#i'm not nonbinary but this is what i have observed

[gay-otlc]

If a nonbinary person shows the slightest hint of masculnity they get shoved in the boy box, where they will be hated either for being a "trans man" or a "cis man invading queer/trans spaces" based on their (assumed) agab. And then if a nonbinary person shows the slightest hint of femininity they get shoved in the girl box, where they will be hated either for being a "trans woman" or a "cis woman invading queer/trans spaces" based on their (assumed) agab. And if a nonbinary person never ever shows any hints of femininity or masculinity, they are hated anyway and people demand they pick a box to be sorted into.

#nonbinary #i'm not nonbinary but this is what i have observed #enbyphobia #exorsexism

[cypric-rat-hyperfixation]

As my following grows and as I meet more and more people who have rats, had rats, know someone who has/had rats, and love rats...

increasingly I wonder if/when a day will come... a day that I'll express rat enjoyment to someone and they'll enthusiastically ask me if I've heard of This Funnie Little Rodent Blog they like, figuring I may already know it or will enjoy it if not...

and it's.. my blog... and then I have to come out as popular Rat Tumblr blogger that they follow and now know IRL.......

#/lh #I'm saying this like it's some big deal but I'm just exaggerating for comedic effect adjfgsbkdfj #no idea what the likelihood on that looks like. based on statistics of people estimating statistics? probably likelier than we all think #anyway that time I posted a survey for a university research project here and you all wound up comprising 2/3 of our sample was so funny #I had to actually say in an academic research paper that one possible flaw in our study #was bias that may result from 2/3 the sample having come from a niche and extremely specific demographic of people #due to the fact that they flocked in from One Of The Researchers' Substantial Online Following Centered Around A Particular Theme #And Selected Specifically To Have Only A Certain Kind Of Person On It Via Boundaries And Blocking #literally you all made up 98/150 respondents (but that's assuming all digital responses were from y'all-- we had 52 paper responses) #ah but the research symposium was the best. in the paper I was able to remain that generic about it #but at the research symposium. well it's a glorified science fair. so participants have their own stations set up and observers tour them #as the participants speak to their audience; directly providing a summary and then answering any questions #some of the audience/observers are faculty and most are fellow students #so real scholarly scientific types yeah? so they had questions. thoughtful questions #long story short I confessed to numerous listeners throughout the day that the sample's bizarre gender ratio is probably my fault #around 57% women; 21% nonbinary adults; 17% men-- an unusual proportion #so I had to academically tell my professors... underclassmen..... my classmates....... acquaintances.... foes.......... #... that I'm big famous in Rat #and it was so. djkjSBCJXHQKRIGAJFSHF

[redeyerhaenyra]

Konïg discovering his size kink

Summary: Konïg discovers how much he likes how big he is compared to you

Warnings: Guess what! Smut. It's just smut. Size kink (duh), Doggy, Google translate German (I'm sorry 😭), Konïg being a bit of a himbo, afab reader, there is one time at the end reader is referred to as a girl in German, but honestly there's no other mention of readers gender so I hope the nonbinary pals will also be able to enjoy :D, let me know if I've missed anything

Notes: Reader is written as smaller than Konïg but he's so huge that anyone of any size can enjoy this!

The way I'm always so ready to talk about size kink

Especially with Konïg omg!!!

6'10 giant he really is my King

Anyway

I think Konïg's size kink didn't actually manifest until you

Sure he's not blind, he knows how he towers over everyone else

But it's like, it was never a part of his sex life till he was having sex with you

Like it just never occurred to him

But then, with you, it suddenly all made sense

He had you in doggy, fucking you on his thick cock in deep, steady thrusts

In this position he'd a chance to really observe how much bigger he was than you

Normally, when you two fucked, he'd be so entranced watching your beautiful face he'd have no interest looking anywhere else

Oh but now.. now he could see

How the plush skin of you hips spilled between his big hands, how they were fully enveloped by them

How he could so easily pull you back and forth, spearing you on his cock like you were nothing more than a fleshlight

A low grunt caught in his throat, dick twitching as the realisation of oh, he liked how much bigger he was than you

He liked it very much

Konïg leaned over you, pulling you further into his lap as he squished his whole body around you

He's so all-consuming, every sense is filled with him and him alone

He moans open-mothed in your ear, and licks up your neck

"Scheiße, ich hatte nicht... nicht gemerkt, wie sehr ich deine Kleinheit mag, Schatzi. Do you like it too? Ja..ja.. das wette ich, ja.." (Fuck, I did not.. not realise, how much I liked your littleness, honey.. I bet you do..)

After you and he cum, he finally notices how hard your poor litle muschi tries to keep all his cum inside, but it just can't help to let some leak out and dribble down your thighs

Makes sure to give it a little soothing thankyou kiss

Takes a moment to tell your pussy how proud of it he is, taking such a big cock in such a little hole, such a trooper

Cuz like, I know his dick is big!!! I know it!!!!!

It's proportional, shall we say 😭 your cunny working overtime so Konïg makes sure to show his appreciation to it

"Mein Gott, ich weiß nicht wie du das machst, work so hard for me, all of your strength goes into fitting my dick inside you, ja? Ja.. because you're so little, my tiny, tiny mädchen.." (My god, I don't know how you do it)

#smut #cod mw2 #cod smut #mw2 smut #konig mw2 #konig call of duty #konig smut #konig x reader #koniiiggggg my baby

[fdelopera]

JVP Explained

So, I've been seeing WAY too many gentiles ignorantly uplifting an American "Jewish" group called JVP this past month.

Members of JVP have been very loud this past month, pretending that they speak for Jewish people. They do not.

As a Jew, I'm here to help you understand who this group is, why they act in the blatantly antisemitic ways they do, and why they are dangerous to Jewish people around the world.

And, as an ACTUAL Jewish voice, I am here to tell gentiles to STOP uplifting them.

If you have never heard of "Jewish Voice for Peace" (JVP), or even if you have, I want to give you an analogy that will help you understand this group:

JVP are to Jewish people what Blaire White, Kalvin Garrah, and Caitlyn Jenner are to trans people.

