally nobody would take his nonsense seriously at all but it doesn't seem we'll be spared from that any time soon so i will take my schadenfreude where i can.

Steensma's studies have the exact same problem re: irrelevant criteria so "well someone ELSE had the same results!" is not exactly convincing. This is not "oh trans people are refusing to pay attention to these studies because they disagree with them regardless of scientific rigor", it's "one biased guy using outdated criteria found exactly the numbers everyone would expect based on that criteria, i can't imagine why trans people are treating those numbers as relevant to the past criteria but not present definitions, let's find a SECOND guy using outdated criteria. Why do people keep saying the outdated criteria is not relevant to the current state of trans healthcare. Don't we all know it's quantity over quality with scientific studies. (Please don't ask what the quantity of studies disagreeing with me is.)"

Steensma also counted patients as 'not persisting as transgender' if they ghosted him on follow-up which counted for a third of his study's "detransitioners" and a fifth of the total subjects and. look. i'm not saying none of them detransitioned, or assuming they all didn't would be notably more accurate, but i think we can safely treat twenty percent of subjects as a bit high for making a default assumption, especially when some of them might have simply not been interested in a study on whether or not they still know who they are. Fuck knows i've seen pro-trans studies which didn't make assumptions about the people who didn't respond still get prodded by anti-trans people insisting "the number of people claiming they don't regret transitioning can't possibly be so high, some of the people who responded must have been lying. (Scientific rigor means thinking studies which disagree with me are wrong even if the only explanation is the subjects lying and studies which agree with me are right even if we need to make assumptions about a lot of subjects to get there.)"

and this is not new information. not the issues with zucker, not the issues with steensma, not any of the issues because this is not a new study, it's a review of older studies, which in itself doesn't mean "bad" or "useless" -- sometimes that allows connecting some previously-unconnected dots -- but the idea this is going to absolutely blow apart the Woke Media, vindicate Rowling and Lineham, and "save" ""gay"" children from """being forcibly transed""" is bullshit. At most it'll get dragged around and eagerly cited by all the people looking for anything vaguely scientific-sounding to justify their beliefs, and maybe even people who only read headlines and sound bites will buy it, but the people who really believe it will be people who already agreed with all its "findings" and have already been dragging around the existing studies and are just excited to have a shiny new citation for it.

the response from people who've been really reading research on transgender people all along is going to be more along the lines of "……yeah. yeah, i already knew about that. do you need a three-page essay on why i don't think it means what you think it means? because i don't have time for that homework right now but maybe i can pencil it in for next semester if you haven't learned how to check your own sources by then."

[warriorlid14]

Okay, because I'm still obsessed with the idea based on a post you reblogged a few days ago--how do you think the story would have been different if Gale were a girl (and everything else was the same)?

The particular point I'm stuck on most is that, as a girl, Gale and Katniss would be mutually exclusive draws for the Games, and I think that change adds a really interesting dimension.

Oh my god, yes, I've been thinking about it too. I think that they'd have a pact where they don't volunteer for each other (whether or not they'd adhere to it is a different story). Neither of them expected Prim to be called though- which was too much of a shock for Gale that she wouldn't even have to chance to consider volunteering before Katniss was already doing it. I think Gale would feel a lot of guilt about that one.

Some other things that would be slightly different, because even though "nothing else is different ", societal gender norms still exist. Panem is more equal in terms of gender, but it's still A Thing (girls take longer being prepped for the games, "ladies first", etc). Different sexualities are more accepted, but Panem is still heteronormative. Anyway:

There wouldn't be a need to make them cousins in the public eye

Gale's reputation would be different. In canon he's seen as a heart throb who's a great romantic prospect. As a girl, Gale would still be seen as a badass- but also as a bitch and would probably be slut shamed more

Katniss would be more aware of her own sexuality- nothing is different, including Gale making out with people (definitely girls). I still don't think they'd talk about it more, but having a queer bestfriend might make her more aware of her own queerness. I headcanon her as being on the aro/ace spectrum, but she'd assume she was bi because her attraction to different genders is the same (minimal to zero)

On a darker note: Katniss mentions that if she were a little older, she might be one of the girls lining up at the head peacekeepers' house. Gale *would* be slightly older so that's more of a possibility

D12 probably wouldn't be as ready to assume that they were dating

50/50 chance on whether Peeta would be more or less threatened by Gale as a romantic rival than he was in the first book

[posic-culture]

What is objectum? Sorry I just don’t really get it, does it mean liking objects in a sexual way or liking them for the personality you see in them? I don’t really experience romance or sexual desire at all, but I do tend to assign personalities to objects subconsciously, I’m just confused on how it works to be attracted to them and view them as partners. Also, do you know what made you objectum? Is it something you feel you were born with? Do you view it as a sexuality or a preference or a hobby or something else? Also, If you are a lesbian for example, would you only feel romance for objects that you see as women? Sorry if it’s rude, I just don’t get it and am curious, being partners with an object seems harmless so I just wanted to know more.

hi! this ask isn't rude at all. i'm gonna try my best to answer each of your questions individually. if anyone else would like to chime in, reblogs and replies are appreciated :]

What is objectum? Does it mean liking objects in a sexual way...

being objectum means that you feel some form of attraction toward objects. usually this attraction is romantic or sexual, but it can also be any other type of attraction you would feel toward a person (platonic, familial, queerplatonic, alterous, etc.)

...or liking them for the personality you see in them?

not all objectum people are posic (meaning not everyone who's attracted to objects sees objects as being sentient), but for people who are both, the personality you see in that object could definitely play a role in your attraction to it, just like how a person's personality could play a role in you being attracted to them (using the general you here since you said that you don't really experience romance or sexual desire)

I’m just confused on how it works to be attracted to them and view them as partners.

i mean, being objectum is just having feelings (whether romantic or sexual or anything else) for objects that you would "normally" only feel for other people. i know that explanation doesn't really help, but i'm not sure if any explanation i could give you would actually be helpful for understanding what being objectum is like. even if you can't understand it, though, the important part is being respectful of people who are objectum and their relationships.

Also, do you know what made you objectum? Is it something you feel you were born with?

i don't think anything "made me" objectum, i think i was probably born like this. i didn't realize i was objectum until i saw other people online who were in relationships with objects, and i was like "wait, i can do that?", and then it clicked lol

Do you view it as a sexuality or a preference or a hobby or something else?

i view it as a sexuality. i'm attracted to objects in the same way that i'm attracted to people, so i consider it part of my orientation. i think it could also be a preference for some people (like if they're attracted to both people and objects and they prefer dating objects) but i wouldn't call it a hobby any more than i would call any other orientation or dating preference a hobby.

Also, If you are a lesbian for example, would you only feel romance for objects that you see as women?

in some cases, yes, and in other cases, no.

using your example of a lesbian, if the objectum person is exclusively attracted to objects, then them calling themself a lesbian would mean they're only attracted to objects that they see as women, like you said.

if the objectum person is attracted to both people and objects, then the genders they're attracted to in people and the genders they're attracted to in objects could be the same or they could be different. an objectum lesbian who's also attracted to people could be 1. only attracted to women in both people and objects 2. only attracted to women in people, but attracted to different genders in objects 3. only attracted to women in objects, but attracted to different genders in people

(and i know lesbian attraction extends to more than just women, i just wanted this scenario to be easy to understand)

[yareadyfreddie]

I can't figure out if I've never come out, have always been out, or am constantly coming out.

I've never felt the need to announce myself, because I guess I feel like it's obvious, and yet I get weird or surprised looks when I mention finding a woman hot or dating a girl. "Weren't you married?" To a man is implied, even though same sex marriage has been legal in this state for over a decade. (I was married to a man, as a Cis woman, so I suppose what's obvious to me wasn't to the masses, but that's not my problem.)

I never think about beforehand, while alluding to my queerness offhand, matter-of-fact; it's only in the aftermath, getting funny looks and less than favorable reactions that I think, "should I have said that?" Not really my problem though.

The only struggle I've had, bisexuality wise, was all the gay friends I had in the 00s telling me I was straight, and that the number of girls I'd slept with meant nothing if I'd only ever seriously dated men. At the time I thought, that's fair, they would know, right? Now, looking back, I'm a little mad about it, sometimes. No one says that anymore though.

Truth is, now that I'm older, I realize that although I'm equally attracted to all genders sexually, I am romantically attracted to no one. That's the hard part.

"Weren't you married?" Yeah, and now I'm divorced. I didn't MIND being married, it was kind of fun - like having a roommate  and sex buddy all in one. (Turns out the spouse boy saw it a little differently. Luckily, he's not mad anymore, even though we're no longer roommates or sex buddies, we are the bestiest still. I think you can't go through a divorce without coming out either enemies or comrades in arms, but maybe that's just me. Maybe people shouldn't get married because of existential ennui though, or for the vine. Me, I'm people.)

Anyway, the bisexuality was never an issue, regardless of what other people thought. Whether you're a man or a woman or both or neither, yes, I will sleep with you if I think you're hot and/or funny enough. It's what comes after that's the problem. I won't remember your birthday, I will not buy you flowers, and I won't be upset if you like someone else or someone else likes you. I won't call, I won't text, and if I buy you a present just because I was thinking of you it will probably be coffee (I will randomly buy you coffee at least once a year, especially if I've forgotten you hate coffee). I have never in my life remembered an anniversary, or usually even known when it was. Sometimes, I will randomly appear for a booty call, and you'll think it's a romantic surprise, but the only surprise is it's just a booty call. I don't like to cuddle and I hate holding hands, and this seems to offend or baffle people the most  because I'm soft and small and delicate looking. But really, I just want to be left alone.

