#but i like to even the pronoun usage by favoring toward he/him because most people assume he's a woman

[applesandbannas747]

does pacat rlly not care about fence anymore 😭 i feel like it’s much better than dark rise and could be better than captive prince too…it’s been a year since i last consumed anything fence-related and i really don’t understand what’s going on with the series?? but anyways i like ur fics a lot & agree with ur reviews of srb’s novels, which also could have had so much potential but ended up kind of sucking in a lot of ways.

Pacat is a mystery to me. Personally, I believe Dark Rise is his best work--it shows much better pacing than Captive Prince and gets the same impact and feel without going to such extreme and explicit horrors, which shows a lot of skill (I know CP is his most beloved series but he's improved a lot since writing it haha). What gets me is that Fence STARTED really strong and I counted it as his best work for sure. There were fun tropes and dynamics, interesting characters with a central relationship promising contention, fighting, and tension, and some fun elements in the mystery of Jesse and potential in the reveal of Nick's lineage. And you could tell there was passion in the project...but even by the later issues of the original 12-issue run, Pacat's social media reflected a large disinterest in Fence, and that disinterest has shown in the story as Fence continues to progress.

I try to logic and rationalize and analyze everything Fence related and literally every time I do I get met with 'it's not that deep' from the actual canon lmfao but I'm going to offer my rationalization anyway lmao the only reason I can think to justify Pacat's lack of interaction with Fence on Twitter besides not caring about it much is that it doesn't fit his brand. Which is only defined by two other series, but it's very much a high fantasy/historical fantasy dark romance with stomach-churning undertones and much darker themes than Fence. So I gave him that excuse for a long time. Fence doesn't fit within that brand at all, so from a marketing standpoint, it makes some amount of sense to focus more on the other franchises. However, I think this strategic thinking is giving too much credit--Fence has always had really shit marketing so either Pacat has no mind for marketing or he doesn't care to market Fence, which both get us back to the only real reason being he just doesn't care about it as much as his other things.

Do I expect Pacat to be hanging out in the Twitter FENCEtag? No. But I do think it's strange that he'll post tweets saying happy birthday to other people's books the day they come out, but literally didn't ever make a Fence Redemption announcement or say anything on the release day. The most he's done is retweet a couple things from BOOM! and 2 other outside sources. And this is regular behavior--he didn't do announcements for RIVALS or RISE either and didn't promote them at all. Yet Dark Rise gets announcements all the way along--title announcement, release date announcement, cover reveal, etc etc etc. He also posts and retweets fanart for his other 2 books really regularly, yet he didn't even retweet all of Jo's (the co-creator and illustrator of Fence) pieces for the Fence event Jo hosted in April, let alone bother with much fanart of it. There's just no reason for the vast gap in involvement and enthusiasm other than him very strongly preferring his other projects and not bothering with the effort of interacting with Fence. He'll occasionally ask culture questions (like if Americans say 'coz' for cousin or how to say something in French) but that's legitimately the best argument there is for his interest or care in the project.

And lastly, his lack of interest shows in the story. He handed his story off to someone else to write novels for and simply let her go wild without regard for how it impacted the comics or the fans. Further, Pacat lost track of his own story and characters between Volume 3 & 4 in a way that I cannot excuse as anything other than inconsistent characterization. And I know I'm biased there, but I make so many people in real life read Fence that I don't jabber at about it/pull into the fandom (so they have no knowledge of my takes), and all of them have commented on the 180 the characters made between the volumes. And, listen, if I wouldn't accept that kind of inconsistency in characterization when grading my 12-year-olds' narrative writing projects, why am I still sitting here trying to excuse the lazy/poor writing in a published and successful author? The pacing is also telling--a lot of conflict was skipped over 'off screen' between the volumes (which, say it with me folks, is lazy writing). Nick's resentment toward Seiji turned into full admiration sans any ill feelings or acknowledgment that even if he IS hot shit, he was still a major asshole in his initial conception, and Seiji apparently agreed to drop his thing about Jesse (you know, the thing that had them in a fist fight approximately 40 pages of comic before). There was no build-up to their relationship or resolution of the conflict that made it unhealthy (expect to have Nick 'admit' Seiji was right to treat him like shit...) These things push the story along a lot faster; rivals to lovers moves really fast if you skip all the tedious development of the characters getting to know, respect, tolerate, and then like each other. Pacat loves rivals/enemies to lovers and (to be blunt) mean/cold bottoms, so it is so fucking bizarre to me that he'd speedrun the relationship and change the characterization so much when it's directly moving away from his preferences (see: Captive Prince, Dark Rise). I don’t know how it happened from anything other than sheer laziness or from not caring about Fence so deeply that he let SRB overwrite the characters and romance he'd originally created.

