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drdemonprince · 3 months

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I read your newsletter about "transmisandry" today. I'm a trans man and I generally agree with what you said. However, I was wondering how you would classify a particular experience of mine and other trans men I know irl or have seen online.

In short, I find that in some queer spaces, masculine and/or "binary" (meaning, not non-binary) trans men are treated as outsiders and enemies. I imagine some straight-passing queer cis men experience similar.

This prejudice against masculinity has nothing to do with us being trans, and is in no way oppressive, but it seems to me that some people have a hatred/disgust/discomfort/etc. with masculine men, especially if we are proud of our manhood. I sometimes feel excluded in queer or progressive spaces, and like I have to change myself to fit into others' idea of "acceptable" manhood.

I think this tends to emotionally affect trans men in particular because being a man is generally hard-won and joyful for us. Have you experienced prejudice in queer spaces, especially trans spaces, for being transmasculine? And while I don't believe there exists systemic misandry, is this not a form of misandry, just interpersonal?

Thanks, I really appreciate your work.

Hi there, thank you for great question. What you are describing is certainly a very real and troubling dynamic within both queer and feminist spaces, and it's put me off for a very long time. I have sometimes referred to this as "playful 'misandry' feminism", always with "misandry" in quotes because, as we've already established, it's not a real locus of systemic oppression. I have also sometimes in the past likened it to "Men's Tears Coffee Mug" feminism in its performative, self-congratulatory, typically white feminist stance.*

*in the Koa Beck sense of the term. Someone who is not white can be a white feminist.

I was always put off by performative man-hating jokes and the exclusion of men within feminist spaces because, well, I was one, and because it nearly always played out in transmisogynistic ways that were transparent to me, and because I was a major ride-or-die for men who were victims of sexual violence yet were frequently excluded from survivors' spaces (again, because I was one, even before I realized that I was).

There are a lot of troubling effects that happen when feminist women make a big performance out of finding all men to be disgusting and evil and frequently express disinterest in men's feelings or suffering (which used to be way more common in my estimation, around the early 2010's or so it seemed to peak). I was driven away from feminist spaces as a young closeted trans man because I could see such spaces were not for me or for any of the other men that I cared about and needed support. On the inverse side of things, I have spoken to many trans men who said that "playful "misandry"" feminism actively made it harder for them to realize that they were guys. Men were seen as the enemy and inherently evil and destructive and so they felt absolutely disgusting about the possibility of being a man, or feared transitioning would get them seen as a betrayer of the feminist movement.

As you rightly note, it is not just trans guys who get excluded by such dynamics. Cis men who are genuinely avowed feminists can be driven away by such forces, which is especially upsetting in the case of sexual assault survivors and queer men. Trans women and TMA enbies are excluded from feminist and women's spaces because they supposedly "look like" men to these types, and their own feelings of superficial safety rank above the actual data on who is the most at risk structurally (which is trans women). Butches are regarded in some spaces as too aggressive or unacceptably masculine because of it. And people's analysis of gender oppression just overall sucks when they buy into "playful misandry" style feminism because they go around saying shit like "femme people are oppressed by masc folks." what the hell does that mean. Does a cis, gender conforming feminine woman have less structural power than a butch lesbian? I don't think so.

It seems to me that the big problem here is that "playful misandry" feminism is rooted in a deep deep misunderstanding of the structural nature of oppression. Sexism isn't caused by patriarchy and capitalism, it's caused by "men" and so hating men and excluding them is what will fix things. Men as individuals are responsible for sexism and so women should be as detached from them and unsupportive of them as possible. This logic leads to a TERFy place really quickly, and yes, it also really really damages trans men.

My opinion is that it's best to critique this problem as the political failure that it is: a misunderstanding of sexism as individualistic rather than systemic. That's the core issue from which all the problems flow -- from rampant transmisogyny to the exclusion of cis male sexual assault survivors to the feelings of alienation of trans men. Yes sometimes naming the performative nature of "man hating" jokes and the like is helpful because people recognize instantly what that dynamic is when they hear it. But the "misandry" itself is not the core problem -- it's the shitty gender politics and white feminism.

Does that make sense? To be clear, I think it's something trans men get to talk about. I talk about it from my positionality quite a lot really. I don't think "misandry" is ultimately the helpful or clarifying way to name it, but I will sometimes throw around that term with a TON of qualifiers if I'm discussing the specific interpersonal dynamic of women saying that men are evil rapists innately or whatever. But really discussing the broader gender politics failure that leads to those little shitty comments and looks is almost always more helpful. If trans guys and cis guys are feeling excluded from a space due to these dynamics it's almost always the case that trans women, TMA enbies, butch women, and lots of women of color are too.

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sanisse · 1 year

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What exactly is a terf?

Hi!

Terf stands for trans-exclusive-radical-feminist. It refers to a person who describes themselves as a feminist, but who are transphobic and assert that trans women are not women and have no place in women's spaces. They have a weird obsession with biological sex, and subtly or not-so-subtly equate being AFAB with being a victim, and being AMAB with being an oppressor. Men evil. Women good. Etc. Etc. (This absolves a TERF from any kind of moral responsibility because if they, due to their biological sex, are inherently always oppressed, they can never be an "evil oppressor". It makes terfs extraordinarily difficult to reason with). Like terfs wanna be oppressed so bad. They wanna be oppressed so so bad it's embarrassing for them.

JK Rowling is a textbook TERF. But to break it down into common red flags of TERF or borderline-terf ideology:

Patriarchy is bad but it always benefits men. Terfs get really upset when you point out that patriarchy is a system that oppresses and harms and traumatizes men and women. They get VERY upset when you point out that men have any gender-related trauma at all. TBH this is the biggest red flag that I see pop up with terfs.

Terfs generally believe it's impossible for men to be assaulted or abused. This is also a huge red flag. Even little boys. It's disgusting.

Terfs will complain about how men are "invading" women's spaces (trans people in bathrooms issues but also this goes WAY beyond that)

Terfs like to assert that all men are predators/pigs/evil etc. etc.

Terfs will assert that men are stealing resources allocated to help oppressed women (they mean trans women...that trans women are "stealing" resources allocated to "real" women).

Again, weird obsession with vaginas.

All that to say, I put "terfs fuck off" on all my blogs because trans women are women, and patriarchy hurts men, too, and I think men are great, actually, and that actually misandry (men bad lol) is a frankly crusty and tired Take and that's its not funny or cute or sexy or edgy to be misandrist ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and MOST importantly, I have no interest in engaging with someone who is transphobic -- especially not on a blog where I'm writing quite a lot of queer smut lmao.

#terfs fuck off <3 #feminism #cw jk rowling #(just briefly mentioned but i like to cw her anyway lol)

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sky-chau · 1 year

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Hi, my name is Sky-Chau. I've been on this platform since I was 13. I'm 20 now and as such I've learned a lot and come to realize a lot of the things I've said done and believed, in the past were genuinely fucked up and harmful to both myself and the people I've come to know as my friends. Some of it was ignorance and niavate, but not all of it. In the grand scheme of things, my intent at the time is irrelevant as none of that changes the negative impact it had on the people around me, and for that impact, I am deeply sorry.

I'm not perfect, no one is. I'm a firm believer that evil is not an inherent thing you are but rather a thing you do. By classifying evil as a behavior, it allows people to grow and change for the better. You don't have to forgive me or anyone else that's hurt you. That's up to you and your own personal comfort and safety. I'm not asking you to forgive anyone.

Forgiven or not, I'd like to make a few things clear going forward. Some of these are corrections to things I've said in the past and others are things that I want to make sure anyone who follows me understands. In no particular order:

1) Trans women are women, and whether or not any individual identifies as always having been a woman or having grown out of a comfortable agab childhood into a woman, doesn't change their current woman status and is ultimately none of my business as it's a descriptor of a lived experience.

The same goes for trans men and NBs.

Experiences of dysphoria and the choice to medically transition is none of anyone's business. Trans people can do whatever makes them comfortable, and anyone who insists there's such a thing as "faking it" is missing the point. It's about people's lives, for a lot of people it's not a choice. For other people being transgender is a choice and that's equally valid. People have a right to control and express their own gender identity in whatever way helps them thrive.

I can say without a doubt policing other people's identities, is most definitely not making your own life any better.

2) Black lives matter, the culture and dialects of black people are important. Any non-black person in America should be conscious of the safety, benefits, and advantages that we received from slavery, systemic exclusion of black people from economic opportunities, and inequality. (Note that consciousness doesn't mean personal guilt.)

3) Cis men and masculinity are not the enemy. The phrase toxic masculinity refers to the ways that our cultures idea of manhood harms society and individual men. Any proposed solutions for gender inequality under feminism need to do more than simply elevate women. In the same way the high matinence aesthetic expectations of femininity need to be abolished, the crushing and dangerous social expectations of masculinity need to be dissolved.

The construct of gender hurts everyone in different ways. Men shouldn't have to put themselves in danger by signing up for the draft or working construction. These should be opt in choices for anyone of any gender.

4) No culture is primitive. Every society holds a different set of values and priorities. A society that prioritizes the health of the earth is going to use their enginuity differently than a society that prioritizes wealth and the future of it's children.

5) Antisemitism is both very real and ancient. Listen to Jewish people when they voice their concerns.

6) My lesbian flag sucked. Despite my deep convictions about its design whilst I was in highschool. The symbolism comes off as rather performative in hindsight as yeah, that's the level of maturity and understanding of the world I was at when I made it. I can't stop you from using it but just know that I currently consider my plan to solve the "too many lesbian flags" problem by proposing yet another flag to be foolish and dumb.

7) Everyone is still learning, all the time. It's not your job to teach them, though kudos to you if you have the mental strength to try. For many people deep in an ideological rabbit hole, being taught will not necessarily make them learn. At least not right away. Ideological change doesn't happen overnight.

#apology #sky-chau #feel free to reblog this #i dont mind either way

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hewholivesinhisname · 2 months

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Is Social Justice good or bad?

On one hand, I tend to believe in social justice. On the other, I have this other opinion which is that I don't think that social justice can really be upheld by society or people in general.

Why is that?

Lack of responsibility

It is possible for example that everyone goes around and just spontaneously protects minorities for instance, but that is not the "natural" thing for people to do.

Most people are part of some tribe or group or other and see outsiders as inherently dangerous with perhaps at least some good reasons. People have limited intellect and someone unfamiliar might hurt them.

Thus, just as a stranger in a house might not get a warm welcome even if someone is well intentioned they might be viewed with suspicion.

In order to get along and respect differences, people have to have a strong belief in multiculturalism and that is pretty rare I think outside of America. In America, we just sort of assume that everyone should get along despite differences.

We also have respect for things like trans rights and such. However, not all cultures are like that and America also genocided like, all the indian land which was not very multicultural of them. In the 18th and 19th century though, it was kind of radical though for whites to think of themselves as white. It wasn't until the 20th century really that people even thought of themselves as "human."

So, we can be optimistic and think that the social justice warrior types will win, but the left eats its own as the saying goes. In leftist circles you can never be radical enough which means that there's this element of "mob violence" about it. Some people are more socially just than others and you can kind of just never win.

Darkmatter2525 made a clip on this:

youtube

People who are leftists have this kind of extreme tendency to silence debate and out people who have ANY sort of right leaning views, which drives people to right or in the worst instance alt-right, where they tend to adopt all the racist, misogynist and hateful views the left hates.....because the left attacked them.

Now, I think that they are basically right about a lot of things: white patriarchy really does suck most of the time. But I'm white and I want a family. As god, I want to be in charge. Should I only be allowed to be in charge or have authority if I am a trans disabled otherkin?

Jews kind of need white supremacy on some level even though it sucks just because it can hide Jewish power. The whites are always complaining about this, but the Jews are god's chosen people and God is most often a Jewish man. So White Patriarchy can end with God's supremacy a lot of the time- at least in theory.

