#or does your argument apply to gay men Only.

[firstkanaphans]

if i have permission to be a bit of a bitch in your inbox (feel free to ignore this if not), the dichotomy people build between bl and queer media is sooooo fascinating. and of course by that i mean it gives me hives. the universalizing of 'real queer experiences' is obnoxious as hell, but how its been applied to ofts has really shown me why i find it so obnoxious. most of the people who hold this dichotomy would never classify a bl that ignores homophobia as 'authentically queer' media. but i definitely saw people who hoped that the 'authentically queer' ofts would exist in a bubble without any slutshaming, or that it would be resolutely shut down in show. but in my aroallo experience? that would be as inauthentic as the no homophobia bubble, so where does that leave us?

also the circular logic in the bl vs queer media arguments is mind numbing. 'bl doesnt cover these types of themes' yeah dude because you forcibly remove everything with those themes from the bl category in your head. 'queer media must acknowledge homophobia' the idea that a story by queer people about queer characters isnt really queer because it chooses to focus on joy or discovery or any other facet of queer existence is so fucking depressing. go hug a queer friend and think about why you feel queerness is defined by suffering before anything else.

Oh, hey, you found my soap box, Anon! Let me just step on up there with you for a minute.

So, first off, let me just say how much I hate the term “authentically” queer. It seems to suggest that in order to be queer, you have to be queer a certain way. As an ultra femme lesbian, the queer community often makes me feel like I’m not queer enough. That I don’t understand the hardships that come with being gay because I am “straight-passing.” This is the same thing people do to BLs. News flash: if you’re queer, you’re queer. Period. Congratulations, that’s all it takes to be authentic!

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a large percentage of the people I see using this designation are straight women who think that queer suffering is a necessary part of the queer experience, but a lot of “authentically queer” people—me included—don’t want to be reminded of our real-life suffering every time we turn on the TV. Heartstopper is triggering for me. Bad Buddy is not. As a queer woman currently living in Ron DeSantis’s Florida,  I deserve to be able to turn on the TV every once in a while and not be reminded that there are people in the world who want me dead.

I’ve learned that when people describe a BL as “authentically queer,” what they actually mean is “This BL feels more Western”—the racist insinuation there being that Western media is inherently better.

I feel like The Eclipse is a good example of this hypocrisy. No one has ever called The Eclipse “authentically queer” despite the fact that it delivers one of the most nuanced takes on the dangers of systemic homophobia that I have seen anywhere. The writers of both the source material and the script are gay men. The director is queer. That seems to meet all of the qualifications these people set for “authentically queer” and yet no one has ever questioned that The Eclipse is a BL. Why? Because it incorporates traditionally Asian/yaoi humor tropes such as the pratfall and the accidental kiss. 

Are you sensing a pattern? It’s not the queer-ness of a piece of media that determines whether it is seen as “authentic.” It is its “Western-ness.”

Let me be very clear: All BLs are “authentically queer” media because the only requirement needed for a piece of media to be “authentically” queer is for the characters to be queer. And if you don’t like that, then maybe stop watching BLs.

If the people who were producing these shows had a problem with the term, that would be another discussion, but they don’t. P’Jojo has never advertised Only Friends as anything other than a BL. The fandom did that for him. And with all due respect, if the people making the fucking thing are calling it a BL, then it’s a fucking BL.

So, yeah. Not liking BLs doesn’t make you cool. It makes you a bigot. The fact that the term has become so derogatory is rooted in both racism and misogyny because this was originally a genre created by women, for women, and the hobbies of women are so often infantilized.

BLs are queer media. Die mad about it.

#i'm a bit heated this morning guys 😅 #the eclipse #only friends the series #asks #thai bl

[ftmtftm]

something i wanted to ask, genuinely, is if you think the labels transmisogyny/misandry and the way theyre used can really be helpful

i personally think they can be but with how so many ppl try to frame it as "exclusive" forms of oppression just doesnt help at all. yes, transmisogyny does mainly happen to trans women/fems, but a lot of ppl refuse to believe it could also happen to trans men/mascs. and i believe it can go the same way with transmisandry as ive seen multiple ppl describe wut it is and see how it could be applied to trans women/fems. and that doesnt even acknowledge intersex ppl, whether theyre trans or not. i feel like labeling it in specific ways to say "this is an intersection of oppression" without going "this is an exclusive experience" is beneficial to all sides, but ppl try to gatekeep with labels like "tma" and "tme" and so on. its like saying a gay guy cant call themself a dyke bc "youre not a lesbian and therefore u cant reclaim that slur" even if theyve been called a dyke before. it really just feels like the labels of transmisogyny and transmisandry is used as a way to fuel the fires of oppression olympics by saying that "if ur a trans man u experience less oppression than a trans woman." and it seems to be mainly fueled by the idea of "woman (oppressed) + trans (oppressed) = really oppressed" whereas "man (not oppressed) + trans (oppressed) = not as oppressed" when its nothing like that.

its also incredibly hard to find Any information about transmisandry. i always see "trans men just have it/pass easier" and even other transphobic statements of how going on T makes trans men more aggressive and assertive. i feel like tumblr has been the only place ive seen any genuine discussion about transmisandry and even then its not great or very informative.

i believe that both transmisandry and transmisogyny should be acknowledged as real forms of oppression rather than being used as a way to oppress ppl further.

i dont wish to cause an argument as these r just my thoughts and i genuinely want to hear yours on it too

So the TL;DR my opinion sort of boils down to "Yes, I think they can be incredibly useful terms when used with intention and clarity of purpose" but there's a lot of nuance to that opinion. Basically though - I mostly agree with you on a conceptual level anon. I just wanted to write an essay.

(and also I don't fully address some things in this ask because frankly I'm burnt out and don't want to talk about them at the moment and I made this blog to talk about my special interests anyway. Sue me ‪¯\_(ツ)_/¯‬)

Something I've been noticing in my reading of Intersectional/trans-inclusive Feminist literature, combined with my engagement with trans activism, over the last few years is: We're all very, very afraid of talking about sexism right now and it absolutely makes sense why.

It makes sense because the conversation has been ground to dirt by TERFs constantly yelling about "sex-based oppression" as a means to be transmisogynist and degrade the womanhood of trans women. However the response to this has been deeply flawed in my opinion.

Instead of actually addressing sexism as it's own distinct form of oppression under an Intersectional lense, we've simply made a hard left into only discussing gender informed oppression and only legitimizing gender informed oppression in the form of misogyny. It's a very uninformed response in my opinion actually - but that also makes sense because it's currently very hard to be informed on general feminist theory and politics at the moment because Radical Feminism is a fucking plague.

In reality though, sexism and misogyny are two different forms of oppression that often overlap because gender and sex are different classes of identity that often overlap.

This degradation of language - both from TERFs conflating sex and gender and from Intersectionals/progressives separating the two so hard they don't even acknowledge sex - is what I think is part of the cause of this problem that is leaving trans men / trans mascs with a massive hole in our ability to discuss our experiences. And not just trans men either!!! It's also nonbinary and intersex people as well who are harmed by this void.

So that begs the question: How do we actually talk about sexism in an Intersectional Feminist, trans inclusive, capacity that combats Radical Feminist rhetoric on sexism?

And the answer? Is carefully, consciously, and in a manner that is aware of several different experiences within the nebulous concept of female identity.

I will actually be using the word "female" as a term a decent amount throughout this post. For the sake of this discussion I am defining "female" as anyone anyone who presently identifies as female due to their assigned sex as well as anyone who is socially treated/viewed as female due to their gender, legal, and/or medical statuses. In this post "female" is an umbrella term that includes cis women, trans men, trans women, nonbinary people, and intersex people who feel that definition applies to them in relation to their sex.

Because the fact of the matter is that Patriarchy and our society at large hate women and they hate people who are assigned female and they hate people who are female and those are distinct categories of people with a lot of overlap and a lot of differences.

Female identity is like venn diagram of sex informed experiences that cis women, trans women, trans men, nonbinary people, and intersex people all have a place in for various different reasons. It's a diverse category of experiences and this should be a touchstone for solidarity, not division in my opinion. The experiences and needs of one group don't inherently negate the experiences and needs of another similar group, even if they conflict, you know?

It's a concept I've actually adopted from disability activists, who often talk about the ways in which disability activism often has to address conflicting needs because sometimes some disabled people's needs are in direct conflict with each other!! Conflicting needs are not something unique to disability activism though.

Most groups and classes people have conflicting needs within themselves and I think there's a lot to be learned in gendered activism from disability activists in this regard. I think often in activist discussions a lot of people stop when situations stop impacting them directly instead of trying to find commonality and empathy with similar experiences. It's easy to have knee jerk reactions, it's harder to pause and contemplate.

So, let's actually contemplate transmisogyny and transandrophobia/transmisandry as terms for a moment.

