#who think that trans men cannot experience sexism or misogyny | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

trans-androgyne · 22 days

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Sorry if this is an irritating ask or anything, but could you please explain to me what people find wrong about the term transandrophobia? As far as I’m aware it’s literally just a word to describe trans men’s oppression. I’m not against the idea that it might have something wrong with it (as a transmasc person), but through all this fighting I’ve never once seen someone clearly explain what the problem is.

I’ve seen people claim that transmascs keep throwing transfems under the bus, but the only thing I’ve ever seen is actually the OPPOSITE way around, and only when I go searching for it (but that might just be because I make an effort to keep my dash free of that kind of thing) again I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, I just… don’t quite understand all this.

Sorry abt this rambly ask, I’m just tired and frustrated and I HATE that we’ve been pitted against each other

I will do by best to genuinely present and respond to the main arguments I have heard made against using the term. Apologies in advance for the length.

The most common in my experience is that “androphobia/misandry doesn’t exist,” or “men aren’t oppressed for being men,” based on the terms transandrophobia and its origin, transmisandry. It feels like a non-sequitur to me, completely bypassing the actual meaning of the term. Some people do include androphobia or misandry in their definition of the term, but many more don’t and just use it to describe the intersection of transphobia and misogyny in the lives of transmascs or even just “transphobia against transmascs.” I personally do believe androphobia exists in a literal sense—the fear of men that has serious consequences—but not in the way they mean it. They are attempting to paint us as MRAs, but nobody who gets any eyes on them using the term has ever argued that women oppress men as a class. MRAs are antifeminist, and the transandrophobia conversation is very much a feminist one.

The simplest is just that transmascs just “don’t need a word” to talk about their oppression. Our experiences are called “just transphobia” or “just misogyny” based on whatever they think applies most in the moment. Our theorizing is painted as useless infighting or just being jealous that trans women have a word to describe their oppression. I vehemently disagree with this one, I think everyone deserves language to describe their experiences. I think it’s impossible to ignore the way that both transphobia and misogyny interact to affect us in a new way (the very definition of intersectionality), and that we deserve to recognize and describe that intersection. Even the coiner of the word “transmisogyny” appears to agree with us on this.

Other people will focus on the term’s perceived origins. They frequently call the person who changed the term “transmisandry” to “transandrophobia” a “lesbophobic transmisogynist” and rape fetishist. From everything I’ve been able to put together on the matter, it seems to be that they’re referring to him having engaged in someone else’s detrans kinks as a sex worker on a private blog. I’ve heard from others he may have harassed people, absolutely cannot verify that. To me, it feels like another case of accusing trans people with kinks others find unsavory of being a sexual predator/sex pest, which people generally recognize as transphobic. In any case, even if every single part of their outrage was true, I do not think the behavior of a person who didn’t even come up with the ideas means that transandrophobia theory is inherently transmisogynistic.

In regard to “throwing trans women under the bus,” I think a lot of those ideas come from oppositional sexism. It’s assumed that what we’re saying is true of men must be the opposite for women. Trans women, including the woman who coined “transmisogyny,” have been using trans men’s perceived “opposite” experiences to prove their points for many years. They try to make a claim for transmisogyny by saying trans men don’t experience similar issues (violence, sexualization, demonization, safety issues, misogyny, trouble passing). But the reality is, trans men do experience those issues — some to a lesser extent, some in a different form, some just less visibly due to our chronic erasure — and have other issues of their own that trans women don’t face (like abortion rights issues). An attack on the idea that trans men have it easier is seen as an attack on transmisogyny as a concept. But it isn’t!! Transmisogyny is so blatant and oppressive of a system that it doesn’t need to compare itself to transandrophobia/trans men’s issues to have ground to stand on. Trans people are all harmed by transphobia in different, complex ways and none of us have gendered privilege.

Very few people engage with the actual meat of transandrophobia theory. We have really bad optics, I’ll give them that. It’s hard to like a word with “androphobia” in it, talking about men’s issues puts people on edge due to MRAs, and there are TERFs actively trying to recruit us. (The last part is used against us when it shouldn’t be, they try to recruit transmascs of all stripes for detransitioning and are only using us in particular because so many transfems have been awful to us because of the term. They are trying to widen that divide while most of us discussing transandrophobia are trying to close it.)

We (people who use “transandrophobia”) are often characterized as a unified movement that hates trans women (like in that post that blew up in the wake of predstrogen’s banning). We are not a movement any more than “transmisogyny” or “exorsexism” are. We don’t all believe the same things, the only thing we share in common is that we feel transmascs have a specific kind of oppression and deserve a word to describe it. And, obviously, we are doing our best not to perpetuate (trans)misogyny! The number of disclaimers I have seen people put on their post to make it exceedingly obvious to the piss on the poor website that they’re not talking about trans women is absolutely astounding. I’m sure our circles do have some transmisogyny in them, everywhere does! We do our best to combat it and I know my personal spaces have a couple transfems in them that help keep us in check. If we were being genuinely transmisogynistic, I would ask people to actually point to what they’re seeing that’s harmful instead of just dismissing all of us as evil bigots.

I think what contributes to the backlash the most is simply that trans men do not fit into current understandings of feminism well. People have gotten it into their heads that men are gender oppressors and not gender oppressed — which doesn’t shake out so well when you put being trans into the equation. I grew up hearing “ew men are gross” “I hate men” “kill all men” sentiments due to being in LGBT spaces. Some people really, really do not want to let go of the idea that men are bad and icky and dangerous and women are good and pure and safe, especially when it benefits them as non-men. Many transmascs themselves have internalized the idea that they are gender oppressors, traitors to feminism, more likely to be dangerous/predatory/misogynistic, and take up too much space because they are men/mascs. I sure felt like that before finding these conversations! I sincerely think that as we grow our transfeminism and heal from our gender essentialism a little more, this rhetoric will be left in the past.

#long post #resources #ask #mine #transandrophobia #transmisogyny #transphobia #intracommunity issues tag

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machine-saint · 3 months

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In the years since Whipping Girl was published, the term “trans-misogyny” has taken on a life of its own, and people now use it in ways that I never intended. Specifically, I used the term to describe how the existence of societal misogyny/traditional sexism greatly informs how people perceive, interpret, or treat gender-variant people who seemingly “want to be female” or “want to be feminine” (regardless of their actual identity). However, many people nowadays use the word “trans-misogyny” in an identity-based manner to refer to any and all forms of discrimination targeting trans women. According to this latter usage, some would argue that people who identify as men, or male crossdressers, or drag queens, cannot possibly experience trans-misogyny—a close reading of Whipping Girl will reveal that I very much disagree with this premise. (See Chapter 48 of this book for a detailed explanation regarding why identity-based views of marginalization tend to be inaccurate and exclusive.)

--Julia Serano (emphasis mine)

this doesn't mean that Serano thinks that TME/TMA are bad terms (she doesn't use them herself but finds that there is a core justifiable thought there)

compare also her essay on cissexism (a term that sadly seems to have fallen out of vocabulary) and the difference between "decentering the dominant group" and "reverse discourse":

In other words, cissexism is part of an overarching system that (along with other forms of sexism) works to keep all people in their place. Thus, any person can face cissexism.