The other things is that social justice people, like all people tend to want to be in charge, however the nebulous concept of authority and the call for "equality" within social justice circles makes it hard to decide who exactly should be in charge of what and what ideals they are specifically fighting for.

Into this nebulousness anarchism can spring up followed by rule by money followed quickly thereafter by rule by evil as "social justice" can hide monetary supremacy and rule by the evil very easily. All the evil need to do is pretend to espouse social justice principles while promoting rule by social constructs and "the system"

Most social justice movements do not want to put goodness and the poor as first concepts though. Nope. They want it to be women. which is a terrible group to trumpet in my opinion because everyone is nice to women anyway. As soon as the roles of men and women reverse, women take all the jobs, the birthrate plummets, guys start fighting each other and maybe we get an emperor if we are are lucky and he sires another dynasty.

An awful lot of poltical entities however just end with one dude in charge with a big harem and of course the social justice people specifically do NOT want one dude in charge. In order to avoid that you would need to make sure the guys don't fight which means making sure their needs are taken care of and they don't take extreme risks to not be on the bottom.

But do social justice people want this?

The idea that social justice movements need to make MEN, especially old white men like myself as the primary focus seems absurd to them even though statistically we make up 99% of the prison population, 80% of the homeless population etc. When blacks end up in prison they take it as a sign of "systematic racism" but when white men end up getting fucked....that's not racism or sexism at all.

That doesn't exist.

Again, this is why it's so rare to find men who are willing to endorse social justice. The "social justice" warriors think that 50% of the population don't matter. In order to be taken seriously men must be lumped into a category of "the poor" and even then mostly people want to offer services to poor women.

Now, Audre Lourde, I remember specifically she did say that lower class men should be included in the category of social justice.

And, of course, they want Palestine, not America or Israel.

is Palestine a good country? Well, Palestine is the remnant of . My name Pell is remeniscent of Pelasgian and Palestine and Pelasgian are related as is Philistine and Pelasgian. I suspect that the Palestinians aren't really bad people in some ways- they are the people's choice though and the people.....well, the people seem to prefer demagogues, grifters, leaving the rich alone, mob violence and they are kind of just copying the Jews but in reverse. Palestine isn't doing it's own thing. It is

I dunno, maybe it is better than America or Israel. The Jews don't really follow god and America is kind of the same way. Honestly, it feels like America is the Evil's country. So, yeah, if you can only look good next to arguably the two most evil countries in the world you probably aren't all that good.

I mean, I think this sums it up nicely:

youtube

Social justice warriors just kind of replace good with "bias" then they have, I guess a reverse order of who is the "most oppressed" based on, uh, characteristics like race and shit. It's not meritocratic or effortocratic or anything at all. It can just spiral into victimhood games.

What would it take to make inclusion work? Well, having very clear standards about what sorts of actions are good and bad helps quite a bit. however, if you really want to be inclusive, you might not be able to have that "single standard" because that standard might be above and beyond some people. So you just kind of have to grade on effort towards contributing to society and try to treat individuals and groups with as much kindness and compassion as possible.

Since it's social though, I think individuals get lost there. It's about the group, not the individual.

It's kind of funny to me that all the people in the social justice warrior cartoon are white though, because this is exactly the kind of thing white people do: find a cause, then get violent about it. which brings up another thing: there's something very white about social justice warriors even though supposedly it defends minorities.

Like, blacks would not necessarily use the tactics of screaming, shame, violence and doxxing to support black rights nor would these necessarily be the tactics that first would be taken up by indigenous people. I mean, they might work of course. At some point you have to realize that power never gives up power by itself, but it's just the sort of white thing to do to champion social justice specifically so that whites don't have to give up power.

They aren't evil though.

They aren't.

Jeff

which is why ultimately I might have to support the social justice warriors, because it's pretty hard to sway public opinion and the social justice warriors are really the only alternative morality to the "system" that most people would understand and accept.

The system and it's evil master doesn't like women, doesn't like blacks, doesn't like trans people, doesn't like polyamorous people, doesn't like lesbians, doesn't like indigenous people.

It doesn't like anybody.

Harpo- Oprah Winfrey- possibly #15?

Romanus- Pope Francis

Scimitar- Obama

Guru-Eckhart Tolle

Mason- Joel Osborn

Palpatine- Ratzinger prob #66

#sjw #Youtube

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gayfrenchtoast · 3 years

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Okay fine we're doing this. I havent read the books and I'm probably not going to I've only seen the movies so I'm sorry if anything I say is contradictory or has already been stated.

So! Descendants 3 was kinda shit and I dont like it but especially because of the ending because everybody was like "oh yeah island is open and we're all happy with no worries or implications about free villains or people being spiteful about being imprisoned for years!" In fact if anything they joked about those things.

The island is basically its own culture, I can't say how long it's been around, long enough for some almost adult kids to be about and to develop a kind of community.

The Isle is a place of poverty, people are dirty and on the street, eveyone steals from each other and most people don't put much effort into appearance upkeep (personal or of the sourounding area) not because of laziness or being "evil" but because they clearly don't have time or luxury to do such things or possibly even the clean water. Does the Isle have clean water?? How to they get electricity??? Someone tell me!

Another thing that I've noticed is easy to see but is not much explicitly said is the unique style of those on the Isle. As previously stated they don't have much but those who have the most "power" and such on the Isle are the best example of this As they have the most colourful outfits. However these outfits are often made out of patches and ripped things put together, even salvaged things like nets and chains as we can see on thing like Uma and Harry's outfits in D3 they make the best of what they've got and they do fantastic because their outfits are intricate and detailed and just tell you everything you need to know about them. Which is why it's a damn s h a m e when the original VK's ajust their style to be more like Auradon's. That's not an improvement! Be proud of where you came from!! It's like they forgot what it was like being on the Isle in D3!

Moving on, here's something that was touched on in D2 but not enough. Equality. On the Isle there is basically equal opportunity as in saying everything is shit and nome cares what gender and presumably what sexuality you are as long as you can work. Sexism is shown to be almost casual in aurodon from the looks of it, Chad makes sexist comments and litterally none else says anything or seems to see anything wrong with it except Jay who caves to pressure from peers and expectations. He does redeem himself because he's from the isle and he knows you shouldn't give a shit about anyone's gender or anything. If they can do something and ask to be included you give them that opportunity. The sexism is also implied in the way that the rule book has men written specifically in the first place and that it has taken until then for anyone but boys to be allowed on any kind of sports team. We never see it! It seems to be the hetronormative veiw where the boys do sport and girls do cheerleeding and other genders? What other genders? Never heard of that? BAD AURADON!! I bet there's so many trans folk on the island just living their lives, thinking Aurodon is the better place and not knowing that it's a cis het filled nightmare.

Okay no I'm headcannoning now, if their are now a bunch of Isle kids at auradon prep they find it fucking aweful the way all these preppy royals are treating them and make the first LGBT club in Auradon. There is lots of pushback and they get bullied a fuck ton for making themselves the most prominent queer folk in the school until a fight breaks out and the club demand that they should be treated better, taking all the evidence to fairy godmother who is very hesitant because COME ON she's never been that great she is biased to Auradon kids and if putting away those in the Isle is brought up she is all on it, she is jelly spined about doing anything against the royal kids. So the kids are like "Fine, if you won't help us we'll take this to the King himself!" Well mainly the queer mom's of the group (you know the ones I'm talking about) who lead the others and protect the anxious queers as they storm to Ben at his fucking locker and demand an audience because they are being harassed and bullied and none is doing anything. Ben had no idea there was even a LGBT club (too busy ig) and is gassed there is one for a moment before he's like "wait people are harassing you?" So Bisexual King Ben gets his lovely Bi wife and they start coming to club meetings and investing in the pins and stuff the club makes. Most club members are pleased but the queer mom's are apprehensive that this will help until some assholes come to the club to do their usual bullying only to find King and Queen Beast themselves siting there with rainbow bracelets and bi pins and all trying to have a nice old time eating their fucking cupcakes what the fuck are yall doing? The bullying dies down quick once they realise it ain't gonna fly, the other OG VK's that hear about this become members and very protective over their queer children. Did I mention Dizzy and Ceila are a part of the club? They're girlfriend's. Celia is one of the queer moms. Harry becomes one of the biggest protectors over the group as the pan dad. He's been going around snogging everyone and anyone wholl snog him everyone already knew he was queer they just didn't have the balls to try and bully him over it as much as they bullied the lil club members. But now Harry can often be seen in jackets and shit with pan and general queer patches and pins and running around with his gay children yelling "MOVE WE'RE GAY!!" He totally calls them his queer crew. Anyway as a result lots of queer royals start coming out of the woodwork, obvs Lonnie is one of them, and the club eventually serves to bring members of Auradon and the Isle close together.

Where was I? Yada yada auradon expects girls to be pretty princesses and boys to be brave knights or dashing princes. It's shit and should stop being portrayed as good. Moving on!

Food! One of the things we'll established in all movies is that the food of the Isle is shit compared to food of Auradon. The Isle has no fresh fruit which likely means its almost impossible for things to grow there which is fair because again there doesn't seem to be much fresh water and there are always clouds overhead so no sun. Maybe there is some people trying really hard to grow stuff but the general attitude of the Isle seems to be "there is no time for that" and fruits are forgotten so much that the VK's litterally don't knownwhat they are when they come across them. That and anything containing sugar. Actually it's mention by Dizzy and Celia that they enjoy the fact that the cake dosent have dirt or flies so basically food there is terrible. We don't see much food on the Isle but what we do see seems to be beans, eggs, chips and shellfish. Basically protine and carbs that can be easily stored and produced. To be fair beans are kidna good for you but they're likely a sign that if they get any imports from the mainland it is canned stuff. Prison food. There's probably some chef villain that is trying their best to make good food out of the shit but honestly the Isle dwellers should be angry that they've been deprived of good food for so long not happy they're finally been given decency.

Moving on, music! Auradon dosent have nearly as many musical numbers it seems, the Isle songs have a distinct style, to them, the villains that basically "founded" the place were masters of the dramatic songs (with backup or solo) so banging music is basically ingrained in the music's culture, even for battle as we see with the fight between Mal and Uma in D3. Meanwhile Auradon seems to have mainly romance and "I want" songs. Even Audrey's villain song is basically an I want song.

Okay let's talk about the Villains. We've established that the VK's are not inherently bad. However not all of them can be totally good and there are legit OG Villains just kinda chillin on the Isle. They've obviously lost quite a bit of their power, motivation and sanity (isolation will do that to ya as they lost everything and the VKs know no different) but deadass? They were bad guys. You can try to rehabilitate them sure but you've basically just let them free roam, they could make a runner and you wouldn't get the chance. They were also shitty patents which is brushed over/joked about in the interaction between Carlos and...man I feel bad I forgot her name deadass their relationship seemed to come out of nowhere in the second film she didn't seem interested in them at all and friendzoned them multiple times I'm pretty sure Disney did that becaue queer kids were relating to Carlos and headcanoning them as queer (which they deffinatly are) but deadass their mom is an attempted animal murderer and has hurt her child as we can see from how they're afraid of her and her rhetoric and yet it's "haha I'm afraid to meet your ma!" "Me too cus im a dog! Lol!" Fuuuuck offfffff

I think I'm running out of thoughts so here's a last one for now; with the magical barrier down a bunch of magical Villains kids should be coming out for the woodwork. We know Mal has magic basically stored in her so it's is possible, she technically doesn't need the spellbook to do magic it is just inherent to her. So with the diverse range of people from the isle there are deffinatly magic folk in there. Actually if we're following Disney movie law I saw something mentioning Jay being half Genie and yeah! He should be half Genie! Jafar got turned into a Genie he's probably only human because of the barrier! Oh also Ben should be able to go beast on command as long as he had a better beast form than he did in the movies. And give him back the beard and fangs like fuck you he looked so much better

Okay I'm done for now

#decendants #decendants 3 #mal #carlos de vil #jay #harry hook #uma

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luna-lovvegood · 3 years

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are you a terf/support terfs and may i ask why? /gen

Hey! I'm a rad-leaning feminist but I hesitate to completely call myself a radfem, mostly because there are always ideas within every ideology that I disagree with/agree and to subscribe fully to an idea, in my experience, tends to put people in a bit of a box where they feel they have to agree with everything in an ideology, or they are a "bad" activist.