Transmisogyny was coined as a term by Julia Serano in 2007 in her book The Whipping Girl and I do think it's incredibly useful for describing the ways in which transphobia (the broader oppression of trans individuals) intersects with misogyny (the broader oppression of women) in specific ways wrapped up into a specific term.

I've engaged in a lot of criticism of The Whipping Girl because, well, I think for just about every excellent idea Serano posits about the trans feminine experience she undercuts it with White Feminist rhetoric and simple "cis men and women are opposites therefore trans men and women are opposites" type rhetoric that harms her arguments more than helps them. HOWEVER! Serano herself even articulates that misogyny and transphobia may intersect in ways that impact nonbinary and trans masculine individuals differently from trans feminine individuals, and that additional language may be required to fill that gap in The Whipping Girl!!

So now there's a bit of a linguistically philosophical discussion to be had here on the function of language and what language we can actually use to fill the hole trans men experience with our language - which is also where we dive back into talking about concepts like conflicting needs and sexism.

When creating terminology (or jargon), one must take into account several things like clarity and context, which is why personally - I do not like the term "transmisandry" at all. I use it as a tag because I know some people prefer it as a term and I'd like my posts to reach that audience as well. Generally speaking though - I think any inclusion of "misandry" as a term will always be a nonstarter in most discussions on gender. It's much too loaded of a word because of it's association with the misogynistic actions of MRAs among several other semantic reasons.

An argument could, I think, be made for a term like "transsexism" which would describe the intersection of transphobia (the broader oppression of trans individuals) and sexism (the broader oppression of female individuals) but I think that is still too broad if we want to talk about trans masculine experiences specifically. (Though I do still think it may have contextual use as a term quite frankly - that's just beyond the scope of this post).

So? Then we come to transandrophobia and a conversation on misogynistic, sexist responses to masculinity in people society forcibly identified as "female women" under patriarchy.

I want to state that off the bat that I take a lot of issue with the way people dismiss trans men's experiences as just "general transphobia" or "default transphobia" because... Why are you automatically treating a man's experiences as the universal default? Especially when there are things based on the intersection of his manhood and marginalization that he experiences that women of the same marginalization don't?

I have this issue with most other conversations about the intersection of marginalized identity and manhood honestly. It actually really reeks of unconscious misogynist bias to me. But I digress, that's not the subject of this post.

I think a lot about Brandon Teena and the motivations for his murder. I think a lot about Lou Sullivan's diary entries about his loneliness and isolation with regard to being around trans women and lesbians - as well as his history fighting for his right to medical transition. I think about P. Carl's musings about the ways in which his entire community abandoned him once he came out as a trans man as opposed to a lesbian woman. I think about Irreversible Damage by Abigal Shrier and the way she manipulated - if I'm remembering correctly - YouTuber, Chase Ross into misleading interviews that skewed his words and stories to attempt to "prove" her points about how "our girls" are being manipulated into transgenderism via social contagion spread through platforms like YouTube.

I think about the ways in which trans mascs - particularly those on HRT - actively avoid medical care because of the deeply gendered nature of gynecological care and also because we are treated like medical freaks and abominations when we do try to seek that care. I think about the ways our bodies are inherently, deeply impacted by the overturning of Roe V. Wade and how our decisions to not carry children via abortion or hysterectomy - or our desire to carry children - are met with the phenomenon of medical misogyny like any other woman or female individual but in a way that also explicitly intersects with our transness.

I think about the ways in which Patriarchal society sees my "female" body in direct opposition to my identity as a "man" and how that is something that needs to be "corrected" back into "female womanhood" via rape and assault. I think about my own corrective assault a lot. I think about how the 2015 National Trans Survey actually found higher self reported instances with sexual assault in trans men than in trans women. I think about how I personally see that as a touchstone of solidarity with my lesbian siblings and especially with my other butch siblings who also have their expressions of masculinity treated as deviancy that deserves corrective action.

I apologize for diverting into less of an academic musing into prose and also for diverging from the subject of this ask directly into a much larger essay - but I am simply so tired of trying to say that I and other trans masculine people are people worthy of having our own language for our own experiences instead of just being dismissed as a privileged class - quite literally on the basis of our own oppression.

Especially when people use the words of someone like Julia Serano to say we don't deserve that language when she herself posited that maybe we should have it. Especially when Kimberlé Crenshaw - the woman who created the theory of Intersectionality that Serano is attempting to engage with in The Whipping Girl - has stated that one of the goals of Intersectionality is to create language for and give voice to marginalized identities that otherwise are not given language and voice.

So - What do you call it when trans masculine people are explicitly targeted on the basis of their trans masculinity? What do you call that intersection of sexism, misogyny, and transphobia that misgenders and attacks trans masculinity explicitly? Because that isn't "general transphobia" - that is transphobia motivated by a Patriarchal desire for control over the broader "female identity" that society is seeing as "too masculine".

It's trans-andro-phobia. Transphobia targeted at a particular group of trans individuals on the basis of their masculinity in a way that intersects with a sexist, misogynist, Patriarchal desire to control perceived/forced female identity and the subsequent interpersonal and social ramifications that come alongside that systemic abuse.

Focus, intention, and clarity of purpose.

---

I do want to add that there is absolutely something to be said about the fact that these conversations are all extremely White at the moment.

Radical Feminism is a deeply White (and White Supremacist) movement. Conversations on Trans Feminist theory in general are still deeply White as well. Julia Serano is very much a White Trans Feminist, and as such most responses to her work by other White trans people tend to be, well, very White.

I myself am even contributing to the prevalence of Whiteness in the conversation because even though I am Ashkenazi I am also still White. I might be informed by and am actively using concepts formed by Black Women and Ethnic Minority Women as the basis of my own theories, but that doesn't erase the context of my own race in this conversation either.

I really do not want that to be lost upon people, especially other White people. A racialized context matters in this conversation because Race and Gender really cannot be fully separated from each other in conversations about power and systemic oppression.

Bonus TL;DR - Read The Will to Change and Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks. Read Audre Lorde. Read Kimberlé Crenshaw. Read Leslie Feinberg and Judith Butler. Read María Lugones. Learn the concepts they are presenting and then also learn how to apply those concepts in a consciousness and self aware manner.

#this isn't perfectly everything i wanted to articulate but i'm tired of this sitting in my drafts #especially when i'm getting really burnt out on offering this kind of essay for free with my main responses to them being sui bait anons #or parasocial bullshit #transmisandry #anti transmasculinity #transandrophobia #transmisogyny #intersectional feminism #feminism #anon #long post / #asks

[olderthannetfic]

A lot of people in your inbox are doing the thing from that Tumblr post about how way too many people only think of feminism discussions in terms of the Most Oppressed Man and Least Oppressed Woman. Y'all really need to stop comparing marginalized men to white cis straight female CEOs, and instead compare them to women who are similarly marginalized.

I think the gender pay gap in many countries - an objective reality with tons of statistics to back it up - is a good way to illustrate this. Yeah, if you're a man in a low level at a company, the women ranked above you probably make more than you. But what about the women at the same level as you? That's what the pay gap is referencing: that women tend to make less than men (of the same race and other factors - there's also a racial pay gap, and black women make even less than white women but also less than black men) for doing the same work, at the same level, etc.

(And sometimes the disparity isn't even between people on the "same level": Claire Foy played Queen Elizabeth II on The Crown, a show ABOUT Queen Elizabeth II, and she made less than Matt Smith did playing Prince Philip until she found out and drew attention to it and the studio was forced to pay her what they owed her.)

The argument of comparing more privileged women and less privileged men, though, is one that anti-feminists like Men's Rights Activists use to deny the gender pay gap. They'll argue that because some individual women in higher-powered jobs make more than they do, that the pay gap doesn't exist, even though those women are likely making less than men in similarly high-powered jobs.

We need ways to talk about these systematic realities because we can't really address the problem if you don't know what causes the problem. But I also hope people realize that this particular thought distortion can be applied to pretty much any type of marginalization.

And, in fact, outside of Tumblr, it DOES get used that way. I've seen people do this with race: suggest that the existence of multimillionaire black athletes and actors alongside the existence of, say, homeless white people, means that white privilege/racism isn't real. Or use the existence of affluent gay people or gay politicians like Pete Buttigieg, or the fact that a lot of white cis gay people can buy into racism or transphobia, to suggest that homophobia doesn't exist. Just about every disabled person I know has a story about someone suggesting their disability "can't be all that bad" because of other advantages they had in life. Yeah, having an advanced degree and supportive family, friends and spouse means my ADHD doesn't affect me as badly as if I didn't have those things - but if I didn't have ADHD I'd still have fewer struggles. That's the comparison point.

When you're designing an experiment you can't alter every variable at once. You have to stick to just one variable at a time.