THIS was my struggle. Coming to terms with liking women wasn't a thing for me - it was as simple as kissing a girl on a dare at age 18 and thinking "oh wow, this is also hot. I've been missing out."

The Aro thing is - no one understands it. "But you dated! A LOT! You were Married!" Yeah, well, I didn't know some people just don't fall in love. I figured I'd eventually be comfortable with romance through like, exposure therapy or whatever. And maybe some Aro people are more comfy in this disease ridden social climate being exclusive (for myself, I haven't had a closed relationship since high school, but that's a whole other can of worms).

I also get: But you read romance! Excessively! Yeah, well, some people are obsessed with murder mysteries but most of them aren't murderers or detectives or little old ladies with typewriters and a suspicious trail of death. It's fun when it's other people!

Then I get: It sounds like you're emotionally constipated, immature, and need to learn to be vulnerable. Oooooh buddy. It sounds like you need to get the fuck off my dick.

Anyway.

I wish a polycule would just adopt me, like some kind of human cat or something, where I can come and go as I please without the full burden of possibly being someone's sole romantic interest. Because I do crave touch sometimes, and I do miss a steady sex partner, but I'm never going to be fully present. Going into relationships stating I'm not going to be the ideal girlfriend always ends messy, because either I'm not believed or it's taken as a challenge. It's so frustrating.

Anyway, those are the perils of being Aro but not Ace I guess.

I just needed to scream into the void a bit.

[demonfuck]

depression taking a weird shape for me this winter

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i'm trying to do what i want while i'm still alive to do it. it's sort of an apathetic reason to live and i'm never deeply motivated to take real good care of myself. if something's gonna kill me, it can. it's whatever

i love storytelling as much as i do. i sort of enjoy studying every aspect of story. what makes it compelling, what keeps you listening, what makes it fun, what makes it worth your time

stories aren't real, i think. the story my parents told by naming me. the story of soulmates, the rules of romantic and sexual attraction, the idea that you're destined to an opposite gender partner to produce offspring with. that shit was fake. the story of nationality, the story of family, the story of god

it all happens, it all literally happens and people act and people believe and impact the world, reality, with those actions. but i don't believe the story, now

like, the story my parents tell by naming me. that my body is labelled by this set of sounds, shapes and letters, written down on a very important piece of paper and put in all sorts of systems and it comes at you from so many angles that it feels MORE than real. it feels ancient and forever

i won't go into detail but i feel the same way about being an American and also a human. listen i will go into a little detail: human is a made up word that we made up to describe what we are. guess who has the power to adjust that definition, or to determine that i do not fit within it? that's right, anybody. everybody. idk this is a pill that is easier or harder to swallow depending on the steps you took to realize you're not human. yes, you are literally the species you are. whether that's dogboy or catgirl or robot or crab or your OC or my OC. we believe and communicate and love and respect , maybe at first just on the basis of love and encouragement. but i'm a scientist and i just want to get it on the record that while it may take Less Cool People a few more decades or centuries to realize this ONLY AFTER body modding makes the distinction more physically obvious, the people who identity as non-human are already what they say they are.

not that you HAVE to physically transition to become non-human, btw, the trans girl doesn't ever have to "physically transition" because girls can have dicks and testosterone just like my dog friends can have skin and speak human and use a computer

(also the other thing being: you can physically remove every part of your body and replace it with something else and still be human. obviously. just wanted to make it more obvious by saying it)

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i am beyond exhausted by a sort of... endless pursuit of quality. i don't mean i'm exhausted by my own pursuit for quality, i'm exhausted by the concept. shiny drawing, pretty music, good fashion, fuck that shit. fuck everything that was ever good or bad. i'm playing. i'm just playing. sometimes that play is enhanced by a pursuit for excellence, improvement, even competition is fun, obviously, obviously it's fun. i guess i'm tired of fun

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going forward i might like to realize that stories and what's real aren't mutually exclusive. i just... spent so long uprooting every hook that Big Storytelling got into my body, and tending to the wounds it leaves for months and years. all the weird shit my parents believed about gender and race and the world and the individuals living on it. idk, i watched barber westchester last month and jonni phillips interview about the danger of stories last week, you got me

i'm constantly art blocked by this unresolved contradiction in my heart. that stories are fake and also the only place i seem to thrive. that my abilities have no use in the real world, because my abilities pertain to stories, and stories are fake. am i good at something?

i'm not taking good care of myself. the physical labor of my job is killing me. just having to walk to work isn't good for me, at least not in the winter. i'm struggling to pick examples to give because it's not just one or two things that will be the end of me, it's everything. everything might be what gets me in the end, it's everything i'm apathetic to. i'm apathetic to my ending. it will come when it comes, and i can't say honestly that i tried very hard with the life i was given. i tried to have fun anyway

i'm not like.. disappointed in myself or anything. i'm an animal on a big rock, let me sip from a stream and lay in some grass and i'll have done everything i was supposed to with my life and then some.

i want to believe that i can do more than that, and that if i did it would matter. i'm not personally capable of like, stopping The Organizations That Exist from doing the evil things they do. obviously i'm not capable of that on my own, they have had time and money and power to prepare and sniff out and snuff out truly revolutionary activity for generations. i feel quite fucked? maybe community organizing stands a chance, we're capable of more together than we are on our own. i think the next years of my life should be focused on that aspect of things

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it feels like, probably, based on how i've existed and acted for the last few years, i don't believe the story of friendship. my brain struggles with this, because i'm supposed to respond when people talk to me, and i respond pleasantly if possible. and i sort the memory into a pile of things that don't matter and can be forgotten, because while it was a bit of a scary experience, i made it thru alright and can safely forget the stressful memory behind me. but the people i talk to remember me and consider me their friend. i don't know what to do about this. it happens a lot. i'm sorry if you know me, but i'm not too sorry, because you get to enjoy the luxury of not being me

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so long as things are developing, internally, i find new things to try. and i get better at things i've practiced. that's fun. that generates interest. i'll go to work tomorrow and try to succeed at the metrics they measure me by there, and when i'm not at work i'll try to find the faults in my methods and beliefs that keep me from existing as vibrantly as i'd prefer. it will be really amazing if those efforts go somewhere and i can have new conversations that have impactful consequences. however far words can go, at least.

but i'm depressed. i'd like to spare a moment to consider the fact that i am depressed. at the moment, for the last month or so, this spiral of depression has left me without anti depressants, without estrogen, without phone service, and several factors leave me desiring unemployment, i want to let go of things that require effort that i hate. i don't care, lose my job, lose my house. the worst possible thing that can happen is death, because death is boring. if i fuck everything up and have to struggle to survive, at least that would be stimulating. instead i work and spend my free time pondering "does revolution demand socialization? do i have to get over it and work with others towards goals?"

i consider giving up and struggling, and even dying could seem preferable to struggling when the struggling gets bad enough

before this year i wanted to live like Henry Darger. just write piles, pages upon pages of stories, filling up my room, every corner of my house, consuming all the data on my google drive. then i could die and maybe someone would find my art after that, and maybe i could be allowed to dream that someone WOULD find my art someday

right now i don't know. what i felt then was that my work doesn't matter in the present. what i feel now is maybe it doesn't matter ever. i had my fun, exploring aspects of art and storytelling. i wrote a comic, a game, a book, sang some albums, scribbled drafts for other things too

i feel like whatever i have practiced, i haven't figured out how to enjoy life. i never took much interest in taking care of myself, and while i'm interested in the idea of taking care of others, i don't know how to. i provide some access to myself hoping that my jokes and ideas and conversation can help in ways. but now i'm suffering deeply from this depression. i find myself looking for ways to make any of this easier on myself. that i have to put in some effort to make it easier. i'm always so on my fucking own with this, because i have no family. so when i hit rock bottom my only option is to crash and burn and wait for the fire to go out and wait until i have enough energy to get up again.

i'm heading for a crash. it's nice to think that i'll be a virtuous person if i survive this. do my good intentions make me worthy of needing help? i hope i didn't structure this in a way that was pleasant or compelling to read. how has the quality of my suicidal vent posts changed over the years?

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i'm fortunate to be loved. i love with specificity, intensity, and an extremely open mind. the love i receive is not "undeserved", per se. it just feels like the love i give is ineffectual. it lacks quality. i'm still practicing. i hope i'm okay tomorrow. i can't imagine sleeping tonight but i'm sure i'll manage.

it's nice to believe no one will read this, it's nice to believe someone will read this. it's nice to think i could die tonight. i could. everytime i "make" something for the past couple months, i wonder a lot if i won't die before finishing it. it leaves me finishing each piece with a sense of "at least i got this out there before i died". but then i'm still alive a day later, a week later, a month later, living with the inconsequence of my actions

okay, i don't have much else to say tonight. or i'm just running out of steam. i always have more to say. especially when i'm out of weed. i write a lot more on social media when i'm sober. it's stimulating. i hope that doesn't change too much of what i've said. internet; i use you, i love you, goodnight

[olderthannetfic]

I've always seen wlw/mlm more used as a shorthand to include the various different ways women (binary or otherwise) can be attracted to women (whether because they're gay, bi, pan, ace but romantically attracted, etc etc.) in order to explain it to someone else.

