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sokkagatekeeper · 2 years

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i agree with you that cisgay zuko is probably the more accurate interpretation of the text, though i think there is a possible defense for trans zuko that might even add more depth to his arc as a gay man(a bit of a reach and def not what most ppl are thinking when they hc zuko as trans but i’m thinking it so) the fire nation glorifies binary roles, especially binary masculine roles. 1/?

there are such societies where being trans is accepted, but only binary trans ppl bc of the importance of social roles (and being gay is not bc masculine and feminine social roles are understood to be heterosexual (men are men partly bc they are attracted to women and vice versa) but not necessarily as long as they are adhered to one can switch between them but not between or have traits of both (ie feminine men or masculine women)). 2/?

so basically bc social roles are important sexism and homophobia still exist, and trans ppl can exist but must be binary and heterosexual bc of the roles/hierarchy, which are viewed as foundational to the function of society. so if zuko were to come out as trans at a young age, especially a trans man (which would be more valued bc of the value placed on masculinity) then his ability to live as a man in the fire nation is inherently dependent on a) his ability to embody binary masculinity, 3/?

and b) him liking women bc heterosexuality is what is accepted. him repressing any natural “femininity” and distancing himself from it (“ew girls”) is part and parcel with his binary fire nation understanding of what a man is, his acceptance in society/fear that he may not be allowed to live as a man if he doesn’t occupy the role properly, and his attempt to be a straight man (bc femininity belongs to women, which binary men are attracted to but not the same as in fire nation society, 4/?

as well as his view that masculinity is more valuable) (but also his inherent gayness coming out through his natural repressed distance from girls but not femininity). him dating mai is a further attempt to fulfill this social role alongside proving that he is not gay (really the two are intertwined, for him to occupy the social role of “man” in the FN one of the things among repressing femininity is also being “straight” bc gender and straightness are intertwined in FN) meeting aang is an 5/?

awakening for him bc aang is from a culture that doesn’t have binaries, and meeting sokka is as well bc sokka is bi but also still seen as a man and from an egalitarian culture where masculinity and femininity are equal. then his journey of self-acceptance embodies both accepting the fact that he’s gay and widening his understanding of what manhood is, that he can be a man without having to embody the patriarchal, heterosexual ideal of one, learning that binaries (of gender roles and 6/?

man/woman heterosexuality) are bad, masculinity is not inherently more valuable and hierarchy (rooted in binary) is bad, and so he can accept both his masculinity and femininity (which is tied to his gay arc) while still accepting that he is a man (and that gender is ultimately fake but it impacts his reality so he can occupy 8/?

the role he chooses to see fit in whatever way he wants to including being gay lol). idk if this makes sense but yeah, just wanted to present a possible analytical argument for trans zuko :) and ik this was pretty rambly but if you want any more expansion or clarification lmk!!! 9/9

okay first of all.

[ID: a screenshot from “the invasion, part 2: the eclipse.” sokka shoves azula against a wall with an angry expression. the subtitles originally said, “where is suki,” but have been edited to say, “where is seven.” end ID.]

(/j it's easy to forget what number you're on when sending multiple messages)

second of all i would like to know which real life society works like the one you, anon, described? because i haven’t heard of one in my entire life. in fact, it sounds very segregated to me and i am (for the 100th time) a believer in the intersectional theory; all types of oppression, its origins and practical purposes are intertwined, and you can’t entirely have one without the other in a collective or realistic society. saying that you can have homophobia and misogyny without transphobia especially in a nation where imperialism is glorified sounds kind of. like radical feminism. or in another word, terfs, who believe that all different kinds of oppresion exist entirely separate from each other, which makes them fail to see the bigger picture & often leads to them subscribing to ideas that are dangerous and/or harmful to (mostly) trans women and ppl of color. it’s important to understand the ideology that one is against (assuming u Are against radical feminism??) as well as the ideology one personally holds. anyway #sorry but. just so you know all of the Implications of this.

and third of all, what i’m realizing lately is that trans zuko vs cisgay zuko arguments are just the same reasoning in different wordings, and mainly (not all) what makes cisgay zuko more plausible is simply... context.