And it's worse, because JVP have gentiles (non-Jews) in their membership. (At least Blaire, Kalvin, and Caitlyn are actually trans.) So for JVP to even call themselves a "Jewish voice" is a lie.

Like Blaire, Kalvin, and Caitlyn, JVP's Jewish membership desperately want to be seen as "the good ones" by bigots, and they are willing to throw vulnerable people in their own community under the bus just for a chance to be accepted by those bigots.

JVP has been called out REPEATEDLY by the Anti-Defamation League for harassing observant Jews at synagogue, harassing queer observant Jews, invoking the antisemitic blood libel canard against Jewish people, and most recently, cheering on and uplifting Hamas after their pogrom on October 7. Among many, many other antisemitic offenses.

There are LEGITIMATE and VALID ways to protest the atrocities and war crimes of the Israeli government.

Let me say that again.

There are LEGITIMATE and VALID ways to protest the atrocities and war crimes of the Israeli government!

But JVP doesn't do that.

Instead, JVP chooses to amplify Neo-Nazi dogwhistles, harass American Jewish people at shul, and uplift Hamas — an antisemitic terrorist organization.

You DO NOT, and I repeat, DO NOT!! get to call yourself a "Jewish voice for peace" and then use BLOOD LIBEL, UPLIFTING ANTISEMITIC TERRORISTS, and HARASSING OBSERVANT JEWS as a way to "criticize" the Israeli government.

You are not a "freedom fighter." You are just a Jew who is a self-loathing, Jew-hating antisemite.

Now, if you're queer like me (nonbinary, genderfluid Jew here, hi!), you're likely aware of how Blaire, Kalvin, and Caitlyn have harassed countless other trans people, especially nonbinary people, for not being trans in the "right way." They do this because they are desperate for approval from right-wingers. Why? Because they, and trans people like them, have a deep sense of self-loathing, shame, and guilt about being trans. They think that if they harass other trans people, right-wingers will accept them. All they want is for right-wingers to tell them, "It's okay, we know you're not like those cringy trans people over there. You're some of the good ones."

Right-wingers then benefit from this "relationship" because they can deny that they are transphobic bigots. Right-wingers can say things like, "I don't hate all trans people. I watched a couple of Blaire White's YouTube videos, and she's alright." So by seeking out right-wing approval, people like Blaire are making it more difficult for other trans people to fight back against anti-trans bigotry. But Blaire doesn't care, so long as Republicans will pat her on the head and tell her she's "one of the good ones."

JVP are very similar to this, except that they are seeking approval from extreme left-wing groups. Jews in JVP may be on the opposite end of the political spectrum, but they are behaving in the exact same way as Blaire, Kalvin, and Caitlyn. They are members of a marginalized group who are seeking approval from bigots, and they're throwing their community under the bus in the process.

JVP's Jewish membership desperately want to be seen as "Good Jews."

(JVP's gentile membership, of course, are just leftist antisemites and are there to harass Jewish people they deem to be "Bad Jews.")

Why? Why do Jews in JVP want to be seen as "the good ones"?

Because Jews in JVP have a deep feeling of self-loathing, shame, and guilt about being Jewish, and they think if leftist groups tell them, "It's okay, you're some of the good ones," that this will somehow assuage their guilt for being Jewish.

This self-loathing, shame, and guilt goes far beyond the current Israel/Palestine conflict. That's just how it is manifesting right now. There have always been Jews who have wanted to assimilate into gentile spaces and be told that they're "the good ones." There have always been Jews who are ashamed of being Jewish.

Jews in JVP consider spreading antisemitic Neo-Nazi conspiracy theories, uplifting Hamas, and further marginalizing other Jewish people to be a small price to pay if it means that they are provisionally "accepted" by certain antisemitic gentiles. Even though these antisemitic gentiles will discard the Jews in JVP as soon as it is expedient to do so.

And of course, just like Blaire, Kalvin, and Caitlyn do with right-wingers, the Jews in JVP sanction left-wing antisemites to say: "I don't hate all Jews. I'm not antisemitic. I just hate Israeli Jews 'Bad Jews.' I just want those 7 million Israeli Jews 'Bad Jews' to be exterminated."

Sure, Jan. Sure, you're not antisemitic. You just want 7 million Jews mass murdered. In case you didn't know, you absolute ghoul, that's the very definition of antisemitic.

Oh, and Gentiles, many of you have gone mask-off enough with your Jew-hatred this month for us Jews to know that when you say "Israelis," "Zionists," "Zios," "Zio scum," "Zio rats," and every other permutation of those words, you really mean "those dirty Jews I'm allowed to hate publicly now."

But the Jews in JVP haven't studied their Holocaust history. The Jews in JVP don't care to remember that the Nazis, too, rounded us up into groups of "Bad Jews" and "Good Jews" — or, really, "Bad Jews" and "Useful Jews." Then the Nazis used the "Useful Jews" to attack the "Bad Jews." Finally, they shoved ALL the Jews that they could get their hands on into the gas chambers and tried to kill every last one of us.

And what I know from studying Holocaust history is that as soon as Jews start getting sorted into camps of "Good Jews" and "Bad Jews," you had better say, "Fuck no, I'm not being a Good Jew!"

You had better get into the "BAD JEW" camp as FAST as you can and start SPEAKING OUT, and uplifting the Jewish community, and supporting as many other Jews as you can.

If you try to be a "Good Jew," antisemites will just use you as a useful idiot and a pawn against other Jews. Then within a short period of time, you will find that EVERY Jew is lumped into the "Bad Jew" camp. And EVERY Jew is now in danger. Including you, O "Good Jew" who tried so hard to convince antisemites that you were "one of the good ones."

If JVP studied Holocaust history, they would see that they are being useful idiots for Neo-Nazis, Hamas, and other antisemitic groups that want Jews around the world to be eradicated. (You should read Hamas' excruciatingly antisemitic charter sometime. I have. The group is literally founded on Jew-hatred.)

But the Jews in JVP do not study Jewish history, or Holocaust history.