Take, for instance, an otherwise cisgender man who never had a gender-variant thought in his life. If he were to suddenly, on a whim, decide to wear a dress to work, he would very likely face cissexist ridicule and harassment on his way to his job, and possibly even get fired from his job as a result. If an otherwise cisgender woman who never had a gender-variant thought in her life decided that she was tired of plucking all the hairs on her chin and upper lip (which a considerable number of women experience), she would surely face cissexist reactions and comments once her facial hair grows out. In fact, cissexism (or at least the threat of it) is the force behind both the low level gender anxiety faced by cisgender people who worry that they will be perceived as insufficiently feminine or masculine if they do “the wrong thing,” as well as the more severe forms of gender policing and punishment experienced by those of us who more regularly or blatantly transgress gender norms.

By no means does this decentering the binary perspective suggest that all people are equally hurt by societal cissexism. Clearly, some of us grapple with cissexism on a routine basis, while other people experience it infrequently and/or far less severely. But the decentering approach does encourage us to challenge all expressions of cissexism, regardless of who the perpetrator or target is.

and so I don't think we have to throw away the terms TMA/TME entirely, but we do need to use the terms in a way that doesn't suggest that only people with certain identities can be TMA; i think a cis man who wears dresses and skirts as his usual attire could very well be TMA depending on the reaction of the society he's in!

#discourse

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transfemmbeatrice · 6 months

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beatrice muchadoaboutnothing is a trans woman: a brief treatise

thematically, i think in a play about the social vulnerability of women, having a character be a trans woman just makes sense as a way to provide depth to that idea. specifically, i love the concept of beatrice's view of men being informed by her own experiences as a closeted trans woman (it's amazing what people will say in front of you when they think you're one of them) and as someone later facing sexism and transmisgoyny.

usually when someone does a trans reading of this play/character, they look at beatrice's famous speech about wishing she was a man and interpret her as a trans man, which is perfectly valid! but this idea started for me with the simple thought that i wanted an out and accepted trans character to play with rather than a closeted one who cannot transition, just as a matter of personal preference at that particular time and with this particular text. but then i kept thinking.

as above, the concept of beatrice reading men for filth in the context of having lived among them is great. the "oh god that i were a man" speech is extremely disparaging of men and what they claim to be vs how they actually wield their power. what she wishes is that she had the power that men have automatically in her society--felt all the more keenly because there was a time when she was able to wield that power and she gave it up to be happy, to be herself, to be free in a different way. (here is where i sometimes imagine beatrice regretting ever transitioning, believing that her own happiness and health is less important than having the power to protect hero's happiness and health, because i love angst.) but now that the worst has happened, she is reduced to begging a man for help and it's demeaning and infuriating and tragic.

i also love turning on its head the line "i cannot be a man with wishing, therefore i will die a woman with grieving." being a trans person, dealing with internalized transphobia, knowing that transitioning will put a target on your back, wishing you could just be the gender you're born as--but no amount of wishing will make her not a woman. i think she loves herself and her gender but the play is focusing on points of conflict so that's what i'm talking about here.

in a play about misogyny, the vulnerability of women, and the hypocrisy of men, a trans woman has a unique perspective on both masculinity and femininity both as genders and places in society. (in the ideal version, i think john would be a trans man to mirror this experience, but that would require him to be rewritten to have actual depth and personality and all that is a different essay). there is also just a particular kind of strength that comes from having to carve out and defend your identity in that way which i think fits her very well.

lastly, a couple of other miscellaneous things from the text that can tie in:

beatrice recounting "a double heart for his single one" meaning both "i loved him twice as much as he loved me" and "i loved him as two people: [birthname] and beatrice"

benedick insisting he wouldn't marry her even if "she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgressed." Adam, not Eve. in MY illustrious opinion, this is benedick saying "i don't care HOW big her dick is i'm NOT gonna marry her."

#also shakespeare loved crossdressing and gender fuckery so i think trans readings of his works are just extra fun #against me drinking with the jocks is such a beatrice song to me wrt a lot of the stuff i talked about here #some of this definitely also comes from vivek shraya's i'm afraid of men #also to note for anyone coming across this that doesn't know me: i'm trans/genderqueer so that's the perspective this is coming from #much ado about nothing #beatrice #much ado #trans readings #shakespeare #my content

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silverity · 4 months

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why are you a terf

i'm not exactly "trans-exclusionary" and my views are more-so aligned with marxist feminism but with heavy influences of radical feminism.

i am what people like to brand a "terf" bc "gender identity" has no basis in marxist feminism nor radical feminism. both are female-centric ideologies supporting the liberation of women as a female sex class. this would involve the overthrow of patriarchy and of all social systems oppressing women (capitalism, white supremacy, imperialism etc.)

marxist feminism recognises women are oppressed on the basis of sex, we are exploited and abused (by the male sex class and the capitalist class) because we are female (treated as a reproductive and sexual resource). radical feminism recognises this sex-based oppression as the core of patriarchy (a system of male supremacy), and explains that gender is a social structure designed to maintain women's sexual oppression (for example through female socialisation & gender essentialism). gender is therefore something determined by society, imposed on all of us on the basis of our sex, and cannot be chosen through "self-identifying". it is a system of subservience (femininity) and dominance (masculinity).

in any case i don't think it is at all progressive anyway, to "self-identify" with the categories (masculinity/femininity) of an oppressive social hierarchy. "trans" people themselves do not seem to agree on what it is exactly that makes a person "trans", but for the most part they seem to claim some innate sense of femininity or masculinity. this is just repackaged gender essentialism. gender identity ideology therefore does not break the gender binary (which is really a hierarchy), it merely allows people to choose their own place within it. but nobody is innately feminine or masculine. all we are is biologically female or male, and this does not (should not) determine our traits and roles, nor our value or position in society.

so i am "exclusionary" of "trans women" because they are male, and as such belong to the oppressor sex class. they are not female, they do not experience sexism or misogyny or any form of sex-based oppression. simply put my feminism is for women and they are not women. however, i support the liberation of all, males and "trans" people included, in the form of gender abolition. essentially this would be an end to assigning gender to the sexes, to the oppression of those gender non-conforming (who may call themselves "trans/non-binary") and the overthrow of the gender hierarchy of men over women.

#bit long but i tried to give you a decent explanation #marxist feminism #radical feminism #gender abolition #gender #feminism #transgender #intersectional feminism

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drdemonprince · 10 months

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Hi! I'm trans & autistic. I've noticed that I had a more challenging sensory experience with higher pitched sounds, particularly women's voices, after being on testosterone. I'd like to do research on this topic but I don't really know how to go about it. Is becoming more sensitive to higher pitches related to testosterone intake a previously documented phenomenon? I can't really find anything online about it, hence my ask.

It's embarrassing that my sensory issues are aligned with a misogynistic insult/stereotype and I'd like to understand more. Thanks for your time!

Do you also find children's voices annoying? Yappy dogs? Men with high voices? Other people who have high voices due to disability or body size? Do you find low-voiced women's voices grating? Is it all kinds of higher pitched women's voices, or only certain ones, in certain contexts? And in what contexts?

I think the first thing to do here is to interrogate where the misogyny figures into all this. Do you have a sensory pattern that you are just afraid looks misogynistic to other people in general, or do you find the voices of women in particular to be more grating? Our sensory systems cannot be divided cleanly from our social perception systems so I think it's worth taking a good, hard look at what the trends are and the ways in which your knee-jerk responses to things might be biased or unfair. Remember that having absorbed the biases of the dominant culture does not mean you are a bad person, it just means you are living in a sexist reality and are in touch with that reality to a certain extent.