--

[syscourse-confessions]

I'm part of a transmasc system, and I wish everyone doing syscourse would stop and take a good, hard look at themselves to see if they're perpetuating transandrophobia. I personally am endo-neutral (well, I have a lot of thoughts about various syscourse issues, but to make it simple, I'm somewhere on the fence) and I see this from both anti endos and pro endos. So I just thought I'd drop in and make a list of some things that everyone should keep in mind, regardless of your stance on syscourse:

Stop calling people sysmeds. While I understand the harm that anti-endos can cause, being anti-endo is not at all comparable to a medical view of trans people considering the history behind the transmedicalist movement. Transmedicalism is a movement that has some of its roots in autohomoeroticism theory, something that dehumanizes GNC and gay trans men with the end goal of making it appear like we do not exist. Being anti-endo is not and will never be the same in any way to being transmed.

No more calling people "traumascum." Not only does the above point apply, but also, it's incredibly insulting to people with trauma, and it's never okay to attack someone for their trauma even if they are the worst person in the world.

No, having a transmasc alter as an AMAB person (or as a cis woman/nontransmasc AFAB) will never be the same as actually being transmasc. I'm all for transmasc alters in nontransmasc systems speaking about their own experiences, but please be mindful not to invade spaces where you're not welcome or talk over people. Every transmasc space will have different rules surrounding alters in nontransmasc systems, so just ask.

Anti-endos specifically, no more infantilizing transmasc endogenic systems. Just because you disagree with them on this one issue does not mean that you should be transandrophobic to them. Your traumagenic transmasc friends hear you when you make fun of one of us.

Remember, calling out transandrophobia shouldn't be a "gotcha" to win your syscourse argument. Calling out transandrophobia should be an end goal in itself, not something you use as a means to further your own agenda. Supporting transmascs means supporting us even when it's not convenient to you. Be willing to call this shit out from people you agree with on syscourse.

Think twice before you call a system (or anyone, really) out for having done something "problematic" (I'm thinking in regards to shipping and stuff like that). I am begging people to understand how trans men are targeted unfairly by these types of witch-hunts regularly, especially when we're gay, and please please please don't contribute to this issue. If you see something like this happen to someone, my best advice for how you can help the victim is by becoming friends with them and being supportive. This can help especially if some of the system's friends stopped supporting them after the witch-hunt.

Stop using "AFAB system" as a synonym for "system whose body presents femininely." You are excluding transfems, who have very similar experiences to AFAB people who present as women or feminine, and you are leaving transmasc experiences out as a side note.

That should be it for now! I'll return later if I think of anything else. I'm on anon so that nobody sends me harassment over this.

📬.

📬- Syscourse replies encouraged

#syscourse #syscourse confessions #📬 syscourse replies encouraged

[flowersalesman]

i keep on thinking about a post i saw the other day complaining about people wrongly using the word lesbian. saying "we have to have SOME word that JUST means attraction to women, and no one else!! you cant be attracted to men and call yourself a lesbian." it took the time to specifically call out bi lesbians for, i guess, not using The Right Labels? the op had to add "this isnt for terfs" at the end.

on some level, i understand that someone might automatically add the No TERFs stipulation on any post talking about women/lesbianism. but on the other hand, does the op know why saying that We Must Keep Lesbianism Pure would be so appealing to terfs? like, how many steps away is that from We Must Keep The Sanctity Of Womanhood?

i dont know my followers, so if youre confused about how someone might possibly be attracted to men and still be able to call themselves a lesbian, here is an example for you: if someone is bigender, they might be both a man and a woman at the same time. if their partner is a lesbian, they are dating a woman and a man. there is no separation here. they are still a lesbian and they are dating a man (and a woman).

at the same time, someone might be a bi lesbian because their own gender influences their sexuality, or they might be bisexual and homoromantic. (i've seen a lot of people shitting on the split attraction model, too. it's very confusing. if you believe that someone can be gay and asexual at the same time, why would you be against applying that in other situations?)

these examples are not the whole of it. there are, presumably, infinite reasons why someone would decide on a label.

anyway, at the end of the day, what really pisses me off is the assumption that the issue is people not using the "right" labels, or not understanding the labels theyre using or whatever. listen: there is no one in the fucking world who hears someone call themselves a lesbian and think "oh, but theyre attracted to guys too, right?" so why are you complaining about people needing a label that JUST means "attraction to women"? you have that. we all know what lesbian means. you are making up this idea that some people using labels in a way youre not familiar with is, what, muddying the waters? do you even hear yourself when you say shit like "we need to have a space for ACTUAL lesbians, who ARENT attracted to men"? jesus christ, do you understand what that sounds like? let's put down the What Is A Woman argument for a second, do you know what a man is? he's the butch that goes to drag shows and throws money at the queens. she's the gay man that people always mistake for a lesbian at first glance. even if you only mean to shun one of these people, you are shunning both.

i understand that it might not make sense to someone to say "you can be attracted to men and also still be a lesbian." but you cannot start assuming that you know someone's reasons for identifying with a label better than they do.

#im putting this under a readmore because it's me complaining about a shitty queer take i saw #this is a long post #very OOC on my part. i almost never make original posts. #i couldve added EVEN MORE about this but i decided not to

[the-ace-lesbians]

Bi lesbian doesn't mean what that answer to that ask says though, that would be bad. Bi lesbian is biromantic homosexual which if homoromantic asexuals exist follows logically. Not saying you have to be comfortable with it, I'm still untangling my feelings on it, but it's important to have information when you're talking about these things. As an ace its weirdly close to the 'if you're asexual you can't be gay because your romantic attraction and sexual attraction have to be the same' argument to be entirely comfortable.

I have a lot of thoughts but tl;dr

The SAM shouldn't be used outside of aspec identities, I respect people who identify as bi lesbians but I'm not gonna be social with them, and I feel like the main difference in 'if you're ace you can't be gay' and 'lesbians can't be bisexual' is that gayness does not require sexual attraction, but lesbianism does require no attraction to men.

I maintain that the split attraction model could and should not be used outside of asexuality. It just doesn't work outside of sexuality because it was made specifically to define an identity including a lack of allosexuality or alloromanticism, where you can lack sexual attraction but have romantic attraction to, say women. The SAM works for aces and aros because asexuality and aromanticism do not contradict with queer identity, but benefits in more correctly defining yourself can be had from a modifier being used such as 'biromantic' or 'homoromantic' instead of simply 'bisexual' or 'homosexual'

Issue is, the foundation of being a lesbian is not including men and loving women. Bisexual and lesbian, while of course we share similar attractions and love and experiences, contradict each other if used together to explain a single identity, because one specifically requires the absence of attraction to men. To me, using the SAM to say you're a biromantic woman but you only like women sexually just feels like internalized comphet to an extreme degree - everything about a lot of it (of course not all and not every definition because it's a nuanced discussion) just feels like comphet to me.

Outside of that, the answer from that ask is absolutely one of the many different meanings to the term 'bi lesbian'. I've never even seen it applied to biromantic homosexuals, only bisexual sapphics who don't want to use the term bisexual sapphic.

I've seen plenty of people say other meanings, but the main one I see is people using it instead of bisexual sapphic or any other term we have specifically to avoid including men in lesbianism. It's a label that has an incredible amount of meanings, and it's definitely different to everyone who uses it or talks about it. There is no defining meaning.

I think, personally, the conversation is still different from the aphobic things people say - Primarily because gay doesn't specify sexual or romantic attraction. Like I said above, asexuality does not contradict anything about a lesbian identity. Lesbianism about loving other sapphics and only other sapphics - a loose definition because gender is so strange and confusing, but we can at least all agree that women.

It was absolutely acephobic and arophobic rhetoric that guided the OG hatred and aphobia we saw in the queer community, and it still is, but the reason that it's wrong to say we can't be gay and ace is because we literally, by definition, can be. Gayness and queer love isn't defined by sex, you know?

I do hear how it can sound too similar, and in the beginning that was a big reason I didn't have any opinion. I think the main difference is that in this, one of the labels used is quite literally defined by the lack one thing that the other has.

Even then, I'm not going to campaign against people identifying with the label bi lesbian, and I'd protect them if they needed help, they're still my queer siblings even if I don't particularly feel comfortable with the way they're labeling themselves because that's genuinely just none of my business, and my feelings don't mean anything about their identity!

And, in turn, their identity and feelings have no effect on my identity because I'm always going to consider lesbianism something devoid of men and attraction to men, that's sort of the whole point of it.

I also feel the need to say that I am actively reading more into this because I do want to know more! I have a lot of thoughts, and my main one tends to be that labels evolve and change with time and old definitions shouldn't be gospel while new definitions deserve to change, but at the same time some definitions sort of just... can't be changed.