For example, my grandma has a hard time understand asexuality, but she can understand that I'm a woman who can fall in love with other women. I don't want to have to explain the difference between sexuality and romantic attraction and gender and gender presentation every time I talk to her about it. And I have it easy with just asexual homoromantic; my best friend is a nonbinary afab person with a wife. He uses the term wlw when talking to his family who he knows aren't as up-to-date on modern queer terminology because it's easier for him to say "I am a wlw, a woman who loves a woman" than "I'm a nonbinary bisexual lesbian using he/him pronouns with my cis pansexual wife" to his parents. It's not that we're using wlw to exclude people, we're using it to include our identities without going into a dissertation every time we talk about it.

(and yes, I understand the irony of using a very new term to explain queer identities to people who are very confused by all the new terms. But wlw is much easier to explain and remember)

My thoughts on it are: gender and sexuality can become very complicated to talk about, especially to people who spend more time offline and don't really care about keeping up with the modern queer community. My and my friends families live in the south; they are pretty liberal for the area, but that doesn't mean they really know how to talk about queer identities--or even understand what's going on. Anything beyond gay and straight can become a chore to explain. So, we use wlw to say "we're not strictly cis women sexually attracted to only cis women [their understanding of what a lesbian is]."

But that's a privilege. Myself and my friend have to privilege to easily say wlw. But other people don't have that luxury, where in order to be treated with the same dignity everyone else has, they have to explain not only their own gender, but give a quick run through of gender identity, what non-binary is, how their gender identity is connected to their sexuality, etc. And beyond that, like you said, these terms boil down such a large group of identities into one trait, while also separating those identities from each other. So, that's why I don't want to say people don't use it to be exclusive. Obviously it can be. And if someone doesn't want to be called wlw or mlm, I'll respect that. I just wanted to give my two cents on how I think the term can be useful.

(If I'm coming off as insensitive, I apologize. That really wasn't my intention. It's 2 am where I am and I don't even know if I'm making sense.)

--

[nightswithkookmin]

I hate it here

Why does he get to appropriate people's race and still have so much access??

I thought impersonation was a crime.

I thought stealing someone's identity was a crime. How is he walking around Freely and taking pictures with hot chicks?😒

THAT SHOULD BE ME😭😭😭

If he is profiting off of his looks he needs to be sued by Hybe IMMEDIATELY.

HYBE SHOULD HIRE ME - If they can over look my gossipy nature and the fact they really can't trust me with any company secrets plus I'll spend all my time staring at Jikook and simping for YoonminhopeJoon🙂

Bapsae aaahhhhh 😏😏😏

To answer your question Barbara, you are not the only confused one when it comes to these labels. We all are.

A lot of people use Bi these days instead of Pan because people find the term Pansexuality confusing and offensive so....

Strange times.

Offensive because some people in the Bi community feel it's a redundant term as to them it means the same as Bisexuality. As such they feel the use of Pansexuality is erasure and invalidating of their own identity.

From what I understand of this ongoing label wars in the community, those who get offended by Pansexuality do so mostly because they do not view trans identity as a seperate unique gender in of it's own but merely as an adjective.

To such, there is no thing as cis boy or trans boy and that a boy is a boy. So being Bi to them means they are attracted to boys( cis or trans) and girls (regardless of whether they are cis or trans)- which is what Pansexuality actually is💀

Here in lies the conflict. Cis women and some people, myself included, see trans identity as a seperate gender identity from cis identity and differentiates between a biological Male or female and a trans Male or female.

As such a boy is not a boy, a boy is either cis boy or trans boy and both are valid.

This distinction is what mostly sets bisexuality from pan sexuality from my point of view.

It's disheartening. Not to mention anxiety inducing and confusing as hell when we can't even agree on basic terms to describe ourselves.

I don't know how conscious BTS are of these conversations and so I've always viewed their use of labels such as boy/girl in their lyrics with utmost fascination given as there are trans genders within their community.

I often find myself wondering what Joonie means when he talks of girls- does he mean cis girls or trans girls? Would he date either or both?

Personally, I view Trans identity as a valid, separate unique form of identity, unique from Cis identity and not just as an epithet.

I date and definitely find trans girls romantically and sexually attractive especially if there's minimum trace of their cis masculinity in them.

But I have friends who identify as lesbians but wouldn't date trans girls regardless of how they present. Yet they wouldn't mind dating a stud or Masculine presenting females as long as they are Cis girls. Talk of transphobia💀

Some girls call me Bi because I like cis and other fems and I'm perfectly fine with it. However embracing that label in Male spaces gives me a lot of headaches because they just assume I'd date any man too.

I have dated fem tops (girly girls who like to be the dominant one in relationships and also prefer to penetrate other girls during sex) who identify as lesbians but have threesomes with gay men💀

I mean as long as they get to fuck those men or penetrate/ top them or so they say and yes I've seen it happen with my two eyes- I have gay threesomes don't judge or tell my pastor😥

I'm going to hell as it is no need to compound it🤧

My ex was like that. She dated a gay guy she was topping and was gonna marry him because her family was pressuring her to get married. The dude was closeted and their relationship was convenient until he came out and lowkey outed her in the process.

When I asked her if she was bisexual she said she didn't have a label because none suited her at the time and that she likes girls regardless of how those girls identify as. So a femboi, andro, trans girls, cis girls, straight girls, gay girls, as long as you feminine she likes.

I'm a bit like that too... minus the topping fembois and gays part💀

If I had a dick it would be useless 🤣

I say all this to say, labels are a bit tricky and a lot of people struggle to find the right fit.

Gay or queer is our go to label.

For the sake of the conversation we having, I'd define being Bi as liking your own gender plus the opposite of your gender but in an exclusive way. Being Bi also means the gender of a person matters to you in your determination of what you find attractive.

However being Pan means you place less emphasis on the gender of the person you are attracted to and more emphasis on the qualities those people possess- really doesn't matter what the other person is if you like em you like em. Which means a person don't gotta be cis or trans boy or girl or other for you to like them. They just have to have a certain quality you find attractive.

Just like you said, you being a girl find gurls attractive too but I don't think you'd be willing to date a girl- cis or trans- a person has to be Male for you to date them. Right?

That exclusivity is what makes you straight. You like one gender to the exclusion of others.

Gays and lesbians like one gender, the same gender, to the exclusion of others.

Bisexuals may like multiple genders, different genders, to the exclusion of others.

Pansexuals like multiple genders but not to the exclusion of others.

If Gender is important to you in determining who a suitable romantic partner is you are either Straight or Bi. If gender is not important to your determination of who a suitable partner is then you're pansexual.

Pansexuals are gender blind🤣

If Pansexuals are bisexuals, there should be a label for the category currently viewed as bisexuals.

When Suga says " I look at personality and it's not limited to girls" I believe he's talking about the qualities he finds attractive in PEOPLE.

When he sings boy or girl my tongue technology will send you to hongkong it carries a similar sentiment. He's saying basically it doesn't matter what you identify as he can make you orgasm under his- rap?

That's pan energy to me. You go pan Suga! BAPSAE AAAHHH🤭

IF he were queer then I'd assume he's more likely to be pan not bi- hypocritically speaking.

But he is NOT QUEER.

SOPE YOONMIN AND ANYSHIP INVOLVING SUGA IS NOT REAL or even likely to be.

Since we are both men, how can my heart throb for a man. This implies he believes his heart only has to throb for the opposite sex. Yea no he is definitely not bi.

Straight as an arrow this one.

He doesn't find men sexually or romantically attractive. He is not gay or bi and I don't think he wants to be.

I assume he's straight. I do.

And as a straight dude, he's certainly intriguing and I can see how certain actions of his make people queer read him especially in his dominant ships Sope and Yoonmin and Taegi.

But I don't think he goes out of his way to queer code himself.

And I see what you mean by the exaggerated speech. Rappers do trash talk, boast and talk shit in their music but they are also notoriously homophobic with the exception of a few. References of queerness in their lyrics are usually often used pejoratively to slur other rappers etc.

May be I'm too black, gay, and a woman to overlook the misogyny and homophobia that's traveled through Black American hip pop to elsewhere even if it takes on new family friendly labels such as Kpop or BTS.

I don't tend to read hiphop lyrics through non cis non straight non male lens. Unless of course it's from a queer artist but even that there's almost always something internalized.

It's fascinating how people look at a hip hop artist and glean their sexuality from their lyrics....

I'm dozing off. Will read over this tomorrow and add anything I might have missed.

GOLDY

[wolf-queer-discourse]

Adventures in Aphobia #3

My last two Adventures in Aphobia both took on similar flavors of eye-rolling at shameless, obvious bigotry to anyone willing to look or care. But today, I found a different type of aphobia, and I’m actually eager to talk about this one. Have a read of this first.

Look, the bar of respect for ace people is so low it’s all the way in hell, but I mean, to many people, especially allosexual people, they may look at this post and think, “No, this isn’t aphobia. The poster wasn’t blatantly cruel.” But what some fail to realize is that politeness can be the thinnest of veils over the ugliest of takes. Polite bigotry gaslights the victims into thinking they can’t be upset about this.

So what’s the deal with this post?

PARAGRAPH #1 starts off innocently enough, saying ace discourse wouldn’t exist if people recognized complex relationships to sex and relationships. Even taken on its own, I do not agree with this. Ace discourse ranges all the way from outright denial of asexual existence to the strong hatred for and exclusion of aces from the queer community. Nearly everyone recognizes people have complex relationships to sex...that...that doesn’t mean ace people won’t be discriminated against. In fact, it’s an argument aphobes use constantly to try and gaslight ace people into erasing themselves. Ace discourse comes from a lot of places, but at the end of the day, it all stems from people’s refusal to acknowledge ace people and their unique experiences. This poster absolutely does not get to say “IT’s CoMpLicAteD”, and expect ace people to just disappear. Honestly, it’d be better and more honest if they said “Lol, ace people should go fuck themselves and hop to the back of the line with everyone else.”