There is no reason to believe T increases sensitivity to pitch, not from anything ive read. if I were you, I'd also interrogate what beliefs you have about testosterone and/or masculinity that might lead you to think that's what's happening. Because "taking testosterone made me more annoyed by women's voices" seems like it might reflect some latent societal biases rather than anything actually biological.

Now,it may be that T is boosting your anxiety, because it increases energy levels, which in turn might make you more sensitive to stimuli. But how we perceive and interpret these very subtle physiological changes has all to do with the culture and its beliefs, including sexism, that we've been basted in. So you may be able to change how you interpret and experience these things.

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redheadbigshoes · 1 year

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My controversial opinion of the day is that I don't think people should get so mad when a lesbian just makes a comment saying "I hate men".

Like I get it's one thing if they start being like "and all men should die and they're all testosterone filled monsters", but a lesbian who's Not doing all that and saying they hate men is, more than anything, an expression of exasperation at the patriarchy and rampant sexism. And lesbians especially have to deal with people from both right wing sides and in queer spaces trying to push men on them, trying to say they're secretly into men, and force lesbians to include them in their sexuality and its exhausting.

It's not an attack on trans men obviously and it can also be pretty hyperbolic, like I'm not gonna go around telling the men at work or in my classes that I hate them for being men, obviously. We shouldn't have to philosophize over minor venty comments passed in seconds, and honestly men can stand to bare what's the equivalent of a minor negative youtube comment in return for all the damage the patriarchy has done. Just another one of those things people love to scrutinize lesbians over tbh

-🦇

What’s funny is that people don’t seem to care when the one saying “I hate men” is a straight woman, a bi woman (or anyone who isn’t a lesbian), well obviously allo cishet men are usually bothered by that statement no matter who is saying it.

And it’s ironic because the same people who contribute to think all lesbians are men haters, when they see a lesbian saying something like that they get mad?? It doesn’t make sense.

People are very pressed over the fact we’re not attracted to men and that lack of attraction is enough for them to think we hate men because how could someone not be attracted to men?? So non-lesbians always act offended specifically when it’s a lesbian saying “I hate men”, calling us misandrists (as if that existed lol), terfs or anything to try to offend us.

It’s like they can’t think we also suffer misogyny and we also suffer because of men. They seem to be very empathic when a non-lesbian shares their hatred for men and their bad experiences with men but the same people do not allow lesbians to hate men even if we also have to deal with them daily.

It’s like people think lesbians cannot be oppressed by men, always treating us as if we weren’t a minority.

#stephanie answers #🦇 anon #long post

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bitingfaggotry · 1 year

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That transmasc post is literally right though... We're not oppressed coz we're men. We're oppressed coz we're transgender. Transmisogyny is the intersection of transphobia and misogyny, both real forms of oppression. What is transandrophobia supposed to be an intersection of? Transphobia and the nonexistent oppression of men (just for being... men)?

this right here is a perfect example of oppositional sexism that the whole "trans men arent oppressed" discourse feeds into!

this is a cissexist view of transness, as trans women and trans men are not *opposites*. In the same way transmisogynoir is not opposite or completely separate from transmisogyny. Trans men and Trans women have parallel experiences that are not antagonistic, can overlap (in fact do a lot in terms of bodily autonomy, reproduction, groomer rhetoric, etc.), have similarities and also have differences. If we engage in oppositional sexism like that, we are remaking the cis-binary in trans spaces. If exorsexism can exist as a concept describing the unique experiences of nonbinary people, despite instances of nonbinary oppression is towards nonbinary transfems, there is no reason as to why anti-transmasculinity cannot exist in the same space.

and idk look through the notes, the of "inclusive" radfems playing into terf ideas that trans men transition as gender traitors, leaving womanhood behind to become the oppressors. The amount of people in the notes being like "what did you expect?" is exhausting. "everything systemic is your own creation/something you *chose* when you left womanhood, come back its better here" is the subtext of these comments.

(I mean if you can't see the intent to detransition you away from maleness by disregarding your struggles in transition then I have a bridge to sell you, because every cisfem that has tried to detransition me did it starting like this!)

again, its fine if *you* think *you* aren't oppressed, but I see fascists calling us groomers for getting top surgery so I'm not going to pretend I'm suddenly safe and free for internet points here. and i'd rather not tiptoe around people who feel more comfortable making fun of other trans men then idk? advocating for us all? its peak pick me behavior ngl

#asks

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feralfungii · 24 days

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Small rant

terfs rly are some of the most misogynistic pieces of shit out there and they seem totally unaware of the irony of it. Claiming to be feminist but then the moment someone dfab is like "i dont identify as a woman" theyre like "OH YOU POOR CONFUSED LITTLE GIRL. You clearly have been so terribly misled and tricked!!!! Not to worry, I know you are incapable of critical thinking or making your own decisions in life, so I'M here to tell you your business, to dictate what you do with your body, and to tell you how you, as a woman, should behave!!!!"

Like wow yeah youre such a feminist, trying to dictate what other people do with their bodies and lives and telling them they don't know any better. That's definitely not at all anything like our society's tendency to tell dfab people they're irrational and reactive and don't know what they're talking about and cant be trusted to make decisions about their own bodies.

Terfs are like the pro-lifers who insist theyre feminists - they don't understand that feminism is more than just "yeah i dont think dfab people should live to be subservient to dmab people" or "men suck" or "women are angels and goddesses who can do no wrong." You arent a feminist just because youre a cis woman who's full of herself and raging at people she doesn't consider to be her equals. Feminism is such a huge and nuanced thing and it drives me nuts to see people directly undermining what feminism actually is while insisting to be championing it.

Also, any real feminist would be unabashedly supportive of trans women, that's just a fact. Real, actual feminism is not based in sexist fake science, it's based on "the way we as individuals and as a society treat people needs to be considered in context of many layers of intersectionality, privilege, oppression, and every nuanced thing in between. No one's experience and life should be invalidated and taken from their control based on gender, race, religion, class, or sexuality."

Insisting on gender roles and specific gender presentation and policing of other peoples bodies, harassing and bullying people who dont conform to your personal preferences... I cant think of anything less feminist than terf ideology. There is nothing more harmful to the true purpose of feminism than their weird self-righteous misogyny and transphobia. There is nothing more insulting to the spirit of feminism than to totally invalidate anyone else's personhood and identity based on sexist gender ideology.

If you think that chromosomes and genitals are deciding factors of who people are, who they're capable of being, and what they're capable of doing, you have a lot of internalized sexism to work through. If you think someone's entire life needs to be dictated by their gender, you also have a lot of internalized misogyny and sexism to sort through. You cannot claim to be fighting for women while excluding people who are also suffering under the system feminism is supposed to be fighting against (spoiler alert, the system is run by a bunch of old rich white guys, not by trans people who want to be able to use the public bathroom without getting literally attacked) and also promoting and spreading the same hurtful, hateful rhetoric that people have always used to say women aren't really people. They will literally parrot archaic gender ideology from times when women weren't fucking allowed to vote and claim they're feminists, it's absolutely nonsensical.

Im sure many of them dont actually believe in their own righteousness and just hide behind the smokescreen of feminism so they can use it as a defense when theyre called out for abusing and harassing people. They can just say it's in the name of feminism. They're not abusing and ostrasizing marginalized groups because theyre bigotted! Oh no, not at all, they're just soooo feminist.