The Jews in JVP don't want to acknowledge the truth:

In siding with the Neo-Nazis, the Hamas supporters, and the other antisemitic groups that are co-opting the Free Palestine movement and turning it into a movement of Jew-hatred, the Jews in JVP are signing their own death warrant, too.

It's only a matter of time, O "Good Jews," before you are rounded up with us "Bad Jews." Because to antisemites, we're all just "dirty Jews who deserve to die."

#jumblr #judaism #jewblr #jewish #jewish history #jvp does not speak for jewish people #NOTE: I report and block antisemities. If any antisemites comment on this post you will be reported and blocked. You have been warned #antisemitism tw

[writingwithcolor]

Afro-Latine Jewish woman maintaining cultural connection in an isekai comic

Anonymous asked:

Hello! Mixed Latin American nonbinary Jew here. I'm working on a, relatively light-hearted, isekai-style fantasy comic concept of an afro-latine Jewish lady who gets sent through a portal to a colorful scifi/fantasy land, inhabitated by various imaginary creatures sorta like in Alice in Wonderland. She gains magic powers and goes on adventures, working as a scientist researching the land's magical energy. (some of the local creatures she befriends are entirely original species, and some are inspired by my local folklore, but otherwise I try to avoid culturally coding the creatures since they're mostly nonhuman looking). The story isn't supposed to touch any heavy topics like antisemitism or racism, but I've read about the cultural problems in ""normie protagonist finds a new home in a funky fantasy world"" stories, f.ex. how Harry Potter's narrative basically implies that Muggleborns have to abandon their original cultures in order to successfully integrate into the very prejudiced but ""cooler"" Wizarding World. My original goal was to break the mold that escapism fantasy usually revolves around white protagonists adventuring in heavily Western-inspired fantasy worlds, and poc-coded characters are usually nonhuman creatures or racial stereotypes. However the protagonist girl in my story comes from a loving, latine-jewish human family, and while she regularly visits them on Earth instead of just staying in the fantasy land 24/7, I'm afraid that making her story be about being happy adventuring in a separate imaginary land filled with nonhuman characters might turn into an ""abandon your family and culture"" narrative. Are there any ways how I could avoid this? Maybe making the fantasy land's worldbuilding and designs more Latin American or Jewish inspired and thus resonate more with her cultural background, or making it clear that the land is not ""perfect"" and she still loves her family?

One of the first things that stands out to me is that you haven’t set her up to need to abandon her culture in order to make a life in another place. She has the ability to go home and visit her family, but I also don’t see any reason why, if she lives primarily in the fantasy land, she couldn’t be portrayed as practicing Judaism actively in her new home. It’s true that Judaism isn’t solely defined by religious/cultural practices, but it’s also true that religious/cultural practices are one of the most recognizable and most uniting elements of Jewish identity.

I think it might help in this case to think about Jewish practices in terms of communal versus personal: that is, what are practices she would need to seek out a Jewish community for, and what are practices she can do independently?

Does she control when she is able to visit her family? If so, visiting for Jewish holidays so that she can be at a family meal or holiday services seems like a way to highlight that she is just as connected to her family as someone who moved to a different city might be. If she experiences/has experienced the death of a family member or partner, going home to be with a Jewish community for shiva or to say kaddish on a yahrzeit is another touch (for readers who may be unfamiliar, Jewish mourning practices are intensely communal and are intentional about bringing the mourner into an active support system and slowly reintroducing them to the world, and as such a mourner is likely to spend this time somewhere where they can access and be supported by a Jewish community).

As far as practices she can engage with on her own in the fantasy setting, it would be nice to see her observing Shabbat, either in a traditional way by refraining from adventuring and instead engaging in hospitality and prayer between dusk Friday and sundown Saturday, or in a less-halakhic way if she comes from a Reform or comparatively-assimilated background, by marking Friday sunset with candles, blessings, and a good meal, even if she is intending to continue her research through the next day. She would hardly be the first Jewish person to live in a place without an established Jewish community, and a festive meal can be shared just as happily with non-Jewish friends if they’re griffons and fauns as if they’re Christians and Muslims.

Here’s one idea that I think would be hugely meaningful as a way of establishing both that she intends to make her home long-term in Fantasy World and that she intends to carry Jewish traditions with her into her new life: hang a mezuzah.

Think about it: a mezuzah is the visual marker of a Jewish home, as much to the resident as to a guest. When she is home from her adventures, in her garden cottage or enchanted tower or wherever she returns to between adventures to record and categorize her research, simply showing a mezuzah in the background instantly makes the point both that she is intending to stay, and that this is a Jewish space. If as time goes on she adds other Judaica items to her space, it can add to the sense that her Jewishness is present and alive in this world, simply because she is present and alive in it.

If she doesn’t have a settled space or if you’re not planning on setting any scenes there, having Jewish visual markers on and around her can help, too. For low-hanging fruit, maybe she has a silver Jewish Star or chai necklace that catches the light now and then, but since you’re going for a light, fun vibe, maybe she’s packing her adventuring supplies in a bright-blue vinyl backpack emblazoned with “Temple Shaarei Tzedek Junior Youth Retreat 1998” (am I old? I’m pretty sure there are adults reading this who were in Junior Youth groups in 2003, but I’m willing to bet retreat swag hasn’t changed that much).

I do like the idea of including Latin American and Jewish elements in the worldbuilding, especially as an intentional way to combat the cultural dominance of Western European folklore over fantasy writing, but because your character is from and has access to our world, you have the beautiful opportunity to carry real-world markers of Jewishness with her as well.