the entire atla fandom is constantly missing a very important part of the fire nation’s systematic homophobia: its ties to the fire nation’s imperialism. it doesn’t matter if it was sozin or not who outlawed homosexuality in the fn, but it does make a lot of sense taking into account that (there had to be a pre-existing prejudice among the population for that to work out, but that’s for another day) the fn is about to become a massive military machine for a world wide war, which means they are going to need to breed. homophobia has its own utility in the fn’s imperialism by helping to ensure that as many people as possible have babies. and this is also part of why gender roles matter so much; it's not just that homosexuality is outlawed, but that any deviation from a heterosexual nuclear family structure is greatly frowned-upon.

this doesn’t work if zuko were trans and had to have kids with mai, for example. why would they force him into a heterosexual cage if it’s not to make an heir and a soldier? it makes absolutely no sense knowing what we know about the fn’s politics (and using common sense, which i understand is not a hobby of many ppl in this fandom alas).

and yes, the fire nation glorifies traditionally masculine roles and characteristics, but you need to ask yourself why. is it because they glorify their imperialism and war and military? is it because traditionally masculine roles embody these characteristics of imperialism, war, and military, considerably more than traditionally feminine ones? why does this society work the way it does? why is heterosexuality a must in the fire nation? what is the practical purpose of this prejudice, this rule, this norm, according to other politics and values of this society?

the entire part 4 of this thing about how zuko’s transness and homosexuality could be related doesn’t make a lot of sense to me and i think it’s too much of a reach. there are certainly binary trans people, especially trans men, who are caught up in gender roles and end up reinforcing transphobic and even racist ideas due to it (we're on tumblr; we've all seen this & discourse around it). but the thing is, i really can't see that happening in a society that accepts trans people enough for zuko to transition at such a young age? it just doesn't make sense that zuko would internalize those transphobic ideas if everyone were fully supportive of his transition (which. i assume they were as again, he would've been so young. most people, even people who are relatively progressive when it comes to trans people, wouldn't allow that).

but regarding your part 5, it’s like. you are so close to getting it. zuko feels he needs to fill the role of the man desperately, yes!! because he was born a man and identifies as a man, but has some traditionally feminine qualities that are explicitly frowned upon in the militaristic society he was raised in. he’s gay.

you mention that meeting aang and sokka, to an extent, would make zuko open his mind to the different layers of masculinity and that he doesn’t have to be this mold of patriarchal masculinity, because aang is from a culture that doesn’t have binaries and sokka is from an egalitarian culture, is that it? well.

1) zuko can do that without being trans; in fact he does this canonically, and it also makes more sense that way, because this one of the reasons we assume he’s gay. i already covered this a thousand times before, it’s not a new argument, see my third of all etc etc.

2) (and this made me very ughhnghrrhh) the part about aang’s and sokka’s upbringings having no binary system/being egalitarian is just... not true lmao.

the air temples were segregated by gender, if you recall, and while i doubt they had any trouble with homosexuality or trans ppl, they definitely had some concept of gender binary in their everyday lives. in fact, i think the air nomads is more similar to the society with binaries but no in-betweens that you mentioned, if less strict and in a different fashion, probably not tainted by the looming spectres of imperialism and militarism and probably the only reason why this works; they are spiritual people, and aren’t obsessed with breeding even more monks. however they probably had no idea what to do with a nonbinary person, for example, and i don’t think aang was the exeption of this rule. he’s very gnc by our standards, but he still identifies as a boy, and that’s kind of relevant to the whole ember island players situation. i could make an entire post talking about this alone but i digress.

the southern water tribe... sigh. massive sigh. MASSIVE SIGH okay. the swt being an egalitarian society is just untrue. this is crucial to sokka’s arc, because he is not the one sexist exception of his tribe, or the black sheep, or whatever. sexism and its adjacent prejudices are all socialization — sokka was not born thinking girls were only useful to sew and cook and men were only useful to fight and hunt. he learned this from some external source. and it’s not difficult to see where he got it either; all those grown women were definitely more suited to fight than sokka was when zuko’s ship crashed their tribe, but sokka, at fifteen, was still the only soldier standing. this is heartbreaking, and it tells you something about the society they live in; you just have to pay attention. the only difference (and perhaps. similarity?) with the fire nation is that their gender norms and such seem to be a lot less specific and rigid (waterbending women did fight when hama was taken for example), and the specifics and rigidness there might exist are probably a consequence of the neo/colonization they suffered both from the fn and the northern water tribe (which is still a monarchy where the swt is more of a democratic-esque society By The Way; even more intersectionalism!!). but again i digress.

this part of anon’s argument bothered me personally a lot, because i think that if you are going to try and craft an argument for a headcanon with evidence and/or plausibility directly from the text, you might as well get your facts right. otherwise it just seems very inconsistent. but anyways!