Just as well, side note, another reason I dislike the term bi lesbian is because I have also seen it used by TERFs to describe sapphics dating trans women or sapphics who have had relationships with men, and I feel like if your label is used for transphobic and hateful purposes maybe we should all use the regular terms we had to describe this identity like 'sapphic' or 'sapphic bisexual' or literally just 'bisexual' because bisexuals aren't inherently going to date multiple genders and bisexuality is a beautiful word and identity with a beautiful history but idk I am definitely biased because I love bisexuals so much

#long post #deerly beloved #discussion #cannot cannot CANNOT stress enoguh #that it does not matter. ill talk about it on my side blog but the majority of the time i am not even thinking about this #i wont be friends with someone actively identifying as a bi lesbian because that's not something i think id be comfortable with #knowing i define my lesbianism as a love for women that doesnt include men #and therefore feel like our ideals would just class too much for comfort you know #but also like. we are all queer siblings. we all need to love each other. i can say 'idk i think it's odd' on tumblr but there's legislatio #trying to kill us so at the same time i'm going to fight for anyones right to call themself a bi lesbian and use whatever name and pronoun #and labels they want because queerness is good and it deserves to be confusing

[infinitelycomplexpuzzles]

“ 🔥 “ tell me more comic grievances pls 👀

// Hm. do I step on a landmine, or do I throw myself into a bonfire with this? well fuck, you're the only one who's sent one, so I guess we're just going to give you a hot take that I know is going to piss at least a few people off.

So let's talk multiverse, casting, and adaptations, yes? Because the way I see it, most people can't keep their outrage or fandom straight, and it bugs me.

Give you an example. Everyone lost their shit about the Scarlet Witch casting. Lost their shit. Torches and pitchforks and all that shit. Doesn't matter that she's a person who in her own series has an entire town begging her for death rather than living under her control, nah, the only thing anyone can talk about is who's playing her.

And you know what? They have a point. Or they would, if they didn't immediately adopt entirely counter opinions that contradict that one.

Because you know, Quicksilver is in that show too. And he's been in the MCU too. And he's had two actors. And he's her biological brother. But I don't see any huge outrage over either of them. I don't see people going 'if you use either of them as a FC I will literally call you hitler.' So what gives? Because the thing is, if you're mad about her casting, and there's good reason if you are, you also need to be mad about his, because they're the same. Imagine if some insane guy decided to cast Black Panther and Storm as white people, but people were only mad about one of their casting choices. That doesn't make sense! You either need to be mad at both of them, or neither of them, because the same rule applies to both. Both of them are whitewashing, which means that it's entirely contradictory to have a fire and brimstone take on one and not the other!

But while we're on the subject, I distinctly remember that for a while on tumblr, people were mad pissed about genderbending. And you know what? They had a point! Saying it was transphobic is a perfectly acceptable thing to do. Personally, I think it's a weaker argument than saying it's sexist, as the idea that men and women live exactly the same lives with no differences is not a thing that happens, but I see the point being made with people who think it's transphobic.

And then the multiverse got popular.

Apparently, all you need to do in order to get rid of the transphobia stink is say 'oh, it's not a gender bend, it's an alternate universe.' So now we got everything from a female Batman who Laughs to female Dr. Octopus to female aquaman batman, and everyone is like 'yay! multiverse!'

Now I will say that this may be because this only seems to go one way. I'm not seeing anyone make an alternate universe version of Batwoman where Kate Kane is a gay man or anything.

But it also comes off as distinctly hypocritical because the entire argument before was 'if you change this character's sex you don't change their gender, and thus you're being transphobic by doing so.' Apparently, the only thing anyone needed to say was 'oh it's just the multiverse' and everyone agreed that was fine.

Like I have seen people's rules that say, explicitly, 'I don't write with genderbends' and then literally have multiverse characters that are exactly what they say they hate. Apparently, it doesn't count if a megacorporation does it! Then it's not bad, it's just creativity.

Sorta like how no one gives a shit if your dude is not romani, they only care that the woman is. 'The dude is hot and we like hot sexy guys, so who cares if both the guys we had play him aren't romani? I know we said that a white woman playing a romani woman is bad, but a white guy playing a romani man isn't, and I am entirely consistent!'

Drives me up the wall. Absolutely blows my mind.

All I ask is that, whatever your take, whatever your belief is, just be fucking consistent, or at least, admit what your actual beef is. Because you can't clothe yourself in moral righteousness while you're engaging in the very things you claim to hate. That's like if you claimed to hate drinking while you were four shots into a bottle of tequila.

It. Makes. No. Sense.

#ooc #rant tw #tw rant

[mayhem24-7forever]

First off you need to deflate that giant ego inflated head of yours.

Second I am not "harassing" anyone I am calling out a serious problem in the fandom which is that a huge number of writers are ignoring the main canon couple of the show who are also gay men in order to ship themselves with those characters. It's homophobic and unacceptable and I will continue to call out everyone who does this.

If someone doesn't want to ship Vigilmaker then okay that's a little sus but not inherently homophobic...erasing Chris and Adrian's romantic relationship and their sexualities (they're literally both gay!!!! what is WRONG with you freaks???) so that horny straight bitches can ship themselves with them is straight inarguably homophobic. It's also pathetic and cringe. Reader inserts are fucking cringe! This is literally why we need to bring back bullying.

It's not about blocking or filtering tags! It's about the fact that these fics shouldn't exist in the first place! It's fucking shameful that there are so many of them and they outnumber fics about the main couple of the show! Filtering tags doesn't get rid of them problem which is that they exist and there's a lot of them.

This fandom is not for horny straight bitches! Get out! Get out of our tags get out of fandom GO AWAY!!!!! This show isn't fucking for you!!!!

To your first point: You telling me I have a big ego when you refuse to even try and argue against anyone's points is peak comedy. So if I am the kettle, you are the pot.

Secondly, as has been pointed out to you by several people you've decided to bug about this, Vigilmaker isn't canon or the "main couple" of the show and both characters have been canonically shown to be attracted to the opposite sex (which doesn't rule out that they can be bisexual or pansexual btw). So I'm a little confused as to how you think anyone is setting canon sexualities aside for anything. But in case you don't believe me here's some proof from James Gunn himself: (https://www.cbr.com/peacemaker-vigilante-shipping-james-gunn-confused/). Also here's some proof that Chris is CANONICALLY bisexual, not strictly homosexual (https://www.out.com/television/2022/2/16/how-peacemaker-became-bisexual-in-hbo-max-show-john-cena-james-gunn-dc-comics-dceu). So technically speaking, you're going against canon.

Also, I'm wondering if your feelings on this applies to other changes to canon made by fan fic authors? Do you only read things tagged with "canon compliant" and believe that making them in any sort of AU is reprehensible to canon? Because apparently it is "homophobic" for me to not ship two characters who are canonically straight or at most bisexual/pansexual but if I were to write a fic where everyone was a pirate instead of their canon jobs, that's something you're gonna allow. Just curious how we're drawing the lines of what is and isn't acceptable for fanfiction.

The thing that annoys me the most about this isn't just that you refuse to even try and defend your argument with anything except repeating the same points that have already been refuted and proved incorrect and childish insults about being "cringe" etc. What really gets me is that you are straight up assuming everyone who writes these fics must be horny straight cis women because apparently in your eyes you are either gay or straight and there's no inbetween. Newsflash: Bisexuals, Pansexuals, and other Queer identities exist.

To your complaints about self insert/reader fics being cringe or disgusting, that's your opinion. It's something you're not into in fanfiction and that's alright, we all have our preferences. Personally, I don't like to read fics with unhappy endings but you don't see me going in the ask boxes of angst writers to complain. You're apparent beef with self insert writers isn't some moral mission to stop homophobia, because there's no homophobia going on (except from your biphobic ass). I'm not going to do you the disservice of assuming your gender or sexuality as you have done for me and my friends but no matter your gender or sexuality, you don't get to be the ruler of all fanfic who determines what is and is okay.

Yeah, it would be a valid problem/concern if James Gunn were to come out and say that Chris and Adrian are now 100% homosexual and in love and that their past references to having heterosexual sex no longer apply as they've changed and are now super duper gay and people were to make them straight for fics. But that's not what's happening so I don't know where you got this stick up your ass from. Stop policing or gatekeeping fandom, no one died and made you head ceo of the Peacemaker/DC fandom so stop acting like it.

TLDR; L + you don't know how to argue + you're biphobic + you're an asshole + you're straight up wrong <3

#anon answered #vigilmaker #if we get to gatekeep fanfic stuff I have some tropes that i don't like reading

[womenfrommars]

Nobody said lesbians are better feminists, but wanting to be in a close intimate relationship with your oppressor and birth his genetic legacy compromises our politics. It's a cognitive dissonance any woman attracted to men has to live with. Your attraction to men has even made you put conditions on abortion rights ffs. Also you know what that comment about straight women with entire boyfriends and husbands freaking out about lesbians talking to gay men "bc they can still be misogynists even tho they're gay!!!!!!!!" is being called out for hypocrisy, not to defend gay men.

I feel like you used to have rational discussion about these things but now only argue with arguments nobody made bc you take everything in bad faith.

