#dean gender studies

[spnbeit-midrash]

Cas is trans because his assigned gender was ‘angel’ and he chose to be ‘semi-human man’ and ‘FATHER’, even if he’s only vaguely interested in masculinity itself, and Dean is trans because his assigned gender was somehow BOTH ‘most Macho Manly-Man to ever Man’ and ‘unendingly loyal and patient Maternal Caregiver’ and //he’s/// actually a “weird, dorky little guy” who likes horror movies and cars and LARP and cooking and being cozy 🥰🥰

also they’ve both shown genuine interest in romantic and sexual connections with people of a variety of genders which means they’re t4t AND bi4bi and their love LITCHERALLY unraveled the heavenly/CW established narrative and saved the multiverse so THAT’S THE THAT ON THAT!!!!

#destiel #deancas #destiel day #destiel anniversary #nov 5th #trans!cas #trans!dean #dean gender studies #bi!dean #bi!cas #the love that discovered sin

[arturgnojek]

I love you bi Dean I love you gay Dean I love you transmasc Dean I love you ace Dean I love you-

#I have yet to find a Dean hc that doesn't absolutely SLAP #big fan of #dean studies #pls tag your Dean gender/sexuality takes so that I can enjoy the hell out of them!!!! #supernatural #spn #dean winchester #bi dean #gay dean #trans dean winchester #queer dean winchester #dean is bi

[angelsdean]

dean’s pretty pearl handle engraved gun is something that can be so personal. gotta find that post abt dean only being allowed to have pretty things in the from of a weapon (found the post). his gun is SO outside what ppl would expect from him. it’s non-masculine by traditional standards. like it’s literally his one form of accessorizing aside from his jewelry which he later stops wearing. he can have this delicate and beautiful thing, have it be a big part of him, like he loves it, he loves it like he loves Baby. but he’s only allowed to have it because it’s a weapon. like yes i know and love and agree with all the dean as Baby meta but also. dean is literally his pretty pearl handle engraved gun. you have very delicate features for hunter etc etc. 

#dean studies #spn meta #dean and gender #vic.txt #dean's gun

[blue-chimera]

I posted recently re: an assertion that Dean is attracted to underage girls (based primarily on his comments about teen girls in "It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester" & "After School Special"). OP's angle was roughly: "Dean could have pedophiliac attractions as a result of having been sexually-assaulted in childhood."

While that's a reasonable-enough take, I personally disagree. I don't think Dean is attracted to teen girls. IMO, a close reading strongly suggests that what he's doing in those scenes can be boiled down to "crude humor attempting to gross out Sam."

But I also wanted to talk about Dean's general demeanor toward young women, because we see a fair amount of interaction between him & teenage girls, including Claire, Krissy (from "Adventures in Babysitting") & Marie (from "Fan Fiction"), and it's markedly different from how Dean approaches adult women. With adult women — up to & including grandmothers (S14:E13 "Lebanon," S11:11 "Into the Mystic") — Dean flirts the way he breathes. And it's explicitly acknowledged that his flirtation doesn't necessarily indicate that he wants to sleep with the women he's batting his eyelashes at (as Pamela says, "You don't want me... You just like to flirt").

This is just how Dean's most comfortable interacting with women. Frankly, I have to imagine he's not even conscious of his behavior most of the time. (Some of this style of interaction can probably be traced back to a lack of female role models/parental figures/etc. during crucial developmental years of his childhood. But some of this is simply because Dean really enjoys sex — and thinks everyone should enjoy it — and he's just extremely comfortable with himself in that particular context.)

But how Dean interacts with adult women is not at all how he interacts with teenage girls who end up in his social sphere. There's no casual flirting with Krissy or Marie, no smoky innuendo with Claire. And when Jody brings up the "sex talk" over dinner with Claire & Alex, Dean doesn't leer or snark — he's ready to bolt from the room. The way he treats these girls, it's clear they fall into the category of "kids," not "women," and that that's not a sexual category for him. Instead, Dean seems to slip into a more familial role. The way he interacts with Krissy & Claire isn't terribly dissimilar from how he treats Ben (adjusted for age) or Jack (once he finally warms up to him). [Although he leans into more of a "cool older brother" vibe than a "dad" vibe with the girls — likely sensing that they'd resent/find patronizing any attempt to be a substitute father — whereas he gives off more "dad" energy with Ben & Jack.]

Ultimately, we have tons of evidence that Dean cares about kids, treats them with respect in their 1-on-1 interactions, & has a generally protective attitude towards them. And everything I've seen suggests that this treatment is applied equally to boys and girls, younger kids and older ones.

