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ghelgheli · 6 days

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hey you might've been asked this before sorry if so, but have you read or do you have any thoughts on A short history of Trans Misogyny?

I have read it! I have a few thoughts.

I think it's a strong and important work that compiles historical archives into sharp analyses of how "trans misogyny" (using Jules Gill-Peterson's spacing) is not a recent phenomenon but a globalized structure with centuries of history. I also think it's flawed, for reasons I'll get into after a quick summary for those who haven't had the chance to read it yet.

JGP divides the book into three main chapters, the first on the notion of "trans panic". There, she traces how variants of this anxiety with the trans-feminized subject have presented—to deadly effect, for the subject—in such different settings as early colonial India, the colonization of the Americas, the racialized interactions between US soldiers stationed in the Philippines and the local trans women living there, and of course the contemporary United States itself. In every case she analyzes this "panic" as the reaction of the capitalist colonial enterprise to the conceptual threat that the trans-feminized subject poses; we are a destabilizing entity, a gender glitch that undermines the rigid guarantees of the patriarchal order maintaining capitalism. Punishment follows.

The second chapter is my favourite, and considers the relationship between transfeminine life and sex work. I posted a concluding excerpt but the thrust of the chapter is this: that the relegation of so many trans women and trans-feminized people to sex work, while accompanied by the derogation and degradation that is associated with sex work, is not itself the mere result of that degradation inflicted upon the subject. In other words, it is not out of pure helplessness and abjection that so many trans-feminized people are involved in sex work. Rather, sex work is a deliberate and calculated choice made by many trans-feminized people in increasingly service-based economies that present limited, often peripheralized, feminized, and/or reproductive, options for paid labour. Paired with a pretty bit of critical confabulation about the histories of Black trans-feminized people travelling the US in the 19th century, I think this made for great reading.

In her third chapter, JGP narrativizes the 20th century relationship between the "gay" and "trans" movements in north america—scare quoted precisely because the two went hand-in-hand for much of their history. She emphasizes this connection, not merely an embedding of one community within another but the tangled mutualism of experiences and subjectivities that co-constituted one another, though not without tension. Then came the liberal capture of the gay rights movement around the 70s, which brought about the famous clashes between the radicalisms of Silvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson (neither of whom, JGP notes, ever described themselves as trans women) and the institutions of gay liberalism that desired subsumption into the folds of capital. This is a "remember your history" type of chapter, and well-put.

I think JGP is correct to insist, in her introduction, on the globalizing-in-a-destructive-sense effects of the colonial export of trans womanhood. It is, after all, an identity conceived only mid-century to make sense of the medicalized trans subject; and "gender identity" itself (as JGP describes in Histories of the Transgender Child) is a psychomedical concept conceived to rein in the epistemic instability of trans existence. This is critical to keep in mind! But I also think JGP makes a few mistakes, and one of them has to do with this point.

In her first chapter, under the discussion of trans misogyny in colonial India, JGP of course uses the example of the hijra. Unfortunately, she commits two fundamental errors in her use: she mythologizes, however ambiguously, the "ascetic" lives of hijra prior to the arrival of British colonialism; and she says "it's important to say that hijras were not then—and are not today—transgender". In the first place, the reference to the "ascetism" of hijra life prior to the violence of colonialism is evocative of "third-gender" idealizations of primeval gender subjectivities. To put the problem simply: it's well and good to describe the "ritual" roles of gendered subjects people might try to construe contemporarily as "trans women", the priestesses and oracles and divinities of yore. But it is best not to do so too loftily. Being assigned to a particular form of ritualistic reproductive labour because of one's failure to be a man and inability to perform the primary reproductive labour of womanhood-proper is the very marker of the trans-feminized subject. "Ascetism" here obviates the reality that it wasn't all peachy before (I recommend reading Romancing the Transgender Native on this one). Meanwhile, in the after, it is just wrong that hijra are universally not transgender. Many organize specifically under the banners of transfeminism. It's a shame that JGP insists on keeping the trans-feminized life of hijra so firmly demarcated from what she herself acknowledges is globalized transness.