Nobody said lesbians are better feminists, but wanting to be in a close intimate relationship with your oppressor and birth his genetic legacy compromises our politics.

The implication that people's private relationships compromises political goals... Would you also say this about disability rights, ethnic minority rights, or indigenous rights? Or does this logic only apply to heterosexual relationships?

The implication that a woman's child is ''his genetic legacy''... I thought we all agreed women own their children, since they birth them?

It's a cognitive dissonance any woman attracted to men has to live with.

You jumped from ''It's anti-feminist to want to be with a man and have children with him'' to ''It's anti-feminist to even feel sexual attraction to men''...

Your attraction to men has even made you put conditions on abortion rights ffs.

The misogynistic implication that my political views are not my own, but rather informed by my sexual attraction... Do you also think men's political views are informed by their sexual atrraction towards women?

If you think women's political views are tainted by heterosexual attraction in a way that makes them more patriarchal... then logically speaking you do believe lesbians make better feminists than heterosexual and bisexual women

[penny-nichols]

Saw someone's tags on a post that was about "stop headcanoning womanizing men who literally only sleep with women as bi" and I'm like. Ok. Fine I guess. I think that it's a tiny bit bullshit because as long as that's not your ONLY type of bi headcanon it's fine. Like. If you have 3 guy characters you headcanon as bi and they're ALL like that and you don't headcanon anyone else as bi that's a bit sus you know.

But I also saw someone in the notes try to make the same point in reverse????? That we shouldn't make pathetic guys bi just because you like them????? Because it implies that being bi makes you pathetic/less of a man??? And I'm just over here like. Deep breath. As someone who is in fact bi and does headcanon a lot of pathetic men as bi it's NOT because I see them as lesser males. Like. Like Seymour from little shop of horrors. I don't think he's less of a man, I just think that he'd be kinda into dudes as well. And like. Im not exclusively headcanoning pathetic men as bi. There are some gay pathetic men (Apollo Justice) there are some bi men who are not pathetic (matt, Daryan, and Klavier). I'm sure there's even some straight pathetic guys although I can't think of them rn. I'm not saying I headcanon a pathetic guy specifically as bi because they're pathetic.

Also the argument being stated is anti "because you like them"????? Like buddy if I want to project my sexuality onto a poor little meow meow you should let me.

I don't want to get into discourse on the original post, but literally it's just like... You could easily apply this to other sexualities too??? Like if you make a pathetic guy gay/trans/pan or something then you're seeing them as less of a man? Which can be obviously false to some people. I mean, I'm sure that some people do it but especially if you're projecting your own sexuality/gender experience onto a character you're not really going to see them as "lesser"

What if we applied this to women? Like "tomboy character can't be bi because that means you see her as less of a woman". It's baffling.

Like. Is there only one type of guy we're allowed to headcanon as bi? If we can't have the womanizing sex guys and we can't have our fruity and pathetic guys... Then what.

Any type of guy can be bi! Newsflash! And while if all of your bi headcanons fall onto one category of person that might say something about YOU, that doesn't mean that the idea of having any type of guy be bi is wrong!

#let my men be fruity and pathetic actually #sorry for the discourse I just saw something on my dash and decided to check the notes #(never check the notes)

[counterspellthisyoucasual]

I keep seeing so many posts of queer people dismantling Christian arguments against them through the lense of Christianity (e.g. the line isn’t men shall not lie with men, but men shall not lie with boy, thus condemning pedophilia not queerness), and the like, yet I think I’ve only ever seen one post - and not so much in the recent years - speaking about how, PEOPLE DONT HAVE TO CONFORM TO CHRISTIANITY.

For the first point:

- laws shouldn’t be based on Christianity. No laws should be based on any sort of religious system. I know that’s a systematic thing but I see so few people bringing it up nowadays and it’s really infuriating.

But two:

- I shouldn’t have to care what Christians think. I’m agnostic, I don’t ascribe to any sort of religion (I have my own sort of faith but that’s different). And yes, I get it, it’s important to dismantle these arguments to a certain degree for those lgbt/queer people who are religious (including the condemning that comes from other religions but I’m less knowledgeable in that and dont know the extent to which that happens).

But it’s none of your business what I do. Doesn’t matter if you’re religious, I dont care about your religion to any extent more than respecting your faith and traditions. If you don’t wanna be gay, or trans, or queer or whatever because of your religion, that’s your business, leave me the fuck alone.

I wish more people would start hitting bigots who spout shitty Christian rhetoric back with “okay, but I’m not Christian so why does that apply to me?”

At some point, you have to drive it into their heads that even if it genuinely is backed up by their religion (which, again, it isn’t), that doesn’t have any fucking sway in your life.

#I want to clarify that I have nothing against Christian’s and Christianity as a whole #I know how shitty but vocal minorities work #and of course you’re allowed to dismantle those sorts of arguments however you want #but I wish it wasn’t the only thing I ever saw yknow? #trans #gay #lgbt

[umbreeonic]

i literally don’t care about fucking pride flag discourse of all things but the phrase “gay men don’t need their own flag” is. incredibly wild no matter what context

#imagine saying that about any other subset of the community. the hell #if that’s ur argument then don’t use any identity specific flags cause of gay men don’t need their own flag no one else does either. #just use the rainbow flag if identity specific ones aren’t needed. #are u gonna say the same thing about the nonbinary flag? we have the trans flag we don’t need it? what abt flags for specific genders? #is the agender flag unnecessary? genderfluid flag? demigender flags? #or does your argument apply to gay men Only. #cause if you are making an argument that could apply to every single lgbt identity but you only mean it for gay men #then ur just homophobic really #i lied maybe i do care abt this discourse a little. in the sense that when u argue over colorful stripes you shouldn’t be homophobic #also the ‘it’s blue for boys that’s so problematic we can’t use it’ argument is so fucking dumb as long as we are here #name five pride flags that don’t use pink; blue; the combination of the two; or the exclusion of them entirely to mean something

[sazandorable]

About moderating and banning content on AO3!

Okay so! I haven’t had the spoons to do this for a while but I cracked and ranted about it on twitter which is... not... conducive to long rants, so!

This is a h u g e discussion part of the l o n g history that led to the creation of AO3, which older, more informed, and more articulate people have talked about at length and can be found around if you look (I reblog some of it in my AO3 and fandom history tags for the curious). So I won’t go into that here, nor into the practical reasons why it’s not even possible to put that system in place anyway.

Arbitrarily, or the purpose of this post, because it’s the biggest topic I’ve seen brought up lately, I’ll be talking about fic depicting underage characters in se*ual situations, but honestly I could hold the exact same conversation on literally any controversial content.

This is about why you, specifically, if you are a content creator and especially if you are marginalised and especially if you are queer and especially especially if you are sensitive to fiction depicting certain things... do not, actually, want a banning system on AO3.

What? Of course we do. There’s a lot of p*do shit on AO3 and p*do shit is gross. No one should condone that, wtf? It would be easy to do — just periodically delete the entire Underage tag!

What will happen if that is done is that people will re-upload and continue to write it, they’ll just stop tagging and you will run into it with zero warning nor ability to filter it out. Again, this is not a theoretical — we know this is what happens. When I was a teen, adult content (all adult content) was not allowed on FF.NET; it was everywhere regardless, and without tags. The exact same thing happened on tumblr when adult content was banned as well. It’s not a matter of “staff not handling it well” — it just doesn’t work.

To keep safe the people who need to be able to exclude that tag, that tag needs to exist and be used.

Well, shucks. A reporting system then?

A reporting system would operate in one of two ways:

-an algorithm, which would delete a lot of stuff we wouldn’t want it to delete.

-humans, which is... the bigger problem.

An algorithm sounds great. We do want it to delete everything.

Okay. What about the daddy k*nk fics between consenting adult characters? What about the fics featuring characters that are children in the canon but are adults in the fic? What about the fics about teenagers exploring their se*uality together, written by adults about the experiences they remember having or wish they could have had? What about the thousands of SasuNaru and Drarry and other shounen and YA fics that will get written, by teens or by people who remember being teens? What about the se*ually explicit fic written by teens who are se*ually active in real life? What about the fics about CSA as trauma, about healing from it? What about the fics written by survivors of CSA to cope about their trauma? What about the fics that clearly show that it’s evil and traumatic? What about the super dark, harrowing, but beautiful and artistic that I’m glad I read even though it fucked me up for days? What about the ones that were really shitty but also horribly hot?

Well, some of these are still not okay, but maybe some might be. It depends on how it’s written. We’ll have humans moderating content and deciding, then.

Okay.

The thing is, I don’t know which of the things I just listed were okay for you to be depicted in fiction and which were too much. Odds are I don’t agree with you. Odds are if I asked 10 people randomly picked off the street, not everyone would agree.

Odds are, even if AO3 arbitrarily decided on which of those are allowed and which are not, you would not agree with their choice, and you would still be unhappy with the decision. (Or you would be happy, but your friends wouldn’t.)