now that the breaking down of this reach of an argument is done i wanted to say that like. us here on sokkagatekeeper dot tumblr dot com are ciszuko truthers and that’s not going to change because we enjoy critical analysis of not only characters but the societies and contexts they live in, as realistically as possible when talking about fiction. other people prefer to suspend their belief a little more to headcanon x as trans or x as gay or x as neurodivergent or whatever, which is objectively wrong, meaning the literal quality of it being incorrect, but not necessarily morally wrong, which tumblr tends to confuse all the damn time. being wrong in fandom is not usually that deep, and you don’t even need to acknowledge that you are wrong or prove that you are right to us personally because we aren’t looking for that. this is our reading of the text, which we've arrived at through analysis, and which we think is compelling and often fun to make jokes about. you're allowed to have a different interpretation. we have many mutuals who hc zuko as trans, and we're not like. on the verge of unfollowing them for it.

this was an interesting ask to receive and analyze and we’ve been hoping someone coherent would start a debate with us on this subject, because honestly (despite what we said in the last paragraph lol) it does annoy me when people are just. wrong about things and i can't find a coherent argument anywhere. i really do love it when people disagree with me and are still able to make points; i love being able to debate and possibly learn from it. like, we were harsh about this, but it was nice to have an ask about this that was thoughtful.

i still believe that if you are happy thinking zuko could be trans/his journey reflects that/whatever else then that’s fine. not everything needs to have a canonical justification for you to have fun. that is not the case with us, because canon is literally so good, but we are different ppl with different tastes. and we enjoy making fun of zuko for being cis more than we enjoy stretching canon to make trans zuko work. also i don’t want you ppl to go around thinking or saying this was a cis person talking okay nour they them only. okay thanks byeeee

#this was interesting .#asks #anon #zuko #analysis #i guess #atla + gender #n #with some collaboration from #s #*#anyway pls take this in good faith!! or don't idk your life #also we alternate between first person singular & plural in this when talking about ourselves. just go with it -s #yeah you know like when youre married -n #fire nation

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thealpacalypse-archive · 5 years

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A handy guide to avoid accidental transphobia

For cis people in the Druck fandom who write fic, headcanons or meta and don’t wanna mess up

Including questions like: Is David trans? Is he beautiful? Is he wearing a binder this whole damn time?? What’s his story?

hey everybody, I’ve debated making this post for a while now because I don’t want to seem ungrateful to the people who are already trying, and I know that there are other trans people in this fandom who are already doing a pretty good job educating people, but then again, why not share my thoughts as well.

In this post, I’ll collect a few headcanons, meta, and other discussions that i’ve seen around here and that made me personally uncomfortable - now be aware that i’m only one trans person and that other people can have other opinions on this, but also i’ve done trans activism for a few years now and i’m a gender studies major, so I definitely know what i’m talking about. also, a fair warning: this is gonna get long as heck. okay, let’s go.

Is David trans? The truth is: We don’t know yet. We only know that the actor who plays him, Lukas Alexander, is a trans guy. Now I’ve seen various people speculate if that automatically has to mean that David is trans as well, and obviously, no. David could be cis for all we know, and yes, casting trans actors in cis roles can be a pretty cool thing. However, if you’re cis, it would be cool if you reblog trans people’s opinions on this instead of shouting loudly about your own opinion, especially if it is that David should be cis for whatever reason. Why is that problematic? Trans activists are currently fighting for representation in media. There aren’t many trans characters we can look up to, especially not such young characters in a show that has such a big impact on a generation of young people. Many trans teenagers have never seen themselves represented in media, and many trans adults like myself are still craving for that good, good representation. Most of the time when we get trans characters, they’re played by cis actors - and because it’s mostly cis men who play trans women and cis women who play trans men, it perpetuates the idea that trans people are just especially well dressed up men and women who trick people into believing they’re ‘the other sex’. (ugh) Even though that’s a different problem, it links to this one as well, because trans stories in media are rare, and it’s even rarer to have them portrayed by trans actors. Yes, it would be revolutionary and gender-redefining if trans actors could play cis characters (or just characters whose cis or trans status is never brought up in the first place), but that’s one step ahead of the game in my opinion and tbh, cis people saying that they want David to be cis for whatever reason is just... suspicious.