But im sure there are also plenty who are genuinely just... women who have been deeply hurt and are lashing out at oppressed groups and minorities in some attempt to offset the sense of helplessness that comes with the fact that so much of their pain is being caused by people in power. They cant punch up high enough for those people to even notice, so they punch down instead. And they get the temporary feeling that they're doing something to counteract whatever or whoever hurt them, that they're helping a just cause by hurting the big bad scary trans people who are clearly the driving force behind the mistreatment of feminine people in our society, and then any time they might have an inkling of "Am I hurting people who are already suffering?" they can turn around and be assured by their echochamber that no, you aren't, because the transgenders aren't people, their suffering is faked to invalidate the suffering of "real" women, and your actions are beyond reproach because the other terfs all agree youre in the right

Cause, yknow, people who dehumanize entire sections of the population and want them eradicated or controlled can usually count on others of that mindset to be able to objectively identify when they're being hateful or going too far. Groups that shamelessly take pride in being "radical" while targeting minorities, who seem to base their victories on "how much harm can we cause to the people we dislike," and whose talking points often seem to be scarily along the lines of eugenics, conversion therapy, or straight up eradication of real people are usually totally reasonable and rational and definitely in the right. Not hateful or bigotted at all.

I get that they hate trans people but man they really fucking hate feminism too for people who include it in the name. Feminist should never have been used to describe such evil.

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discyours · 1 year

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[ I think mindset makes a huge difference in how you interpret (and in turn experience) your bisexuality] not trans but i might be autistic, and felt this a lot. I feel more attracted to same sex because i like masc behavioural-aesthetic traits and the ratios of presence in each sex are too skewed (i know misogyny and sexism prevents many women from being very masc). I have a messy relationship with my osa and basically shot down or rationalized away any possible desire or shred of fantasy 1/?

because i deeply felt as a male my attraction to women was burdensome, lecherous and disrespectful, so it grossed me out. Plus i didnt want to be seen a "traitor" to the G community, and to women who felt safer around me because i didnt have desire, like id lose their trust and it hurt. I thought Real osa men cannot possibly feel persistently bad about their osa since its normal and so i just assumed mine wasnt genuine, just sameold homophobia making me invent exceptions for comfort 2/2

I forget that men use this website and are capable of interacting with my blog so I had to read this a few times before it made sense.

I feel like as far as someone not realising they're actually bi goes, gay-identified men come up less than any other group (although that might just be my bubble). I can't relate to what you're saying (other than feeling predatory for being attracted to women) but it is an interesting perspective and I appreciate your sharing it.

I do regularly hear this mindset from autistic men, where they feel creepy for being attracted to women and struggle to consolodate their attraction with the fact that women are regularly made uncomfortable by the men who find them attractive. It's a form of black and white thinking that can serve a purpose, but ultimately often leads to radicalisation when someone hits a point of no longer being able to reject their sexuality and ends up blaming society (read: women) for making them feel guilty about natural impulses. At which point they swing in the opposite direction and reject any notion that they should moderate themselves and take women's feelings into account.

Autistic men who are still in phase 1 are some of the most respectful men I've ever met so I wish it weren't true, but ultimately it just isn't sustainable to reject your sexuality. Even just acknowledging that the attraction is there and that it's okay for it to be there, even if you never intend for it to lead you to approach the people you're attracted to (personally took this approach for a while because internalised homophobia was way too much of a barrier for it to be fair for me to start a relationship with a woman) can go a long way in not ending up like. Insane about it.

#anon

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addoration · 2 years

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some people are impossible to discuss/debate with………. rlly should have learnt that by now!!!!!!! rant under cut

spent the evening ‘talking’ with my mother’s friend and got progressively irritated by her.

firstly… she would constantly interrupt me, making me lose my train of thought, and also change the subject away from what i began talking about… and then talk and talk while i listened and never gave me pause to talk myself

secondly, she said some islamophobic things which made me so uncomfortable!! she’s french so she talked about how the state and church are separate, which yes i agree with, but then she was saying how because of that, hijabis shouldn’t wear their hijabs in schools etc…… which was soooo problematic for obvious reasons.

THEN when i tried to tell her that she’s being islamophobic, she made it all about sexism!!!!!!! how it’s men oppressing women and making them wear their headscarves!!!!!!!! and i was like…. well maybe sometimes that happens but that’s such a generalisation and so so harmful to think!!!! it’s the woman’s choice!!!

btw this conversation started because i was talking (to my mum!!! not her!!!) about trans rights in the uk and she butted in. so don’t even ask me how we got on to religion in the first place.

she was being very negative on religion as a whole, catholics, muslims,etc, and i said “so it’s organised and bastardised religion that you dislike, because yes me too” and she said no, it’s religion on the whole that she disagrees with….. again, soo problematic…….

anyway back on the trans matter. i said that AT THE MOMENT, trans ppl are some of the more vulnerable people in the queer community, and

1) she said “you shouldn’t victimise yourself” which???????? made me so mad?????? firstly because i AM a victim of transphobia, as are most trans ppl, and secondly because whether or not we’re fighting against transphobia or lying down and taking it, the statement is true and not meant to victimise. we ARE one of the most vulnerable categories atm. that’s just… fact. where’s the victimisation???????

2) she made it abt sexism. she turned the conversation into one abt sexism. and i was like “im not dismissing the struggles of women and misogyny and sexism, i mean look at what trans women especially face!! but that’s not what is being discussed right now” and then she basically……. pitted misogyny and transphobia against each other. she straight up said, quote, “sexism is worse” and i was like????????? you legit canNOT make this a competition of who has it worse. wtf.

she kept saying “oh ive engaged so much with the queer community” and then would talk about how when she goes to back rooms in paris, she feels unsafe around gay men and how she’s seen how gay men and lesbians “hate each other” which???? ok……. i have no experience of gay spaces outside of the internet really tbh, especially outside the uk, so i won’t say she’s lying, but….. that’s got to be such a generalisation that she came up with because she witnessed some stuff maybe years and years ago. because for sure that’s not the vibe i get.

when i brought up that i personally thought that it was bisexuals who get most flack, she was like “what?! no!” and i was like “well im glad that it’s not your experience but i personally have witnessed so much biphobia from the cishets and the queers” and she was like “no, i think you’re wrong.” which, fine, she’s entitled to her opinion, but….. god it made me foam at the mouth in anger!!

godddd just…… everything she said wound me up. i never even invited her into the conversation hhhhhhh.

lots of bad takes from her tonight but the one that got me most angry was when she said sexism is a worse issue than transphobia. like. sure. let’s go making a “who has it worse” contest of discrimination now, because that’s fun…… ffs.

anyway, rant over, goodnight.

#transphobia #islamophobia #sexism #etc etc this is just a big rant basically #dove talks #dramaaaaa!! I’m SO glad to be going back to England tomorrow…..#this person has been annoying me for the past week and if I had to endure any more time with her……#I would snap.

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manlarp · 2 years

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Accessible radfem ideology masterpost

This post is for anyone who wishes to learn about true radical feminist or ‘TERF’ principles without trawling through academic reading or sources biased against us. The linked posts are of varying lengths and it is not a complete list; I may add more in the future. Other radfems, feel free to add your own links and categories.

Terminology:

TERF - Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist (refers to excluding trans women from feminism because they are biological males, NOT excluding trans men)

SWERF - Sex-Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminist (refers to the belief that sex work is not ‘work’ but rather, rape, and we do not support it. We include all women in our feminism, ESPECIALLY prostituted women.)

TEHM - Trans-Exclusionary Homosexual Male (essentially the same as a TERF, but males cannot be radfems.)