I am anti-porn and anti-sex work, which does not mean anti-sex worker! I support the Nordic model:

"Under the Nordic model, the purchase of sex work is criminalized and sale of sex work is partially decriminalised. (Typically, sex workers can sell their own services, but auxiliary services, such as pimping, brothel-keeping, and third party advertising remain illegal.) The main objective of the model is to decrease the demand for sex work by punishing the soliciting of sexual services in order to decrease the volume of the illegal sex industry overall." (x)

If women are a product, if sex can be bought... then what is rape? It's not rape; it's theft. So many men already view women as bodies to be

The majority of American men watch porn, but much, much less women. (x) Porn panders to the male gaze and it heavily affects the way society views sex;

"Pornography can shift sexual interests, behaviours and relationships. It shapes “sexual scripts”, providing models of behaviour and guiding sexual expectations, with studies finding links between watching pornography and heterosexual anal intercourse, unsafe sex and more. Watching pornography can lower men’s relationship satisfaction. And for women, male partners’ pornography use can reduce intimacy, feed self-objectification and body shame, or involve coercion into sexual acts." (x)

I'm gender critical, as in I think critically about gender and I dont blindly accept stuff people say about it. gender is a complex subject and we should all remember that 'critical' means "involving the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement' not necessarily negative.

Feminism is about females, transwomen are males and should never ever be centered in feminism. Feminism is about lifting female voices and female liberation. Transwomen are about as qualified to be feminist activists as cis men. That doesn’t mean they can’t be feminists, but feminism isn’t their movement. It’s not for them.

I also believe transwomen, regardless of their validity as women, should be excluded from female spaces (i.e bathrooms/shelters/crisis centers/sports/prisons) and also should not be centered in feminism because they lack the fundamental experience of growing up as a girl. if you aren't familiar with the concept of male/female socialization I would learn about it! there is nothing inherently predatory or evil about men; its taught to male people, regardless of gender identity that women are their sex objects and we essentially should drop everything for them and include them in everything. transwomen are also just as likely to commit crimes as cis men, although we should note that this is only present in on of the groups;

"Second, regarding any crime, male-to-females had a significantly increased risk for crime compared to female controls (aHR 6.6; 95% CI 4.1–10.8) but not compared to males (aHR 0.8; 95% CI 0.5–1.2). This indicates that they retained a male pattern regarding criminality. The same was true regarding violent crime." (x)

However, I am aware that transwomen are also at higher risk of violence, but the solution is not endanger women. I fully support trans shelters/gender neutral bathrooms and I also believe that we should do more to protect transwomen (as well as men) from rape in male prisons, putting them in female prisons only equals biological women being raped.

as @queen-mayhem said: "Trans women do not get to sacrifice us to keep themselves safe." (x)

Half of all known trans prisoners are sex offenders or require max security. (x)

fair play for women is an extremely good site that I would recommend checking out!

Children should never be put on puberty blockers or hormones. They should not have their name legally changed at three years old. If your son wants to wear dresses and you assume he’s trans, you are a disgusting person. Kids can be gender non conforming. You are a bigot if you assume a woman/girl who’s masculine or a man/boy who’s feminine is trans. we should treat gender dysphoria as what it is: a mental illness. individuals with gender dysphoria need serious help. therapy is trans healthcare, not chopping off their bits and tits.

Some things in radical feminism I disagree with, like the idea that capitalism is inherently anti-feminist, because women were never treated well under any political system. I'm not arguing for or against capitalism, I just don't think it's a feminist issue. Communism makes women public resources, capitalism makes us private property. We need female liberation under all political systems. Also, as a Christian I don't believe all religion is inherently sexist and @yeshuaspriestess is a good feminist christian blogger to check out!

I recommend J.K Rowling's essay (x) and I really like some bloggers on here like @radfemblack and @opabiniawillreturn and a lot of others. Also, I recommend checking out radical feminist scholars, which I myself am doing now so I don't have any recommendations quite yet because, again, I'm new to radical feminism. Interact with radfems, terfs and trans activists/trans people and form your own informed opinion!

I'm always open to civil discussion with anyone, and please DM me if you want to talk more! Hope this helps!

#also I might edit this post as my view change!#sorry for using ur question as an about me lol #about me

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ayay · 3 years

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okay well. i'll be honest im not happy with new age activism. it's helped me to work through my problems, yes, but im beginning to wonder if the causes i advocate for are even what they originally were anymore

has it really come down to the point that we, the queer community, a community that is meant to preach love and acceptance above all else, are excluding our own? condemning those who arent "like us"? of course, this includes exclusionists, but im focusing on the treatment of "typical" people. because its warped and twisted no matter how many ways you put it and i dont care if i get blasted for saying it anymore because im tired. im tired of it all. send me death threats. call me bigoted. call me uneducated. doxx me. mock me. whatever you want.

for all the confidence and presence we command, i think we're still insecure about our identities. i think we're afraid that the non-queer majority are all inherently evil and bad and if we let them into our spaces they will erase our queerness, when in fact its important we let them in so they can understand for themselves what its like to be queer. instead we force ourselves harder and harder onto them so that they may always see our queerness and know of our existence, when really we should be allowing them to see for themselves, us, as who we are. we dont need to broadcast the fact that we're not like "them" for the cisgender and heterosexual majority to hear. they know we aren't like them. and they know we're here. and some of them want to ask questions, but we dont let them because its easier to tell people to shut up and listen. some of them want to interact with queer people in queer spaces and get involved, but i suppose those things are only for the people who need them; i.e. not you.

its degraded into a game of claiming the Moral High Ground. and i fucking despise that.

and it makes me want to cry every time i think about the fact that I was like that too. up until a year ago, i was no different than the ones joking at the expense of cishet white people and mocking them for their ignorance when i should have instead reached out to help them understand. i was too busy wallowing in my angst and misery to start realizing that i was just latching on to something that made me feel good about myself for once.

"no one can validate you but yourself" yeah, and guess who is validating that sentiment for me? another person.

"the circumstances of your birth are irrelevant" to what extent? for what means are you preaching this falsehood? if that was true, we wouldnt have to have conversations about discrimination and how toxic beliefs are internalized. your actions and beliefs only align when its convenient.

"if you dont want to date a trans person, you're transphobic" guess in transphobic for being aroace. guess gay men are mysogynistic for not wanting to date women. guess straight people are at fault for being born straight. guess its criminal to have preferences.

"if villains are queer or queer-coded, it inherently promotes homophobia" so you like villains but only if theyre not queer? but you also want diverse well-written antagonists that dont feed into stereotypes? and you want diversity in the main cast, as well? but you're afraid of said diversity in the main cast being exploited to promote harmful ideas? so you're just gonna police everything anyone has ever written until we live in a society where the social circumstances make it okay to write certain characters using certain archetypes? and any media that does less than promote multiple progressive ideas is bad or mediocre? theres a difference between instilling mindfulness and policing creativity.

thats only four points out of hundreds more i could never put into words.

activism has never existed to serve a single group of people. that hasnt changed just because you're more worried about making people blindly accept your identity and validate your moral character rather than helping them deeply understand the root of these problems and work through it in a meaningful way.

but most of all?

its terrifying to me.

ever heard of the cultural revolution in china? it was the extreme socialist movement initiated by dictator mao in a desperate attempt to regain political control against one of his rivals. during this movement, the campaign to "destroy the four olds" was the central driving force behind it, and it was essentially a call to eradicate traditional chinese society and replace it with a more progressive communist society. the catch is that there was no definite boundary or definition for what constituted as "fourolds", so mob mentality eventually ran its course, and the country's more privileged classes were the ones that suffered for it. im talking public humiliation, physical punishment, unsolicited searches conducted on homes, suicides, unolicited detainment and arrest, vandalism, and an entire country brainwashed into thinking this was okay. after all, they were the capitalist bourgeoisie good-for-nothings who exploit workers for money.

my point? that our mentality is no different from this. the Red Guards of the cultural revolution krrationally condemned people to horrific experiences just because they resent them for having been born into a body and life removed from their own pain. we call out anything we personally dont like or deem immoral and attack said people over that sentiment. anyone who disagrees is a bigot and a horrible person.

the civil rights leaders of past didnt suffer just for their cause to be bastardized like this.

we need to do better.

#im not reading all that u have fun tho #namesign #long post #q slur

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henshengs · 3 years

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About Rule 63 fanworks

I was asked yesterday to elaborate on my genderbend opinions, as a trans person, which I’m happy to do, and I’ve thought about it a bit today to make sure I’m not saying something off the cuff and not thought through. Still, this is a sensitive, complicated topic, and I’m open to discussion on it.

This also got long, so I’m putting it under a cut.

So, obviously I can’t speak for all trans people. No minority group is a monolith in our opinions and this is particularly the case for the transgender community because our experiences are so very diverse and individual.

I am very rarely hurt or offended by genderbends/genderswaps/rule 63 fanworks. I know people for whom this is not the case, and I believe the pain involved is very real. The thing is... living in this world is inherently kinda painful when you’re trans. This world’s not built for us. All kinds of random things can cause me pain throughout my day. Store mannequins. My own reflection. Lesbian poetry. Pictures of other trans people. When something triggers my dysphoria or feelings of alienation, I have to stop, acknowledge the feeling, and then consider whether the thing is, outside of hurting me, contributing to the ignorance of and hatred of people like me by its very existence.

I don’t think the basic act of asking, “What if this character who is a cis man, was a cis woman instead?” does that. I think if anything, it opens the door to then ask “what if he was a trans man? Or a trans woman? Or nonbinary?”

Asking “what if this story was about a cis woman” lets cis women talk about their experiences and see themselves in stories, something I think is valuable! and also can lead to stories exploring sexism and misogyny, things which affect all trans people too!

In the rest of this post I’m going to use the terms “rule 63″ and “genderswap” to refer to the act of creating a fanwork changing a cis/presumed cis man to a cis or not-specified-to-be-trans woman, because this is the vast majority of the work under that label, because most fictional heroes and iconic characters are cis men, and because people who create cis man->trans woman or cis woman->trans man content, in my experience, usually use terms like “trans headcanon” instead.

(A lot of rule 63 fanworks don’t explicitly specify that the now-female character is cis. We can presume that most artists aren’t even thinking about the possibility of the character being trans, but we can presume that for 99.99% of all art, anywhere. It’s not a unique evil of rule 63.)

The claims that rule 63 is inherently transphobic, rather than just something where it’s good to be extra careful to avoid transphobia, as far as I’ve seen, use two arguments: A) that making the character a cis woman is wasting an opportunity to make them a trans person, and this is transphobic, and B) that rule 63 fan art is gender essentialist and cissexist, because it ties gender to physical characteristics.

Argument A doesn’t hold up for me,

because couldn’t one then say that reimagining an abled white cis character as an abled white trans woman is racist and ableist? that reimagining them as an abled trans woman of color is ableist? No transformative reimagining can cover every identity. We say “write what you know” and talk about Own Voices, and that includes cis women who want to write about the experience they know.

It’s also not fair to tell trans people that we must always think about trans experiences, even in our fiction. A lot of the time we don’t want to have to write or think about dysphoria and discrimination and we want to live in the heads of cis characters or even just characters whose AGAB is not mentioned!

And it is also, imo, not a great idea to pressure people who may not be educated about trans experiences to write about trans characters just because they want to explore sexism or write about lesbians.

many, many trans people first begin exploring their gender identity through creating cis rule 63 content, because it’s ‘safer’ than directly engaging with trans content.