Is David beautiful? Well, I’m sure we can all agree that this boy is a sight for sore eyes, and i’m pretty proud of this fandom for weeding out the transphobic assholes who called him ugly at the beginning of the season. I’m sure by now they’ve all seen the error of their ways because HECK, in levels of attractiveness, David is a king. Though it might not be the best to call him ‘beautiful’, ‘pretty’ or other usually female-gendered words when you’re cis and describing him. Why is that problematic? Listen, there’s absolutely nothing inherently bad about calling boys pretty or beautiful or whatever - I personally am an absolute goner when it comes to soft boys™ and their aesthetics, and I also think that denying boys to be soft and pretty is misogyny in a way, because it’s implying that female-coded things are bad. However, there are many trans boys (and other trans and nonbinary folks who were assigned female at birth) who feel uncomfortable when these words are used for them because it can be linked to misgendering or remind them of times before they were out. Trans people are often highly aware of their body and looks, because the way we look is heavily observed, judged and policed by society, and most of the time, being seen the (gendered) way we identify is the only way we get respect and basic decency. We don’t know yet if David personally has a problem with being called beautiful or whatever, but we also don’t know how the actor who plays him feels about that, and there are a couple of trans boys in this fandom who’ve already expressed their discomfort with these words. So in order to protect them and make this fandom safe for them, it seems like a small price to pay to consider our choice of words more carefully when we describe David, and try to avoid female-coded words.

What about David’s chest? Now this one is tricky. I’ve seen discussions about it a lot: Does David wear a binder, did he wear it the whole time he was with Matteo, does he maybe not even bind, did he have a mastectomy? The underlying tone of these discussions is worry - we all want David to be safe and comfortable, and seriously, let me tell you once and for all: a binder shouldn’t be worn longer than 8 hours a day, it shouldn’t be worn when sleeping, and it shouldn’t be worn when doing sports (also relevant for our jock boy). It’s not safe and it can heavily damage the breast tissue, ribs, and lungs - it can be literally life-threatening. It’s perfectly fine to worry about this, but it still feels uncomfortable to watch cis people debate the state of a trans boy’s body in such detail. Why is that problematic? Trans people’s bodies have always been scrutinized and judged - by medicine, by the state, by society as a whole. We always have to prove ourselves and our bodies, and convince people that we’re not just tricking them into believing we’re someone we are not. A lot of ‘true womanhood’ or ‘true manhood’ apparently revolves around genitalia, at least cis people seem to think so. Which is why so many trans people (and let’s be real here, especially trans women) have to deal with the question: “Have you had the surgery yet?” - meaning, did they already undergo the one surgery among the various ones trans people might consider, that reshapes their genitalia in a way that is acceptable to society. Cis people often use these questions about our bodies and the way we change them to delegitimatize us and take away our status as a ‘real’ man or woman. Other than that, trans people’s bodies often get portrayed as something freakishly exotic by cis people; there’s a certain voyeurism about it, and it often gets sexualized - just look at the way trans women are treated in mainstream porn. Cis people examining our bodies, theorizing about what kind of operations we’ve had or haven’t had yet, and possibly sexualizing or belittling/dehumanizing us for it, that will always be very thin ice, because it comes with a lot of emotional baggage for trans people individually and as a community.

What’s David’s backstory? We’re all wondering that, especially since Druck is mixing up the whole Skam setting so much and we really don’t know what they have in store for us. Obviously I’m just as thirsty for theories as the rest of the fandom, but I’ve also read a few things that kinda irked me. Here’s what to avoid: Referring to David as a girl or female in any way, speaking about him in the past with “she/her”-pronouns or coming up with a deadname for him. Oh lord please don’t. It’s nothing but misgendering and it’s so, so wrong. If you’re cis, also please reconsider posting headcanons for his backstory that contain heavy transphobia. Not only can that trigger trans people in the fandom (please use trigger warnings for that stuff, okay?), but there’s also a long history of cis people taking trans narratives away from us and making them only about suffering and pain. Sure, dysphoria sucks, the discrimination sucks, but me, a trans person, complaining about these things is WAY different from a cis person fantasizing about a really painful, possibly violent life for a trans character. Sure I want realism and I want a platform where we can discuss the truly awful experiences many of us have because we’re trans, but I wish that cis people would boost trans voices for that instead of coming up with their own fucked up fantasies about how badly a trans character might have been treated. If you’re writing fic or meta and you want to find an explanation why David changed schools so close to the end of the school year, you don’t have to dig deep into the trans pain to explain it. It’s not that uncommon for trans people to change schools, work places, etc. once they’ve transitioned far enough to feel comfortable - a new start makes the stuff like name changes, new gender presentation, etc. easier. And even if David’d move is related to transphobic experiences, I don’t really need to read detailed descriptions of it. You wouldn’t want to obsess over someone else’s trauma in vivid detail in front of them, so please be cautious when writing about something that’s seen as traumatic by many trans people.