Last, there are just SO many inconsistencies and copyedit-level mistakes. And I get it that typos happen, but it happens so much that it's like,,, are you even rereading the scripts before you throw them at your publisher? And the continuity errors are massive at this point. Seiji's year in France, which was apparently the result of his loss to Jesse, is only possible if time travel exists and also timelines exist simultaneously. How do you fuck up so big when constructing a story you care about? At least by the time it gets published, you should be sure it's READY to be published. It's like he's writing issue-by-issue as he goes with no plan and can't be bothered to skim through the previous issues to check for things.

I just can't come up with a reality where Pacat actually loves Fence when this is all the care he gives it. We are so so so lucky to have Jo--she is literally the most amazing and gives so much love and care to Fence, and it shows...I just wish Pacat's writing didn't affect her contribution to the comic too. But she at least loves Fence even if Pacat doesn't seem to tell her all that much more than he tells the rest of us LMFAO

This turned into a WHOLE messy essay, I just have a lot of thoughts and they've been brewing for years so sorry to go off on my mad ravings and thanks for tuning in XD and also!!! I'm so happy you like my fics TT.TT <33 and also that you see my point about the novels uwu

#jackshit #fence comic #fence vent #also obligatory PSA: Pacat in genderqueer and has stated he's not a woman (though he's not a man either) #she/her and he/him pronouns #ik most people refer to her as she/her which is cool!! (so long as you're not also trying to tell me shes a woman lmfao) #but i like to even the pronoun usage by favoring toward he/him because most people assume he's a woman #so more he/him vibes need to be put into the universe for him too and to remind people he's not a woman

[yvylen]

TEACHING MOMENT FOR ALLIES: PLEASE UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "TERF-Y" AND "TRANSMISOGYNIST"

(TL;DR: "Transmisogyny" is the way in which trans women experience the intersection of transphobia and misogyny, inextricable from one another and mutually constitutive, and also describes the systems of social power and violence that produce this experience; "TERFism" (trans-exclusionary radical feminism or sometimes trans exterminationist radical feminism) is a particular ideology and movement that is primarily structured by its transmisogyny, but which is definitely not the only manifestation thereof. The two are not interchangeable, and learning to recognize TERFism insofar as it is distinct from other kinds of transmisogyny will make you a better ally/accomplice to trans women. Scroll down for a mini field guide.)

I was at this conference over the weekend, and at one point I was talking with someone else about the sessions. One of them was lead by a Sister of Perpetual Indulgence ("drag nuns"; one of the surviving elements of older-school spectacle theater LGBTQ+ activism) and the person I was talking to expressed interest in the session, but (quote as best I can recall) "I get uncomfortable with drag queens because some of them are pretty TERF-y".

I think what this person was getting at was that drag queens (and sometimes "drag culture" more broadly, especially where it has become more commodified and whiter) often enact misogyny (and transmisogyny especially--plus racism, ableism, etc. etc. in other ways).

I appreciate this acknowledgment. I have a really troubled relationship with drag queens and drag generally because of the transmisogyny I've experienced in that context. BUT--and I understand that this might seem pedantic, but please hear me out--but, the word needed in this situation is not "TERF-y", it's "transmisogynist" (or "transphobic", but TBH I think the gender specificity here is important).

I say this because TERFism is a particular ideology with a particular history defined largely by its rejection of and hatred toward trans women--but that history and that ideology are very, very rarely the things that make drag transmisogynist. Basically, all TERFs are transmisogynist, but not all transmisogynists are TERFs.

So, for example--TERFs often argue that trans women are "appropriating womanhood" because we did not experience (cis) girlhood, which is, by their argument, a necessary prerequisite to put one in the social category of woman. They sometimes describe our identities and presentations as "womanface" (akin to blackface) because of this. It probably doesn't surprise you that this analysis does not favor drag queens either (although perhaps ironically, I think it's actually a reasonable analysis of cases where drag queens are mocking femininity or playing into misogynist stereotypes for humor value--though to be clear, "womanface" is a troubled concept given the history here is not in any meaningful way similar to blackface).