PARAGRAPH #2 and #3 are not very objectionable on their own. Everything said is true. Society has very complicated views on sex, and life happens to all people. The ugly part of this is that the poster is setting up an argument here in which they will hand wave ace people into the “everyone else” crowd and pretend as if we’re all just too similar and no labels should even exist.

This is literally what enby-phobes do. They say “Well, gender is COMPLICATED”, which is true, but then they say “So like...aren’t we all really nonbinary when we think about it? Why should enby people label themselves?” I swear we’ve all seen this. The poster is agender. This argument could easily be whipped in their face. Different forms of bigotry can share very clear overlaps, and it’s very important to acknowledge where these arguments come from and why they exist. It exists as a way to shut people up. It happens to bi people too! Every day, people come out as bi and someone tells them “pff, everyone thinks girls are hot. I had a crush on my best friend once, that doesn’t mean I’m not straight! All people are like this!” Let’s call out this erasure where we see it. It’s not the same thing, and if anyone saying stuff like this truly believes what they’re saying, maybe they’re the ones who need to reevaluate their own identity.

PARAGRAPH #4 dips its ugly toes straight into blatant aphobia, having the gall to call ace and aro people “obsessed” with pretending their relationships with sex and romance are wholly unique and different. Nah, fuck right off with that bullshit. The poster even goes on to say ace people have created entire new social classes. Uh...WHAT? Is there some secret ace society with a caste system living in the shadows?? What is this person talking about?? I suppose you can’t be a true bigot unless you have some vague grievance to weakly hand-gesture at that you couldn’t prove given 20 years to do so. For the love of my sanity, just say you hate ace people! It’s okay! (I mean, not actually, but Jesus Christ does it save us all some time). They also say things like “somehow excluded from”. Replace asexual people with nonbinary people and take a joyride through this section, because the arguments are scarily similar. What would it take for this poster to acknowledge ace and aro people have their own experiences? Seriously, what? What holds you back from doing this?

It’s also funny to note the actual lack of substance to this argument. The poster is not giving any specific examples or even bringing up what being ace and aro mean. Yes, there is a pretty noticeable difference between feeling sexual attraction and not feeling sexual attraction. How many “allo” people do you know that say they’ve NEVER experienced this? Come on. The poster reduces asexuality and aromanticism down to allo people’s, in their own words, hyper-specific contexts where they don’t want sex or love. At least the poster admits any circumstance that allo people are comparable to ace people are extremely specific. But for real, are we hinging a whole argument on a few very specific examples of allo people having some similarity to ace people?

“Nothing about your relationship to sex or love makes you more or less LGBT. If you are gay and don’t want to have sex, ever, you are still gay. “

Mini strawman alert for the idea any ace person thinks you’re less gay if you’re also ace. And bonus points for an aphobe who refuses to use the definition of asexuality: not experiencing sexual attraction, and instead goes for “don’t want to have sex”. For the last. Fucking. Time. Not wanting to have sex and being asexual are NOT the same. Don’t make me pour gasoline in my eyes every time I see this.

After this, the poster goes on a tangent, which by the tone, seems to think it's very inspiring, and says no matter how you want to have sex (including only certain days of the week), you’re still straight! It’s so fucking condescending and gross to talk ace people out of their own identity like this.

“EVERY person who is heterosexual is different in how they perform or experience.”

Oh. My. GOD. THEY DIDN’T EVEN SAY STRAIGHT. THEY SAID HETEROSEXUAL. WUGGYUEGYUG. God help me. Can one be both bisexual and heterosexual? No…? Okay. So then. How is one both asexual AND heterosexual? What single brain cell in this poster’s head was responsible for this Chad of a sentence? I—

*deep breath* 

So. It’s interesting how the poster says “perform or experience it”. Asexuality is an identity. It is not a performance, and it is not defined by your actions. A straight person not having sex does not become asexual. And sure...people with the same label can experience their sexuality differently, but...to a point, guys. You can’t experience your sexuality out of the DEFINITION of the label. Heterosexual: Sexual attraction to the opposite gender. Asexual: Sexual attraction to no one. If a “heterosexual” isn’t sexually attracted to anyone, they are by definition, not heterosexual. It takes insane mental gymnastics to make this argument, so A for flexibility, I guess? 

“Gayness, straightness, and bisexuality are not defined by HOW you do or don’t want sex or HOW you do or don’t want to date, it’s just defined by WHO you want to be with.”

The first part of the sentence is correct, but it also defeats this person’s entire argument. Ace people AGREE with this. Being asexual is not the act of not having sex!! It’s not experiencing sexual attraction! You can google this! The second part of the sentence is mostly correct, depending on your interpretation. The issue is in part with the words the poster used: gayness, straightness and bisexuality. These words are not all equivalents. Gay could refer to sexual and or romantic orientation. Thus an ace gay person. Straightness is not actually an equal word to gayness. This is because straight is an exclusive term for a normative sexuality (in society’s eyes) in terms of sexual and romantic attraction. Some ace people DO call themselves straight, though it’s inaccurate. Ace people can be heteroromantic, but because being straight is so exclusive, you need to be both sexually AND romantically attracted to only the opposite gender.

The post basically ends telling ace people they’re all actually straight and were just confused the whole time. Lovely. And an erasure of gay aces too! Believe it or not, gay ace people do not like having their ace identities erased. Who’d have guessed?

Honestly, if anything this post is just kind of sad. A sad reflection of what people believe and how they truly do not see their own bigotry. They believe they’re freeing ace people from an incorrect label. They’re the heroes.

They’ll say “it’s okay, you’re not asexual” as if they've like...lifted a burden off of ace people. Like, “Oh, you think I’m not asexual? Cool, cool. Glad you cleared that up for me!” It’s sad how aphobes think, some very genuinely, that asexuality is just some high school party that went off the rails, and we’re all just coming out of the drunken haze, ready to go home. Ready to all laugh about it later, tease one another about how wild and silly it all was. 

Having your identity erased like this is fucking horrible, and I hope people like this can take a look in the mirror and see themselves clearly. All ace and aro people have a right to their identity, whether gay, bi, heteroromantic or anything else. End of story.

[comrade-meow]

A recent survey found trans people do not always understand how sexual health advice applies to them when clinicians talk about gender rather than anatomy, report Melanie Newman and Julie Bindel.

Since 2019 the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH) has recommended sexual health clinics ask service users for the gender of their sexual partners, rather than if they are male or female.

But a report of a survey by Waverley Care and Scottish Trans of trans people’s access to sexual health services in Scotland found references to gender were causing confusion.

“Participants told us that they lacked access to tailored information to enable them to understand how sexual health advice applied to their circumstances,” the report said. “This was especially the case if risk factors or prevention options were communicated with reference to gender, rather than anatomy.”

The report added that participants cited access to HIV preventative drug PrEP, as an example of this confusion. “Many non-binary participants were unable to understand whether they would be eligible for PrEP, despite reporting potentially high-risk sexual behaviour,” it said.

BASHH also advises clinicians to use patients’ preferred terms to describe their anatomy and discuss their bodies using models or diagrams rather than “anatomically correct terminology”.

Dr John McSorley, President of BASHH, said it is important language in sexual health consultations is inclusive of all genders while also obtaining all the relevant clinical information.

He explained: “It is generally good practice for all medical history taking to start with more open questions and we feel that asking about the partner’s gender accomplishes that (rather than asking a closed question that only gives the option of male or female). Of course, the clinician will follow that up with more detailed questions.”

“Healthcare workers, should treat everyone politely and sensitively, but viruses do not recognise pronouns.”

But critics say ignoring biological sex in healthcare settings and health data risks obscuring medical realities for patients and policy makers.

Maya Forstater, of the campaign group Sex Matters, said when it came to healthcare not recording birth sex was “reckless”. “Healthcare workers, should treat everyone politely and sensitively, but viruses do not recognise pronouns,” she said.

A decision to drop a question about biological sex from official surveys about HIV and STIs has also proved contentious.

Public Health England told sexual health and HIV clinics to stop collecting data on the sex of service users after advice from the LGBT Foundation that it may be unlawful to do so.

Clinics now ask patients for their gender identity and give them the option of preferring not to say if this is different from their “gender assigned at birth”.

The changes were aimed at capturing data on the transgender population. But one data expert said the decision to omit the sex question risked obscuring what was really happening with HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Professor Alice Sullivan, head of research at the Social Research Institute at University College, London, said conflating sex with gender could make it difficult to identify and understand differences between males and females.

“Sex is an essential piece of information, both for the effective treatment of individual patients, and for health research. There is no reason why we cannot record a patient’s sex and gender identity as separate variables rather than confusing the two.”

The idea that it may be illegal to ask for a respondent’s sex in a confidential survey has “no foundation,” added the professor, who has herself been the director of large cohort surveys.

The suggestion of illegality was refuted by the recent Judicial Review judgment on the sex question in the England and Wales census.

The US’ HIV surveillance system has a 2-step question which asks for participants’ sex and then for their gender identity. The US system will not allow data to be passed from the clinic to the central survey administrator if the section on sex is not answered.

The background

Public Health England administers the HIV and AIDS Reporting System (HARS), which collects data on all people accessing HIV Services, and the Genitourinary Medicine Clinic Activity Dataset (GUMCAD) collects data on STI tests, diagnoses and services from all sexual health clinics in England.