Other useful pointers: There are trans people in this fandom who voice their opinions - seek them out, listen to them, boost their voices, don’t speak over them when they talk about trans experiences. Don’t focus too much on the fact that David is (or might be) trans. Like sure, include that in your writing, but make sure you know that it’s not the only and not the most interesting thing about him. In most regards, he’s just a boy, and he has a lot of character traits that tell us just as much about him, like the fact that he’s really closed-off, competitive af, artistic, a music lover and a complete emo dork, seems to have an active flight-or-fight response,... you see what i’m getting at. Let’s obsess about David on these terms, and I’m sure we’ll get a whole lot of new and interesting meta and fic about him that all of us can enjoy.

#druck #david schreibner #datteo #davenzi #mavid #my posts

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waterlilyie · 5 years

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I don‘t want male icons and male roles to be turned into females. I don‘t want the gender of the protagonists of stories that revolve around masculinity and manhood to be switched. That won‘t have the same appeal. Because those stories were clearly written for men and their male protagonists embrace manhood in every way.

I want female icons. I want stories with female heroes that embrace their womanhood and find strength in it. I want movies that deal with femininity and the skills and strength that come with it. I don’t need to see women in action, with suits on and driving cars. Or skinny feminine looking women kicking ass (which is totally unrealistic, at least have burly women take down men twice their size but that’s not an option since they still have to be attractive for the male viewers). But most of all I don’t want men handing out overused male heroes to women so that they can have their fun with it. It’s not feminist. In fact, it’s sexist.

You wonder why womanhood is not appreciated in our society. Of course it isn’t, when women are striving to be men, when they look down on “feminine” women, mothers, nurses etc. And it is very easy to understand why we do that. We, as human beings, naturally want to be valued. We want to be appreciated, admired, recognized. So since we live in a society where masculine attributes are portrayed as more desirable and admirable, women will see their femininity as weakness and strive to do things that are considered masculine. That’s why mothers have no worth anymore. Because that’s the core of femininity and embodies the most intrinsic parts of it (nourishment, devotion, caretaking). And the movie industry reflects our society and what we deem worth striving for.

How many of the most successful movies revolve around male-themed isssus and interests? And how many successful movies deal with female-themed issues and interests? Most movies that make a lot of money are action movies. For this society values masculine traits and dismisses feminine ones. That is why we all want a female bond, female ghostbusters etc. Because that’s the only way to gain respect and admiration. Being tough and aggressive and “badass” is what makes up a person’s value in our society. Not their compasssion, their intelligence or kindness. If those characteristics were more valued and appreciated, the movies that deal with that would be more successful. Of course there are also romance movies that are popular and successful but most of the time they are looked down upon because love and romance are seen as traditionally feminine interests.

It’s really sad how so many people and esp women fall for that and think that’s how we create equality. By having women act like men and even having men act like women as if we do that for their own good. Feminists will tell men that it’s ok to cry but once they do they laugh and go hahah masculinity so fragile hahah. It’s disgusting. And it annoys me. They shit on men and see everything they do as sexist and then complain about how chivalry is dead and there are no real men anymore. Obviously that’s gonna be the result, if you tell men how holding the door open for a woman is inherently sexist. Feminism is full of hypocrisy. It’s not about equality anymore. It’s about oppression and revenge.

#i will lose a lot of followers because of this lol #but idc #anti feminism #anti feminst

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anthonywashrosado · 4 years

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Our Need for Intersectionality within the Hip Hop Movement

A couple of mornings ago I was in Florida tuning into The Breakfast Club for a semblance of home. Conversations on The Breakfast Club relay ways in which Hip Hop’s Movement and Culture relate to the individual, our community, and our world. In addition to sharing personal stories, politics of the music industry and artist development are examined and reviewed with influential innovators.