-Meir

I adore Meir’s answer, but then, I’m the kind of person to whom “enchanted tower with a mezuzah” as an aesthetic is so near and dear to my heart that I wrote a whole fantasy series about it. Couple of random suggestions: one thing I really enjoy is exposing my gentile friends to Jewish food—I love watching the absolute shock of delirium hit someone’s face the first time they taste my charoseth. Imagine this little bowl of chopped apples and walnuts, looking vaguely dirty because they’re soaked in cinnamon-infused wine, so it’s basically dingy beige slop….so that first bite of sensuous, deep sweetness is a huge surprise. Pick your favorite equivalent and imagine the first time a centaur or a winged princess or whatever other fantasy character tries it at your MC’s behest! (Feeding brisket to dragons would make a great name for…something…)

I don’t think you’re likely to do this anyway but since these are public answers: “fantasy world fun, Jewish upbringing a chore” is a narrative I would not feel at home in or care to read. But that’s a rather predictable remark from me anyway ;)

And of course I support the “the secondary fantasy world is actually Jewish” solution too, having one of my own.

–Shira

#Jumblr #Jewish #Judaism #Afro Latina #Afro Latine #Culture #Jewish culture #Jewish holidays #asks

[adamsmasher]

Okay it's after 1am and I've had a lot of wine so obviously it's time for a late night wall-of-text post, but this time it's less likely to piss off your weird uncle or whatever because once again, I gotta talk about the best $4.99 a month I've ever spent.

Please, if you haven't yet, I'm begging you to look into all of the incredible content available on the Dropout.tv streaming service (formerly known as College Humor) . Not only did Whose Line Is It Anyway's Wayne Brady say that the Dropout crew are the only ones doing improv comedy on the same level as Whose Line, but they were also one of the only studios/streaming services allowed to work during the writers' strike because their contracts went above and beyond industry standards. (And, from my own observations, Dropout LOVES hiring queer, trans/nonbinary, and BIPOC performers + crew. Obviously I don't know much about the industry, but they seem like one of the most inclusive companies in Hollywood.)

"Alex, thanks for the recommendation! What shows do they have that you think I'll like?" Oh, you're asking me to gush about my favorite tv shows? Don't mind if I do!!!

Are you D&D curious, but took one look at actual play shows like Critical Role and thought "6 hours an episode? and there's like 750 episodes or whatever? oh baby not my adhd ass..." Don't worry, me too (sorry CR I love you I promise). But Dropout has a show called "Dimension 20" where comedians play Dungeons and Dragons with emotional, immersive storytelling, gut-busting laughs, and spectacular set design that makes you forget it's a fully improvised series controlled by the roll of the dice. They even did a miniseries perfect for D&D beginners called "Dungeons and Drag Queens" where absolute novices and Drag Race royalty Jujubee, Monet X Change, Alaska Thunderfuck, and Bob the Drag Queen embark on an adventure full of mystery, intrigue, and stupidity. I mean, Alaska plays a muscle-bound, axe-wielding, caveman-grunting Orc named Princess, what more could you want? Plus, the primary game master Brennan Lee Mulligan is so easy on the eyes. Oh, you're not into dorky ginger dudes? How about Aabria Iyengar, a 6 foot tall goddess who's equally as nerdy as Brennan but loves basketball. that's right, if nothing else, there's eye candy for every person in every season.

"Oh, why aren't there any good game shows on TV?" you wonder, wishing that the Game Show Network could come up with something that isn't a lame remake of a free-to-play phone game. Well how about Game Changer, "the only game show where the game changes every show (except for [...] Game of Games, Taskmaster, and a few others that have come to light AFTER [Game Changer first aired]. That's right, [the] players have no idea what game it is they're about to play. The only way to learn is by playing, the only way to win is by learning, and the only way to begin is by beginning." And yes, I did sit there and watch the beginning of an episode to make sure I was accurately quoting Game Changer host (and Dropout CEO) Sam Reich's description of his flaghship game show that has THREE separate spin-offs. (for context, he only mentions the other shows that copied his in the one episode I pulled up to get an accurate quote. could you imagine how uncomfortable it would be if he said that every episode? hah!)

Are you more of a traditional Whose Line fan? Look no further than Game Changer spin-off Make Some Noise, where contestants act out "improvisational prompts that [they have] never seen before, isn't that right contestants?" ("We won't know if we've seen them before or not until we see them!" Brennan insists every time he's on...)

You like musicals but wish they were less... ya know, scripted? Check out "Play It By Ear", a fully improvised musical! (you may be familiar with its primary cast members Jess McKenna and Zach Reino from the podcast that inspired it all, "Off Book: the Improvised Musical Podcast with Zach and Jess")

Or maybe you're more into trivia, cuz you're a total nerd like me (and every single performer that's ever appeared on dropout.tv). How about "Umm, Actually" where contestants are given an incorrect statement and have to buzz in to correct it - but you have to say "Umm, Actually" first!

Straight up, you can't go wrong on Dropout. Please, check it out. They're nearly doubling the amount of original shows they have in 2024, and no other streaming service is doing it like them. If I haven't convinced you yet, get the 7 day trial and give em a chance. There's no referral code I can give you that gives me some sort of kickback or whatever, I genuinely wrote what looks like a thousand word essay about Dropout at 1am just because I love them so much.

#dropout.tv #umm actually #dimension 20 #make some noise #game changer #brennan lee mulligan #aabria iyengar #for a late night wine-fueled rant on a broken keyboard i think this went well #actually i feel so guilty about my CR dig because i loved Exandria Calamity so much so please dont yell at me #also google said quiddie is exactly 6 feet i hope i did her justice

[catboybiologist]

I was wondering if you had any readings on the biological aspects of transitioning, especially with the info you use to deconstruct the transphobia argument that being transgender is ‘against biology’. Im a biological sciences major, but haven’t gotten to discuss (much less find resources on) this topic.

Thanks in advance.

Long and rambling response incoming! Sorry for leaving this in my inbox for a few weeks.

This is a very interesting topic to me, and doesn't really have a clean answer. Because its not really about the biology itself, its mostly about the philosophy of science, and how it interfaces with ethics, etymology, and societal understanding. The primary thing to understand is that science is *descriptive*. Morality or classifications are societal determinations that we use to "wrap" scientific observations- gender is therefore the societal "wrapper" to sex, which, over centuries, has snowballed and taken a social definition well past any biological system.