Odds are, different AO3 content moderators might not agree on whether a given fic qualifies or not — is it artistic enough? Does it show enough that these actions are evil and wrong? Can the author prove they’re a teenager? Can the author prove they are a CSA victim? Can the author prove that this is to help them cope with their trauma? The author seem to be functioning alright, they mustn’t really be traumatised!

You know what I mean! There’s absolute, objectively gross shit out there that is not artistic and should not be published.

I agree that there’s vile stuff out there that makes me sick and that I think is very clearly just ped*philic trash. But there is no way to, 1) stop those from getting published anyway, 2) take those down and preserve the safety of everything else.

If we start forbidding some things, there’s two ways to go about it.

One single, clear, arbitrary rule — for instance, absolutely no adult content featuring characters under 18 (leaving aside the fact that this would not even work for the reason cited above). So we lose all the stuff from teenagers, all the coming of age stories about adolescence, all the stuff from CSA survivors; people who need to write it can’t publish it anymore, and people who need to read it can’t anymore either (and as a cool bonus, they’re told it’s wrong and made to feel bad about it). Depending on whether the rules applies to characters that are under 18 in the canon, we lose entire fandoms.

Or, subjective moderation by humans, according to what they estimate to be gross.

Let’s assume all moderators can agree on what’s gross or not.

If there is a system in place to ban some underage works because “gross shit”, then that means other gross stuff can be taken down on account of being gross and harmful.

Yeah! Gross stuff should be taken down! Come on, surely everyone agrees on what’s gross and harmful.

Ah.

But the problem is.

Here is a list of things I have seen — with my eyes seen — called harmful to be depicted in fiction:

Murder

Non-con

Inc*st

Cannibalism

Torture

Self-harm

Mental illness

Drugs

Racism

K*nk

Non-negotiated k*nk, but healthy k*nk is ok

Spanking k*nk

BDSM where the woman is a bottom, but woman top is ok

Healthy depictions of BDSM

Unhealthy depictions of BDSM

Queer people doing bad things

Abusive relationships

Rival/Enemies to lovers

Redemption stories

A happy relationship between a 17 yo and an 18 yo

A happy relationship between a 20 yo and a 60 yo

A happy relationship between a boss and their employee, or a college teacher and a student

A happy relationship between a 14 yo boy and an older teenage boy, because that’s reminiscent of older men preying on younger gay boys IRL

Se*ual content featuring a character whose age is unclear in canon and some people headcanon them as being underage, some as being a young adult

Loving, consensual fluff between characters that are evil villains, because it romanticises them and their actions

Dark content shipping female characters

Fluffy content shipping female characters, because it’s misogynistic to act like lesbians are only soft all the time

Consensual s*x featuring a canonically asexual character, because it implies that all aces can and should still have se*

Fics about the same canonically asexual character hating s*x, because that erases the experience of s*x-positive aces

Shipping a character who is perceived by some fans as queer-coded with a character of a different s*x

The tendency to ship a black character with white characters

Fluffy drunk s*x, because that’s not actually consensual

Sleep s*x, because that’s not actually consensual

Trans characters not experiencing dysphoria, because that idealises the trans experience

Consensual s*x between adults that are not married

LGBT+ content, because kids shouldn’t see that.

I guarantee you: you, I, and 10 random people plucked from the street will not agree on what, in that list, is and isn’t okay to publish and consume fiction of.

So why should your taste be the one followed? Why should it be the taste of mods you don’t know? Why should anyone get to dictate? What if the mods think your OTP is gross and your NOTP is fine?

This is the slippery slope argument.

Yes, it is the slippery slope argument. Because we know it happens. Because we’ve been there, because I’ve seen it happen myself twice already and I’m not even thirty. Because we know people do complain loudly about all of these things.

And because the second there is a banning system in place, assholes will use the system to abuse it and get stuff they just don’t like taken down using the “it is gross” argument, and one day you’ll wake up and the beautiful fic that helped you come to terms with your abuse/trauma/identity/orientation/k*nk for feet will be taken down and wonderful vulnerable creative people will have been harassed out of fandom because they argued with 1 person who didn’t like their foot k*nk fic that happened to also feature, for instance, a CSA trauma backstory.

Again: not exaggerating. Not theoretical. It happens, we know it happens, AO3 was created literally because it happens.

I still fucking hate that stuff.

That is completely fine and normal. No one likes everything. Me too! Most of the dark stuff is niche and the creators know only few people will like it the same way they do.

(For the record, I get grossed out and triggered by fics about an asexual character who does not like s*x having s*x with their partner to make them happy. Deep in my gut everything screams that that’s fucked up, terrifying and harmful, how can people write that. But I recognise that there are people who love and need that, and I leave those people and their content alone.

OTOH, I read a lot of otherwise dark shit and I enjoy it in the same way I enjoyed, say, Hannibal, in the same way some people enjoy true crime documentaries, horror movies or r*pe fantasy k*nk. It helps me explore stuff that I like to see in fiction, in a safe, controlled way. I’m also asexual, 90% s*x-repulsed IRL, and, obviously, I would never abuse a child. For that matter, I wouldn’t kill and eat people, either, nor would I do 90% of the tamer k*nky stuff I read.

Of course, Hannibal was fucked up and lots of people probably think Hannibal was gross and should not have been aired — but as exemplified by the fact that it was created, aired and watched, lots of people thought it was fine, interesting and even fun to watch.)

You can and should curate your experience and protect yourself. The AO3 website now allows you to exclude certain tags, and people have developed tools to help with that such as plugins that save your filters or hide fics that contain certain words.

But no, it isn’t going to, and it shouldn’t, get banned.

#ao3 #fandom history #aaaaand that's all im going to tag

[goosemixtapes]

ok i’ve elected to just Make The Damn Post My Damn Self because i need something to link back to when i inevitably get into arguments about this because i have run-my-mouth disorder. so. slightly-more-generally-applicable companion piece to this post:

“but how can lesbians use he/him pronouns???!?1???”

1: pronouns =/= gender.

one of the arguments i see a lot with this topic is “pronouns = gender, & saying otherwise is transphobic.” i GET this, because pronouns are important & often correlate with gender, but saying pronouns = gender is oversimplified. pronouns are a method of gender presentation - same as clothing, name, & so on & so forth. society genders all of these things, but names & clothing do not prescribe gender. a man, cis or trans, who decides to wear a dress does not become a woman because of the dress; a woman, cis or trans, with a traditionally “masculine” name (ex. bailey, taylor, cameron), does not become a man because of the name. closeted trans people, if they must use names and wear clothing correlated with their agab, are still trans & are still the gender they are.

yes, most binary-gendered people choose clothing & names that “match” their gender, but some might not! think of butch lesbians -- they are women, just deliberately gendernonconforming women. pronouns are the same way -- the majority of men use “masculine” pronouns, & the majority of women use “feminine” pronouns, but this is because pronouns are a form of gender expression/presentation.

“pronouns =/= gender” does not equate to “i can misgender whoever i want.” pronouns should always be respected.

2: nonbinary people can use whatever pronouns they want.

this follows from #1. yeah, i’d say the majority of nonbinary people use they/them pronouns. but not all nonbinary people dress totally androgynously; some present more feminine or more masculine. the same is true for pronouns. nonbinary people may use she/her or he/him pronouns as part of their presentation - think of jonathan van ness (uses primarily he/him) or rebecca sugar (uses she/her along with they/them). this isn’t even getting into neopronouns; that’s a whole different post. the point is that restricting nonbinary people to they/them pronouns really misses the point of identifying as nonbinary: it’s not a third slot in the gender binary; it’s the general state of existing outside or partially outside of it.

(note: cis people can also use whatever pronouns they want. some cis lesbians use he/him; i’ll get to he/him lesbians a few slots down, but i just want to make it clear that sometimes cis people also use pronouns to express gender nonconformity & that’s their business & the same idea!)

3: lesbians can be nonbinary.

nonbinary =/= totally genderless. sometimes, for some people, it does mean that! but not for everyone. see #2 again, on trying to make nonbinary a strictly defined third gender.