(Tangential, but: Honestly, one of the things I love about Dean is the respect he has for women despite the way he grew up. A lot of men who come of age in a "boy's world" see women as almost some kind of alien creatures, beautiful but unknowable, desirable but not really people — not in the way it matters. Dean might not have a particularly nuanced understanding of gender in society, & he's definitely absorbed some misogynistic tendencies from the world around him — who hasn't? — but he's got the basics right. He's starting from a place of "women are people." With a lot of guys, it feels like even if they get there, they still have to stop & recalibrate sometimes, consciously reset their assumptions. But with Dean, it just feels like his default position. Maybe it's because he cares so much more about the hunter vs. civilian divide, maybe it's something else... IDK. But that's just the sense I get from him: that this is second nature.)

#your thoughts? #understanding dean winchester #spn meta #dean winchester #spn #dean studies #gender & sexuality in supernatural

[tableofshrooms]

Ponder is really going through it in The Last Continent

#discworld #ponder stibbons #mustrum ridcully #the librarian discworld #the last continent #senior wrangler discworld #the Dean discworld #the chair of indefinite studies #the lecturer in recent runes #mrs. whitlow #ponder stibbons is such a guy #I feel so bad for him having to deal with those old ass wizards #ponder stibbons gotta be one of my favorite genders #yes he is wearing wizard crocs #he is a comfy guy #the bursar discworld

[soullessjack]

Question for you about baby Jack: do you think the same people that flatten Jack tend to also woobify Cas to the point of comical gentleness and stereotypical femininity? I was thinking about the implications for both autistic characters having their violence and harsh parts cut away to make them more palatable/adorable.

YES OH MY FUCKING GOD THANK YOU FOR MENTIONING IT.

It was definitely way worse around like S6-7 with Crazy!Cas than it is now, especially as a product of the show’s airing time and how queer men (ie Dean and Cas) were generally viewed during then; if you’ve been on the 2010’s internet you might remember all those mlm ship dynamics that were really just repackages of traditional marriage and gender roles: Alpha/Beta, Top/Bottom, Dom/Sub, etc.

/ Full disclosure that I was *not in these online circles during the 2010’s and I’m not any sort of gender studies expert, so anyone’s free to correct me if I get stuff wrong lol. /

But from what I’ve seen and what I know, Alphas, Tops, and Doms are typically very stereotypically masculine, carrying all the stereotypical traits like aggression and emotional unavailability, and filling in stereo-traditionally masculine roles like being protectors or providers. Vice versa, Betas/Bottoms/Subs were usually the extremely effeminate other half; they were more emotionally sensitive and weak, needed to be protected, and for the most part portrayed as looking physically androgynous or “soft.” Ergo, you have basically affixed these queer men to acting as The Man and The Woman, even though it’s two men.

Like I said, it’s definitely gone away for the most part, especially with the rise in actual gender studies and how gender expression is viewed, especially for men. I’ll still see it in some Destiel art here and there where Dean is this big gruff strong pants-wearer saving a blushing baby-faced dress-clad Cas, (cough wheeze diminuel but you didn’t hear that from me) but thankfully it isn’t thee most prevalent content made for Cas the way baby!jack is thee most prevalent content made for Jack, and there have been plenty of people over the years to come forward and correctly establish Cas as a way more dominant and capable guy than the ao3 fics would have you believe.

Same goes for Dean! He’s set up to be The Man, he likes violence and steak and guns and sleazy dive bar sex, but he’s a very emotionally sensitive man and has his own dips into femininity (Rhonda Hurley, cooking/baking, being Sam’s ‘mother,’ etc.) I’m actually of the opinion that SPN has some of the queerest masculinity ever , and again I’m not a gender studies student or expert by a long shot, but I do think there’s something to be said about how a show that is sort of built on a reversal and deconstruction of the nuclear family (ie Mary being a hunter and John being a normal man, Dean being Sam’s mother in their childhood) is so constantly regurgitated into those very roles by the fandom:

Sam is the “mom” of Jack’s 3 dads, Cas is the sensitive effeminate bean who needs big strong brawny man Dean to protect him, etc., and with Jack’s confirmation as non-binary so many ppl took to drawing them in mostly feminine fashion (which to me speaks a lot to how queer masculinity is treated but that’s for another post I think).

There’s also a lot to be said about how important mothers and motherhood are to SPN. Mary Winchester, Kelly Kline, Lily Sunder, Rowena Macleod, Jody Mills, Amelia Novak, I’m sure I could go on. Sam and Dean follow in the footsteps of their mother’s family as hunters. Castiel bonds with Jack through Kelly, and Jack takes after Kelly more than he does Lucifer (his grandma even points out that he sort of looks like her). I’m absolutely not saying SPN is this ultra feminist show, but when it tries it tries, and what it lays down is very much worth picking up.

you’ll have to forgive me for centering Jack on a Cas ask but I promise it’s not for nothing. like, the whole “twist” to Jack’s character isn’t just that he’s good or sweet; it’s also that he’s much more like his mother. Not only does he look like her, but he’s also very emotional; he’s sensitive, he’s intuitive, he’s deeply empathetic. and where most teen boys wanna be like their old man, he wants to be more like Kelly; even keeping her name as his own. of course he presents fairly masculinely, as do the other guys (unless we’re counting kitchen aprons as a feminine thing, which I only would with a grain of salt), but so much of his character is faceted in being like Kelly; being like his mother, being like a woman, and within the show’s framework that’s a celebrated thing!