There have been golden episodes of TBC that filled me with hope. Interviews with leading revolutionaries Trevor Noah, Angela Rye, SZA, Kendrick Lamar, the cast of Insecure, DJ Khaled,Cardi B.and more have blessed millions of listeners with insight, enlightenment, inspiration, and laughs. Although I am forced to swallow my pride whenever Angela Yee is cut off by her male co-hosts, I tune into TBC in order to tap into sentiments similar to those of Johanna Valdes:

“It sucks that even though when people are highly problematic on The Breakfast Club and Power 105.1, I still have to engage because it's Black media and it's New York and it sounds like home. It just still has the parts of home that still hurt the most (usually misogyny and homophobia and classism).”

Johanna’s ventilation vibrate on a high frequency. Remy Ma was TBC’s guest this morning and I was eager to hear her speak of her creative process, as well as her journey making music. Half an hour into this episode I was packing my suitcase and heard words from Remy that brought a sharp chill down my spine, paralyzing my body to a halt.

“But I just... Me, as a female I get it when females do certain things but--”

She was responding to an earlier statement regarding men who gossip. My heart pounded as I turned my head toward Remy’s waving hands and matter of fact tone, thinking of the audience receiving this:

“--I hang around a lot of guys, so when I see guys doing certain things that the guys I grew up around and that I hang around don’t do, I just be so confused. Like, why?”

She threw her hands up, extending the “whyyyyy?”. I knew exactly where this tired rhetoric was going. I immediately felt solidarity with fellow femme identifying listeners as we all prepared ourselves for the internalized misogyny that would spur the seemingly unending perpetuation of femmephobia and attack on women and girls. Charlemagne responded,

“But you grew up around a lot of murderers and killers and shooters.” Remy attests,

“You’re right. You’re right. Absolutely, I did. I’m not going to lie to you. I didn’t have any, like, nice guys around me. They was real cool, but I tell you one thing: They was 100. They wasn’t acting like

girls. They wasn’t doing anything that was not manly; that wasn’t stand up; that you couldn’t, you know, hold your nuts on. That’s just the people that I grew up around. So when I move around today and I see a lot of the ways these guys be moving, it’s very female-ish.”

At this point Remy’s tone has transitioned from a high pitch of confusion to the somber note of a lecturing professor. Angela agrees with a “Mhm”. Charlemagne nods with focused eyes as if this information is new and righteous. Remy continues,

“Very woman-like.”

Angela, the most informed and considerately conscious host on TBC, quickly switches the topic to Love & Hip Hop. As their talk delves further into mind-numbing discourse, I felt that final blow alongside all femme identifying women, trans people, and men listening.

I expected Charlemagne to support Remy’s statements. This is a man who is obtaining cultural capital through interviews with varying sources emboldening his perspective on the “transgender lifestyle”. Charlemagne is akin to straight and straight-passing men who demonstrate their masculinity via defamation of gender non-conforming peoples. While transwomen are being killed every day, The Breakfast Club have the privilege of sittin in their studio and laughing while, you know, Lil Duval states he would kill his sexual partner if he found out they were trans. Their uproar translated to the TBC community: whether lie or not, a human being’s inability to reveal their gender identity is of more value than that human’s right to live.

Do you see how dangerous that is?

While I appreciate Angela’s proactivity to cease Remy’s misogynist and femmephobic hyperbole, her reaction mirrored my sixth grade science teacher’s decision to sweep homophobia under the rug by instructing us to open chapter four after I had been called a faggot during his lesson.

Miles from my family, I turned to facebook and posted my feelings. Responses from fellow TBC subscribers eased my mind. Candace Simpson vented,

“It hurts me when my fellow black cis sisters engage in those sorts of gender-essentialist games. We never had womanhood in this country. Ever. And even when we did, it was conditional. I wish we could really take seriously that transphobic rhetoric hurts us too. Think about how people called Serena a man. Black women get those ‘insults’ so much more than white women. As a tall woman, I’ve had my womanhood questioned. I wish we could get it together because this really does come home to bite us in the ass.”

Initially, I planned on visiting Angela at her juice spotin Brooklyn. She is able to thwart any exchange from deleterious to productive. I invariably look forward to her questions. I admire her entrepreneurship. As a Brooklyn native I felt she might want to listen to me. “Yet”, I thought to myself, “if the camera is hardly on Angela during TBC’s aired recordings and her profound questions are constantly interrupted by basic macho prose, then what power would she have to respond to the hate so boldly spewed internationally? ...And would she be targeted for speaking out against hate she and her co-hosts permitted on TBC?”