That being said, most of my arguments hinge on the totality of changes that are possible with HRT, and how they affect the molecular mechanisms of sex determination. To me, this sheer totality means that a trans man with significant time on HRT can actually be considered a "biological man", and vice versa for a trans woman. To me, the sheer extent to which cell expression patterns change, and structural elements of the body change, means that the way that transphobes use terminology like "biological sex" is bullshit. And as I've said before, this is NOT a transmedicalist argument, and if I ever sound transmed, I am sorry. Part of the totality of this biological definition includes the interface of genetics, pyschology, and sociology that comprehensively includes all trans people, even those not on HRT. Rather, I use the changes of HRT as a way to demonstrate the plasticity of sex in humans and other animals, and how thin the barrier between sexes actually is. This punches holes in a lot of the propaganda that transphobes tend to roll out, and helps demonstrate how flimsy their talking points are. All of this is to say, something can't be "against biology" because biology is morally neutral. It's not morality. It's not static definitions. It's a set of observations. But, our thinking about definitions and classifications can reflect and be advised by these observations. For me, it helped to think about HRT changes, because my personal mentality is one of a constructed identity. I define myself by what I am in the moment, and if I can document my current state, that helps define who I am- which is a woman. The biology of transition told me how deeply that is true, and continually becomes more true, on a molecular level. So. Here's some individual papers and points that help guide my thinking on the topic, and how each helped me find peace with transitioning: Medical descriptions of changes on HRT:

I'm sure everyone is familiar with this and the WPATH, but from the perspective of medical expectations. Instead, take a look at the changes documented here, and start thinking about how deep and profound they are- these cell types and body structure are sitting there just waiting to happen, and they are literally the same as their cis counterparts. This was huge for me in accepting that my post-HRT body wouldn't be "fake", and actually is literally the

Review paper of sex determination pathways in the animal kingdom:

Transphobes use chromosomes as a prescriptive definition of sex and gender. However, if you take a broader look and see how sex determination works in animals with similar genetic mechanisms as us, it becomes pretty clear that chromosomal sex determination is a late addition to the party. Essentially, most animals use a fairly random mechanism to ensure an advantageous sex ratio in their population. This is often environmental or based on some random gene on chromosome that looks nothing like XY sex determination, but if a large chromosomal deletion comes along, its a convenient way to keep the big version of the chromosome always paired with the small chromosome- for example, the X chromosome always being paired with another X, or its half-deleted pair, the Y chromosome. But there's nothing intrinsic about the chromosomes itself that define sex, its just an evolutionary ride-along mechanism.

So what does actually determine sex? Well, as with any broad scale developmental effect, one signalling molecule or gene can cause extensive downstream genetic effects, and that active, lived set of gene expression then defines what secondary sex characteristics develop.

(even though the main point is about spermatogenesis, it does provide a lot of nice summary figures about testosterone signalling) While these papers don't talk about trans people, the introduction of cross-sex hormones will activate these pathways, and cause the wide variety of downstream transcriptional changes in gene activation. Essentially, the active genes in your body will follow the dominant upstream sex hormones in your body. If you're transfemme, on HRT, the active genes in your body are female ones. If you're transmasc, on HRT, the active genes in your body are male ones.

While I never explicitly studied trans people in my biology education, studying principles of gene regulation, chromosome biology, and just a tad of reproductive physiology means that I started to think about how all of those interface with the way we define ourselves in a lot of ways. And usually, that is dynamic- you can have developmental changes kicked off by signalling molecules later in life, and it would be deranged to ignore those changes out of spite and insist that the biological system is still the thing it was before. Sex determination is not exempt from that.

Again, I use HRT changes as an example, but you can find many similar papers on the psychology of transness even pre-HRT. But, I would caution against trying to find a "root biological reason" for being trans pre-HRT- its likely too polymodal to accurately characterize. It's why I stray away from neurological papers and arguments here. That is an ENTIRELY different argument and this post is already long. But hey, every ask I get like this helps formalize my thoughts on the matter. Hope this helped!

#trans biology thoughts

[dlartistanon]

While I always enjoy your buff Arknights characters (thank you for the Saria especially), what're your headcanons for your Doctor in your version of AK?

Hmm... My Doctor is either nonbinary or fem. Also very ace. Appearance-wise, they have medium-length hair and dark under-eye circles. They have spiral pupils. They're relatively short. Skinny and undernourished. Honestly my design for Doctor is just a haggard version of that one promotional concept art of Doctor that looks vaguely feminine.

Let me list some things about Doctor that I actually like, and kept intact in my own portrayal:

their parental relationship with Amiya

their awkward, sometimes hostile dynamic with Kal'tsit

they have lingering feelings of depression and detachment surrounding their amnesia and separation from Priestess

implied autistic

they’re physically weak and sensitive to light

their acute observational skills

a fondness towards physical contact

their academic background in neurology/history

a strange tendency to drink boiling hot liquids directly and eat random consumables

A lot has happened in over four years. Particularly the way Doctor is written and how certain characters are written around them. In a perfect world, Doctor as a vehicle for self-insertion does not exist. What currently exists is canon discontinuity for me, and I've realized that the only way for me not to gag at Doctor content in the game is if I reconcile their existence by superimposing my own take.

However, in doing so, I refuse to call it a self-insert. That word is so loaded with awful baggage and is a viscerally unpleasant reminder of how some of my faves' writing is ruined for the sake of pandering to the lowest common denominator in order to make the player feel special. At the same time, I'm not depicting "Canon Doctor" either because so much of the "canon" writing around them is so half-baked and poorly-constructed in a failed attempt to appease both self-inserters and people who want an Actual Character.

My Doctor is not In-Game Buckethead, not a self-insert, but a secret third thing. Taking characterization bits that I like and discarding the ones I don't. Same goes for every operator who's writing suddenly takes a nosedive whenever in-game Doctor is involved.

If I have any singular Doctor ship, it's with Priestess. Priestess is their tragic soulmate, and Doctor wanting to reunite with her gives even more reason/justification for other characters to distrust them because of the implication that Priestess was responsible for the Oripathy outbreak.

Maybe with Kal'tsit too, but the dynamic has to be very specifically complex and not reduce Kal'tsit into a tsundere.