On the contrary, in my experience, transmisogyny coming from drag communities is rarely based on principle or any real gender analysis. It's mostly a reflection of general societal transmisogyny, with the same tropes (using "man in a dress" as a punchline, treating "passing" trans women as deceptive, rampant use of slurs like "shemale" and "tranny", etc.), distinguished only in that participants often feel a stronger sense of entitlement to those words, tropes, and joke. TERFs may use some of the same ideas (the "deceptive/predatory tranny" is a big archetype for them wrt lesbian trans women) but the drag community's usage does not generally add up to anything bigger, other than one more voice in the background noise of societal transmisogyny.

Now, my understanding of this was hard-won through decades of life as a trans woman, as well as no small amount of formal education on the subject. Obviously, I don't expect others to go through that, so here's a brief field guide to spotting TERFs (note: if you want counterarguments or ways to address some of these views, feel free to message me, but it'd take FOREVER to address every single one here)... . . . . -A FIELD GUIDE TO IDENTIFYING TERFs-

-SOCIALIZATION DISCOURSE-

TERFs typically argue that trans women are "socialized male", i.e. that we were raised as boys/men and that we internalized messages associated with that (entitlement to women's bodies and sexual aggressiveness, dominance in conversations, lack of stigmatization of our bodies).

This also pops up in criticisms of trans women's behavior, where if we are loud, angry, or assertive, those behaviors are read as "mannish" or "masculine" and as such as evidence of our "male socialization", because women and girls are often taught not to express themselves in those ways and are punished for doing so.

This is pretty specific to TERFism--general transmisogynists rarely analyze quite this deeply.

-SEX ESSENTIALISM-

TERFs typically argue that women's oppression is located specifically in (cis) female bodies. They'll often argue that gender isn't real (or e.g. that "gender identity" is just internalized sex/gender role stereotypes), but sex is, and that because trans women are not (cis) female that we do not experience misogyny (even if we "pass"). Sometimes this argument takes on a spiritual or mystical angle, saying that trans women have "male energy" or auras. This is often also applied to trans men, who they generally treat as women "lead astray" by trans politics or the allure of male privilege.

The particular analysis above--connecting misogyny specifically to cis female embodiment--is generally connected to TERF thought (but not always! I think, for example, some of the pushback to trans women's frustration about the whole pussy hat thing came from a not-intentionally-TERFy inability of some cis feminists to imagine or connect how trans women experience violence as women, and a strong sense that regulation of and violence against their (specifically cis) female bodies was a necessary element of experiencing "womanhood"), but sex essentialism and biological essentialism itself shows up all over. Liberal feminist thought, for example, often uncritically reproduces the sex/gender distinction, constructing trans women as "male women" in the process, and "really a man!" is like basic Geraldo-level shit.

-PENIS STUFF-

One other manifestation of sex essentialism is hyperfocus on genitals--TERFs sometimes treat trans women's penises as basically purpose-built tools for raping (cis) women (or, more specifically, they argue that all penises are rape machines and never miss a chance to remind trans women that our dicks are weapons, too). Especially when they focus specifically on trans women's genitals (and not cis men's), they overlap a lot here with far right Christo-Fascist types (see: Women's Liberation Front filing a joint amicus brief with Focus on the Family in the Gavin Grimm case), so hyperfocus on our genitals is transmisogynistic, but not necessarily TERFism. This trope also gets played for comedy (Ace Ventura, The Hangover 2, Family Guy) or drama (The Crying Game, Silence of the Lambs) all the time.

-MALE PRIVILEGE-

Between the socialization and embodiment stuff above, TERFs almost always argue that trans women had and benefited from male privilege before coming out or transitioning, and will often argue that we continue having it even after we've done so. This is the most common argument for the existence of "women's spaces" that exclude trans women (but often include trans men!)--that they are for "people who have never experienced male privilege", or sometimes they just overtly state "this space is only for people assigned female at birth". These two, especially when treated as though they are synonymous with "women", is explicitly TERFy.

Like socialization, this is typically an argument used by TERFs because general transmisogynists just aren't that engaged in feminist analysis and aren't thinking about the operation of male privilege in their day to day lives.

-SLURS, PRONOUNS, AND LANGUAGE-

In my experience, TERFs are less likely to use slurs ("shemale", "tranny", etc.) or derogatory terms ("trap", "he-she", etc.) than general transmisogynists, in part because they know optics matter, and slurs will typically push leftist people away. That doesn't mean they never do it, or that they necessarily care about leftists (see above, WoLF cozying up with FotF), but they do present themselves as "radicals" and cultivate that image with a veneer of respectability. Somebody using slurs really openly PROBABLY isn't a TERF, but might be.