With argument B, I agree that a lot of rule 63 art looks like this

and this sucks. To me, though, it’s important that it’s not the genderswap aspect that makes it suck. Artists who do this are also designing original characters with sexist, gender essentialist designs. Artists who don’t draw sexist art in general, also don’t draw sexist rule 63.

(yes, I know She-Hulk is not a rule 63 of regular Hulk. But you guys know the kind of art I’m talking about.)

I’ve also noticed a genre of fanfic that’s like, “if these characters were girls, they’d be sensible and conflict avoidant and none of the plot would happen!” or “what if these violent, tragic male characters were Soft Lesbians who braided each others’ hair” and again, I assume these authors write canonical women the same way. The genderswap part isn’t the bad part, the sexism is.

Non-sexist rule 63 actually, in my opinion, fights gender essentialism and cissexism. When a character is exactly the same except for the ways a gender essentialist world has shaped and pressured them based on their AGAB, that’s a strong statement on the constructed nature of gender!

But the argument that making /any/ change is gender essentialist, is... I understand where it’s coming from. I am a trans person who presents androgynously and I am a hypervisible freak because of it. I would love to live in a society where visible gender markers weren’t a thing! Unfortunately, we don’t live in that society. We live in one where we are constantly under pressure to conform to one of two profiles. There are almost no gender non conforming male characters in popular media. And changing a gender conforming cis man into a gender conforming cis woman seems to me to be a neutral action at worst. Not to mention characters from historical canons, who would be under a ton of pressure to conform.

For physical body type characteristics... 65% of all speaking roles in Hollywood are cis and male. It’s harder to get statistics on other forms of media, but it’s undeniable that overall, most stories are told about cis men who do not have breasts or wide hips. Changing the story to be about a cis woman who has those features is introducing more diversity!

I typed “rule 63″ and “genderswap” into the tumblr search bar today, and I saw a lot of art of women with a variety of aesthetics and body shapes and characteristics, who looked like people I’d see out at the mall.

Again, I sure do wish we lived in a post gender society. But we don’t, and in our society, everyone, myself included, looks at a picture of a person and gender categorizes them based on appearance. It is not wrong for someone to draw “Geralt the Witcher as a hot butch woman” and give her some physical markers generally agreed upon to denote ‘butch woman’ rather than ‘gender conforming man’ to tell the viewer that that is what they have drawn. Just as it is not wrong to draw “my OC who is a hot butch woman who fights monsters” and give her those markers.

Finally, both arguments against genderswaps are, in my opinion, flawed because they implicitly posit the act of creating fanworks of the original, cis male gender conforming character design, as neutral. I think this is incorrect. I think that if you’re going to argue that drawing a cis male character as a cis woman is transphobic, you have to also argue that drawing the character as a cis man is transphobic. But I’ve only seen people do this when a trans headcanon becomes extremely popular in a fandom.

Again, I’m just one person. I’m also biased, because firstly, as I mentioned, rule 63 doesn’t usually trigger my dysphoria; secondly, I almost always come down on the side of “don’t limit what people can explore in fiction; ask them to explore it more sensitively or with more content warnings instead.”

I definitely encourage creators to seek out and listen to a variety of trans opinions. But this is mine: I love rule 63, I make a lot of it myself, and I think if no one created it we’d lose something awesome.

At the end of the day, what I really want is more trans content*, but I’d rather have cis rule 63 than just stories about cis men.

Also: I personally have nothing against the terms genderswap or genderbend. I don’t think it reinforces the gender binary to acknowledge its existence by saying you’re ‘swapping’ the character from being cis with one AGAB to being cis with the other. But I can definitely see the argument against it, so I don’t blame anyone for going with rule 63 instead.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading; I hope you have a nice day, and have fun creating and consuming the fanworks your heart desires. I’ll end by linking this comic, which is just eternally relevant.

(*by which I mean: trans content created by other trans people, that matches my hyperspecific headcanons, likes and dislikes, and doesn’t set off any of my often changing dysphoria triggers. See what I said at the start, about transgender existence being constantly mildly painful. There are many awesome aspects to being trans! This is one of the less awesome.)

#rule 63

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kuromichad · 3 years

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different subject that’s heavy on my mind rn but since i’m already being harsh let’s get into it. i wish it wasn’t automatically presumed to be some kind of truscum attitude when someone tries to express that different parts of The Trans Community have like, different needs and different risk levels and different experiences and that we have the ability to talk over each other, harm each other, etc... like when i put it that way people generally are like ‘of course that’s true!’ but is it ever really understood in practice? a number of people (not a large enough number, but still) are able to loosely understand ‘you can be trans and transphobic’ when it’s applied to the matter of transmisogyny but when a trans person tries to express distrust of or frustration with afab nb people due to how common it is that that category of person will, despite being trans/nb, espouse bioessentialist, anti-medical-transition, radfem-adjacent if not outright cryptoterf rhetoric, suddenly ‘trans people can be transphobic’ gets applied to... the person with a complaint about transphobia.

because he’s clearly an evil truscum man! regardless of if the person making the complaint is a trans man or trans woman, oops, lol. he’s a bad person who is attacking and invalidating and totally hatecriming the heckin’ valid, equally at-risk transgender identity of “an afab woman who isn’t a woman except when she pointedly categorizes themself as a woman because being afab makes them a woman who is ‘politically aligned’ with women but she’s not an icky unwoke cis woman because they don’t like being forced into womanhood although Really When You Think About It 🤔 all women are dysphoric because obviously the pathologized medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria in transgender people is something that equally applies to cis women just default existing under patriarchy 🤔, and no, equating these things totally does not imply anything reductive about or add a bizarre moral dimension to the idea of being transgender, whaaaaat, this woman who isn’t a woman doesn’t think there’s anything immoral or cowardly or misogynist or delusional about being transgender, they would never say that because THEY’RE transgender, except when she feels it’s important (constantly) to make clear that she’s Still A Woman Deep Down Inherently Despite Not Identifying As One, and none of this ever has any effect on how they treat the concept, socially and politically, of people who actually wholly identify with (and possibly medically transition to) a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth, be it ‘the opposite gender’ or abstaining from binary gender altogether or ‘politically aligning’ with the ‘opposite’ gender from their asab. never ever!”

and like maybe that sounds like a completely absurd and hateful strawman to you! but in that case you’re either like, lucky, or optimistic, or ignorant. i’m literally not looking at random nb people and declaring that in My Truscum Opinion they’re ‘really a woman’ just because they’re not medically transitioning or meeting some arbitrary standard of mine. i am looking at self-identified afab nb people, who most often use she/they because, y’know, words mean things, especially pronouns, so people who are willingly ‘aligned with womanhood’ typically intentionally use she/her (sorry that i guess that’s another truscum take now!!! that pronouns mean things!!! the bigender transmasc who deliberately uses exclusively he/him wants it to invoke a perception he’s comfortable with!), who actively say the things listed above (in a non-sarcastic manner).

like, the line between a person who says “i don’t claim to really not be my asab because i know no one would ever perceive me as anything else” because theyve internalized a defeatist attitude due to societal transphobia, and a person who says that because they... genuinely believe it’s impossible/ridiculous/an imposition to truly be transgender (in the traditional trans sense, beyond a vague nb disidentification with gender) and are actively contributing to the former person’s self loathing... is hard to define from a distance! i think plenty of people who are, in a sense, ‘tentative’ or like ‘playing close to home’ so to speak in their identity are ‘genuinely trans’ (whatever that may mean) and just going through a process. they might arrive at a different identity or might just eventually stop saying/believing defeatist stuff, who knows. but there are enough people saying it for the latter reason, or at least not caring if they sound that way, that it’s like, dangerous. it is actively incredibly harmful to other trans people. and it’s fucking ridiculous that it’s so difficult to criticize because you’ll always get the defense of “umm but i’m literally trans” and/or “well i’m just talking about ME, this doesn’t apply to other trans people” when it’s an attitude that very clearly seeps into their politics and the way they discuss gender.

because it’s just incredibly common for afab nb people (most typically those that go by she/they! since i’m aware that uh, i am also afab nb, but we clearly are extremely different, so that’s the best categorization i’ve got) to discuss gender in moralized terms, with the excuse of patriarchy/misogyny existing, which of course adds another difficult dimension to trying to criticize this because it gets the response of “don’t act like misandry is real” (it’s not, but being a dick still is) and “boohoo, let women complain about their oppressors” (this goes beyond ‘complaining’). a deliberate revocation of empathy/sympathy/compassion from men and projection of inherently malicious/brutish/cruel intent onto men (not solely in the justified generalizations ‘men suck/are dangerous’, but in specific interactions too) underpin a whole fucking lot of popular posts/discussions online, whether they’re political or casual/social, and it absolutely influences how people conceptualize and feel about transness.

because ‘maleness is evil’ is still shitty politics even when you’ve slightly reframed it from the terf ‘trans women are evil because they’re Really Men and can never escape being horrific soulless brutes just as women can never escape being fragile morally superior flowers’ to the tumblr shethey “trans women who are out to me/unclockable are tolerable i guess because they’re women and women are good; anyone i personally presume to be a cis man, though, is still automatically evil, and saying trans men are Just As Bad is progressive of me, and it’s totally unrelated and apolitical that i think we should expand the concept of afab lesbianism so broadly that you can now be basically indistinguishable from trans men on literally every single level except for a declaration of ‘but i would never claim to be a man because i’m secure in the Innate Womanhood of the body i was born into, even as i medically alter that body because it causes me great gendered discomfort.’ none of this at all indicates that i feel there’s an immense moral/political gap between being an afab nb lesbian vs a straight trans man! it says nothing at all about my concept of ‘maleness’ and there’s no way this rhetoric bleeds into my perception of trans women and no way loudly talking about all this could keep trans people around me self-loathing and closeted, because i’m Literally Trans and Not A Terf!”

again, if that sounds like a hateful strawman, sorry but it’s not. i guess i’m supposed to be like ‘all of the many people ive seen saying these shitty things is an evil outlier who Doesn’t Count, and it’s not fair to the broad identity of afab shethey to not believe that every person who doesn’t outright say terfy enough things is a perfectly earnest valid accepting trans person who’s beyond criticism’ but like. this cannot be about broad validation. this can’t be about discarding all the bad apples as not really part of the group. we can’t be walking on eggshells to coddle what are essentially, in the end, Cis Feelings, because in the best cases this kind of rhetoric comes from naive people who are early and uncertain in their gender journey or whatever and are in the process of unraveling internalized transphobia, and in the easily observable worst cases these people are very literally redefining shit so that ‘actually all afab women are trans, spiritually, all afabs have dysphoria, we are all Equally oppressed by Males uh i mean cis men <3’ because, let’s be honest, they know that the moment they call themselves trans they get to say whatever they want about gender no matter how harmful it is to the rest of us. and those ideas spread like wildfire through the afab shethey “woman that’s not a woman” community that frankly greatly outnumbers other types of trans people online, because many of those people just do not have the experiences that lead you to really understand this shit and have to push back against concepts of gender that actively harm you as a trans person.

like that’s all i want to be able to say, is Things Are Different For Different Groups. and a willful ignorance of these differences leads to bad rhetoric controlling the overall discourse which gets people hurt. and even when concepts arise from it that seem positive and helpful and inclusive, in practice or in origin those ideas can still be upholding shit that gets other people hurt. like, i don’t doubt that many people are very straightforwardly happy and comfortable with an identity like ‘afab nb lesbian on testosterone’ and it would be ridiculous and hypocritical for me, ‘afab nb who wants to pass as a guy so he can comfortably wear skirts again,’ to act like that’s something that can’t or shouldn’t exist. it’s not about the identity itself, it’s about the politics that are popular within its community, and how the use of identities as moral labels with like, fucking pokemon type interactions for oppression effectiveness which directly informs the moral correctness of your every opinion and your very existence, is a shitty practice that gets people hurt and leads us to revoke empathy from each other.

like. sorry this is all over the place and long and probably still sounds evil because i haven’t thought through and disclaimered every single statement. but i’m like exhausted from living with this self-conscious guilt that maybe i’ve turned into a horrible evil truscum misogynist etc etc due to feeling upset by this seemingly inescapable approach to gender in lgbt/online circles that like, actively harms me, because when i vent with my friends all the stuff i’ve tried to explain here gets condensed down to referencing ‘she/theys’ as a category and that feels mean and generalizing and i genuinely dislike generalizations but the dread i feel about that category gets proven right way too often. it’s just like. this is not truscum this is not misgendering this is not misogyny. this is not about me decreeing that all transmascs have to be manly enough or dysphoric enough and all nbs have to be neatly agender and androgynous or something, i’m especially not saying that nb gender isn’t real lmao or even that it’s automatically wrong to partially identify with your asab; this is not me saying you can only medically transition for specific traditional reasons or that you don’t get a say on anything if you aren’t medically transitioning for whatever reason, now or ever. i just. want to be allowed to be frank about how... when there’s different experiences in a community we should like. acknowledge those differences and be willing to say that sometimes people don’t know what they’re talking about or that what they’re saying is harmful. without the primary concern being whether people will feel invalidated by being told so. because these are like, real issues, that are more important than politely including everyone, because that method is just getting vulnerable people drowned out constantly.