GC - Gender Critical (someone who does not believe in or agree with the socially constructed concept of gender, someone who believes only in biological sex, not gender roles)

TIM - Trans-Identified Male (trans woman, MTF)

TIF - Trans-Identified Female (trans man, FTM)

AGP - Autogynephile (a man who is aroused by seeing himself as a woman)

AAP - Autoandrophile (the far rarer case of a woman who is aroused by seeing herself as a man)

HSTS - Homosexual Transsexual (for example, a trans man who is only sexually attracted to other biological females)

TRA - Trans Rights Activist

SSA - Same sex attracted

OSA - Opposite sex attracted

What is a TERF? What does it mean to be gender critical? What is a radical feminist?

“Radical Feminist theory analyses the structures of power which oppress the female sex. Its central tenet is that women as a biological class are globally oppressed by men as a biological class...” read more about the definition of radical feminism at radfemcollective.org

radicallyaligned radfem masterpost

Plain and simple

What we say, vs. what you hear

What TERFs actually want

Radfems supporting trans rights

Porn

Radical feminists oppose pornography that exploits women and contributes to their exploitation.

Why are you against porn?

A short quote from John Stoltenberg, the husband of Andrea Dworkin

If porn was so empowering...

Porn is NOT consensual

Porn ruins relationships

Proof that porn is harmful

Porn vs romance novels

Porn is exploitative

Abortion and pregnancy

Radical feminists are pro-choice: women should never be forced to carry a baby.

Criticising pro-choice arguments

If a man has sex with 100 women...

Why women’s opinions on abortion matter the most

Surrogacy

Pregnancy Math

The dangers of pregnancy

Women as a class

Birth control

Makeup, clothing, physical attractiveness

Radical feminists oppose the way that women are forced into wearing makeup, wearing sexualised clothing, and judged solely by their physical attractiveness.

‘Makeup is a choice’...

The U word

The problem with girls’ clothing

Dieting

Shaving

Sexualised sport uniform

Sex-specific beauty standards

Plastic surgery

Men hate all women

Prostitution

Radical feminists believe no man should ever pay a woman for ‘sex’ (we believe it is a form of rape, through financial blackmail).

‘Sex work is real work’ - so?

Prostitution is a WOMEN’S issue

Catharine MacKinnon: If prostitution is a choice...

A truly deranged take courtesy of Twitter

Another deranged take

When prostitution is glorified

This is more common than you think

What exactly is a woman? Circular logic and sexism galore

Most radfems will quote the phrase ‘adult human female’ in response to questioning what is meant by ‘woman’. Female is defined as ‘ of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) which can be fertilized by male gametes.’

Trans women: a caricature of femininity

Uterus havers and chest feeders

Breastfeeding, hair, etc.

Male strength

Sexist language under the guise of inclusivity

Representation / The Female Experience

Radfems believe in ‘sex based oppression’.

Female experiences

Girlhood

Google searches

Misogyny begins from conception

The objectification and sexualisation of women through media

Language and Gender

Climbing trees

‘Real men protect’

Menstrual huts

This is a post which made me lose the will to continue living

Men don’t want you to realise you’re a woman

‘Not all men’

Drag queens

Victim blaming

Female characters

Female characters are supposed to be role models women and girls can look up to, but as the majority of the time they are written by men, they end up being sexist caricatures of what women truly are.

The sexual appeal of ‘childish’ female characters

Why was Teen Titans cancelled? The ‘female market’

GNC women in media

Female characters that create dysphoria

Sexist psychology

There is a long history of the field of psychology contributing to the subjugation of women through false and misleading ‘research’.

Stockholm Syndrome myth

The ‘highly therapized abuser’

Mental illness and barriers to ‘help’

More men claiming women have it easier

On the medical transition of children

Radical feminists are opposed to the transition of children, especially medical.

If you’re not old enough to consent to sexual intercourse...

‘Transing kids’

The suicide myth

Sex, BDSM, heterosexual relationships

Radfems are acutely aware of the standards forced onto women by men, be it during sex, division of labour in the household, emotional labour, etc.

Men being praised for the bare minimum

Oral sex double standards

BDSM is harmful

Dee L. R. Graham, “Loving to Survive: Sexual Terror, Men’s Violence, and Women’s Lives”

Even Louis C.K, a known sexual abuser, gets it

The link between self harm and BDSM

Is the missionary position boring?

The way that the sex positive movement was derailed

‘Aftercare’

On ‘pick me’ girls

Man breaks his girlfriend’s spine during sex

Rape

Almost all rapists are men. Almost all rapists rape women.

Consent

Women are most likely to be rape victims

Safewords, roleplay

Power and rates of sexual violence/pedophilia

Statistics on sexual assault

Necrophilia

Same Sex Attraction / What does it mean to be gay?

Radical feminists believe that being homosexual is being attracted to the same sex. Trans women cannot be lesbians and trans men cannot be gay men, because of their biological sex.

The only universal gay quality

Being T is a trend, being LGB is not

Lesbianism

Many radfems are lesbian, but not all of them. The community has strong ties to lesbians.

Children of same sex parents

Renée Vivien

The Ellen/Elliot Page situation

Lesbians and gender

‘Queer’ is a slur

This is not a specifically radical feminist idea but it ties in to the social contagion of identifying as LGBT despite not being same-sex attracted.

Bitch Studies

Queer as a catch-all term

Transition and internalised homophobia, misogyny, and body dysmorphia

Radical feminists believe gender dysphoria is comorbid with many other issues, and transition is not the best way to treat it.

Trans men who don’t want to be lesbian

Treating Anorexia vs Treating Gender Dysphoria

Transmasculine culture

Backwards logic

How can you be a trans radfem?

How to deal with dysphoria

Being trans is a mental illness

Regression

Joan of Arc was a trans man

Non-binary

Radical feminists recognise the two biological sexes. They do not agree with the socially constructed concept of gender.

Two types

Two types AGAIN

Anything but a woman

Trans lies and guilt tripping

Trans people are time and time again caught manipulating others for sympathy and gain.

Criticising trans women is dangerous

Being ‘stealth’

Trans women doing absolutely nothing to support women’s rights

What trans rights actually means

Conversion therapy

Conversion therapy part II

The truth about the violence TERFs pose

Death threats and other vitriol received by radfems

Radical feminists are often the targets of death and rape threats.

Double standard

Propaganda and lies about radfems

‘Punch a terf’

‘You must hate men’

An example of how something can be both funny and horrifying

Why transition and trans identities are harmful

The very concept of a trans identity is sexist and uses sexist rhetoric like ‘girls like pink, boys like blue’ to justify itself.

Genital surgery

Whatever this is

Autogynephilia

The history of the trans movement

Knitted penises for babies and toddlers

Grooming people into trans identities

More grooming

Detransition

People who detransition no longer identify as transgender. Some become radical feminists and/or gender critical.

JK Rowling shares an article on detransition by Laura Dodsworth

Detransition statistics

Babying men

Men seem to be coddled over issues they themselves created.

Male suicide myths

Men’s rights activists

MEN SUFFER TOO!

When the patriarchy backfires

More on male suicide and why they do it

The Devil’s Advocate

Women can rape too!!!11

Male violence

Male violence is the most common type of violence by an enormous margin.

Myths on female violence

What do all male murderers have in common?

By whom are women abused?!