The HARS questionnaire used to start with a question on sex, with a binary choice of responses (“male” or “female”) and no opt-out. In 2015 Public Health England removed the question from the form, stating: “Work with the LGBT Foundation and the transgender community has informed that it is not good practice or possibly even legal to ask for gender at birth therefore we propose to remove this field from the dataset.”

The questionnaire now asks: “How do you identify your gender?” The options for response are “woman (including trans woman)”, “man (including trans man)”, “non-binary” or “in another way,” and an opt-out is offered in the form of a “prefer not to say” box.

The survey then asks: “Is this the same gender you were assigned at birth?” The options for response are “yes/no” and “prefer not to say”.

In 2018 the GUMCAID questionnaire was changed to include the same questions. Guidance to the questionnaire advises that both gender identity and assigned gender at birth may change.

The latest GUMCAID dataset released contains STI diagnoses and rates broken down by “gender” (male/female). Public Health England’s notes to the statistics advise: “Male gender includes transgender (trans) men and female gender includes transgender (trans) women”. The published data does not allow analysis of differences in rates of diagnosis between males and females, because the categories collected are now both mixed-sex.

We invited Public Health England to comment but it declined. One clinician supporter of the data system, who asked not to be named, said the questions allowed respondents of each biological sex to be identified by working backwards from the “gender assigned at birth” question.

Very few people opted out of answering this question, the clinician added. “We have to give people choices about revealing their gender or gender assigned at birth, just as we give choice about answering questions on sexuality. Over 99.9% of people answer these questions so whilst opt out is possible it is not common practice.”

Our source accepted that the sex of non-binary participants could not currently be determined but said the “gender assigned at birth” question would be changed in future to capture whether individuals were “assigned male or female at birth”. Meanwhile, numbers of people currently identifying as non-binary or a “different gender than at birth” were too small for their inclusion to significantly affect male and female datasets.

“The question has been well accepted by community groups including those focused on women’s issues,” our source added. “The dataset will continue to be revised to ensure it is relevant and meets the needs of most affected communities.”

“This has the potential to substantially skew research results for both gay and lesbian and trans people.”

Professor Sullivan said the absence of a question on sex may also compromise the categories for same-sex attracted and opposite-sex attracted people.

For example, GUMCAID asks if respondents have opposite-sex partners (which the questionnaire defines as men and women who have sex), or same-sex partners (defined as men who have sex with men). Similarly, a question on the HARs form asks if respondents were exposed to HIV through sex between men.

It is unclear how non-binary and trans people and those with trans partners would answer these questions, given that both the terms “men” and “women” are explicitly defined as referring to either sex.

“This has the potential to substantially skew research results for both gay and lesbian and trans people,” Professor Sullivan said.

Our source said they were confident data could be accurately segregated by sexuality as well as by gender and “gender assigned at birth”.

Numbers of trans respondents are small, but critics fear the impact of their inclusion in an opposite-sex group may be significant when the data is analysed and presented at a granular level.

PHE published results from the national HIV self-sampling service in 2019. Its report counted trans men who have sex with women (ie females with exclusively same-sex partners) in the results for heterosexual men and presented transwomen in a dataset with women.

The report shows that 10, or 5.8% of trans respondents had condomless sex with more than 12 partners in the previous year – a higher percentage than that for gay and bisexual men. The figure for women (including trans women) was 62 (1.3%). If all 10 trans respondents in the category were transwomen, their inclusion will have increased the total figure for women by a fifth (from 52 to 62) and the percentage from 1.1% to 1.3%.

Melanie Newman is a freelance journalist covering health, legal and other areas.

Julie Bindel is a journalist, author and feminist campaigner. Her new book Feminism for Women: The real route to liberation is out now and published by Hachette.

[vampireqrow-moved]

um its my birthday so wait until 12:01am pst to block me if u hate this post 🥰🥰

long story short the pansexual label is redudant and actively harmful (its far from the worst problem bisexuals face but it is one issue) and i dont hate anyone who identifies as pan because A) those ppl are bi like me and B) i used to identify as pan myself.

if thats enough for you to block me and make a callout post for me then i cant stop you but pretty please either read this whole thing or just wait a few minutes for my bday to end 🥰🥰

anyways im kicking off this point with some personal experiences bc i love to talk to myself. i got introduced to the pan label at maybe 10ish years old, and started identifying with it pretty much right away. i heard about it before bisexual and it was pitched as attraction to all genders and of course trans people. i was of course a trans ally! i had trans friends! i was trans also but hadnt figured it out yet! the way i had heard of it, there was no bisexual, there was no need for bisexual, and identifying differently was excluding trans people, which I was certainly against. being bisexual was trans exclusionary and why would i exclude trans people? the 'hearts not parts' slogan was thriving around this time and i genuinely said it and meant it.

as i started to become more online, mostly through roleplaying websites and tumblr here, i started hearing of bisexuality. it was supposedly an older term, so older people still used it, but it was common knowledge that pansexual was the better, inclusive label and younger people should adopt the new inclusive language instead of the old and transphobic words like bisexual. /s

and then bi and pan solidarity was all the rage! pansexual wasnt erasing bisexuality, why did anyone ever think that? bi and pan were two separate and complete identities that were valid and had to be respected or youre a mean exclusionist. and an asexual person, hearing people labelled exclusionist always meant they were excluding people from the lgbta community who rightfully belonged, denying peoples lived experiences, and generally telling people theyre wrong about their sexuality because theyre too young. and all of those things were bad and had hurt me, so it would be ridiculous to change labels and support "pan exclusionists" because they were just as bad as ace and aro exclusionists, and they were all the same people. or so it seemed to me at that time.

then, 'hearts not parts' began getting called out for blatant transphobic by insinuating that pansexual was the only identity that loved people for their "hearts" and personalities instead of those gross gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and even straights who only saw people for their "parts". (STRAIGHT PEOPLE ARE NOT OPPRESSED. I AM MERELY POINTING OUT THAT PANSEXUALITY WAS SHOWN AS ABOVE ALL OTHERS.) many pan people, including myself, began to denounce the slogan and insist pansexuality wasnt transphobic, there had just been a coincidence that a transphobic slogan was everywhere and a huge part of people's explantions of and associations with pansexuality. hint: it wasnt a coincidence.

from my perspective, this is when i began to see people discussing dropping the word pansexual. that seemed to be a huge step from getting rid off a transphobic slogan, and these people were just meanies who hated microlabels. and i like microlabels! as a genderfluid person, and someone who has friends who use specific aro and acespec labels, ive seen how people can use them to name specific experiences while still acknowleging their presence underneath umbrella terms like aromantic, asexual, nonbinary, lgbta, and for some people, queer.

pansexuals dont do that. they dont label pansexuality as a specific set of experiences under the bisexual umbrella, they see themselves as a separate identity, and even if they started to, the history of biphobia and transphobic undeniably linked to the existence of pansexuality in enough to stop being worth using. but i digress. pansexualitys shiny new definition that many people cling to is that pansexual is attraction to all genders. bisexual is two or more genders.

which. frankly? doesnt make any sense. my guess is that its supposed to be inclusive of nonbinary genders and those a part of cultures who historically have not had a binary gender system in the first place. i cannot speak for the latter group, but as a nonbinary person, its not inclusive. anyone can be attracted to nonbinary people. literally anyone. theres no way to know if everyone you meet is nonbinary or not. whether or not a nonbinary person reciprocates those feelings and is interested in pursuing a relationship is completely up to the individual, regardless of the sexualities of the people involved.

bottom line is that you cant number the amounts of genders someone can be attracted to, thus rendering those definitions pointless. people can be attracted to all kinds of people regardless of gender, even if they are gay, a lesbian, or straight. all people can date thousands of nonbinary genders if all people involved are interested and comfortable with it. numbering the genders you can be attracted to diminishes the post of nonbinary, as it is not a third gender, it simply any experience not fitting within the western concept of the gender binary (if the person so chooses to identify as such. if you cant tell already, the nonbinary experience is varied between every single nonbinary person.) important to note also that no widely accepted bisexual text defines bisexual as attracted to exclusively two genders or even the "two or more genders". i know this is used a lot but please read the bisexual manifesto. its free online i promise.

some people also claim pansexuals experience "genderblind" attraction while bisexuals feel differently attracted to different genders. this is very nitpicky for whats supposed to be two unconnected idenities, but thats only part of the problem. this definition is also not in any widely accepted bisexual texts, and bisexuality has never excluded those who experience genderblind attraction. i am in fact a bi person who experiences genderblind attraction. this does not mean i am not bisexual. it simply means i experience bisexuality differently than other bisexuals, and thats wonderful! no broad communities like bisexuality are expected to all share the same experience. we are all so different and its amazing were able to come together under the bisexual flag.

last definition, or justification i should say, is that yes these definitions are redundant and theyre the same sexuality, but people prefer different labels and thats okay. i agree in principle. people can define themselves as many things like homosexuals or gays or lesbians or queers or even other reclaimed slurs, while still not labelling themselves under the most "common" or "accurate" labels.

but pansexuality isnt the same as bisexuality, which may sound silly but hear me out. it has been continually used as a way to further divide bisexuals, who are already subject to large amounts of lgbta discrimination. "pansexuality was started by trans people who were upset with transphobia within the bisexual community! it cant be transphobic OR biphobic!" except of course that it can and it is. to say that trans people cant be transphobic is absurd. transmedicalism is right there, but thats not what im getting at. all minorities can have internal and sometimes external biases against people who are the same minority as them.