My second big complaint with the book is JGP's slip into a trap I have complained about many times: the equivocation of transfemininity with femininity (do you see why I'm not fond of being described as "transfem"?). She diagnoses the root of transmisogyny as a reaction to the femininity of trans women and other trans-feminized subjects. In this respect she explicitly subscribes to a form of mujerísima, and of the trans-feminized subject as "the most feminine" and (equivalent, as far as she's concerned) "the most woman". Moreover, she locates transfeminist liberation in a singular embrace of mujerísima as descriptive of trans-feminized subjectivity. As I've discussed previously, I think this is a misdiagnosis. Feminization is, of course, something that is done to people; it is certainly the case that the trans-feminized subject is in this way feminized for perceived gender-failure. This subject may simultaneously embrace feminized ways of being for all sorts of reasons. In both cases I think the feminization follows from, rather than precedes, the trans misogyny and trans-feminization, and there is a fair bit of masculinization as de-gendering at play too, to say nothing of the deliberate embrace of masculinity by "trans-feminized" subjects. Masculinity and femininity are already technologies of gender normalization—they are applied against gender deviation and adapted to by the gender deviant. The deviation happens first, in the failure to adhere to the expectations of gender assignment, and I don't think these expectations can be summarized by either masculinity or femininity alone. I think JGP is effectively describing the experience of many trans-feminized people, but I do not think what she presents can be the universalized locus of trans liberation she seems to want it to be.

Now for a pettier complaint that I've made before, but one that I think surfaces JGP's academic context. In her introduction she says:

In truth, everyone is implicated in and shaped by trans misogyny. There is no one who is purely affected by it to the point of living in a state of total victimization, just as there is no one who lives entirely exempt from its machinations. There is no perfect language to be discovered, or invented, to solve the problem of trans misogyny by labeling its proper perpetrator and victim.

Agreed that "there is no perfect language to be discovered"! But JGP is clearly critical of TMA/TME language here. Strange, then, that less than ten pages later she says this:

this book adds the phrase trans-feminized to describe what happens to groups subjected to trans misogyny though they did not, or still do not, wish to be known as transgender women.

So JGP believes it is coherent to talk about "groups subjected to trans misogyny", which she thinks consists of the union of trans women and what she called "trans-feminized" groups. If this is to be coherent, there must be groups not subjected to trans misogny. So we've come around to transmisogyny-subjected and not transmisogyny-subjected. Look: you cannot effectively theorize about transmisogyny without recognizing that its logic paints a particular target, and you will need to come up with a concise way of making this distinction. But JGP dismissing TMA/TME with skepticism about "perfect language" and immediately coining new language (basically TMS/not TMS) to solve the problem she un-solved by rejecting TMA/TME... it smells of a sloppy attempt to make a rhetorical point rather than theoretical rigour. It's frustrating.

I have other minor gripes, like her artificial separation of "trans women" from "nonbinary people" (cf. countless posts on here lamenting the narrow forms of existence granted TMA people if we want recognition as-such!) or her suggestion that "a politics of overcoming the gender binary" is mutually exclusive from rather than necessarily involved with struggles around "prison abolition, police violence, and sex work". Little things that give me the sense of theoretical tunnel-vision. But I don't think all this compromises the book's strengths as a work of broad historical analysis. I would simply not take every one of its claims as authoritative. Definitely give it a read if you have the chance, especially for the second and third chapters.

#ask answer #jules gill-peterson #(i haven't been asked this before ty for asking <3 🐐)#note that this was mostly off the cuff except what i had taken pictures of bc i left the book in toronto for my mom to read

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tinystepsforward · 2 months

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please tell tumblr staff i appreciate them and i’m sorry their boss is a fucking moron.

(this is about this post)

i'll tell the ones i know <3

i would really love if people stopped tagging staff into angry rants, or using "fuck staff" tags, but i know that's probably not going to happen. more specifically i would love people to stop making threats against individual staff members, especially trans ones!

it's already difficult enough to be where they are now without the weight of being piled on in reaction to something that isn't their fault, that hurts them in ways it doesn't hurt the average tumblr user. i disagree with a hell of a lot of my ex-colleagues about a lot of things and am far more radical than the majority of them but none of them deserve this. it's honestly just fucking weird. like i don't care what the political opinions of an individual amazon employee are, i'm not acting like even the most bigoted shithead working in a warehouse is personally responsible for the way amazon is ruining lives — or that their life isn't one of the ones being ruined.

the one thing matt is right about is that unbridled, thoughtless hostility toward all staff makes it harder to retain people who can improve tumblr. in particular, marginalised staff get enough of this shit in other parts of their life and no amount of wanting to change shit for the better is worth dealing with this for. we burn out faster and harder under lateral violence than people who aren't affected will.