Serial killers

Rates of female offenders

Mass shooters

You cannot blame women for reproducing patriarchy

Trans women committing violence

Trans women are portrayed as an oppressed demographic prone to murder, but they are actually one of the safest demographics out there. Most trans women who are murdered are sex workers, which further supports radfems’ anti-prostitution stance.

Articles about trans women committing crimes against women and girls

False equivalence between race issues and gender issues

Comparing trans issues to racism is insensitive and unhelpful.

Hypocrisy

Intersectional feminism

Radfems believe other factors come into women’s oppression, such as race, sexuality, class, and ability.

Maya Angelou on the difference between White American womanhood and Black American womanhood

Living in fear as a Black person

#IfTheyGunnedMeDown

‘Angry black woman’ stereotype

Cultural relativism

Evolution and genetics

‘White people invented gender’

What is misogynoir?

Women’s rights in Afghanistan

Women’s rights in Afghanistan under the Taliban

The similarities between Jewish e-converts and trans people

The pressure to marry in desi culture

Religion is not feminist

The major religions of today are found to perpetuate sexism.

Islam

Subservience is not natural

Atheism

Body positivity and body neutrality

Learning to love yourself as you are is an important tenet of radical feminism.

Being kind to yourself

My body will not be censored

Our bodies are for living

In favour of separatism

Many radical feminists discuss the idea of separatism, where women live apart from men.

Why I love radical feminism

Men are parasites

Liberation

Pure misandry

Let’s face it; women are superior.

Physical strength isn’t the only advantage...

Men are the inferior sex

Radfem memes to make you smile

Who said feminists can’t be funny? (probably men...)

If your feminism doesn’t include...

Serfs

Something smells terfy

Transfemme Asks

Transmasc Asks

When I was aborted

Tumblr in a nutshell

Ronald Reagan says trans rights

Thank you for reading. You can send me an ask or DM if you have further questions.

#masterpost #radfem #gender critical #terf safe

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danggerine · 3 years

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i made the mistake of reading the notes on a lot of trans naoto posts so now y’all get responses to some of the bad takes i keep seeing. buckle the fuck up

• “naoto’s arc is about sexism specific to the japanese workplace and calling her trans erases that to fit it into a western lens!!!”

you guys do know that there are japanese trans people right. like i agree that there are lots of issues with workplace sexism and gender roles in japan, but there’s also lots of issues with transphobia. y’all do know that you do not have to be white and/or live in a western country to be trans, and that queer stories and issues are GLOBAL stories and issues right.

• “naoto isn’t a man, she just pretended to be one to get respect in a male-dominated field, if you say she’s a trans man you’re ruining that whole character arc about accepting your true self!”

here’s the thing! the way that character arc was done was fucking transphobic! the trope of a woman going into disguise as a man for safety/respect/etc is tried and tested, it shows up literally everywhere, and the trope itself is not inherently transphobic. HOWEVER, when persona 4 incorporates Really Obviously Trans elements into that trope, like chest binding and literal gender reassignment surgery, then we have a problem, because now you have a cis character going through a trans narrative in the name of insecurity.

p4 does everything it can to embody the typical narrative of a young transitioning trans guy: binding, changing your name, revising official documents to be known as a man in work and school records, dressing masculine, and forming a shadow literally based on transitional surgery. plus the stuff naoto’s shadow says isn’t about being “a weak little girl” or “no one will ever take you seriously when you’re just a little girl” like you would expect it to be for someone who’s arc is supposed to be about dealing with misogyny, it’s all “you’ll never be a real man,” “you can’t cross the boundary between the sexes,” “no one will ever see you as you are” comments. you know, textbook trans guy insecurity. but the game backtracks on that and says naoto was just insecure about being a female detective and wanted people to take them seriously, and that they should get rid of these feelings and accept their true, female self.

and this is where the problem lies. when you write an obviously trans-coded narrative, but make the character experiencing it an insecure cis person or someone trying to avoid discrimination, you say either 1. trans people are really their assigned gender and are just insecure, but accepting the gender they were given at birth will make them happier and more confident or 2. being a trans man is a way for cis women to escape misogyny. 1 is obviously stupid and has been talked about by plenty of people, but 2 is a BIG problem and a wild assumption to me. being a trans man is seen as an “out” for naoto, or a solution to a problem, as if once they’re a man they’ll face no discrimination whatsoever, when in reality things like getting their gender marker changed in official documents that would allow them to go by “he” and wear the boy’s uniform at school and passing well enough to be seen as a boy in public would be a HUGE ordeal that includes a lot of stress and rejection and danger. realistically, naoto is putting themself in a really precarious position, because if they are exposed as actually afab to the media, to the detective agency, or to the school, they are set for a hell of a lot of ridicule, discrimination, and potential physical danger. but persona 4 doesn’t reflect this at all, because it’s transphobic and thinks that being trans is the easy way out for cis women experiencing misogyny!

• really any argument that boils down to “naoto is a cis woman in canon whose struggle is about sexism, not being trans”

like i already addressed enough of this, i think, but what really gets me is that kanji’s arc is fucked up in a lot of the same ways naoto is and no one is clowning on posts about kanji being gay? his shadow is a very clear (and offensive) gay caricature, and his narrative is very much one about a mlm guy experiencing homophobia from his peers and acting out because of that. and yet the game backtracks to saying “oh no it’s not about liking men, kanji is insecure about his femininity and softer hobbies because of toxic masculinity” and then literally uses naoto to refute his queerness because “look the only guy kanji was ever shown as attracted to was ACTUALLY a woman all along and now that kanji knows she’s a girl he can be openly attracted to her!” in canon, naoto is about as cis as kanji is straight, and yet EVERYONE is on board for portraying kanji as gay in fan works like it’s not even a question, but there has to be a huge debate anytime anyone wants to call naoto trans. legitimately, i think i’ve seen someone argue about kanji being mlm on a post...once? ever? meanwhile every post about naoto being trans has to have a horde of discourse, i’m literally already prepping for the bad notes this post will get because y’all cannot leave this ALONE

in conclusion, i am not saying that everyone has to think naoto is a trans man or forcing anyone to stop liking a character in the way they want or anything like that. i am saying that the naoto’s canon character arc is transphobic and if you’re trying to fight with trans people about how they want to reclaim something that uses a lot of their experiences, don’t.

#this is petty as shit and it’s probably going to get me into sooooo much DiscourseTM but i got frutsrated #really out here writing a fucking dissertation about the opinions people i’ve never met have about a 10+ year old game lmao #gale make a post that isn’t 10 miles long challenge #but i cant HELP it i love naoto so much he is so so trans to me #persona 4 #naoto shirogane #persona #trans naoto #my thoughts

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army-of-mai-lovers · 3 years

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in which I get progressively angrier at the various tropes of atla fandom misogyny

tbh I think it would serve all of us to have a larger conversation about the specific ways misogyny manifests in this fandom, because I’ve seen a lot of people who characterize themselves as feminists, many of whom are women themselves, discuss the female characters of atla/lok in misogynistic ways, and people don’t talk about it enough.

disclaimer before I start: I’m not a woman, I’m an afab nonbinary person who is semi-closeted and thus often read as a woman. I’m speaking to things that I’ve seen that have made me uncomfy, but if any women (esp women existing along other axes of oppression, e.g. trans women, women of color, disabled women, etc) want to add onto this post, please do!

“This female character is a total badass but I’m not even a little bit interested in exploring her as a human being.”