#dltext #smithalspersonal #dl talks ak #and they aren't a freaking harem protagonist #i don't draw doctor a lot but if i do it's a much more bearable version compared to in-game #and any doctor-operator interactions are inoffensive to preserve the integrity of the operator #because i can't trust the writers to do it anymore

[olderthannetfic]

Now I'm at the point where I think if someone in the queer community is trying to tell women, femmes, afab people/whoever to stop enjoying BL, they also need to be consistent and tell all queer men to stop doing drag because they both engage with gender in the same way.

Everything those folks tell afab people [they're 1) capitalizing on male queerness without any of the struggles that come along with it or 2) depicting x identity without authenticity or 3) it's not #ownvoices/representation or 4) it's using stereotypes of x group that have historically harmed them] also apply to queer men who do drag in terms of them exploiting women for entertainment. Women are a marginalized group in society; that's a fact. A cis queer man will never truly understand what it's like to be a woman. A cis drag queen will likely never have to know what it's like to be constantly told from infancy your body and sexuality just exist for men. Your interests in fashion or makeup or academics are just for men. [By this logic, a cis woman could reasonably find an issue with a cis man then taking this aspect of personal and societal struggle and bastardizing it for entertainment/humor when women every day are killed, harassed, and attacked for not performing femininity for men.] Cis drag queens also use stereotypes of femininity as punchlines or jokes in this escapism when the ones who have to deal with the fallout in society are women. Drag queens are no more "representation" for women than BL characters are for queer men. No one goes to a drag show if that's what they want, and drag queens shouldn't be expected to do that, just like afab BL creators shouldn't be forced to conform to what anyone thinks is "good representation" for queer men. No queer man has been hurt by BL, just like no cis woman has been hurt by drag. Let's be consistent.

Now, is it also true that there are a lot of nonbinary and trans women who do drag as a way to express their gender? Yes. Are they likely the majority of drag queens? No. So, how would we decide who can appropriate aspects of the female experience? We can't. The same goes for afab BL fans and creators. Yeah, lots are trans or nonbinary, but it's ridiculous to expect everyone to out themselves or write a biographical manifesto to justify their tastes in entertainment. Are there drag queens who are misogynistic? Yes, the most famous example is RuPaul. Does this apply to all? No. Just like BL fans and homophobia.

However, everyone knows that talk of getting rid of drag queens is a common talking point of conservatives. This talk around afab BL fans should be considered in the same way.

--

Huzzah!

I've pointed this out many times. Hell, I've seen a blog post from a BL type author who is leery of women writing BL that pointed out the same thing and came to a similar conclusion.

One of the more interesting commentaries on the cis gay male culture aspects of all this was in David Halperin's How to be Gay. Either I'm misremembering, or the kindle price has dropped from academic book horror levels to something more acceptable, at least to my US eye. ($14.16 currently) I highly recommend it.

He uses the word 'appropriation' to talk about what drag queens do, though he doesn't mean it in a "and that is obviously universally bad" way. He explicitly addresses the fact that some women will find drag misogynist, and that's okay. It's okay that they feel this way. It's okay that a subculture makes art for a particular audience that may be offputting or disturbing to other audiences.

The book is about a lot more than just drag. It goes into all of that cis gay male culture like loving The Golden Girls and venerating tragic women of classic Hollywood. I have sometimes, as a woman, felt almost like I was tresspassing on gay men's territory to love Joan Crawford and her ilk. Which, if you think about it, is fucking nuts.

Halperin doesn't talk about BL at all, at least not in that book, but his observations are like a mirror of fandom and inform a lot of how I look at #ownvoices.

The book is based on a class he taught with that same joke title. The point was that he did not find the performance of normative US cis gay male culture ("What a dump!", Golden Girls love, etc.) to be at all natural. He had to learn it. All his friends laughed about how he was the last guy to teach anyone "how to be gay".

Anyway, as he taught the class, he noticed something that shocked him: students were connecting with The Golden Girls and campy, queer-coded old Broadway plays much more than with the direct, literal representation, even when that representation was on Broadway in a similar tone and type of media.

The book is his exploration of why. To boil it down: gay men were seeking things that felt true internally, not externally. They were often identifying with situations and dynamics or with all of the characters. They didn't necessarily want to be told "Here's your self insert! Now relate!" It's full of the same kind of talk of critical distance that oldschool slash meta engages in.

I actually have a whole long meta piece about this: What I Want is To(o) Direct.

I got the idea after reading Halperin and bounced up to Francesca Coppa at a con to blather about it. She was like "Oh, I just wrote a book chapter on that." That chapter is: Slash/Drag: Appropriation and Visibility in the Age of Hamilton. You can find it in A Companion to Media Fandom and Fan Studies.

Drag is great, but I hate the misogynist attitude that men can borrow from women to express their oppression or their interior worlds metaphorically, but women cannot borrow from men for the same purpose.

The inevitable transphobia that comes with strict policing of either is just the cherry on an already towering shit sundae.

[uncanny-tranny]

You know, I feel like other trans people might get this, but it's honestly kind of refreshing when a cis person has, like, undeniable tboy/tgirl/whatever swag. It's like when you come across somebody who speaks the same language as you and you only find out when they start speaking it, too.