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heartludwig · 6 months

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https://www.tumblr.com/heartludwig/730891192161779712/follow-up-on-my-little-office-au-anyways-this-is?source=share

Is there gonna be another part?? Where he moves in

The first time Scarab wakes prismo up and he is already regretting saying yes to him

#from this point on prismo gets waken up by a bucket of cold water in the face or smnth #prohibitedwish #ty for the ask anon i plan on drawing them a lot btw #they are ating my brain #scarab the god auditor #prismo the wishmaster #human au #fionna and cake #adventure time #scarab #prismo #i have yet to figure out a way to draw scarab that im satisfied with smh #answered ask

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yeagrave · 19 days

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Hey! So for your art block reqs. I have this idea of Bradley and Phoenix at the gym and they're working out, weight lifting or whatever, while hangman and Bob/coyote (pick your poison) live slug react but in a horny way yk? Hope that made sense lol

Ps love your art 💚

Phoenix loves to torture them

#ty for the ask <3 #this was so fun #I would also live slug reaction if I saw nat and bradley working out #my art #javynat #hangster #sereshaw #javy coyote machado #jake hangman seresin #bradley rooster bradshaw #natasha phoenix trace #top gun maverick #gray answers #this could also be polycule😌

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rillette · 10 months

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*grabs your baby Jason and puts him in my pocket*

Such an adorable lad :D

the tinyest little guy!!!

#jason todd #basketball #asks <3 #ty for the ask!!#SORRY IT TOOK ME ALMOST A YEAR TO ANSWER THIS.

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peachyypanda · 4 months

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I have to know, how sensitive are your nipples? They are amazing and they clearly deserve to be absolutely devoured, but I’ve been wondering if that would just drive you into lustful ecstasy or if it would just be “nice?”

Oh you know.. I enjoy both naughty and nice play with them 😜

#much more than just nice #ty for asking <3 #answered

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i-love-the-smell-of-your-blood · 8 months

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not to defend the trash panda but he’s actually become more restrained with the eyeliner 😂💄

anyway i think dan just likes him in it 🤭😏

We have panda Dan and raccoon Daniel 😂😂

He absolutely wears that much eyeliner to please Dan never he likes being good

#if-you-got-a-heart-at-all #ty answers asks #daniel klossek #electric callboy

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outcastedang3l · 2 months

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❤️🚀🦋📗💌 for the fic ask game please! 💜

❤️ What is your favorite line that you’ve written in a fic?

'“Dumbest deci- Wait, please don’t tell me you also let a werewolf bite you.” Johnny sighed, trying to decide if Blind Channel were the smartest or dumbest people he knew. Well, definitely not the dumbest considering he had the displeasure of being in a band with Archie Cruz.'

🚀 Do you like to outline your fic first or create as you go?

Create as I go because I normally have a pretty good idea of plot already when I start writing

🦋 Which character is your favorite to write?

Joel or Johnny

📗 Do you want to write something outside of fanfiction? If so, what about?

I used to but I don't anymore

💌 Is there a favorite trope you like to write?

I'm a monsterfucker so it's always something supernatural

#ty answers asks #goth-automaton

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mysterycitrus · 11 days

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i stayed up all night reading persephone’s in hell instead of sleeping and in summary:

(this story is spectacular and im never gonna stop thinking about it)

#he’s looking at his own reflection btw #this is the best ask……. i have ever received #a personalised meme….. wrow #dick grayson #nightwing #dc comics #the ask and the answer #persephone tag #the ‘persephone sure is in fucking hell’ line made me laugh so. ty hehehehehe

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blushweddinggowns · 7 months

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"You look stupid as all hell right now."

"You look stupid as all hell right now," Mike snorted as he watched Robin touch up Steve's eyeliner, "You know that right?"

"It's called romance, you ass," Steve hissed, flipping him off while dutifully keeping his head still, "Who invited you anyway?"

"Your better half."

Steve rolled his eyes but he didn't correct him. He was right anyway, "Isn't it a school night? Are you allowed to be out this late? What would your mom think, knowing you were wasting your precious brain power on Halloween parties-"

"I'm in college you fucking dick!"

That struck a nerve. Steve smirked, good. The little shit deserved it.

"And done!" Robin announced before either of them could throw anymore insults, "I think you look good, way sexier than Tim Curry, for sure. Mike come with me to go get Nancy for a second opinion. You obviously can't be trusted."