I’ve seen a lot of people say of various female characters in atla/lok, “I love her! She’s such a badass!” now, this statement on its own isn’t misogynistic, but it represents a pretty pervasive form of misogyny that I’ve seen leveled in large part toward the canon female love interests of one or both of the members of a popular gay ship (*cough* zukka *cough*) I’m going to use Suki as an example of this because I see it with her most often, but it can honestly be applied to nearly every female character in atla/lok. Basically, people will say that they stan Suki, but when it comes time to engage with her as an actual character, they refuse to do it. I’ve seen meta after meta about Zuko’s redemption arc, but I so rarely see people engage with Suki on any level beyond “look at this cool fight scene!” and yeah, I love a cool Suki fight scene as much as anybody else, but I’m also interested in meta and headcanons and fics about who she is as a person, when she isn’t an accessory to Sokka’s development or doing something cool. of course, the material for this kind of engagement with Suki is scant considering she doesn’t have a canon backstory (yet) (don’t let me down Faith Erin Hicks counting on you girl) but with the way I’ve seen people in this fandom expand upon canon to flesh out male characters, I know y’all have it in you to do more with Suki, and with all the female characters, than you currently do. frankly, the most engagement I’ve seen with Suki in mainstream fandom is justifying either zukki (which again, is characterizing her in relation to male characters, one of whom she barely interacts with in canon) or one of the Suki wlw pairings. which brings me to--

“I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!”

now, I will admit, two of my favorite atla ships are yueki and mailee, and so I totally understand being interested in these characters’ dynamics, even if, as is the case with yueki, they’ve never interacted canonically. however, it becomes a problem for me when these ships are always in the background of a zukka fic. at some point, it becomes obvious that you like this ship because it gets either Zuko or Sokka’s female love interests out of the way, not because you actually think the characters would mesh well together. It’s bad form to dislike a female character because she gets in the way of your gay ship, so instead, you find another girl to pair her off with and call it a day. to be clear, I’m not saying that everybody who ships either mailee or yueki (or tysuki or maisuki or yumai or whatever other wlw rarepair involving Zuko or Sokka’s canon love interests) is nefariously trying to sideline a female character while acting publicly as if she’s is one of their faves--far from it--but it is noteworthy to me how difficult it is to find content that centers wlw ships, while it’s incredibly easy to find content that centers zukka in which mailee and/or yueki plays a background role.

also, notice how little traction wlw Katara ships gain in this fandom. when’s the last time you saw yuetara on your dash? there’s no reason for wlw Katara ships to gain traction in a fandom that is so focused on Zuko and Sokka getting together, bc she doesn’t present an immediate obstacle to that goal (at least, not an obstacle that can be overcome by pairing her up with a woman). if you are primarily interested in Zuko and Sokka’s relationship, and your queer readings of other female characters are motivated by a desire to get them out of the way for zukka, then Katara’s canon m/f relationship isn’t a threat to you, and thus, there’s no reason to read her as potentially queer. Or even, really, to think about her at all.

“Katara’s here but she’s not actually going to do anything, because deep down, I’m not interested in her as a person.”

the show has an enormous amount of textual evidence to support the claim that Sokka and Katara are integral parts of each other’s lives. so, she typically makes some kind of appearance in zukka content. sometimes, her presence in the story is as an actual character with layers and nuance, someone whom Sokka cares about and who cares about Sokka in return, but also has her own life and goals outside of her brother (or other male characters, for that matter.) sometimes, however, she’s just there because halfway through writing the author remembered that Sokka actually has a sister who’s a huge part of the show they’re writing fanfiction for, and then they proceed to show her having a meetcute with Aang or helping Sokka through an emotional problem, without expressing wants or desires outside of those characters. I’m honestly really surprised that I haven’t seen more people calling out the fact that so much of Katara’s personality in fanon revolves around her connections to men? she’s Aang’s girlfriend, she’s Sokka’s sister, she’s Zuko’s bestie. never mind that in canon she spends an enormous amount of time fighting against (anachronistic, Westernized) sexism to establish herself as a person in her own right, outside of these connections. and that in canon she has such interesting complex relationships with other female characters (e.g. Toph, Kanna, Hama, Korra if you want to write lok content) or that there are a plethora of characters with whom she could have interesting relationships with in fanon (Mai, Suki, Ty Lee, Yue, Smellerbee, and if you want to write lok content, Kya II, Lin, Asami, Senna, etc). to me, the lack of fandom material exploring Katara’s relationships with other women or with herself speak to a profound indifference to Katara as a character. I’m not saying you have to like Katara or include her in everything you write, but I am asking you to consider why you don’t find her interesting outside of her relationships with men.

“I hate Katara because she talks about her mother dying too often.”

this is something I’ve seen addressed by people far more qualified than I to address it, but I want to mention it here in part because when I asked people which fandom tropes they wanted me to talk about, this came up often, but also because I find it really disgusting that this is a thing that needs to be addressed at all. Y’all see a little girl who watched her mother be killed by the forces of an imperialist nation and say that she talks about it too much??? That is a formational, foundational event in a child’s life. Of course she’s going to talk about it. I’ve seen people say that she doesn’t talk about it that often, or that she only talks about it to connect with other victims of fn imperialism e.g. Jet and Haru, but frankly, she could speak about it every episode for no plot-significant reason whatsoever and I would still be angry to see people say she talks about it too much. And before you even bring up the Sokka comparison, people deal with grief in different ways. Sokka repressed a lot of his grief/channeled it into being the “man” of his village because he knew that they would come for Katara next if he gave them the opportunity. he probably would talk about his mother more if a) he didn’t feel massive guilt at not being able to remember what she looked like, and b) he was allowed to be a child processing the loss of his mother instead of having to become a tiny adult when Hakoda had to leave to help fight the fn. And this gets into an intersection with fandom racism, in that white fans (esp white American fans) are incapable of relating to the structural trauma that both Sokka and Katara experience and thus can’t see the ways in which structural trauma colors every single aspect of both of their characters, leading them to flatten nuance and to have some really bad takes. And you know what, speaking of bad fandom takes--

“Shitting on Mai because she gets in the way of my favorite Zuko ship is actually totally okay because she’s ~abusive~”

y’all WHAT.

ok listen, I get not liking maiko. I didn’t like it when I first got into fandom, and later I realized that while bryke cannot write romance to save their lives, fans who like maiko sure can, so I changed my tune. but if you still don’t like it, that’s fine. no skin off my back.

what IS skin off my back is taking instances in which Mai had justified anger toward Zuko, and turning it into “Mai abused Zuko.” do you not realize how ridiculous you sound? this is another thing where I get so angry about it that I don’t know how useful my analysis is actually going to be, but I’ll do my best. numerous people have noted how analysis of Mai and Zuko’s breakup in “The Beach” or Mai being justifiably angry with him at Boiling Rock or her asking for FUCKING FRUIT in “Nightmares and Daydreams” that says that all of these events were her trying to gain control over him is....ahhh...lacking in reading comprehension, but I’d like to go a step further and talk about why y’all are so intent on taking down a girl who doesn’t show emotion in normative ways. obviously, there’s a “Zuko can do no wrong” aspect to Mai criticism (which is super weird considering how his whole arc is about how he can do lots of wrong and he has to atone for the wrong that he’s done--but that’s a separate post.) But I also see slandering Mai for not expressing her emotions normatively and not putting up with Zuko’s shit and slandering Katara for “talking about her mother too often” as two sides of the same coin. In both cases, a female character expresses emotions that make you, the viewer, uncomfortable, and so instead of attempting to understand where those emotions may have come from and why they might be manifesting the way they are, y’all just throw the whole character away. this is another instance of people in the fandom being fundamentally disinterested in engaging with the female characters of atla in a real way, except instead of shallowly “stanning” Mai, y’all hate her. so we get to this point where female characters are flattened into one of two things: perfect queens who can do no wrong, or bitches. and that’s not who they are. that’s not who anyone is. but while we as a fandom are pretty good at understanding b1 Zuko’s actions as layered and multifaceted even though he’s essentially an asshole then, few are willing to lend the same grace to any female character, least of all Mai.

and what’s funny is sometimes this trope will intersect with “I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!”, so you’ll have someone actively calling Mai toxic/problematic/abusive, and at the same time ship her with Ty Lee? make it make sense! but then again, maybe that’s happening because y’all are fundamentally disinterested in Ty Lee as a character too.