(note: this doesn’t only apply to lesbians. this honestly applies to anyone. i’m just talking about lesbians because that’s My Lane.)

lesbians in particular often have complex relationships with gender, & have for literal decades. as womanhood is to a large degree constructed in contrast to & in relation to manhood, lesbian gender has kind of taken on its own thing since we just... are never in relationships with men, ever, which muddles the whole thing up. (also, womanhood is often a generally uncomfortable and muddled thing because of, you know, misogyny, so there’s that.) thus, a lot of lesbians feel disconnected from “womanhood” as an idea.

a lot of people like to protest nonbinary lesbians by saying “but a lesbian is a GIRL who likes GIRLS!!!1!!” yes. we... we know. the thing is, though, that if any nonbinary person identifies as a lesbian, they are probably close enough to womanhood to count as a wlw! the term “lesbian” automatically brings “women who love women” to people’s minds. if a nonbinary person is uncomfortable associating with womanhood at all, literally why would they use that term. it stands to reason that the people who DO use that term feel at least a tangential connection there.

a lot of lesbians define their gender solely as “lesbian.” in my own experience, the ONLY connection i feel toward womanhood is liking girls in a gay way. the attraction i feel toward women is gay attraction - i am attracted to women who like women. i do not want to date a straight woman who sees me as a man. if i didn’t like women, i wouldn’t have this connection & would probably identify otherwise - but i do like women & as it is that’s pretty much... what my gender is. (this is why people may say their gender is “butch” or “femme” -- it’s the same idea of a gender defined by attraction & the way you relate to women!)

for some people, nonbinary does mean totally genderless. for others, it just means anything that isn’t strictly binary. hence why some lesbians may consider themselves nonbinary - not entirely woman, but woman enough to be a lesbian. an example in layman’s terms: you know how “berry” lacroix tastes like it maybe saw a berry, once, from a distance? my gender is lacroix and the flavor is woman.

4: lesbians can thus use whatever pronouns they want.

i think this one is like... a geometry proof. #2 (nonbinary people can use any pronouns) + #3 (lesbians can be nonbinary) makes this one pretty simple. while the rest of this post will be about he/him lesbians, because that’s what i see the most “discourse” about, lesbians can use she/her or they/them or he/him or it/its or xe/xem or Any Other Pronouns They Want. Any.

5: “but why would a lesbian ever want to use he/him pronouns?”

people who ask this are usually asking one of these more specific questions:

“but if you use he/him, aren’t you a man?” see #1.

“but why would lesbians want to use masculine pronouns when lesbianism is about women?” i don’t know. why do butch lesbians dress masculinely? why do they often use masculine names or nicknames? it’s about the deliberate gender nonconformity, something that has been central to lesbian communities for literal decades. pronouns are another form of presentation (see #1); using pronouns other than she/her is another form of nonconformity.

“masculine clothing and names i get -- but why pronouns? that feels a little much.” i do get this! i used to feel the same way! but the criteria for being a lesbian is like... 1) not a man 2) a woman or at least sort of connected to being a woman (see #3) (yes, this includes trans lesbians, who are not men) 3) attracted to women and not men. that’s the criteria. that’s all.

& i would like to think that some of you have the best intentions. but i would really, really caution you away from trying to disqualify people from iding as lesbians because of the pronouns they use. saying “well, clearly lesbians can wear masculine clothes and have masculine names, but the pronouns are a step too far” doesn’t make any sense -- where do you draw the line? at what point are you trying to define when someone is “too masculine to be a lesbian?” and why do you feel the need to do that?

this goes double for nonlesbians. i’ll repeat: really, honestly ask yourself why you feel the need to do that.

(note: butch lesbians aren’t the only lesbians who are gender nonconforming and they aren’t the only ones who use he/him pronouns! but i’ve found this is very common among butches, more so than other lesbians, + it’s another space where i can speak from personal experience.)

6: “wait but this feels kind of TERFy. are you saying trans men can be lesbians?”

oh no. oh god no. lesbians = not men. trans men = men. (& trans women = trans women, & TERFS can choke.)

i think there is a misconception among some trans men (especially transmedicalists) that he/him lesbians are trying to tell trans men they aren’t “real men” & thus undermining their identities. the idea is that we’re saying, “hey, look, lesbians can use whatever pronouns we want! thus, you don’t need to transition :) you can use he pronouns and still be a gay woman :)” to which the obvious response is “i’m not a woman and this is transphobic.”

but i... honestly truly have never seen a he/him lesbian say that. we aren’t the same! even if we use the same pronouns, even if we may take some of the same steps to feel gender euphoria (ex. wearing more masculine clothing, binding/going on T for afab lesbians), we are not the same! trans men = men. men cannot be lesbians. he/him lesbians = people who are not men, but have a complicated relationship to womanhood. thus:

he/him lesbians =/= trans men.

there is no correlation.

(note: i lied. there is one correlation. the correlation is friends and allies. trans men i’m on your team and i hope you’re having a good day. my right to exist is not mutually exclusive with yours; we’re fighting similar battles.)

7. “okay, i guess, but i still don’t really get it?”

that’s okay!! gender is confusing as shit (plus this was a long & slightly repetitive post, because i wanted to make sure i covered all my bases). here are some things you can do if you still don’t understand:

a) talk to more he/him lesbians! maybe my explanation doesn’t really do it for you, but someone else’s will! (if you’re interested in lesbian history, i can recommend stone butch blues, which can be downloaded as a PDF from leslie feinberg’s website. the main character’s relationship to gender isn’t quite the same as the one explained in this post -- jess has to use he/him & pass as male to stay safe -- but it’s still a good read that gets into the complexity of lesbian gender. the lesbian mc participates in butch/femme culture, gets top surgery, & later has a relationship with a trans woman -- so, basically, corroborating what i’ve said about how lesbians can do all of these things & still be lesbians.)

b) if you don’t have the time/energy/desire to talk to more he/him lesbians, that’s fine! just respect us. respect our pronouns. don’t misgender us; don’t call us men or say we aren’t lesbians. you don’t have to get it to accept us.

c) here’s a secret. if you still don’t understand, but you are no longer seeking help understanding & you’ve decided to just vibe and respect us without totally Getting It - that is totally fine. you don’t need to tell us this :) saying “hey, i don’t really get it, could you help?” is one thing. saying “hey, i still don’t get it. not asking for help, just letting you know” is uh. is like. um. okay thanks for informing me?? i guess ??

i understand that not everyone will Get It. but if you’re using my pronouns & respecting my identity, i do not need to hear that you don’t actually get it because my gender is super complicated. it is a little, er, how you say, impolite. (again - not the same as asking for help! i’m totally open to answer any questions anyone has.)

_______________________________________________________________________

source: i am a he/him lesbian.

you are allowed & politely encouraged to reblog this post.

if anyone would like to add to this post -- particularly other lesbians and/or trans women (as i’m tme and don’t want to overstep) -- feel free!

if anyone would like to ask me to elaborate on something, feel free to ask in the reblogs, replies, or in my inbox/dms!

if anyone would like to clown on this post and say some lesbophobic or transphobic bullshit without reading what i wrote, please block me, log off, & go trip over something <3

#max.txt #long post #WOOF. long post. im so sorry i have a lot to say #he/him lesbians

[wolf-queer-discourse]

Adventures in Aphobia #2

It is absolutely tragic that I’m already adding to Adventures in Aphobia, but here we are again! Let’s get a look at the phenomenal post I will be addressing.

Hope you enjoyed reading that as much as I did. You know, the biggest joke of this whole post is the poster thinking ace people feel comfortable on Tumblr. I promise you they do not XD.

It’s funny how when queer sub-groups complain about bigotry faced from the broader community (this happens a LOT with bi and ace people, but I’ve seen it happen to trans people too), the bigoted queer people immediately call YOU the bigot because they’re actually more oppressed than you, which means they get to say whatever they want. I’m not going to even entertain the oppression olympics on this one.

The answer as to who’s more oppressed always boils down to: it depends, in what way, and why does this matter?

There are a TON of transphobic gay people who throw their hands up when they get called out for their behavior and decry, “But I’m gay! You’re not oppressed for thinking you’re a boy!!”

And honestly, some aphobes do want ace people dead, and not all homophobes want gay people dead. Why are ace people one of the only groups in the queer community who has to personally confess to almost being murdered, disowned, r*ped and stabbed all in the same day to have any of their struggles taken seriously?? Do you make gay people do this too, or do you ever just believe them? 

It’s incredible that some people’s entire queer identity is rooted in the fact they’ve been murdered or disowned before, as if the second you’re not being beaten in the streets, do you really face any struggles? There are gay people who haven’t been disowned or killed (obviously). They’re still gay, and they can still talk about homophobia without being mocked for it.

Bonus points for this poster, in what must be purposeful assholery, not even using a standard, accepted definition of what it means to be asexual. “Oppressed for not having sex”. Yes, because “not having sex” is the definition of asexuality. I mean, God, at least be original and come up with a banger instead of this lazy insult.

And if you needed any more proof this poster hates asexual people take a look at their do not follow list!

Imagine...literally being offended by someone believing ace people are oppressed. If you had room for this shit in your bio, you certainly had room for “spineless bigot” somewhere. Alas…

And uh, thinking minors can be ace is also a DNF-worthy offense?? Oh boy. I hate even having to explain this, but...sexual attraction does not ship to your doorstep on your 18th birthday. I know, I’m bummed too, but that’s just how it is. For real though, there’s no argument to saying minors can’t be ace. Trick question, but not really: can minors experience sexual attraction? Obviously yes. Have you met a teenager? It’s insane that aphobes will argue asexual people are sexualizing children by allowing them the right to define their own feelings. And they always use straw men like that there are seven-year-olds identifying as asexual. Bitch, where? Even if you could search the planet and find me one, you wouldn’t be making a point. 