Mike huffed, mumbling something under his breath before both of them left the room. Steve was pretty damn sure Eddie had sent him in as a spy because despite all of his reassurances, he still didn't believe that Steve was going to follow through on this stupid costume. But here he was, adjusting his fish net stockings while examining himself in the mirror.

He looked...decent. Which was better than he had been expecting. The make-up wasn't as cartoonish as the movie, something that he hoped Eddie would appreciate. In all honesty, Steve was going to take no criticisms for how he put the whole thing together, Eddie was lucky it was happening at all. Not that he would but still. Though if Steve had to guess, Eddie was going to be a fan. He better fucking be a fan, considering how he'd been asking for this forever.

They'd been together five years. Five fantastic, wonderful years. And four Halloweens with Steve laughing in his face whenever he brought up the Rocky Horror Picture show as costume inspiration. But this year...Steve didn't know. Eddie had just looked...extra desperate this time, needy in a way that Steve just couldn't say no to.

So now here he was, moments away from going downstairs to entertain all of their new and old friends for hours on end, all while wearing a corset.

The things he did for love.

"Knock, knock," Eddie's voice called from the other side of the door, like he could just smell that Steve was alone, "You decent in there Stevie?"

"Not exactly?" Steve called back, still frowning in the mirror, "But you can come in. Just lock it behind you."

Steve didn't look up when Eddie waltzed in, but he did hear his little sharp intake of breath.

"Holy shit," Eddie mumbled, bordering on a whimper as he came up behind Steve. He wrapped his arms around his waist, locking eyes with him through the mirror, "You look..."

"Stupid as hell?" Steve answered for him, smiling a little at how flushed Eddie's face already was. Damn, maybe this thing wasn't that bad after all if it could make him look like that.

Eddie shook his head, swallowing once before breathing out, "I was going to say beautiful. Gorgeous. Breath-taking. Extremely attractive-"

"Okay, okay, I get it!" Steve laughed, turning around in his arms. He wrapped them around Eddie's neck, pulling him down for a quick kiss, "I'm glad you like it so much. In fact, I'll even let you take it off later tonight."

Steve thought that would have been a good deal, but it made Eddie frown, "Later? But we can-"

"We can what?" Steve interrupted, "Have sex with all of our adopted children downstairs waiting for us? I don't think so."

But Eddie wasn't done begging. He was even starting to bring out the wet, puppy dog eyes, the manipulative little shit, "B-But I can be quick. I can fix your make-up after. I can-"

"Nope," Steve laughed, pulling away from him with a little smirk, "You made your bed. Now lie in it."

Eddie nearly looked like he was gonna cry, the little drama queen, "I...I didn't think this through, did I?"

Steve grinned, leaning up to kiss his cheek before going to the door. He looked back at him, his smile getting a little bigger at the desperate look on his face.

Maybe he did look like an idiot in the bizarre get-up, but Steve didn't care. Not when it had Eddie rushing to follow him out.

#steddie #steddie ficlet #silly steddie #so so silly #ask games #and ty for the ask!#I am feeling some type of way about my writing lately #Need to do something #idk what #maybe this will help #slowly making my way through~#if you sent one it will be answered!#eventually!

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comradekatara · 13 days

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do you have a masterpost of "ty lee comes from crypto-air nomad" posts? I'm fascinated by this idea and want to read everything I can but I can't find where it started 😭

i feel like this is a question better posed to @kyoshi-lesbians, who, at least in my book, is the leading expert in ty lee studies (among other things). that said, i can definitely synthesize the argument (and why i find it cogent and persuasive), even if i don't actually know from where the theory originated (but i'm sure that if you look up "ty lee air nomad you'll immediately be directed to an old reddit page or fan forum from years ago; it's a "theory" that goes way back).

firstly, ty lee's appearance is distinctly "air nomadic" in a way no one else's is. save for aang, of course. she and aang do bear an uncanny resemblance. everyone else in the fire nation has yellowish brown eyes, for example, while ty lee, like aang, has charcoal greyish brown eyes. and they also have similar (round and cute) facial features, similar expressions, similar vibes. similar dispositions...

ty lee does not "have the personality" of a ruthless fire nation soldier, despite acting as the princess's right hand who takes out more opponents than pretty much everyone else put together. ty lee acts like an airbender, flirty and flighty. her relentless optimism and goodwill and cheer is decidedly a mask, but it is a mask she adopts adeptly. even if she is performing, she nonetheless performs the "aang" function of her respective group.