#trans #transgender #lgbt #lgbtq #ftm #mtf #nonbinary #all this to say that we are existing on a rock hurling through space #and this universe is going to collide into another and does it all truly matter in the end? #a lot of this is based on ideas we have about what constitutes certain people and i think it can be a fun observation #so long as you do not inherently ascribe certain traits as being indicative of who somebody Is #it can be amusing when you're SO confident that somebody is a certain way until you realize how Wrong you were #the amusement for me only comes because it's like... 'you tried your best to box somebody and you FAILED lmao' #and in a weird way it's kind of comforting because it reminds me that we all come into this world with bias that Will be challenged... #...so the best thing you can do is recognize those biases and then try to overcome them through great effort... #...so yes maybe i did think that cis dude had tboy swag but. that's not inherently his problem you know? #it probably just means he's confident in his manhood in a way that reminds me of the trans men* i know and love #i noticed that in him and it reminded me of my friends who are trans so i think 'oh! maybe that's why he's giving off those vibes!' #so while i won't treat him any differently before or after finding out i was wrong i'm still going to appreciate the fact that... #...he and i are literally just Vibing on the same planet and we both don't have time for petty arguing about manhood #i'll acknowledge what inspired those thoughts in me but that is Not his problem and that's good and beautiful actually #i don't always mind the tboy/tgirl swag meme just so long as you don't treat it like an Inherent Trans Experience Only Trans People Have #just recognize where those ideas are inspired from and it's fine <3 #sometimes you will be Wrong and that's actually fucking neutral <<3 #anyway rant over i just think this is /generally/ harmless and fun #like astrology. sometimes you just look up your star sign without ascribing your Entire Life to it <3 #i think what i lot of people mean by saying a cis person has tboy/tgirl swag is just that... #...that cis person has an understanding of themself that comes from deep introspection that isn't necessarily expected of cis folk... #...but it is often something trans people do as part of our exploration of gender... #how is this the FIRST POST to reach tag limit... ask me for more thoughts if you want lol!

[destinationtoast]

Toastystats: F/F, F/M, and M/M on AO3

I'm starting to post my deep dive stats that started out as me looking into "F/F vs. M/M on AO3" -- it has turned out to be really useful and interesting to include F/M in most of these analyses (I'd like to also look more at other categories eventually; see further discussion about nonbinary characters). Here are some of the topics I'll be covering: Length, Ratings & Smut, Dark content, Tags & tropes, Growth rate, and Case studies of parallel-ish ships of different genders.

You can read the intro & fanwork length chapter now, and more will be posted soon! You can also listen to me discuss a bunch of the data on the latest @fansplaining episode, Femstats February.

Below are some excerpts of the fanwork length chapter -- but please click through to AO3 for elaboration/clarification/corrections, as well as for descriptions of the images.

---

(Terminology: "F/F-focused" means I filtered out every other relationship category else except "Gen," so as to remove ambiguity, and similar for F/M- and M/M-focused.)

A few observations:

These breakdowns are a lot more similar than I’d expected. There are differences, but they’re not overwhelming. It’s not like F/F is mostly just drabbles.

F/F does have the highest proportion of short fic, followed by F/M, and then M/M...

But the long fic end of the scale isn’t what I expected at all! M/M is the least likely to have works over 50K words (this graph doesn't actually show the decimal points due to lack of space, but M/M only has 2.0% of its works above 50K words, while F/F has 2.4% over 50K). And F/M is the most likely to have [works over 50K words]!

....Next, I wanted to look at reader response to long fic.... First, let's look at the word count breakdown for the works with the most kudos...:

We can see that, probably unsurprisingly, many of the works that receive the most kudos are long -- but I was surprised how strong that bias is. Nearly half of these popular works in the F/F and F/M categories are over 50K+ words (I -- or someone else -- should follow up by further subdividing the "over 50K" category, but I haven't done so yet; for now I only used the same word count buckets that I used previously.). Surprising to me is that M/M has a lot more shorter works that get a lot of kudos; only around 1/3 of the M/M works with the most kudos have over 50K words. I'd be curious to hear any theories about why this is.

....Okay, so lots of popular fic is long -- not too surprising. But now let's flip things around. instead of looking at how long popular fic is, let's look at how much reader feedback long fic gets, and see if any category clearly gets the most or least feedback.

For this, I took a very specific slide of [long fic]: works 100K words to 101K words long. I did that because I wanted to compare long fic of the same length across the different categories. But these specific numbers are therefore not accurate for most definitions of "long fic," and should not be taken too seriously -- hence the asterisks on the following slides (Edit to clarify: I did also look at a couple other long slices to check that these general patterns seem to hold... but I haven't confirmed it for all long fic). I did this just to try to get a rough sense of the ranking or the categories. Let's take a look:

Wow! I was surprised to see that F/F averages the most kudos! And that F/M gets the least of all these types of feedback by quite a lot!

Is this because readers don't seek out F/M as much as the other works? Or is it because F/M readers don't tend to leave as much feedback after they read something? To answer this, we need to look at the number of hits (views) that each category gets:

Fascinating! F/F long fic gets the largest number of hits on average. (Maybe this is because F/F works are the rarest, so more people seeking out long F/F fic view each fanwork, on average, as compared to the other categories?) And we can see that F/M long fic gets the fewest hits per fanwork. (Again, maybe this is because there are a lot of long F/M fics out there, so there's less scarcity, and fewer people view each one?)

Okay, so to follow up on the question of whether F/M readers are less likely to leave feedback after viewing a work -- we can compare rates of feedback. For each work I calculated kudos/hits (I actually looked at kudos per 1000 hits to make the numbers easier to think about), and then I took the median of all those numbers to find average feedback rate. I did the same for comments and bookmarks:

The main takeaway here is that the reader feedback rates are remarkably similar. (Again, this is based on one narrow slice of long fic, so I wouldn't take the small differences here seriously.) More people view F/F long fic on average, and fewer people view F/M long fic -- but the rate at which they leave feedback appears to be roughly the same across all categories.

---

Read more on AO3 (including analyses of drabbles and one shots)

#fandom stats #toastystats #ao3 #relationship categories #f/f & f/m & m/m #though my original tag was #f/f vs. m/m #when this was an earlier wip #word count #op #long post #50 #100

[joy-crimes]

A while ago I came out as being bisexual, & while it does feel amazing and liberating can I still be attracted to nb people? I the definition of bisexuality is to be attracted to men & women only & while I technically fit into pansexuality I don't necessarily identify as it. The point is can I still be bisexual if what I am contradicts the definition? I figured somebody like you could help me.

Aww hey hey that's okay <3

I'll shed some light onto my thought process, as I'm a firm believer that bisexuality does NOT exclude nonbinary people.