What they will do, however, is aggressively misgender trans people, especially trans women. Frequently they will refer to us as "males" to rhetorically class us alongside cis men (or sometimes just use "men" with an understanding that they're including us), and will use he/him/his pronouns when talking about us. Other times--especially in spaces where they are cultivating that veneer of Legit Respectable Leftism, they will either use no pronouns for us at all, or only use "they". Some of them, in some spaces, will use correct pronouns, especially for trans women who support their politics and ideology. Obviously, though, misgendering happens all the time, and just misgendering a person is obviously transphobic, but not necessarily TERFy.

For obvious reasons, few TERFs identify with the label "TERF", and may argue that "TERF" is a slur. They may identify themselves simply as "radical feminists", or use other euphemisms ("gender critical" is a very common one) that distance themselves from the reputation that has been attached to TERFism (and to some extent, radical feminism more generally). For the most part, only TERFs think TERF is a slur. There are, however, trans-inclusive radical feminists that are determined to remediate and reclaim the "radical feminist" label, even though it fell out of favor for a while, so keep that in mind.

-OTHER RANDOM NOTES THAT DON'T FIT ANYWHERE ELSE-

Sometimes I use TWERF instead of TERF--it changes it to Trans Woman-Exclusionary/Exterminatory Radical Feminism". I do this because historically TERFs have primarily targeted trans women and CAMAB NB folks for violence in ways that they have not targeted trans men or CAFAB folks generally. I think this is an important history to remember, but I use TERF throughout this piece because it's more familiar to people.

As above, Trans-Inclusive Radical Feminism is a thing that does exist. I know radical feminists who oppose TERFs (in fact, the term "TERF" originated with radical feminists trying to push transphobes/transmisogynists out of their orgs and spaces). I considered myself a radical feminist for quite a while. That doesn't mean you can never use "radfem" pejoratively (especially, I would never tell other CAMAB women how to talk about their experiences of violence) but you should be careful about it, because IMO that demonization of radical feminism is how we ended up in a liberal feminist pit, just trying to tread water. Part of how TERFs recruit is that they're a way to escape this hell of Lean In corporate apologism and must-defend-Kellyanne-Conway liberal bullshit. Part of keeping their ranks from swelling as people realize how late-stage capitalism has turned mainstream feminism into a marketing exercise is to open up other options for them--womanism, transfeminism, and yes, TIRFism.

As I said way back, TERFism is structured around its transmisogyny. It doesn't offer a coherent gender analysis that even begins to reflect the reality of trans women's experiences because as time wears on and it continues to solidify as a sect of feminism, it more and more has to structure itself around societal transmisogyny for support. The problem is that societal transmisogyny is a VERY steady, reliable base on which to build your shit, because society fucking hates trans women and has for centuries, even millennia. So even though TERFism is essentially ideologically incoherent, there is intense social reward for participating in transmisogyny, no matter how you come by it. Remember that if you're thinking of trying to argue a TERF into reasonableness: for them, there is a reward above and beyond intellectual satisfaction to be gained by their bigotry: the creation of a trans woman underclass ripe for exploitation (especially sexual exploitation) and who attract a great deal of men's sexual and relational violence in society. In other words, you're not likely to succeed.

-CONCLUSION-

Obviously not all TERFs will conform to what I've said above. Sometimes people will say or do TERFy things without being TERFs (I'd argue that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's comments last month were TERF-y in their emphasis of socialization, but that she herself is not a TERF). But the important take away here is that transmisogyny is different from TERFism, and it exists in the bedrock of our society.

Being able to distinguish TERFs from other kinds of transmisogynists is an important tactical ability, if you want to work alongside trans women to dismantle the systems that oppress us. Just as Mike Pence's misogyny is different from GamerGate misogyny, and just as both require unique approaches even if they are obviously aspects of the same struggle, transmisogyny is a many-headed beast, some more difficult to tackle than others. TERFs, I can promise you, are a hard one to tackle. Casting all transmisogyny as TERFism makes for both a pessimistic vision (it's gonna be hard to root out) and an overly optimistic one (in reality, transmisogyny looks like many different things, and no one strategy will work for all of them). Listening to trans women and being familiar with our history and movements will make you much more effective working alongside us.

#transmisogyny #transphobia #trans #trans womanhood #lgbt #lgbtq #ally #allyship #ppl on facebook seemed to find it helpful