ty lee presents herself as more spiritually attuned than other people in the fire nation, who outright disrespect the spirits and spirituality. her constant talk of auras is likely a calculated move on her part, as nearly everything is, to make her seem silly and trivial, because she thrives best when she goes underestimated. but her talk of auras also has to come from somewhere, and seeing as literally no one else mentions auras once throughout the entire show, ty lee's sources are clearly scarce.

ty lee also fights like an airbender. despite generally taking the offensive, ty lee nonetheless exhibits a graceful, acrobatic quality when in combat. she never kills anyone either, merely incapacitates them momentarily. and when she is faced with stronger than typical opponents, she usually relies on her skills as an acrobat by taking the aerial advantage. note her ability to jump incredibly high, such as in "the chase," or her ability to run along a moving cable wire in "the boiling rock." ty lee's skills go beyond merely being a good acrobat. she's incredible. and perhaps even exhibiting some latent airbending skills she inherited from her ancestors.

ty lee's air nomad ancestry coheres really well with her arc as a character. imagining that her family of genocide survivors hid in the heart of the fire nation and assimilated into the imperialist culture that sought to exterminate them makes her own role that much more impactful. there's already a beautiful parallelism to the fact that ty lee is an acrobat and performer who contorts herself to suit the desires of others and performs obsequious loyalty for her own survival, but an extra layer of depth is added if she's also assimilating into the royal court by reducing herself and hiding her true feelings and motivations, just as her family did.

i see ty lee's ancestors as having assimilated into the imperial core out of fear, but over the generations, genuinely being subsumed into fire nation culture, with the desire to social climb a natural extension of their patriotism. but there are also still facets of ty lee's ancestry, whether genetic or otherwise, that have remained in traces. the generational trauma, for example, definitely reflects why her parents had so many children. and the fact that she's constantly torn between two worlds, as a genocide survivor who also directly serves the imperialists who murdered her ancestors, represents her internal struggle as someone who desires freedom of expression and the choice to assert her individuality, but is also forced through circumstance into lying and deflecting and manipulating (which, to be honest, is also the air nomad way) for the sake of survival.

surviving is ty lee's number one priority, in a way it just isn't for mai. mai and ty lee both come from social climbing families (although i've always assumed that mai's family is far wealthier than ty lee's) but mai is also depressed and frustrated and bored out of her mind. and even though she was raised in a family that forced her to don a mask and reduce herself and perform a passive model of femininity, she also has no problem stating aloud how she's feeling and what her limits are (with the exception of when azula gives her a veiled command as a test, and mai has no choice but to obey).

mai has the privilege of knowing that the stakes don't really matter, which she all but states when she claims that she grew up in luxury and opulence, and always had everything handed to her. which isn't to say that she led a perfect, easy life. she wouldn't be as depressed and repressed as she is if there weren't factors actively harming her, but she still chooses to join azula by choice, even if it's really only the illusion of choice between two awful options, whereas ty lee has to be coerced through violence.

mai kind of has a "fuck it we ball" attitude and doesn't really seem to care about her own safety (if anything, she's more concerned with comfort), whereas ty lee would do anything to ensure her survival. and that kind of mentality illustrates how she differs from most of the fire nation elites, who were inculcated into imperial privilege and never really considered what prioritizing survival even entails (zuko learns that lesson the hard way). ty really exhibits the mentality of the genocide victim/colonized subject through her prioritization of survival in the face of what to mai is a problem, but to ty lee is an existential threat.

whether or not ty lee even recognizes that her desperate desire to live comes from a place of generational grief and trauma is another story, but i do think there is something to be said for the fact that descendants of genocide survivors can feel that grief as it has been passed down to them. i think ty lee feels it, and i think that it motivates her to do whatever it takes to live, because above all, she is a survivor. and even if she has to assimilate and manipulate and cut away every part of herself that's real and authentic and true, she will do it (until she doesn't). and that's also, incidentally, what makes her such a great foil to aang.

#i hope this answers your question!#anachronornis #asks #analysis #ty lee #maixtylee #aang&tylee #aang #mai #air nomad ty lee #i should make that a tag....#also river if u have anything add please feel free #i love ty lee she is the specialest insane girl she is everything

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