pansexuality was started as a way to be trans inclusive at the expense of labelling bisexuality as transphobic when its not. transphobia is everywhere, and bisexuals are not exempt. instead of working on the transphobia within the community, the creators of pansexuality decided to remove themselves from it to create a better and less tainted word and community, and the fact that pansexuality is intended to replace bisexuality or leave it for the transphobes goes to show a few things. pansexuality and bisexuality are inherently linked because the pan label is in response to the bi label. due to its origins, it is inherently competing with bisexuality and it cant be "reclaimed" from its biphobic roots. pansexuality is not a whole, separate, and valid label. its a biphobic response to issues within the bisexual community.

to top off this post, heres something a full grown adult once said to me. in person. she was my roommate. "i feel like im pan because im attracted to trans people. trans women, trans men, i could definitely date them. but not nonbinary people because thats gross and weird." she saw pan as trans inclusive and defined herself that way as opposed to bi which is shitty!

also a little extra tidbit about my experiences identifying as pan. i saw myself as better than every bi person. all of them. even my trans and bi friends. whenever they brought up being bisexual i would think to myself "why dont you identify as pansexual? its better and shows people you support trans people." because i was made to believe bisexuality didnt and was therefore inferior. thats the mindset that emerged from my time in the pansexual community. i am so sorry to all of my bisexual friends even if they never noticed. i love you all and hope you have a great day. this also goes to any bisexuals or people who identify as bi in anyway, such as biromantic or simply bi. love you all.

ummm yeah heres some extra reading i found helpful and relevant. here and here. also noooo dont disagree with me and unfollow me im so sexy 🥴🥴🥴

[positivityforlesbians]

hi! i have some questions that i hope i can explain well as i don’t want to be misunderstood- i know many TRAs that say we lesbians are transphobic because we prefer to not date/being in a relationship with trans women as because our non attraction to penis.. they in fact say that we can be in a relationship with them because after all we don’t have sex necessarily and that centric our discourses around only genitalia is transphobic... now, all of those discourses are a daily routine on twitter especially and it makes me feel very bad. i don’t think that only saying we aren’t into trans women it’s transphobic, we (or at least many lesbians i know) don’t say something like that transphobia isn’t real or shit like jk rowling said, how can they see everything as transphobia?

and, as if it wasn’t enough, in those days a lesbian shared her experience with her ex gf that was bi, and she break up with her for a man so this lesbian girl shared how she felt and everyone said to her that if she felt bad and doesn’t want to feel like that then why she dated a bi woman, she could chose another lesbian but... when a lesbian say she wants to date only lesbians because she wants to share same experiences even there we are biphobic, the most hurting thing was seeing some other lesbians agreed with the fact other are biphobic for it— after this another bi woman said that we silence them when they talk about men and i really don’t know where she lives but in the society where I live eteronormativity is still a thing and i’ve never seen a lesbian silencing straight or bisexual girls when talking about men as because we don’t even are out most of the time.

I feel that especially twitter become a bad place for lesbians, or at least for me. what do you think about? and why now if people see a lesbian especially quickly say to her she’s a terf??? or a transphobic or a biphobic, or other things aside the lesbophobia. it seems really to me we can’t have not a single piece for us lol

----

Hi, yes Twitter has become an especially bad place for lesbians, there is this “better than thou” atmosphere there in general but it’s worsen for us because our simple sexual orientation is seen as bigoted. They don’t say it like that (and unfortunately it’s not exclusive to Twitter), they don’t say “oh lesbianism is wrong and you’re disgusting for it” they say “you are solely into people with vagina/vulva ?! Eww transphobic scum, you’re not a lesbian but a vagina fetishist, drink bleach !” this is the type of shit 2.0 homophobes say and it must be fought as much as possible. These people are way too comfortable with their homophobia yet they are validated for it because they pretend to be our allies or to be like us, the truth is they are none of that.

If you follow the right accounts (whether it be on Twitter, Tumblr or any social media and person irl) then you will not see this being spread like the Gospel. There is no reason why suddenly all lesbians would be evil “TERFs” in the wrong about this topic : maybe just MAYBE we’re accused this much because we all see a huge problem with the way gender/trans activism is addressing lesbians and homosexuality in general (but not only) and since it’s targetting us we are speaking up. They are angry that we don’t let ourselves be disrespected and honestly ? It means we are doing the right thing, homophobes should be angry that their strategy is met with adversity.

It was addressed on positivityforlesbians once but J.K Rowling defended lesbians in her statement (and never wished any harm on trans people) but are they talking about that ? No of course, they spread lies to the point you even seem to think she wrote something objectionable when she didn’t. If we erase the reality of sex then we erase the reality of homosexuality (and heterosexuality), we aren’t attracted to an inner state of gender identity, we aren’t attracted to stereotypes of gender, we are attracted to people of the same sex (or opposite sex for straight people), there is nothing wrong about it. We must be extremely careful of the ways new homophobes spread their toxic rhetoric, they do it in our spaces and that’s how they differ greatly from traditional homophobes. It makes them more dangerous in the sense that they feed this to young impressionable wlw and mlm who aren’t seeing it for what it is. Like you said, lesbians are very much targeted by hateful discourses, on many topics, none of it is acceptable. It’s normal that you’re angry, anon. Xx

[qqueenofhades]

Hi!! 💕I was reading across your medieval queer history tag, and I came to the part of Muslims and homosexuality where you mention the active / passive narrative that this activity had.

I had two questions and I don't know if you can help me with them. I was wondering if there was something similar to that position in Nicky's time (?) at the European part of the world. And based on that, would it be a problem for the sexual activities that Nicky and Joe might have had? (sorry for this insane curiosity) I don't know if I'm being clear, haha. I mean, would it be a problem being active/passive for Nicky and Joe? ( based on common Islamic and/or European thought of the 11th century)

Thank you!!

Hmm. I feel like this is a better subject for fanfic (i.e. how Nicky and Joe viewed their relationship in the early days) because it touches on something historians can’t answer: how historical individuals privately viewed their own internal/emotional decisions and preferences. Obviously, Nicky and Joe themselves are fictional, so the only inner feelings they themselves had about how their relationship first developed, whether in its sexual components or otherwise, are the ones that are created for them by a team of modern writers and showrunners. As a historian, I can offer some perspective on the institutional, legal, and societal mores and customs that influenced how queer behavior was collectively viewed, tolerated, or restricted, but I can’t say how any given individual would have then interpreted that to themselves. Obviously, some gay people have been raised in such deeply self-hating environments that their internalized homophobia is very embedded and they struggle for years to get over it. Some others have been raised in the same environment but have never actually accepted any of it and have less difficulty in leaving it behind. Once again, this goes into the realm of speculation rather than strictly provable history, and which goes double for fictional characters.

Queer people have always existed in a complicated and sometimes contradictory relationship with the mainstream (that is, often heteronormative) dominant society. Sometimes they accept all of it in an attempt to “pass” or because they have been taught to be homophobic, sometimes they choose to selectively adopt parts of it but try to live a secret “second life,” sometimes they reject all of it. These choices are conditioned by personal safety/family background, political, cultural, religious, and social environments, formal and informal education, kinship and friendship networks, positive/negative reinforcement, individual character, and so on. There is not necessarily a “wrong” choice for a queer person to make, because each course of action comes with its own risks and rewards, but if you’re choosing to embrace your queer identity and to live out its truth (as Joe and Nicky seem to have done relatively soon after they met), then that will involve an element of rejecting whatever constraints heteronormative society has placed on you. After all, the formal legal conventions about sodomy in the Middle Ages weren’t developed in consultation with actual queer people. They reflected the concerns of conservative establishment clergymen, who weren’t interested in promoting social acceptance of it (and yet again, this doesn’t touch on THEIR actual feelings or whatever they might have done in private). I’ve discussed the complexity of disentangling historical homoromanticism (which was pretty widely celebrated in the medieval era) and historical homosexuality (which had a rockier time, but as I wrote about in this ask, the attempted policing of sexuality and sexual behavior was as much the case for m/f relationships as m/m or f/f ones -- nobody got away from this and it wasn’t just for the gays.)

Basically, I personally don’t think that either Joe or Nicky would have had a problem with sex or certain sexual positions, just because if both of them had reached the point of deciding that a Catholic/Muslim was their true love and they were going to run off together and be a couple no matter what anyone said about it, that already entailed rejecting a huge amount of the ideology they were originally taught and grew up with. It’s again a subject for fanfic how much Joe and Nicky were personally comfortable with being queer before they met each other, so this would more likely be a rejection of religious teaching about the unworthiness/evilness of the rival faith (as Nicky says, the love of his life was from the people he had been taught to hate). Since almost all medieval queer behavior and views on queer people had a religious component, if Joe/Nicky had gotten as far as rejecting the religious tenet that told them the other was Evil, they were (again, in my opinion) extremely unlikely to use any of those old religious arguments for prohibiting or proscribing certain kinds of sexual activity. I’m sure they had to negotiate many issues in the early days of their relationship (as I write about in DVLA), but they’re clearly head over heels in love with each other, wildly attracted to each other and have been for almost a millennium, and eager to embrace the physicality of that relationship, so I don’t personally see this as being a major stumbling block.