“BUT WHAT IF THEY EXPERIENCE SEXUAL ATTRACTION LATER?”

Gasp, a person changing their label later in life? The horror! How ever will they cancel their subscription? Aphobes, people change labels all the time. None of y’all seem this pressed when a lesbian later identifies as bisexual. I promise it’s okay.

There is literally nothing predatory about acknowledging minors can feel sexual attraction. Not only is it a fact provable but a five-second stint at any high school, but if you really think that’s creepy...that says more about you than anyone else. Just because minors experience sexual attraction doesn’t mean creepy-ass adults can take advantage of them.

Also...love that this poster said “LGBT aces are fine obv”. Is it obvious?? God, I love how aphobes will literally foam at the mouth about how asexual people are a bunch of attention-seeking, pedophiles who are trying to recruit children then immediately tag on a quick “but of course I support LGBT aces!!”. Are these people really so fucking thick they think their words don’t apply to bi, gay and trans aces?? I have yet to meet a single gay, bi or trans ace who feels positively about ace exclusionists. Your rhetoric inherently harms all ace people because it doesn’t give gay, bi and trans aces room to talk about their aphobic experiences. You don’t get to only support one part of their queer identity and expect a pat on the back. You’re a fucking aphobe, and you can’t cozy that up with your empty words of support for only the “good” aces. 

#remember that bigots deserve to be laughed at #they can be the sillest! #discourse #queer discourse #LGBT discourse #Adventures in Aphobia #ace discourse #asexual discourse #aphobia #ace discrimination #asexual #asexuality #LGBT #queer #ace #rant

[impostoradult]

This is time that was allotted to these storylines by canon, offering an expectation of meaning and importance, offering what results in a promise—not time the fans imagined or made up, not something they feel nebulously entitled to, but time they spent on plots the canon gave to them. (Cas means something to Dean after all these years and a love confession. Bucky means something to Steve after all these years and a snap. Jaime’s project of growth and his meaningful relationship with Brienne is something worth investing in.) But instead of saying, yes, you spent all this time watching these scenes, feeling these moments, taking this in—you grew with this character, with these relationships (grew in many cases away from the set starting point)—here is your promised meaning, again and again, these properties snatch the rug away and then pretend blithely they cannot understand why “entitled fans” are so upset.

I’ve been meaning to write my version of this argument for a while now, and I suppose this article is just as good a reason as any.

My thesis, in short, is that lack of queer representation actually isn’t what is creating ~the problem~ here. What’s creating the problem is the overriding power of heteronormativity as a kind of ‘trump’ story logic that is allowed to steamroller everything else into oblivion. (And yes, there actually is a substantial difference between those two things)

Sub-thesis 1: Representation Actually Isn’t A Strong Argument for Destiel (or any particular ship/character)

Controversial, I know.  The representation argument (while an extremely valid argument as applies to popular culture in general) is actually not a very good argument when it comes to why Dean should be explicitly queer and Destiel should have been consummated. 

For one, there’s no reason -- exclusively from the standpoint that it is a moral imperative that queer people are represented in media -- why any particular character or set of characters should be that representation. The ethical cultural mandate to represent marginalized groups does not mandate that any one character or set of characters in any particular given story be that representation*. Yes, even if you as a member of that marginalized group happen to identify with that character. Even then, it isn’t OWED to you. (I think writers should take those trends of identification seriously, and think about what it means to marginalized groups, and act accordingly. But I don’t think it creates an OBLIGATION)

*I’d argue the primary caveat to this would be in stories where the character’s situation or arc is directly related to struggles experienced by that marginalized group (i.e., casting mostly white actors in stories where those characters are experiencing racial oppression)

For another, if representation of queer characters were primarily dictated by fandoms, 90% of queer characters in media would be white, conventionally attractive men. (That might be overstating it a bit, but fandoms have serious biases when it comes to shipping and what kind of characters they latch onto for queer interpretation, and that’s one of the reasons I’m grateful queer representation is not primarily linked to our tastes/preferences). 

The representation argument is a very valid argument when examining popular culture as whole, and when looking at broader trends for example, within a genre, or a whole network. But no particular TV show is obligated to make particular characters within it queer just because representation is a moral imperative as a broader cultural issue. 

Sub-Thesis 2: Heteronormativity Creates Stupid/Badly Constructed Stories

The actual problem here is how heteronormativity creates a kind of trump logic that overrides coherent storytelling. 

I’m not upset about what happened on Supernatural because I think we missed out on representation. There is actually plenty of ~better~ representation elsewhere, and there will continue to be more as time goes on. The representation issue is peripheral at best when it comes to analyzing what went ‘wrong’ with Supernatural. 

The key issue here is that stories need to make sense, not just in terms of plot (although that matters), but in terms of character growth, emotional arcs, etc. The ending of Supernatural is bad because it treated massive pieces of character growth and one of the most significant emotional arcs of the whole show as if it was ultimately inconsequential -- which is bad storytelling and doesn’t make sense. 

And YES, we are ‘owed’ stories that make sense. It’s not entitled to want a story to be coherent, because coherence is what makes a story a story, and not just a series of random meaninglessly assembled plot points/fictional anecdotes. 

The problem is, Hollywood writers keep writing themselves into situations where emotional coherence basically requires an explicitly queer dynamic (or at least a strongly subtextual one), and then just being like...but these characters aren’t queer so we can’t do that. Instead, let’s end Steve’s arc by sending him back in time to live a heterosexual life with Peggy, disregarding the HUGELY significant plot points related to Steve/Bucky which grounded multiple entire movies within the MCU (Winter Solider, Civil War). Let’s end Sherlock by inventing a random, long-lost Holmes sister never remotely hinted at or foreshadowed and make that incomprehensible plot point the finale, when the entire series has been grounded in John and Sherlock’s relationship. 

Let’s make it canonically clear Cas’s love for Dean is the one single act of pure free will in a world with a malevolent God trying to manipulate everyone’s lives for his own amusement, and that Cas’s love for Dean is the only thing keeping the primary story-universe of Supernatural intact, because every other version of Sam and Dean in every other universe kill each other as God intended. Let’s make it clear that Cas’s betrayal of heaven due to his love for Dean is literally propping up their entire universe, but then end the story by pretending like it’s not that important after all. Castiel who?

And it’s just like...THAT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE! It doesn’t make fucking sense. It’s bad writing. So why would you do it? (I mean, I being a bit facetious here. I know exactly why. Because the precious feelings of homophobes will be hurt, and companies don’t want to lose out on their money) 

It’s not entitled to want a story to make sense. It’s not entitled to want major plot points and character arcs and emotional dynamics to have resolutions that follow from what came before in the story. 

And I’m sorry, but you are a ridiculous person if you watched Dean grieve Castiel’s ostensible deaths in s7 and s13 (both times becoming nearly catatonic, nihilistic, more self-destructive than usual, and borderline suicidal over losing Cas) and try to argue to me that his shrug-it-off attitude towards Cas’s death/loss in the finale makes any goddamn sense at all. 

It is utterly inconsistent with everything that has happened before in Supernatural regarding Dean and Castiel’s relationship. It’s incomprehensibly incoherent and just stupid. (And that is just the absolute tip of the incoherence iceberg because to fully explain why the ending of Supernatural re: Destiel doesn’t make sense we’d have to review over 300 episode’s worth of content, and there isn’t time for that) 

I’m just so sick and so tired of being asked to pretend to be stupid because you know, man, heterosexuality. They’re not gay!!1! 

The exhaustion I feel, as a queer viewer, in fact is not borne out of lack of representation. The representation issue is very much on an upward trajectory and I’m not worried about the future of TV not being queer enough. I’m not. 

The exhaustion and frustration and anger I feel as a queer viewer is borne of having to repeatedly watch stupid endings to good stories because the story can only make sense if you make it queer (you cowards). I’m tired of being asked to develop dumb amnesia disease in order to consume endings to stories that had to blow everything up at the end to (re)enforce a heterosexuality that can only stand on a foundation of utter incoherence and contradiction to monumental things that came before it.

I am JUST SO TIRED of being asked to sacrifice my intelligence, my basic logic and critical thinking skills, and my ability to remember basic narrative beats at the alter of almighty Heterosexuality, supreme ruler of all cultural output and destroyer of good queer things. 

Heterosexuality isn’t owed my stupidity, and I’m not entitled for wanting stories to make sense. YOU are entitled for demanding my stupidity when you wrote that dumb shit and expected me to act like it wasn’t dumb simply because it was heterosexual. 

No, the heterosexuality is exactly the reason it IS dumb. 

#Supernatural #Sherlock #Destiel #Johnlock #Stucky #MCU