#source on much of this: existing as a transmasc on tumblr for years and years.#i stopped identifying as any sort of 'woman-aligned' pretty much right before the ridiculous 'all afabs are dysphoric' stuff #but it sure did still make me hate myself and feel like a silly cowardly ugly little girl for wanting to transition!#and back when i WAS a she/they i definitely was falling for 'men are bad maleness is bad always inherently :)' rhetoric #not in the modern form outlined above but in the like. brainlessly parroted from 'baeddel tumblr' form #which was still like 'you can escape being a Bad Person by either becoming or admitting you are a girl :)'#and the only acknowledgment of trans men in this ideology was like. 'well i guess they feel like they have to do that :\'#'too bad for them. im not saying they shouldnt transition but you know. men suck though <3'#it was bad for me it was bad for other people so im saying from experience. Fucking cut it out! the end

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talenlee · 3 years

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The Johnlock Conspiracy Conspiracy

First of all this is going to be building off a point first cast into relief for me by Sarah Z’s video on The Johnlock Conspiracy. She is both directly connected with the experience of this space and did the research into the actual history of the people involved, a sort of on-the-spot observer recounting her experiences ethnographically. If you want a longer form deep dive on what The Johnlock Conspiracy is, check out that video. I will be providing a quick summary.

I’m also going to talk about fanagement, which I wrote about last year, which is about the way that fan engagement was seen as being a thing that corporate entities could deliberately engage for commercial ends. Fanagement isn’t necessarily an inherently evil or corrupting thing, but it’s something to know about as something that exists, and knowing it exists can colour your relationship to the media created in response to fanagement.

There’s this idea of ‘The Johnlock conspiracy.’

In the agonisingly mediocre BBC mystery drama Sherlock that ran from who cares to also who cares, starring in the loosest sense of the word Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman (a man ‘renowned’ for this, The Office and the Hobbit trilogy, on a scale of poisonous influence to actual outright evil), as a modern day re-imagining of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson that has some interesting ideas that it absolutely does not use well, mysteries that are not interesting and a relationship tension that was making itself up as it went along. Much ink has been spilled about how this series is not very good, and that’s good, because it’s a very expensively made bad series that banks on the reliable draw of the same fistful of boring privilege.

Part of what made it popular, sort of, was the tension of the relationship between John and Sherlock. See, they were both men, you see, and what if they kissed.

Now, tumblr is, by volume, mostly connections to other parts of tumblr. If you make something popular, it becomes amplified and exploded and brought to the attention of others and curated into lists. Content that gets shared is the very sinew of what Tumblr is, which means that doing things people share around is a strange form of primacy on the site. Making content is powerful, heady, druglike. Commanding curation where you determine what does and does not get shared is even moreso. It is a space for an audience that is engaged deeply with the concept of being engaged, and in this space, fandom happened.

There’s not a lot of Sherlock. There were big gaps between the seasons. When a season came out, it did not explain itself or deliver on its promise at all. It is, as I’ve said, bad. But it was well made and used actors you’d heard of and was treated as being prestigious and so, when the show came out, and because people liked the idea of what it could be, fandom struck on a conspiracy:

What if this terrible show is secretly great?

And I understand the impulse. It’s heart to a lot of fandom. I can’t possibly have spent this time and energy on something I don’t like, it must be that the thing I like is secretly this thing I really like. And so scaffolding comes out to buttress the idea. We’re not taught that fandom is right – we’re taught that fandom is something that justifies itself by being right. If you have a story in your heart about a Dark Fuckprince and his soft bean injured Watson, that story is real and right, and doesn’t need the official endorsement of the BBC to be good.

Without that armour of love, though, instead the fandom turned into this endless oroborous of hostility centered around three people, who seem to just be total dickheads, great job you. This resulted in the blossoming of what was known as ‘the Johnlock Conspiracy,’ where through thousands of pages of well intentioned fumes, these fans huffed themselves into believing that Steven Moffat and Mark Gattis were secretly building up to exactly what they wanted, and they were the smartest people ever for noticing it. The lack of payoff of their beliefs and the active hostility Moffat had to their ideas and positions in person, that was all part of the conspiracy.

Oh, by the way, that idea – conspiracy – is when you have an unfalsifiable conjecture. If you can’t prove it false, no matter what, that’s when you’re dealing with a conspiracy theory.

The dramatic conclusion to all this was the series ended, their conspiracy was wrong, they theorycrafted themselves a few more months of content, and then most people let it drop.

But what if I told you there was a conspiracy?

Because there was. It just wasn’t the conspiracy they thought.

See, a conspiracy is a real thing: it’s a secret plan to do something harmful. And the BBC, since they published the work that Matt Hill described in Torchwoods Trans-Transmedia: Media Tie-Ins and Brand Fanagement, worked with the parameters of their experiment aggressively.

The idea, as I outlined in my article about Fanagement was that making the program so it could engage fans directly, and give fans feelings of creative ownership over the work would drive viewership and the kinds of engagement they liked (like, paying for things). Fanagement sought to make media ‘gifable’ – low saturation backgrounds with cuts of under a second so you could break a scene apart easily and conveniently. It wanted to make fan media easy to make, and to minimise hard declarative statements.

The lessons learned from this paper included things like ship teasing as a deliberate task – and I do mean teasing, with the idea that you had to do it in deniable and ambiguous ways. Making things definite wouldn’t get you as much fan engagement as keeping things ambiguous, because fans would make an inference based on what you show them, talk about it, then other fans would watch it again to make sure they could argue with you about it.

A mystery show like Sherlock was perfect for this kind of treatment. Treating the series as if there was some really deep, thoughtful question at the heart of it meant that there was always a reason to keep from ‘revealing’ the secret of the story, to string the audience along, like they’d believe or tolerate it, if it was all in service of a clever explanation. You get it, right? After all, we gave you all the clues.

The toxic fandom of Sherlock did not form as much as it was fostered.

A lesson from this experience, a lesson easily escaping notice, is that it’s not that ‘fandoms are all the same.’ They really aren’t. They are wildly varying in the terms of their problems and those problems root causes. What they tend to have in common is dynamics, but those dynamics are expressed in a lot of different ways. It’s not that ‘fandoms’ naturally become toxic and awful. There are fandoms that are generally, quite nice, and they tend to be that way because of the values of the central movers and shakers and the conscious willingness of people who perceive themselves as part of the fandom as taking care of it. The dynamic is the same – you have common nexuses of community that people interact with – and the kind of behaviour that’s acceptable and reasonable is filtered through them. If the idea of asking people to modify their behaviour or respect people’s boundaries is seen as unreasonable, then you can get a toxic space.

Also, as I talk about ‘toxic fandoms,’ understand toxicity is relative. There is, after all, a very real, very unironic Hitler Fandom, and they are probably one of the worst fandoms out there. Being a mean lawyer on the internet is bad, and I’ve no doubt the fandom curators known now as the Powerpuff Girls absolutely wrecked some teenagers’ lives – like, there are definitely people with, I am not joking or being hyperbolic, some PTSD triggers about (say) Tumblr or whatnot, based on the kind of social force these people were leveraging.

And then remember that holding that lever at the high end, right at the top with the most power over it was a company that made TV shows that was trying to make sure you watched their shows.

Also: The tools for doing this are available to all the companies that read the paper.

My advice? Exhort and uplift queer creators. Be positive about it, not negative. Don’t make your time about attacking other people’s dark fuckprince. Bring what you like to life, and bring that life into the light. Share and love each other, rather than find reasons to be mad at one another for how you’re all playing with toys a corporation wants you to treat with respect and only play properly. And as always, the standard you walk past is the standard you accept – so make sure your fandom circles aren’t putting up with some Powerpuff Girls.

Originally posted on my Blog.

#Sherlock #Johnlock #Fanagement #Conspiracy

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rametarin · 3 years

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TERFs are wrong. But, so are social constructionist Gender Theorists

You know it is not a question of one extreme or the other. As much as both like to think they are morally right and have “the science” on their side, they don’t. Both are god damned annoying, totalitarian, and are interpreting reality and what that means in order to browbeat and push others, both socially and legally, towards doing things based on what those mean.

Both are trying to control the parameters of all things based on the fundamentals by their interpretation of reality, not by the objective facts. Both are wrong.

TERFs are not wrong in that someone that is born with XY chromosomes and a standard male sex conforming body is male, and you need dysphoria in order to be trans. They are not wrong that your gender is not just a wily nily purely social construct.

They are, however, wrong about absolutely everything else regarding what those genders MEAN, where they’re derived from and why they were derived that way.

And the social constructionists aren’t wrong in that we should make exceptions to the biological rule for people with transgenderist disorders of the mind and brain. But, they are wrong in that so many are totalitarian. They do not want these exceptions to be exceptions, they want the very basis and fundamental understanding, how we define gender and sex, to change to be based not on biological empiricism, facts or truth, but by legal and social oughts and things they argue “should be held true else it demoralizes and oppresses a minority.”

There are not, “millions of genders.” There’s your basic standard assed functioning, and then there’s a disorder we otherwise can’t do anything with or about right now where it’d simply more healthy for everybody around if we let them live with the identity that is in their minds and body.

Furthermore, the nonbinarist movement needs to stop being such a cowardly little bitch and argue for itself outside the umbrella of trans rights, because it sits there demanding changes and exceptions and validations be made for it on the basis of bowing to trans rights, when it itself hasn’t stepped out of its parasitic sphere to fight for any on its own. Strategically using trans rights as a platform for both offensive and defensive purposes.

TERFs, up to now, have been virtually unchallengable because, “you must be a horrible right wing fundamentalist religious monster to oppose EQUALITY for WOMEN!” And they’ve just skirted on that since the 60s. Which was absolute hell trying to convince anybody that radical feminism was nonsense and harbored deep, authoritarian bends on takes with social ramifications. Yall were in their corner when they were talking about how, “society” needed to give women, exclusively, help to go to college because of past oppressions. But when someone tried to tell you they had weird obsessions with vaginas and using them as rubber stamps for whom gets special treatment and privileges and exceptions to defaults that make men do dirty work and women get clean pay? Deafening silence.

But the minute TERFs don’t want transwomen in their magical witch girl’s clubs, fucking with the cosmology? Ohho they’re visible now. You can see their bullshit now. They’re weirdos drawing female symbols and self-portraits with menstrual blood and making hacky poems about their uterus, now. They’re bad people now. You can actually see they weren’t, “being hyperbolic” or “just venting about the evil MEN around them” now. Hahahahaa. Hilarious.