That said, you did ask about European views on sodomy in the 11th century and whether there was a parallel to Islamic views on the moral acceptability of the active vis-a-vis the passive partner. Since antiquity, there has always been less “shame” attached to the penetrative/top partner in sex, no matter whether the receiving partner is male or female. Ancient Greece is another example of this, where the adult man could not be penetrated without insult to his manhood and dignity, but the fact of him penetrating a younger man/teenage boy was a fine and even accepted rite of passage. We can obviously talk about how this is related to phallocentrism and misogyny, because the person “receiving” sex is usually expected to be a woman or a woman-equivalent person, which entails lower social status. The dominant male can take whichever sexual partner he pleases, and it’s a mark of honor and status for him to be virile (the very, very ancient chestnut about why playboys are tolerated and admired while sexually active women are “sluts.”) The gender of his partners might not matter as much as their social class, their status in relation to his, his “right” to expect sexual availability from them, and a whole lot of other factors. This could be and also was the case in medieval Europe. But may we point out that the men engaging in these kind of explicitly unequal relationships, which are more about reinforcing power and control than real desire, are very, very unlike the equal and loving mutual partnership between Joe and Nicky, where they were clearly happy to please and respect the other in whatever way.

It has not always been the case that same-sex activity would automatically be defined and suspect, though yes, there has never been an instance in Western history where it was placed uncomplicatedly on the same level as opposite-sex activity. It had to be constructed that way. As I keep saying, modern homophobia is a lot more stringent and explicit than any medieval expressions thereof, because if “homosexuality” was not constructed as a clearly recognized identity, there was less ability to rail against it. In fact, the usual rhetorical tactic was to just ignore it. Sodomy is known as the “silent sin” or “peccatum mutum” in Latin, because moralists usually didn’t talk about it or discuss it or give it an actual framework for debate and thus implied legitimacy. There were obvious exceptions (Peter Damian, Peter the Chanter, Bernardino of Siena, Heinrich Kramer, etc, etc) and as the medieval era went on, homosexuality became more grouped in with other undesirables. But that also reflected a growing visibility/awareness among people as to what it was. As I keep saying, you can’t be anxious about something, you can’t be worried about people being susceptible to it, you can’t be worried that it’s happening in reality, if it’s just an abstract concern of rhetoric that only a handful of churchmen know about. The increasing visibility of queerness as a category of exclusion in late medieval polemics reflected a) the social stress of the crises of the late medieval world and the usual function of Others as a scapegoat and b) the fact that by then, people must have had enough awareness of it as a pattern of consistent behavior for clerics to get mileage out of attacking it.

Anyway. In an attempt to summarize: historians can’t possibly know how historical queer people felt about themselves, if they were influenced by societal or internalized homophobia (itself quite different from modern homophobia), how much of the dominant social narrative they accepted, the reasons for the choices that they made, if they saw their queer preferences as a sin or as a valid lifestyle, and so on. But it seems unlikely that historical queer people specifically in loving long-term relationships, such as Joe and Nicky, would be unduly tied to much of that, and that has always been the case.

[korgbelmont]

Newsletter 22/01/21

In the midst of the difficulties and uncertainties happening around the world, we're pressing onward to produce books we hope you'll fall in love with. As we continue to support one another within our studio, we can truly say that your thoughtful feedback has encouraged us during these challenging times. While we can't predict what'll happen next, we hope our 2021 books will provide you an outlet to smile, laugh, and relax during these times...

Book Updates

Without further ado, we wanted to take the time to update you on the various books to expect in the coming year. Hopefully, these will answer your most pressing questions!

With Every Heartbeat

Aching for another heartfelt Choices story? We're releasing this VIP book to all players at the end of the month. (Eagle-eyed fans might notice we've even updated some of the main character hairstyles!) Be sure to follow our official social accounts for more previews...

So It looks like WEH MC will have some new hairstyles, I know for a fact that this book SOOOO good, can’t wait to see peoples reactions to it.

Open Heart, Book 3

This February, make the most of your third year at Edenbrook and reunite with your favorite medical crew in Open Heart, Book 3! Will the heart of Edenbrook remain the same in Leland Bloom's hands?

So it looks like they are setting up the plot to have Bloom as the villain and the gang finding a way to get rid of him whilst keeping Edenbrook open. I am still wary of this book, but will see it through as I do believe it is the final book of the series.

#ChoicesCookbook

Calling all food lovers! Our team is whipping up a new dish of choices in the kitchen. Get your pots and pans ready for this exclusive Choices VIP book! We'd love to see you all participate with recipes of your own... What delectable dish can you make with these ingredients? Let us know using #playchoices and #ChoicesCookbook.

So this is a part of their branching out into new genres, I have no clue what to expect, I will keep an eye on it. and see what it’s like

Laws of Attraction

Bring your A-game to beat out the competition in this brand new title set in one of New York’s premier law firms. With high-profile cases and a hard-driving, mysterious boss, you’ll be in for dramatic days… and steamy nights!

So it looks like we are getting another book that’s potentially gonna be on the more... mature side. I am curious to see how this will play out and what the premise is going to be.

Crimes of Passion

We’re hyped for this book, and although it won’t be out until later this year, we couldn’t resist sharing a little peek at what you can expect from this thrilling, unpredictable, and jaw dropping mystery book.

So I haven’t exactly been quiet about my excitement for this book, and this image gives off some SERIOUS culty vibes. Crimes of Passion is definitely my top book for this year to keep an eye on.

The Nanny Affair, Book 2

Book 2 of The Nanny Affair is in the works and will be releasing later this year. Can't wait to find out what's going to happen next? Here's the latest hint:

"We have a lot of exciting plans in the works for The Nanny Affair, Book 2 (and trust me, the art team is outdoing themselves). We don't want to give away too much, but let's just say, you may not be the only nanny in town this time around..." - Megan

As I said before, I enjoyed book 1 and am looking forward to book 2. I am curious as to how it will all play out, by the sounds of this, maybe Sam gets another Nanny in whilst they and MC work to sort out the fallout from the wedding??

Zombies

We know plenty of you have been dying for a zombie book. (Yes, we see those tweets and messages!) Until now, we were only able to share a zombie emoji… But we can make this official: zombies will be taking over Choices later this year, so stay tuned!

So I’ve been playing a lot of Resident Evil recently, and the creatures on the right give me serious RE vibes. I am now curious as to what the premise of this book will be and how it will all play out. 

The Royal Finale

As mentioned in our last Choices Insiders email, the final book of The Royal Romance series will air later this year. Here's a quote from the Book Lead to tide you over until then:

"In The Royal Finale, you'll uncover new secrets, unravel old mysteries, and experience new heights of royalty with your family!" - Olivia

I hope the “unravel old mysteries” is in part, reference to what part Jackson played in Liam’s mother’s second child. And with the whole secret society thing, who knows what’s gonna happen. 

Queen B, Book 2

You just can’t get enough of us, can you, newbie? Enjoy that high of being Queen B… Because what goes up, must always come down. - Kisses, the T.

Oooh, we're excited! Writers Chelsa and Maya have sent us this cryptic message:

🤫🙈✉️👑🐝🔥❌🎧🐍💋

What do you think it means?

Emojis and I have a terrible history so I ain’t gonna try and decrypt that (leave a reply if you do). As for the book itself, I am looking forward to it, aside from the forced Kingsley romance, I enjoyed book 1. I looking forward to the mystery element and hopefully seeing Zoey get her proper LI treatment, and hopefully see Veronica & Carter become LIs.

More New Books in the works!

We are continuing to work on more multi-gender books, including Blades of Light & Shadow 2 launching 2022.

More books. Yay (in theory (depends what they are))

News about Other Sequels

Many of you have asked when or if your favorite books would continue. We want to make sure we inform the community with confirmed and finalized details regarding sequels. To explain a little more in depth about how Choices sequels are decided, our Head of Content Max took some time to give us that insight:

After a great deal of consideration and discussion, we have decided that officially these series will not be getting additional books: Most Wanted, Hero, Nightbound, the It Lives series, The Elementalists, Distant Shores, and Ride-or-Die.I know this may be disappointing to hear, and the truth is, we’re always disappointed when we have to make this decision. I’d like to share a little bit of our process to help you understand why this happens.

Whilst it is a shame, it is nice to have clarification, especially with Most Wanted & Hero. I was surprised to see that Ride or Die won’t be getting a sequel, but sometimes these things happen. As for It Lives, Distant Shores, Elementalists, and Nightbound, I knew they wouldn’t get sequels, but it is a bit of a heart punch to see some personal faves get an official status of concluded.

About once a month, I, along with a small group of Pixelberry's senior staff, make the hard decisions about which books will be written next. Deciding whether or not we make a sequel is an evolving process that we've refined over the years. But even today, it remains ever-changing, and it's never simple.

So I don’t really know what to say here, it’s rather self explanatory. So, yeah.

Sometimes, we want to do a sequel but the Lead Writer is no longer available because they’ve moved onto another project or even left the company. We've tried changing Lead Writers in the past, only to watch sequels struggle, losing sight of what made the original great. This is what happened in the case of Ride or Die; we simply don’t have the team now with the passion and vision to give fans the sequel they crave.

I saw a post by @thefirstcourtesan​ that OH and ROD share a book lead and after what happened to OH2, it is understandable what happens, and sometimes these things will happen. As for ROD, it works as a standalone, and I am okay with there not being a sequel.

Sometimes a book is a critical darling, beloved by both fans and Pixelberry staff... yet the player numbers aren't there to justify doing another one. This is what happened, for example, with Nightbound, Most Wanted and Distant Shores; while these books were beloved by their players, simply not enough players were starting them to begin with. And these are the ones that hurt the most. We genuinely love these books, but if they haven’t found enough of an audience with our players, then it’s very hard to argue for making a sequel. Believe me, I can't think of a single writer on my team who isn't passionate about their book, but ultimately we are one company in an extremely competitive space, and we have to do whatever it takes to keep running well. If a Book costs significantly more to make than it brought in, it’s very difficult to justify a sequel.

Again, I don’t really know what to say here, again it’s rather self explanatory. Given how long it’s been since Most Wanted, it was safe to say BK2 weren’t happening. 