So, everyone has their own way of defining their sexuality. It just so happens that bisexuality and pansexuality have a lot of overlap, but the distinction is still important to people, and that's okay

Personally I identify as bi/pan because the distinction between the two is largely negligible to me. I believe that the overlap on the venn diagram between the two is where my sexuality falls. I tend to just say I'm bisexual cuz like. it tends to be the aspect of my identity that gets erased the most, but it's important enough to me to where I like to assert it as much as I can to deny that erasure.

Some definitions i've heard for inclusivity's sake are as follows (but whether or not you want to follow these definitions is flexible to your own comfort level):

Bisexuality CAN be defined as attraction to both YOUR gender, and genders that differ from your own (hence the "bi" meaning 2). This is a little less rigid than saying that bisexuality is strictly an attraction to MEN and WOMEN, so some people tend to prefer it.

Pansexuality CAN be referred to as loving anyone REGARDLESS of gender, where gender doesn't actually come into consideration at all. This definition is good, but also, people who identify as bisexual COULD have largely the same thought process.

Do these sound similar?? yes! It's because they ARE similar, and they also aren't rigid definitions that everyone has to follow. The overlap is inherent for a very specific reason: comfort.

This is something that usually gets overlooked when the public consciousness talks about labels. There's a lot of arguments about specific definitions, and which labels are good or bad, which ones are inclusive, and which ones aren't, but I think these arguments leave out the central reason people use labels in the first place: Self Definition.

Labels, as they are, in reference to the LGBT community, are often used as a way to categorize and exclude other people (if you are a loser who's mean to people for identifying a certain way), but that is not their primary function. The reason we use labels (and this is true for everyone in the community), is because it helps us put words to our subjective experiences in a way that brings us the most comfort. Categorizing others is a waste of time, because the more people you meet throughout your life, the more you realize that peoples' ideas of gender and sexuality are all so varied and vast, much like the colors on a rainbow, that fitting them all into neat little boxes doesn't really work. There's no use trying to say that some labels are good and some labels are bad, because at the end of the day, the person you are observing DOES NOT identify as YOUR PERSONAL dictionary definition of their label. Rather, they have their own subjective experience, and they've chosen their own labels to define them (as rigidly or as loosely as they may).

Self-identifying is what it's always been: an individual's subjective reality put to words that make them comfortable.

It doesn't have to be any more specific than that <3

[rederiswrites]

I know I'm a day late and a dollar short, but I guess I haven't been Visibly Genderqueer in a while. So sure. I can talk about my trans-adjacent experience.

That's the thing, though. I am not. Visibly genderqueer, that is. If you're a traditionalist, you'd definitely notice that I utterly and completely fail to perform femininity--but then, you also might not. People tend to be very focused on specific features and assume gender and stick with that. My neighbor used to get grumpy because even though she routinely dressed her sons in camo and sports gear, they both had long, beautiful hair, and were both id'd by strangers as girls very regularly. Me, I have big breasts and wide hips, thick thighs, a cute, upturned nose, a fairly conventionally attractive face, and I top out at 5 foot 3 (160cm). I know perfectly well what basically anyone around here sees when they look at me.

They see a woman, married to a man (a very Manly man, at that, both in appearance and habits), with two children. I know that. Even though I am out to anyone who's been around long enough to hear me mention it, I haven't asked for a pronoun change. For me, it's just too much bother. It'd be different if my nonbinary experience were different, but I'm agender. I just don't have a connection of any sort with gender. It's just a sort of void space, a blank incomprehension, though I can observe that This Thing matters a great deal to nearly everyone else.

Well, there's a reflexive avoidance. Long before I had heard words like genderqueer or agender or even trans (when I was young, these words were limited to the queer community for the most part, and certainly not used where I lived), I had a reflexive avoidance of all things feminine. It wasn't a thought. I just knew that I absolutely did not want to wear lace, or pink, or ruffles--yes, we still wore ruffles in the 80's. My freshman year high school picture appears to be a fresh-faced ten year old boy, with short hair, a red and white striped turtleneck, and brown corduroy overalls. But I didn't have thoughts for that, only a feeling.

I envy younger people their confidence that people can and should and will treat them according to their personal relationship with gender. Maybe at 42 I am too old to learn that optimism, even though things are changing so much. I think about going by they/them, and it sounds like teaching multiple overlapping communities how to handle the idea of an agender person. Exhausting. Even though there are trans people in some of my in-person communities, and those communities are making honest efforts to welcome that, a person who just doesn't have any attachment to gender at all feels like going even further back to the beginning, undoing even more of their basic beliefs about the world. Ah, yes, you've begun to accept that sometimes the categories of "man" and "woman" can flip around. Now, how would you like to just reject the entire notion that people necessarily have gender? How would you like to just trash-bin one of the defining elements of Self?

And all this effort, over a concept I don't understand at all. It just doesn't feel worth it.

I am me. My name is Red. I look like this, and I like how I look. It comes with assumptions. Many of those assumptions are wrong. Some of them chafe. But I do not have the time or energy to individually disabuse people of every wrong assumption. I'll just live the way I live, and if that shatters a few assumptions along the way, all the better. And honestly, if you're calling me she or her, I'm probably not there to be bothered by it anyway.

#agender #genderqueer

[roboticchibitan]

The other day I texted my mom like "did I ever tell you how every 6-18 months I have an "am I actually a lesbian" crisis? Well I'm tired of it and realizing I'm utterly uninterested in men and romantically have never felt for a man what I feel for my sapphic partners (AMAB nonbinary people can be sapphic! They count! Just trying to be explicit here) so I'm going to identify as a nonbinary lesbian for now because I'm tired of waffling back and forth."

And her response was, "Oh I thought you identified as a lesbian this entire time." Which I found rather hilarious because my mom is either extremely observant or extremely unobservant but either way she definitely knows me best out of anyone.

It was difficult to figure out cuz I'm also demisexual so when I get excited about someone's looks it's kind of like being excited about a really cool work of art and I'm not picky about art! Lots of types of art are cool! But romantically and sexually it's all sapphic for me.

I celebrated my very casual coming out by buying a shirt that says "In Sappho we trust" on it from the creator of the lesbian pride flag.