TERFs are wrong. Point blank. But so are the social constructionist extremists and postmodernists behind the appropriated bandwagon of what calls itself the trans rights and nonbinarist rights movement in the west. The basis for which they’ve defined their norms is not one of reality, but “oughts” and “should be’s” and “must bes” and “or else”s. To the point where they invented a slur specifically to denounce those that do not share their view. “Bioessentialist.”

That makes as much sense as calling someone a dirty, “bioessentialist” because they say you need to be an elephant, to be an elephant. Yes, you do need the physical, biological characteristics to really BE that which you aspire to be. No, you don’t get to redefine what an elephant is to force the elephant to “identify” as an elephant so something that is not an elephant can also be an elephant.

If misgendering someone is triggering for a minority, it’s just as triggering when you deny someone’s sexuality or gender when they’re hetero and cis. And many are repulsed by the idea that the reason they’re compatible with their sex and gender conformation is because they, “made a choice.” For that matter, if you’re actually transgendered and not some bandwagoneering asshole, being trans isn’t a choice either. It’s a psychological and neurological impossibility to be anything else, not a lifestyle, not a hobby, not a “preferred state of mind.” Arguing anything else is arguing not for trans rights, but for psycho-social dominance in law.

And if you think misgendering someone that’s transgendered is bad, people that make up at MOST, 0.7% of the human species, and some say as few as 0.3% of the human species (people with cleft lips, born missing limbs and more are born more often) then what the FUCK do you think it is, redefining the identities and realities of 99.3% to 99.7% of the human animal, not to mention how every other animal works? (not counting some exceptions like clownfish.)

Gender is not, wholly, a social construct. It’s a derivative and pluto’s shadow from SEX. SEX is not psychological. Sex is not negotiable. Sex is biological and disease can make it express incorrectly or correctly to function as intended by natural selection. Gender is only a social construct in that some cultures have assigned thoughts and characteristics and responsibilities for people on the basis of said sexual role. That’s it.

But people that try to live purely in the psychological sphere or argue that sphere belongs in the dominant position for mankind try to argue it’s the only one that really matters, and while we’re at it, lets let the minority dictate what is normal and rational and good. So their believe gender as feelings supersedes sex as reality.

And why would they argue this? Because they’re, “just such big fans of trans rights?” No. Because they hate disparity and immutable, biological difference. And so want to use the arbitration of human law and culture to marginalize it and pretend it doesn’t exist- to where using technology to circumvent it and the penal system to enforce that view seems like a reasonable, moral thing to strive for. Trans rights for these people have always just been a nice coat of paint to put their real activism under.

And the biggest bitch of it all is, Radical Feminists and Trans Inclusive Radical Feminists and Social Constructionists all receive their marching orders from the same ideology. The same stupid take that says bugger reality, live in a communal fantasy and enforce everybody else to live in it, too. Else they’re a bad person. Else they’re a fascist. They merely differ in the rules and the fundamental parameters.

Know the difference between, “this person is bad and they should be shamed for their beliefs because they are bad,” and, “This person is bad because they’re sitting on a throne that I want to sit on as is rightfully mine.” TIRFs don’t hate TERFs because they’re wrong, they hate them because they’re in the middle of a power grab.

But we have the opportunity to end this “Critical Lens” shitshow forever. Both sides are exposed and showing their true colors as terrible ideologies and people. Both sides are showing their totalitarianism in the form of competitive propaganda and using the legal system to get their way based on past manipulations and exploitations they got from lying to a public that didn’t want to be misogynistic or prejudiced against the transgender.

All it takes is connecting the dots and understanding just how and why it’s not a matter of “bitter evil borderline-conservative Karens Vs. noble oppressed transgenders.”

TERFs are fucking NOT conservatives. They’re typically the same far-left assholes as the TIRFs. They differ ONLY in that they believe critical theory fucking STOPS at the immutable reality of biological sex, because they stand to lose dominance if it’s not immutable- so they demand it be CONSIDERED immutable. Their status as oppressed inherently, hinges on it.

So that’s it then. You’re left with no real heroes in this fight. But if you take anything away from what I’m telling you today, it’s that you can argue legally for trans rights. Just, on the basis as exception to the biological basis, as has been proven. Asterisks. Hyphens. Acknowledging the reality that the existence of the transgendered does not negate the reality of biological sex, nor those whose genders are a direct result of their biological sex as the norm.

It’s not bigotry to sexually discriminate to some degrees. When dealing with subjectives, it’s a matter of argument. When dealing with biological realities and imperatives, opinion is irrelevant to the self-evident realities, and interpretation matters less than the reality.

But to those that believe any discrimination based on physical differences or state is inherently wrong, just the idea of male and female being two different, named things, (”classes”, if you will) with different, “unequal” functions and capacity, fills them with rage.

Your moralism stops where nature begins. Period.

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transfemininomenon · 4 years

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Hey, i'm actually a "truscum" i found out recently, but im a little confused on the whole ordeal. Im not even sure if i actually am truscum or not- because some posts seem to tie up with me being one but others dont, but i saw you were really against them, so i wanted to ask if you're okay with a friendly calm conversation about it? I am very confused and i just want to learn a bit more or find out if i'm wrong about the whole ordeal. Are you open to it?

i'll be honest im not sure how friendly i can be with this kind of conversation because i really truly genuinely, and i don't use this word lightly, Hate truscum and its hard for me to really be civil about the discussion. but for the sake of this and me giving you a lot of benefit of the doubt that this ask is in good faith i'll explain why i do not like the entire truscum ideology

1. i guess i'll start off with the Big One - the claim that dysphoria is Required to be trans. i'll preface this by saying that i am someone who has experienced, and currently Experiences in wildly different degrees depending on what is happening in my life, dysphoria throughout my entire life. i had my entire teenage and young adult years stolen from me by it. i won't get into details about it because that is a Very Very Personal subject for me, but needless to say dysphoria is something that was a very prevalent part of my life.

anyway. the notion that dysphoria is a Trans Requirement™ is something that i hugely disagree with. i used to think that me figuring out i was a trans woman was because i experienced dysphoria, but frankly the opposite is true. dysphoria is what made me refuse to believe i was a woman or could ever be one. it made me believe i was a man and that was all i would ever be. it wasn't until i really started experimenting with my gender and unpacking a lot of stuff i felt about myself that i started to finally realize the woman i was. i first started trying our she/her pronouns nearing four years now, and started using the name Alice a few months after that. being referred to as a woman & experimenting with different feminine things gave me such incredible feelings of euphoria that i still experience to this day whenever i discover something new about my identity.

and that is something ive heard from SO many other trans people i know. or different things too - i know people who are completely fine with their bodies, just certain words and terms never felt Right to them. because the thing with dysphoria is that it, like all things gender related, is a product of society. dysphoria only exists because transphobia exists - people are told that there are these two rigid things that you are and HERE is what makes you one of those things, and those things are drilled into you literally since birth. everything from colors to jobs to hobbies to cars to entertainment to clothing to Literally Everything is gendered, and when that happens then of fucking course there are gonna be people who don't fall in line with that, and when it's so instilled into people and seen as such societal norms of COURSE people are going to have trouble with that.

and that's not even getting into the subject of gender on a biological level. the fact of the matter is that the two sex system Isn't True and that biological sex is very complicated. intersex people exist, people with all kinds of different chromosomes exist, people of certain body types that have higher levels of different hormones exist, SO much goes into that subject that frankly narrowing it down to two things just doesn't Work

and that's the real problem at the end of the day. dysphoria only exists because of a fucked up gender binary that clashes with both biology and sociology. people are complicated on both a biological and personal level and having set binaries for things is bound to cause confusion & doubt.

like, people's identities are SUCH personal things in so many different ways. there isn't any Right Way™ to be trans. i know trans women with beards, trans women who have no interest in starting hrt, trans men who wear dresses and makeup, non-binary people who make no effort to be androgynous, i know SO many different identities and different people. because the fact is that there's no right way to be trans because nothing is inherently gendered including people's very bodies. people are themselves and there is no Right way to be themselves.

that's on top of the lack of education when it comes to the subject of gender. such a huge part too of me figuring out i was trans was literally learning that it was even a fucking option. i genuinely didn't know just Being A Girl was an option. reading up on gender stuff and researching the different idea of transitioning was intrinsic in my figuring out who i was because oh shit turns out there are people like me and that is Okay.

like, dysphoria literally could've been a non-issue for me. i could've lived in a world where i could just Exist and enjoy whatever i wanted without it being weird. i could've decided so much sooner that i wasn't happy with the way my body was growing and not spent my entire teen years being so confused why i was so sad seeing my girl peers. i could have from the start just gotten to be a girl and never have had dysphoria be part of the equation.

im not trans being i experience dysphoria. im trans because being a woman is rad as hell and it's what i wanted. im trans because changing my name to Alice was the biggest moment of my entire life. im trans because rebelling against the societal restraints of gender is fucking metal. im trans because my friends can't even remember me ever not being me now. im trans because im a great older sister. im trans because god nerfed me and i said nah thanks man but im not feeling it.

my identity and my gender are very personal and complicated things, and narrowing it down to "i experience dysphoria" is frankly insulting to me.

anyway, that's the big point out of the way, so here's some shorter ones

2. this is kinda expanding on the last point, but truscum both insisting non-binary people aren't a thing and them insisting "transtrenders" exist is hmm Bad

the sheer fact of the matter is the concept of being non-binary has existed from the oldest known records of human history on TOP of that concept being prevalent in many different cultures so what do ya know there's a healthy dose of racism involved in the denial of non-binary people. the gender binary is such a western concept and there are SO many different cultures where different gender identities exist.

and, frankly, going back to the above point that gender is fucking Fake and is a societal concept - again, of fucking course there are going to be people who see a rigid set of rules on gender and are like "well wait that doesn't fit me" so of COURSE non-binary people exist

on the subject of "transtrenders" i feel like i shouldn't even HAVE to get into this subject because of how inherently transphobic it is. the concept doesn't exist. there are people who experiment with their gender and then decide their assigned one is fine. there are people who go through all kinds of different identities. there are people who come out as a different gender and then revert back due to backlash. there are people who get told the way they present their gender is the Wrong Way™ and get branded a trender. it's a dangerous thought process that literally does nothing but serve the cis status quo and make people afraid to experiment and think about their identities.

3. the idea that Those Evil Trenders™ are stealing resources from the Real Trans People™ is, frankly, fucking bullshit. issues when it comes to trans people finding difficulty accessing healthcare comes from a transphobic society hellbent on denying us care on top of fucked up healthcare systems in general. hormones aren't some limited quality hard to acquire thing - when i started hrt transferring my prescription from my clinic to my local pharmacy was a non-issue because it's something basically any pharmacy will have for ALL kinds of different purposes. it's an issue because healthcare in general is a god damn Mess on TOP of inherent transphobia

and, frankly, truscum are directly involved in that transphobia in the medical field. unless you find an informed consent clinic you're going to have to jump through all kinds of hoops to prove you're Actually Trans™ by getting referrals from other (almost always cis) people and then get put on ridiculous waitlists to make sure you're not about to change your mind. that kind of attitude is only encouraged by truscum and it is one of the biggest source of trans people having such difficulty accessing healthcare.

4. truscum as far as im concerned are no different than any other transphobe. two years ago before i started hrt i was harassed by truscum multiple times, each time having them tell me i wasn't trans, that i was just a trender, and it genuinely boggles my mind that anyone thinks misgendering me because i disagreed with their ideology is Woke, actually. I've seen so many fellow trans women getting called men by truscum who disagreed with them. i was actively told i shouldn't start hrt because i "wasn't really trans and was gonna ruin my life"

i really hope all of people live in anger every day knowing ive been on hrt over a year and a half and am fucking Thriving

anyway that's all i got to say on the matter i realize my points became less thought out as it went on but frankly the first point is enough for me to not like truscum

(please refrain from reblogging this i don't want any clowns in my inbox)

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transboygenius · 5 years

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Nick Dean is gay

Y'all remember reading my trans Jimmy Neutron headcanon post, right? While trans headcanons have 10 out of 10,000 chances of being official, here's another headcanon, with a character from the same series, that could possibly be true. Here are the reasons:

Nick is not really fond of girls.