Angela’s decision to slyly swat away comments that assure continuous degradation of women within the workforce and social spheres is one that is just as venomous as instigating hate. Remy’s internalized misogyny was ignored, as well as the fact that she spat in the wind.

This spit slapped the faces of women who have struggled with stereotypical heteronormative expectations of womanhood for generations... then hit all of her femme identifying male and trans fans...

and finally landed on her L’Aveugle shades.

Although she may wipe her glasses off, the brunt of her conclusion is detrimental to the sustainability of her fan base. There are many ironic and sad parts of Remy’s foot-in-mouth moment. First and foremost...

Remy, come meet me on any day and I will humbly show you a man who is thriving for his community. I will come to you with utmost respect and kindness. I will provide for you receipts at which to prove how I have fostered my upward mobility within a society whose legislative and socially oppressive systems hinder non-white low class individuals from reaching their potential. I am a queer femme identifying Afro-Boricua housing rights activist, curator, and choreographer. My older brother is also queer and a self made entrepreneur, mother agent, and photographer who I assisted in helping raise our three younger siblings. My mom had he at 16 and me at 18. He and I are both very comfortable with our masculine and feminine energies.

My brother is 100. I am 100. I am confident many of your femme identifying male fans are 100.

We need clarity on your definitions so as not to misinterpret your words: Remy, what does it mean to act like a “girlyman”?

Doe it mean that that one is considerate; emotionally intellectual; secure in their feelings; able to express their self?

Or does it mean that one is fragile; dim-witted; easily moldable; unable to make their own decisions?

What does it mean to act “woman-like”?

Does it mean that one provides; nurtures; has agency in creating the circumstances for the life they want; preserves the human species?

Or, Remy, does it mean that one is worth less than the masculinity present within a cis-gendered man; to blame for any verbal and physical abuse they receive in these streets; wired to gossip.

If so...

Remy Remy Remy... You and TBC just dug us a bit deeper into a pit of anti-women based media, hate, crimes, and legislation...

Now I’M confused cause y’all over there laughing and got me sitting in Miami on a sunny 86 degree day tapping at the keys on my laptop, over here like... Why? Whyyyy? Why can’t y’all just have a discussion with the Gender Unicorn?

Fact:Gender performance, gender identity, the sex you were assigned at birth, sexual attraction, and emotional attraction are different. Neither one of these dictates the other.

Remy, your remarks regarding your perception of how others should perform their gender have weight. I wish they didn’t, but they do. I understand that you were alluding to men who gossip. However your proclamation was toxic because it implies that women inherently gossip and/or it is okay for women to gossip but not men. Although your words intended to illustrate your mindset on men gossiping, their effect was of severe detriment to TBC supporters. They maintain the stereotype that women are loose with their tongues. They validate aggressors who traumatize, attack, and slaughter gender non-conforming people.

Remy, I also grew up with machismos in and out of jail. I too had men in my life like those you explain. They tried their hardest to make a man of me. What they, and you, won’t realize is that my manhood and my gender performance are defined by me. Not them. Not you. Me.

True, Remy, your intention was to express your distaste for men who gossip. This implies that gossiping is a trait ingrained in women.

Remy, what is missing from your eurocentrically washed frame of mind is the herstory and history of our African and Indigenous American ancestors. Arawak Tainos across the Caribbean were amongst countless tribes who lived in matriarchal societies. All spectrums of gender identity and performance existed then, as they still do today.

Remy, in order to insure the longevity of your career you need an ardent and viable fan base that know you got their backs. No matter your intent, your actions impacted more people than you can imagine. Believe it or not, your fans include gender non conforming and/or femme identifying people.

Why do we hurt one another even though we are all being hurt by the same oppressor?

I escaped New York in part to get away from femme phobia, only to arrive to North Miami and experience femmephobia from men and women of color.

Where is the intersectionality? Why can’t I escape society motivating society to drink basic-heteronormative flavored kool aid?

Red dye #40 is not good for you.

Deductive reasoning reveals if a person is discriminatory of an identity they too claim, then they endure self-inflicted prejudice. Remy, if you loved yourself then you wouldn’t have to nonchalantly spread hate internationally. Just because people around you were laughing, does not mean it wasn’t enmity. I hope you take time to learn to love yourself more. I hope you will make time to reach out to we who secure your artistic career’s existence. We need your lucidity.

We are waiting.

Revolutionary Ru Paul preaches, “If you don’t love yourself, how in the world are you going to love somebody else?”

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