I feel like I’m getting away from the original question so here’s some last thoughts to send out the door with you:

> Sam and Dean’s connection and relationship to Mary is also celebrated within the show, arguably more so than their relationship with John

> the importance of mothers in spn is somewhat highlighted by their absences (Sam and Dean, Claire)

TLDR: supernatural accidentally smashed the nuclear gender family and made their men queer and fandom culture/patriarchal norms doesn’t understand it because masculinity isn’t seen as inherently queer the way femininity/androgyny is

#I might actually take up gender studies eventually now it is pretty interesting #not like in college or anything lol . well maybe . #idk lolz #holdthypeace.txt #bringing back that one tag from another post : #every day the gender binary is reinvented and perpetuated and every day I want to rip my skin off to escape it #spn #supernatural #tfw2.0 #jack kline #sam winchester #dean winchester #castiel #destiel #mlm ships #gender stuff #spn study #does this make sense am I insane #also I don’t know if this is necessary but I’ll say it anyways #1) I am not a terf and I don’t ever hope for this argument to be caught on with them #2) im non-binary and I love Jack for being non-binary and my little side note ab the way he’s drawn is not a statement against that ; #; it’s a statement against how masculinity isn’t seen as queer unless it’s in proximity to femininity or androgyny #usually. I know bears are having a grand old time tho 🙌🙌

[wellofdean]

Dean to Jo (2x06): this isn't gender studies. Women can do the job just fine, amateurs can't.

#dean winchester #invokes GENDER STUDIES #Kripke went to USC Film School yo #That dude been knew all about ye olde postmodern lenses #just sayin'

[brotherwifesoncodeddean]

one of THE most gender dean moments

#this isn't gender studies sweetheart #dean tag #heaven vs hell: s4 #immediately had to stop the ep to take these caps

[marcskywalker]

so close to writing an academic style essay on how dean loved cas so deeply despite being not allowed to love him. Gonna title it "Destiel: the unacknowledged romance of the century"

someone better stop me or I'm gonna be insufferable about this

#destiel #castiel #dean winchester #I could probably write 3/4 separate character study essays on dea #gender stereotypes and it's damage on psyche #and another essay on religious symbolism in the destiel ship

[lonelyrat15]

explaining dean studies tumblr to my friend like:

#spn #destiel #dean winchester #dean studies #the duality #dean gender problems #deancas #november 5 2020

[drfrankensteinvsthequeerborgs]

Dean: “Sweetheart, this ain’t Gender Studies”

Gender Studies: has an entire subfield dedicated to whatever fucking shrimp gender babygirl’s got swirling around in there

#dfvq liveblog #dfvq spn #spn2x6 #quotes #dean studies #gender studies #misogyny #nothing but respect for my canonically bisexual protagonist #you will pry my trans headcanons from my dead fucking fingers

[couldbecannibal]

Funniest thing about being transmasc? I swear, everyone in the fandoms you join is also transmasc. The main male characters become nothing but gender envy for a lot of us 💀💅

#spn #destiel #Dean Winchester #Hannibal #will Graham #you know like the gender thing with them #gender queer #trans #transmasc #Sherlock #bbc Sherlock #I’m not crazy I swear a study can be done on this

[angelsdean]

gender trouble by judith butler (1990)

#it's the calling the cheerleader costumer...thee performance of gender....dean's love for little costumes for being someone else #and sam notably not. agreeing #like i Know this line was meant to be a ha ha dean loves women he's such a womanizer moment #HOWEVER. i have special intel and can confirm it's actuall a dean gender moment<3 #literally just posting this to add it to my dean gender tag #dean and gender #dean studies

[pussypopstiel]

Sweetheart this might not be gender studies but. What if it could be? 🤨🤔🤔🤔

#if dean just read some gender studies books and queer feminist theory maybe. hm #honestly so much of theory and crap like that sounds so elitist to me but thats also because its called theory. its a fucking paper #white feminist academics on tiktok how i loathe thee #my silly little posts

[swordsofsaturn]

i think spnblr at large has really neglected to explore the fact that dean was a teenager through the 90s

#there's no way dean went through adolescence in the 90s and doesn't know he's bisexual. #y'all were tongue in cheek posting about dean gender studies but. well. gender trouble was published in 1990. i'm saying it's not impossibl #i'm SURE he read a shitload in his teens. a life which demands escapism to cope. #a lot of spare time and lack of normal commitments. libraries are free #spn

[annmariethrush]

DEAN IS SO GENDER DEAN IS SO GENDER DEAN IS SO GENDER DEAN IS SO GENDER

#Dean is so gender #dean winchester character study #dean winchester #spn #supernatural #trans dean winchester