He would smile at them, wink, fingerguns, even flirt with them for just a second, but he always ends up ignoring the dames. He doesn't even indulge their presence. Cindy is the only girl he’s ever interacted with the most, but he still gives her the cold shoulder afterwards. Sure, he was about to accept a date with her, only because she was offering one free concert ticket to him. By the second and third season, he no longer speaks to her. He seems to prefer the company of guys, and takes more effort talking to them than the girls. He likes to brag about how pretty and awesome he is, but he’s never bragged about the girls he easily attracts, which is something a ladies’ man usually does. Nick doesn’t even talk about girls, either. It seems he doesn’t really care about them.

“Well, he seemed to be into Betty Quinlan in Out Darn Spotlight! uwu!” He. Was. Acting. Fucking acting. That rehearsal didn’t define any romantic chemistry between him and Betty, other than a fake one. Besides, the look on his face backstage where he shifts an eye to her, he looked like he was uncomfortable, even putting on a forced-looking smile. He’s brave enough to kiss girls, but that doesn’t mean he likes it. He kissed a girl, and he hated it!

The signs

Some of them may come off as stereotypical. He screams like a girl, he doesn’t sit in chairs properly, despite his bad boy image he actually likes participating in lighthearted musicals, he’s obsessed with how his hair looks, and he adores cutesy stuff. It is also implied that he is secretly insecure with himself and doesn’t like to show his softer side to anyone. It could very well be a closet case. Also, on Evil Jimmy’s earth, there dwells an “Evil Nick”, who is popular but as a bully’s victim. Butch, who’s supposedly his friend on Jimmy’s regular Earth, is still a bully in that world and now an enemy to Nick. This could reflect how gay kids experience more bullying than straight kids.

How he’s mistreated

Whatever the reason it might be to cut Nick out of the show and then turning him into a chew toy, maybe Nick was gay afterall. It can’t be another one of those tropes where the cool kid becomes the loser. Even when Nick was still popular, he still wasn’t handled equally like the other main characters, which he used to be considered one. Libby, not yet adapted into a main by then, had more screentime than him. Not having much lines and lack of character development has made him into an obscure character.

Word of advice: Never trust cishets to hand you queer representation on a silver platter. Let’s take Netflix’s Voltron for example. Oh, Voltron, I hate you so much. The show has become infamous to the LGBTQ+ community for its queerbaiting, forced heterosexuality, and supporting the Bury Your Gays trope. Shiro, the token gay character who stays alive, has suffered some shit. He’s been tormented numerous times, put up with depression worst than any of the other characters faced, and lost his arm. He later gets a male fiancé at the end of the series, but we never get the chance to meet, or see, said fiancé.

How convenient that Nick is akin with all the signs that make him gay, and here he is now! Not treated like he’s any important as the other characters, the butt of bad luck, and breaks his leg all the time. This is a show that glorifies the hetero agenda, “if a little girl picks on a little boy, or vice versa, it means love!”

His character was inspired by a gay actor

According to the Words of Satan (cuz John Davis is no God to me), Nick Dean is based on and named after the legend James Dean, an actor best known for his many bad boy roles. He was also gay himself. Actually, we don’t really know whether James Dean was inherently gay or bi. He dated women publicly, but dated men privately, as well as confirmed to having sexual relationships with them. One day, he had plans to marry a woman, but some point later on, he blew off that engagement. He claimed himself he’s not gay, although, James could either mean “I’m not homosexual. But I’m not heterosexual either,” or maybe he was lying. All those women could’ve just been public decoys.

Nick possibly has a crush on Jimmy

I said so before that Nick prefers the company of boys, but he seems to respect Jimmy more than anybody else. He openly appreciates him and doesn’t mind being his friend, despite how unlovable the boy genius may come off to most people. Nick doesn’t talk to Cindy anymore in the two last seasons, but would still speak to Jimmy. Sure, there’s the teasing, the dehumanization of addressing him by his surname only, and that one bit where he threw him into a dumpster. Hey, Nick didn’t treat him worse than Cindy did. Besides, his teasing is more friendlier in compare.

In the movie, Jimmy desperately wanted to go out to RetroLand, but is stuck on a school’s night. Nick rolls in and offers him a life hack. It’s not a very good life hack, but at least he actually cared to let Jimmy have some fun. Aliens abducting your parents is probably the most laughable assumption. The children were still skeptical over Jimmy’s hypothesis, due to how ridiculous it sounds, and Nick could’ve had the opportunity to make everyone laugh with him. Instead, he went with the plan, even telling Jimmy to lead on. He was especially still positive about Jimmy’s space trip plan even when he declared they had a 5% chance of blowing up. The only time he was negative towards Jimmy was in the dungeon scene. Cindy did make a point. Everyone was sad and scared. At the end of the film, he gave Jimmy his sucker as a token of gratitude. Something that was in his mouth, and he gave it to him. (Sounds like an in-direct kiss to me)

Think about it. If Nick really was in love with Betty, he would’ve have gotten in Jimmy’s face and threaten him to stay away from getting in between him and his girl, but he didn’t. He didn’t even threaten Jimmy after showering a rain cloud on him. Hell, he wasn’t even bummed out about loosing that kiss from Betty after breaking his leg.

Nick was the only one to call out Jimmy’s name, well, last name that is, during the Superman passage in Attack of the Twonkies. “It’s a bird!” “It’s a plane!” “It’s Neutron!” Although Nick picked Jimmy last in basketball, at least he picked him. The “last guy standing” challenge usually ends with one of the rivaling team picking someone else instead of that very last person. There’s a lot to say for Send In The Clothes. Nick wouldn’t care if other kids decided to pose just like him, but he was surprised when he saw “Jimmy” do it. He wasn’t hostile when “Jimmy” got up in his face and called him “skateboard boy.” He also let “Jimmy” touch his skateboard. Nick doesn’t seem like the type of guy to let anyone touch his board. Instead of envying “Jimmy” for having better moves than him, he was impressed. Of course he got mad after breaking his skateboard, but would you be mad at your crush for breaking one of your possessions? Later on in the episode, after Jimmy is cornered by an angry mod, Nick yells “I’ll hold him down!” One more thing I might add: This gaze he gives Jimmy in Jimmy For President.

It’s been said that Nick was suppose to have a larger role by the cancelled fourth season. They would have explored Nick’s character more, and he would grow a closer bond with Jimmy. Whatever those plans were, sure sound interesting. He could be the Courtney Gripling to Jimmy’s Ginger Foutley.

#Jimmy Neutron #Nick Dean #lgbtq+ headcanons #mlm #gay #Analysis #Nickelodeon #Long post #Jimmy/Nick #Jimmick #CoolScience #SE4SON

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thisdiscontentedwinter · 5 years

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“I do see exclusion as an inherently bad thing, yes, and nothing will change my mind on that. Simply because women are not a monolith, and being born with a vagina does not mean we all share the same experiences of how being female relates to the world. I believe in intersectional feminism, and that transwomen are very much a part of that.” And this is the core thing, isn’t it. I actually held this same opinion until a couple of years ago. I started seeing a certain kind of rhetoric from trans activists online - some of whom, upon reflection, probably represent an extreme view that shouldn’t be taken too seriously - that had me doing double takes and started changing my mind. I’ll back up and try to explain how my mind changed and why I struggle with this topic. I agree with you that women are not a monolith and that women in general have different experiences. I also agree that being born with a vagina does not mean we all share the same experiences of how being female relates to the world, but I disagree with what that implies and how you’ve interpreted that - those different experiences are because of the different cultural takes on what that vagina means. The presence of the vagina is inherent and necessary. The fundamental principle of feminism that I grew up with is that the category of woman is given to people with the female reproductive system, and that category was seen and treated as inferior for no good reason in all cultures. What ‘woman’ actually is (gender roles, gender expectations, treatment by wider society etc ie “gender”) is culturally malleable and constructed and varies slightly from place to place; the universal consistency is that this category is placed upon people born with the female sex (distinct from gender) in order to control and oppress them. Like, it’s key to feminism that the sex provokes the ‘woman’ category, and females are socialised into the ‘woman’ role. The oppression women face isn’t due to a demonstrable lack of intelligence or capability or physiology, it’s because someone looked at our genitals as babies and went 'okay, this is what we call and how we treat people with this biology.’ So that’s my understanding. Women are historically oppressed due to abitrary negative stereotypes placed on them because of their biological sex. How that oppression manifests is different according to culture, geography, ethnicity, religion. Where intersectionality comes into it, for me, is acknowledging all those differences in experiences and including them in feminist progress in dismantling these stereotypes and the unequal treatment and discrimination resulting from them. (some) Trans women state that they are women because they essentially 'feel like it’. They claim an internal sense of 'womanhood’ and this means they are women. When I saw this I was like “:/ okaaay, but how do you measure that, what does that actually mean.” This internal sense seems to be explained in terms like “I preferred pink and playing with dolls as a child, and I always got along better with girls, I preferred doing girly things.” This is more of a call on gender stereotypes than a satisfactory explanation - identification with the performance of the arbitrary, cultural construction of gender, something which changes over time and with which many (cis) women do not identify (yet are still discriminated against - their feelings don’t matter to people who look at them and treat them differently). They have this idea of womanhood and identify with that. I know trans people say that cis people don’t understand that internal sense of 'manhood’ and 'womanhood’ because in them it’s all aligned with their sex - I disagree. If there’s this strong of an internal sense of being a woman or being a man, surely a reasonable proportion of all women and men would report experiencing it. Again, I’m falling prone to the anecdote thing, but in my case, I don’t 'feel’ like a woman. I’m a person in a meatsack who is treated unfairly because of stupid ideas about the meatsack that have nothing to do with my qualities as a person. My female and male friends report the same kind of feeling. If I woke up tomorrow in a male body, I’d probably miss some things about my female body, but I’d be able to go through life in a male body without too much concern. I would then be a man and not a woman, despite my previous few decades in a female body; the concept is a nothing concept so it doesn’t matter. I am open to the idea that people have an innate sense of womanhood or manhood, but it’s so subjective it’s not very useful as a key identification measure for a political group. This is a very different definition of 'woman’ and to me, it completely undermines the key principle underlying feminist discourse. What is also confusing to me is that the transgender community seems roughly split into two groups - those, like above, who *feel* aligned with the opposite sex; and those who say there is a physical miswiring somewhere that causes a mismatch between their internal sense of themselves and their sex, this is a medical condition called gender dysphoria, and the best treatment is transition. Ie you’re trans if you think you are, you’re a woman if you think you are, and you’re a man if you think you are, versus you are trans if you have gender dysphoria, you think you are a woman but biologically you’re a man and you can’t expect to be treated as a woman (or a man) until you physically transition, which will ease your dysphoria. These are two quite different experiences underpinning the definition of transgender. To me, all this confusion over what it even means to be transgender doesn’t represent a cohesive front or group to meaningfully discuss this stuff with. The big thing that got me criticising the issue of inclusion of trans woman is the above realisation, that that definition undermines the ideological foundation of feminism that has brought so much progress to women. It’s an ideological difference that’s fundamental. Other things that bolstered it was accompanying rhetoric I saw online. - eg it’s transphobic/exclusive to discuss things like uteruses (uteri?), menstruation, FGM in feminist spaces, if you do it, you’re a bigot. That doesn’t feel like progress to me, to tell women they can’t discuss the bodily stuff that is the basis of their oppression, and still is for girls and women around the world, in the context of their experiences as women and as people in the world. It feels like misogyny by another name. - eg it’s transphobic to have genital preferences. I think this is a horrible thing to say. Some people do not care what genitals are involved in the sex they’re having, that is fine. Some people do, and that is also fine. Dating and who you have sex with is inherently exclusionary - not everyone is attracted to every person in their identified pool - and it involves bodies, it involves hardwired preferences, and these things can’t be changed if you just think about it really really hard. 'Preferences’ is not a good word for the concept, it implies a choice that I don’t think is there. I really don’t think people choose what they’re attracted to and what turns them on in sex. Examining your sexual self to understand how you operate and what you like and don’t like is an excellent thing to do. I also agree that trans people find it hard to date people. But calling people transphobic - especially lesbians, this seems to happen more with lesbians and trans women than gay men and trans men - because of something innate is just shitty behaviour. I was really disgusted by this. No one is owed sex. - eg there are no real differences between trans women and cis women. Any differences noted in discourse are a result of the person stating them being transphobic. A person who says they’re a woman has female biology because of this statement. This is an attitude I see a lot - any criticism of things like the above, any reference to any differences between trans woman and cis women, and suddenly you’re a bigot, a terf, a transphobic asshole, wrongthink in action! This worries me. Because there ARE differences, and shouting them down is not the way to bring people to your way of thinking. - eg gender dysphoric children should be encouraged to transition or go on puberty blockers. There’s a study out there that states something like 70-90% of gender dysphoric children desist by the end of puberty. Telling them they’re trans and putting them on drugs is not the right way to treat these kids, sensitive and appropriate counselling is. This in particular really worries me. - eg detransitioners exist and have a lot to say, but because it’s critical of transgenderism, they’re ignored. This rubs me the wrong way - they have insight into the interplay between self-understanding, sex, gender and culture, that’s valuable to general understanding of the self, sex, gender, and culture. I could go on, but this is so long. So I was originally supportive - I really was. I’m now more critical, because I don’t see a clear cohesive movement that is, ironically, inclusive, or that supports feminist issues, I’m seeing something that aggressively undermines the one movement that has truly progressed women’s rights. It strikes me that women and feminists are arguing about this more than men are, that men aren’t saying 'trans men are men’ in the same way women are expected to say 'trans women are women’. That also says something to me about the overall issue, and it’s not a good thing. It’s entirely possible that I’m hanging out in the trans part of the internet that has the assholes in it. Every group has its assholes. I also acknowledge that radical feminist groups have their hateful assholes too - but the reason I went into radical feminist spaces was to see what those evil terfs are saying and why they’re so bad, and I didn’t find evil, I found them addressing the concerns I had. They’re talking about the above things, whereas in the supposedly inclusive spaces with trans people, those topics weren’t allowed to be discussed. But I haven’t seen many answers to some of the problems trans people face - violence and discrimination in employment and housing is a real thing, and that does need to be addressed. By feminists? I’m not sure. Trans people are more than capable of organising in their self-interests - if they could find a common ground and common interests. I do think trans women face violence in male spaces and can be accommodated in female spaces - within reason. The case of Karen White in the UK is a good example of how that’s not a good rule of thumb. There’s also a domestic violence shelter in Canada that’s being sued by the women who were in it for allowing a trans woman inside, because the trans women acted in a very predatory way that caused the women distress in a place where they expected safety. I also know of one trans woman in Vancouver who tried to have a rape crisis shelter defunded because it didn’t support sex workers - that’s a valid criticism, but defunding it isn’t the action I would hope to see from any woman; it’s pointedly aggressive coming from a trans woman. For me, I do wonder whether people such as yourself are seeing the same stuff I’m seeing. I guess not. I find it very difficult to go back to the whole 'oh yeah, trans women are women and share our oppression’ stance, because I just don’t see that in evidence. In our conversation I notice that we’ve got a really fundamental difference in how we interpret and approach the world, for example the exclusion thing. Perhaps it’s too fundamental a difference and we won’t find much to agree on. I don’t know if you’ll take the time to respond to this, because it’s so long, but if you could articulate why this inclusion makes sense to you, I would actually really appreciate it. If not, that’s fine, we’re both busy people. Thanks for reading anyway, and thanks again for the conversation and for engaging with me. I *am* sorry about the length :S