Other times, everyone online seems to hate a book, but the numbers disagree. It's hard to believe, but your most loathed book -- the one that you feel no way deserved a sequel -- might actually be the one that's keeping the lights on for us. And without those books (and those players!), half a dozen other beloved titles may never have existed. We're thankful for sequels. They help us fund future books and projects to try new things. If it weren’t for the success of sequels to books like The Royal Romance and America’s Most Eligible, we would never have been able to try a risky experiment like Blades of Light and Shadow.

This comes across a tiny bit boasty, but it is kinda true, their more generally released romance books are why we get the big ones such as Blades, and I know people diamond mine the quicker released books for the big ones. So, yeah, I don’t really know how to say it, sorry.

We love our online fandom, and your passion, creativity, and art. At the same time, the most visible parts of the fandom sometimes represent a smaller percentage of our players, many of whom might have completely different taste. We have a vast varied player base, and our job is to try as hard as we can to create interesting stories for all of them.

Finally, saying no to one book almost always means saying yes to something new. And without new there is no Pixelberry. When we said no to Most Wanted, much of that team went on to write Endless Summer. When we decided to stop making sequels to Rules of Engagement, that team went on to create The Royal Romance.

With every new book we create, I hope against hope that it'll be our next hit, the start of a ten-volume series that fans will love and support! Some of them are. Some of them aren't. Either way, I hope you stick with us. Sequels are great. So are new things, and I hope most of all that your true favorite Choices book is still out there, waiting to be written.

The fandom is going to make up a small section of it and at the end of the day, they are a company, so the numbers are gonna be what counts. And in saying no to a sequel, it means they can go on to experiment with new story ideas. 

Looking Forward

Internally we've been working on the representation promises that we made in June 2020. We've implemented some new Black hairstyles into With Every Heartbeat, and will continue to add more new hairstyles in our upcoming books. We plan on posting a representation blog in the coming months to share a full update of our progress.

So I am curious to see how VIP players would react to updates to With Every Heartbeat, but I am glad to see representation being shown and that they are working on it.

Last but not least... We appreciate you <3

We’ve seen a rise in constructive criticism in our social channels and want to personally thank you for all of your honest feedback. We read all of your concerns and continue to evolve our thinking and processes based on your feedback. At the same time we take our responsibility of crafting stories very seriously. Sometimes we disagree with suggestions or due to constraints can’t enable changes we agree with, but we do try to improve over time and learn from your feedback.

We also continue to ask that you communicate with each other respectfully. And keep in mind that just like with other parts of the internet, just because someone posts something doesn’t mean it’s always true. To everyone who helps keep our community a safe place to freely share your thoughts, opinions and love - thank you. Your respect and kindness goes a long way, and we are looking forward to spending more time with all of you in the coming year.

We’re looking forward to a great 2021 with you!

Finally, I’m glad that they’re reading what people are saying, it is understandable that there will be disagreements with suggestions, that’s just life, it’s human nature. I am curious to see what will be released in the coming year and how they will play out.

In summary

I had a feeling that books they said won’t get sequels weren’t, especially Hero and Most Wanted. It is sad to see that It Lives won’t be concluded, and I knew Nightbound & Distant Shores weren’t going to get sequels (unfortunately).

Glad to see them making more multi gender books, hopefully we will get more like Foreign Affairs with the different pro-noun options.

I am curious about Laws of Attraction and very much looking forward to seeing how Crimes of Passion will play out. I will post my thoughts and theories as we get new information

Stay safe everyone :)

[anavirable]

A semi-deep dive into the Equality Act

HR5, otherwise known as the Equality Act, is a bill in the United States that would, at a federal level, prohibit discrimination based on “sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity in areas including public accommodations and facilities, education, federal funding, employment, housing, credit, and the jury system.” So, for example, this bill would make it illegal to deny a couple housing for being a gay couple. Which is great! Unfortunately, the implementation of the bill has a lot left to be desired.

On thing you may notice is that this bill includes sex in its added protected categories. The Equality Act correctly identifies:

(4) Women also have faced discrimination in many establishments such as stores and restaurants, and places or establishments that provide other goods or services, such as entertainment or transportation, including sexual harassment, differential pricing for substantially similar products and services, and denial of services because they are pregnant or breastfeeding. 

The Equality Act explains the struggles of LGBTQ people as:

(3) Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (referred to as “LGBTQ”) people commonly experience discrimination in securing access to public accommodations [...]. Forms of discrimination include the exclusion and denial of entry, unequal or unfair treatment, harassment, and violence.

(As a side note, yes, this bill flat out calls gay people “queer” in this legally-defined acronym.)

From there, the Act refers a few times to “LGBTQ people and women” as the groups they’re aiming to protect. So far, not too bad, and this bill will help more than it hurts. It also does make some great points. For example:

(12) Discrimination based on sexual orientation includes discrimination based on an individual’s actual or perceived romantic, emotional, physical, or sexual attraction to other persons, or lack thereof, on the basis of gender. LGBTQ people, including gender nonbinary people, also commonly experience discrimination because of sex-based stereotypes. Many people are subjected to discrimination because of others’ perceptions or beliefs regarding their sexual orientation. Even if these perceptions are incorrect, the identity imputed by others forms the basis of discrimination.

This correctly identifies the discrimination people experience due to failures to conform to various sex-based stereotypes. Unfortunately, the bill continues with:

(13) Numerous provisions of Federal law expressly prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, and Federal courts and agencies have correctly interpreted these prohibitions on sex discrimination to include discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex stereotypes. In particular, the Supreme Court of the United States correctly held in Bostock v. Clayton County, 140 S. Ct. 1731 (2020) that the prohibition on employment discrimination because of sex under title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 inherently includes discrimination because of sexual orientation or transgender status.

Last year’s Bostock v. Clayton case was a case in which a trans-identified male sued for discrimination after being fired from his job for following the women’s dress code. The court correctly ruled in favor of the trans-identified male - this person was fired for failing to conform to sex-based stereotypes. Unfortunately, the court did not use this reasoning to support its decision. The court did not find that separate dress codes for women and men is sexist - instead, it said that it’s sexist to force a person to conform to sex-based dress codes rather than gender identity-based dress codes. It’s difficult to express how painful that is. Transphobia under these laws isn’t a crime - it’s just a form of sexism based on gender identity rather than sex. Which means any case that comes down to sexism vs “transphobia” has no real way to legally differentiate the two.

And the Equality Act reinforces this decision. The majority of the act is just rewriting the Civil Rights Act to include “sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity)”. Sexual orientation and gender identity aren’t even their own protected classes - they’re just legally identical to sex.

In places where sex was already a protected class - for example, in employment, the Equality Act waters down these protections:

(c) Other Unlawful Employment Practices.—Section 704(b) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 2000e–3(b)) is amended—

(1) by striking “sex,” the first place it appears and inserting “sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity),”; and 

(2) by striking “employment.” and inserting “employment, if, in a situation in which sex is a bona fide occupational qualification, individuals are recognized as qualified in accordance with their gender identity.”.

Now onto the most important part, the definitions. I’ll start with sexual orientation:

(5) SEXUAL ORIENTATION.—The term ‘sexual orientation’ means homosexuality, heterosexuality, or bisexuality.

This is fairly straightforward, assuming everyone agrees for example that “homosexuality” means “same-sex attracted.” Since the bill doesn’t further define it, the sex-based versus “gender”-based distinction is still up for debate, should it ever become legally relevant. Next:

“(4) SEX.—The term ‘sex’ includes—

     “(A) a sex stereotype;

     “(B) pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition;

     “(C) sexual orientation or gender identity; and

     “(D) sex characteristics, including intersex traits.

You’ll notice that none of these are just... biological sex. The closest is “sex characteristics, including intersex traits,” and it’s listed last. You’ll also noticed that “sexual orientation or gender identity” are once again listed under “sex,” which makes most of the rest of the document redundant overkill. But, onto our last relevant definition:

“(2) GENDER IDENTITY.—The term ‘gender identity’ means the gender-related identity, appearance, mannerisms, or other gender-related characteristics of an individual, regardless of the individual’s designated sex at birth. 

That’s right, gender identity is literally defined as “gender-related identity”! This is what people are talking about when we criticize the self-ID aspect of the law. There is literally zero way, in reality or under this law, to determine whether a person truly has the gender identity that they claim. There is literally nothing stopping “cis men” from using this federal law to access women’s spaces except for their good word. And we know how that turns out.

So, what does this cover? This applied to titles II, III, IV, VI, VII, and IX. Most relevant to feminists would be Title 7 and Title 9.  The Rules of the bill say that, in respect to these titles:

“(1) (with respect to sex) pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition shall not receive less favorable treatment than other physical conditions; and

“(2) (with respect to gender identity) an individual shall not be denied access to a shared facility, including a restroom, a locker room, and a dressing room, that is in accordance with the individual's gender identity.”

This is the part where the bill finally distinguishes between sex and gender identity. The conclusion? Women only need sex-based protections for sex-based medical conditions. Sex-segregated spaces are sexist against people with a gender identity. It would honestly be so much less painful if the bill didn’t pretend like it was actually improving women’s situation. You know, like the bill literally addressed at the beginning, about how women are discriminated against in the public sphere. Now we’re somehow being sexist for wanting sex-based rights.

Anyway, the Equality Act sucks and will do more harm than good. Which is a shame, because there are definitely positives to it - namely in providing protections for same-sex attracted people. The good news is, the fight isn’t over yet. See my next post on how we could have the best of both worlds.