DW:

For me, it’s not a matter of “transwomen are women and share our oppression.”

It’s a matter of “transwomen are women and are oppressed because they are transwomen.”

Their oppression might not be exactly the same as mine, but neither is the oppression of a 12 year old child bride on the other side of the world.

Simply put, it intersectional feminism can make room for all the different types of experiences of women–cultural, and economic, and religious, and social, and geographical–then why not widen the umbrella to include transwomen?

There’s also a domestic violence shelter in Canada that’s being sued by the women who were in it for allowing a trans woman inside, because the trans women acted in a very predatory way that caused the women distress in a place where they expected safety. I also know of one trans woman in Vancouver who tried to have a rape crisis shelter defunded because it didn’t support sex workers - that’s a valid criticism, but defunding it isn’t the action I would hope to see from any woman; it’s pointedly aggressive coming from a trans woman.

There will always be anecdotes, and there will always be assholes, but judging all transwomen by the actions of a few is not helpful to anyone.

When it comes to women’s shelters, there are plenty of shelters who don’t allow boys to stay, forcing families out onto the streets in cases of domestic violence because a mother doesn’t want to be separated from her son–who is a child. I think that’s unfair and wrong, but I’m not going to claim from that that all feminists are anti-child.

I’ve taken calls from women’s shelters before where women were being threatened by other women and the workers were requesting the police. The women there also had an expectation of safety, but gender doesn’t come into it, and the implication that the transwoman was predatory because she is trans is drawing a very long bow.

In the case of the Vancouver rape crisis shelter, why aren’t sex workers supported? That seems discriminatory. Also, why it is more “pointedly aggressive” coming from a transwoman than from anyone else? Given that transwomen are over-represented in sex work, why wouldn’t a transwoman have every right to want to fight this?

And you can bring up Karen White if you like. And I can counter with articles about transwomen who have been raped in male prisons, which I hope you would agree is just as heinous.

In the end, nothing is going to change my mind on this. I think that being a woman is more complicated than a biological function, and I think that transwomen, while not oppressed in the same way as ciswoman, still face oppression because of their gender. And I think that there is plenty of room to be inclusive.

#t #submission

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sighxxscream · 5 years

Text

Ramblings on gender

I started on one topic and then it became a bunch of loosely connected thoughts so I’m keeping it all and putting it under a cut.

I know there’s a lot of social pressure for men to conform to toxic masculinity, I see it in media all the time, but I don’t think I’ve ever experienced it first hand. I’ve never seen anyone pressure a boy to be “a real man” or anything like that, and the men closest to me have always been very compassionate, kind, generous people. I’ve never had experiences that led me to think of men as categorically bad, or as anything at all. I’ve never thought that all men are the same, or that there’s anything that “defines” men or masculinity because to me, men have always seemed very diverse. Just like women. Yes, I see gender stereotypes play out in stores and media, but when I look at actual people, I see so much diversity that I can’t reasonably lump all men or all women into one group. It just doesn’t make sense.

And that’s why I don’t understand terf “arguments” about men being evil or whatever because I’ve never met a man I thought was evil. I know they’re out there (you just have to look at the government), but my personal experience tells me there are plenty of men who aren’t evil, and I can’t define men by that even if it’s true of some men (also, evil can’t be an exclusive defining feature of men when there are plenty of women who are evil).

And this is also why I can’t even wrap my mind around what “man” and “woman” are. There’s nothing that all men and all women have in common, so what exactly does it mean to be a man or a woman? Except that you say that’s what you are? Women and men all present and express themselves in such diverse ways, and not every woman or man has the same biological body (even if you only consider cisgender people, which I’m not), so it seems to me like being a “man” or a “woman” is a matter of label and not much else.

Because it’s certainly not a matter of being “feminine” or “masculine” since we see people mix those up to various degrees, which also leads me to reject those descriptors since they don’t correspond to natural categories, it’s decided by social standards. Maybe on some level they’re supposed to correspond to someone’s sex, like, in some ideal a “man” is “masculine” and a “woman” is “feminine”, but not everyone agrees with that ideal and so “masculine” and “feminine” feel pretty separate from biological sex and there’s no reason to expect that it would naturally map out that way so cleanly. Things are assigned as “masculine” and “feminine” and are only attached to biological sex by social construction, not inherently by nature. And maybe on some level they are still mapped that way since if you have a “masculine woman” or a “feminine man” it’s considered gender non-conforming, so they’re doing the opposite of what they “should” be doing. But I think there’s a growing understanding that this is all artificial construction that is open to change if we choose to change it as a society, and I think it’s possible that we could eventually we get to the point where such mixing is not even considered non-conformity anymore. It would just be people following what feels right to them as an individual (which for me means an ideal world without gender, no designating personality traits and aesthetics and behaviors as “masculine” or “feminine” at all; I know that’s not the ideal for everyone, but that’s just what makes sense to me personally).

I know what other people label me as, so I know in their minds I have a gender and sex identity, but in my own mind, I don’t have either of those things. I don’t have a gender when I think about myself because gender is a social thing, so it disappears when it’s just me, and I don’t feel much association with my body, so it doesn’t feel like an “identity” as much as just a fact that I have x y z characteristics in my body that affect the way I live. My body is something I have to work with, not something that feels like a central aspect to who I am as a person. I know I can’t separate myself from it, I know it’s part of the whole package that is “me”, but I don’t feel like it should be anything that defines me. There are other features to me that I prioritize way way more. The only reason my sex would matter is because society creates an atmosphere that puts value on it as an aspect of identity. And I reject that. So I live with the knowledge that socially, I have labels in other people’s minds that affect the way they see me, but when I think about myself, I don’t have those frameworks for identifying myself. They’re meaningless to me. So there’s always a clash when I’m in public between how I see myself and how I know others see me, and that’s frustrating. But I know I can’t do anything about it because society is still far from letting go of its gender construction.

I don’t at all think me saying I’m agender makes people actually stop seeing me as the gender and sex they believe I am. I know it doesn’t. And I know sex and gender frameworks can still affect me and I know they cause a lot of harm to a lot of people around the world. I would never deny that and I would never say that the solution to something like FGM is for all the women in those countries to just identify as agender or something else. I don’t know why terfs and such think that’s an argument anyone is making. I’m saying that things are contextual, and in some contexts, physical violence is a serious threat and requires aggressive activism to fight, and in some contexts, there isn’t a threat of physical violence and a person has more freedom to identify how they want in their environment, and both are valid, neither one invalidates the other. No one is denying that discrimination and violence based on sex, gender, and orientation are real, but that doesn’t mean that if someone is in a context where they can play with their identities outside of strict binaries they’re not allowed to because sex-based violence happens somewhere else. Someone can identify as agender because their immediate context has room for that even while the larger context has oppressive sexism (like criminalizing abortion) that affects them.

I can empathize with people who do identify with their body because of the way society treats it. Because it is a political site, they feel deeply connected to it, and I can understand that. I’m not that way. I don’t feel obligated to identify myself the way others identify me, with a framework that feels irrelevant to and unnecessary for my own self image. But I can identify myself in my own way while still being aware of how external frameworks affect everyone’s lives, including my own.

Someone can identify as agender and still support women fighting sexist oppression in other areas. I don’t know why terfs think that parading out women being forced to wear hijabs and victims of FGM are trump cards against people in other places taking on neo-gender identities. What do the two have to do with each other? The contexts are different. But they love to say that neo-gender people are oblivious to “real world” problems as if neo-gender people actually live in internet bubbles and never go outside. We all absolutely know that there are serious problems in the world. We know there are problems in our own contexts with regard to gender because we encounter people everyday who don’t understand our gender identities. We’re very aware how uncomfortable and harmful societal norms are, but we live in our own contexts and respond to them in ways that make sense to us and for us, and we can do that while still caring about problems that are different from our own. I can be agender and struggle with the discomfort of being interpreted by outsiders through sex and gender constructs that I reject and still recognize and care about the fact that a lot of women (cis and trans) suffer horrible, horrible physical violence thanks to misogyny and transphobia. I can care about more than one issue. And I can do all that without generalizing all men as evil.

#agender #terf

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