“I love Ty Lee so much that I’m going to treat her like an infantilized hypersexual airhead!”

there are so many things happening in y’alls characterization of Ty Lee that I struggled to synthesize it into one quippy section header. on one hand, you have the hypersexualization, and on the other hand, you have the infantilization, which just makes the hypersexualization that much worse.

(of course, sexualizing or hypersexualizing ANY atla character is really not the move, considering that these are child characters in a children’s show, but then again, that’s a separate post.)

now, I understand how, from a very, very surface reading of the text, you could come to the conclusion that Ty Lee is an uncomplicated bimbo. if you grew up on Western media the way I did, you’ll know that Ty Lee has a lot of the character traits we associate with bimbos: the form-fitting pink crop top, the general conventional attractiveness, the ditzy dialogue. but if you think about it for more than three seconds, you’ll understand that Ty Lee has spent her whole life walking a tightrope, trying to please Azula and the rest of the royal family while also staying true to herself. Ty Lee and Azula’s relationship is a really complex and interesting topic that I don’t really have time to explore at the moment given how long this post is, but I’d argue that Ty Lee’s constant, vocal adulation is at least partially a product of learning to survive at court at an early age. Like Mai, she has been forced to regulate her emotions as a member of fn nobility, but unlike Mai, she also has six sisters who look exactly like her, so she has a motivation to be more peppy and more affectionate to stand out.

fandom does not do the work to understand Ty Lee. as is a theme with this post, fandom is actively disinterested in investigating female characters beyond a very surface level reading of them. Thus, fandom takes Ty Lee’s surface level qualities--her love of the color pink, her revealing standard outfit, and the fact that once she found a boy attractive and also once a lot of boys found her attractive--and they stretch this into “Ty Lee is basically Karen Smith from Mean Girls.” thus, Ty Lee is painted as a bimbo, or more specifically, as not smart, uncritically adoring of Azula (did y’all forget all the non-zukka bits of Boiling Rock?), and attractive to the point of hypersexualization. I saw somebody make a post that was like “I wish mailee was more popular but I’m also glad it isn’t because otherwise people would write it as Mai having to put up with her dumb gf” and honestly I have to agree!! this is one instance in which I’m glad that fandom doesn’t discuss one of my favorite characters that often because I hate the fanon interpretation of Ty Lee, I think it’s rooted in misogyny (particularly misogyny against East Asian women, which often takes the form of fetishizing them and viewing them only through a Western white male gaze)

(side note: here at army-of-mai-lovers, we stan bimbos. bimbos are fucking awesome. I personally don’t read Ty Lee as a bimbo, but if that’s you, that’s fucking awesome. keep doing what you’re doing, queen <3 or king or monarch, it’s 2021, anyone can be a bimbo, bitches <3)

“Toph can and will destroy everyone here with her bare hands because she’s a meathead who likes to murder people and that’s it!”

Toph is, and always has been, one of my favorite ATLA characters. My very first fic in fandom was about her, and she appears prominently in a lot of my other work as well. One thing that I am always struck by with Toph is how big a heart she has. She’s independent, yes, snarky, yes, but she cares about people--even the family that forced her to make herself smaller because they didn’t believe that their blind daughter could be powerful and strong. Her storyline is powerful and emotionally resonant, her bending is cool precisely because it’s based in a “wait and listen” approach instead of just smashing things indiscriminately, she’s great disabled rep, and overall one of the best characters in the show.

And in fandom, she gets flattened into “snarky murder child.”

So where does this come from? Well, as we all know, Toph was originally conceived of as a male character, and retained a lot of androgyny (or as the kids call it, Gender) when she was rewritten as a female character. There are a lot of cultural ideas about androgynous/butch women being violent, and people in fandom seem to connect that larger cultural narrative with some of Toph’s more violent moments in the show to create the meathead murder child trope, erasing her canon emotionality, softness, heart, and femininity in the process.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t write or characterize Toph as being violent or snarky at all ever, because yeah, Toph definitely did do Earth Rumbles a lot before joining the gaang, and yeah, Toph is definitely a sarcastic person who makes fun of her friends a lot. What I am saying is that people take these traits, sans the emotional logic, marry them to their conception of androgynous/butch women as violent/unemotional/uncaring, and thus create a caricature of Toph that is not at all up to snuff. When I see Toph as a side character in a fic (because yeah, Toph never gets to be a main character, because why would a fandom obsessed with one male character in particular ever make Toph a protagonist in her own right?) she’s making fun of people, killing people, pranking people, etc, etc. She’s never talking to people about her emotions, or palling around with her found family, or showing that she cares about her friends. Everything about her relationship with her parents, her disability, her relationship to Gender, and her love of her friends is shoved aside to focus on a version of Toph that is mean and uncaring because people have gotten it into their heads that androgynous/butch women are mean and uncaring.

again, we see a female character who does not emote normatively or in a way that makes you, the viewer, comfortable, and so you warp her character until she’s completely unrecognizable and flat. and for what?

Azula

no, I didn’t come up with a snappy name for this section, mainly because fanon interpretations of Azula and my own feelings toward the character are...complicated. I know there were some people who wanted me to write about Azula and the intersection of misogyny and ableism in fanon interpretations of her character, but I don’t think I can deliver on that because I personally am in a period of transition with how I see Azula. that is to say, while I still like her and believe that she can be redeemed, there is a lot of merit to disliking her. the whole point of this post is that the female characters of ATLA are complex people whom the fandom flattens into stereotypes that don’t hold up to scrutiny, or dislike for reasons that don’t make sense. Azula, however, is a different case. the rise of Azula defenders and Azula stans has led to this sentiment that Azula is a 14 y/o abuse victim who shouldn’t be held accountable for her actions. it seems to me that people are reacting to a long, horrible legacy of male ATLA fans armchair diagnosing Azula with various personality disorders (and suggesting that people with those personality disorders are inherently monstrous and unlovable which ahhhh....yikes) and then saying that those personality disorders make her unlovable, which is quite obviously bad. and hey, I get loving a character that everyone else hates and maybe getting so swept up in that love that you forget that your fave is complicated and has made some unsavory choices. it sucks that fanon takes these well-written, complex villains/antiheroes and turns them into monsters with no critical thought whatsoever. but the attitude among Azula stans that her redemption shouldn’t be hard, that her being a child excuses all of the bad things that she’s done, that she is owed redemption....all of that rubs me the wrong way. I might make another post about this in the future that discusses this in more depth, but as it stands now: while I understand that there is a legacy of misogynistic, ableist, unnuanced takes on Azula, the backlash to that does not take into account the people she hurt or the fact that in ATLA she does not make the choice to pursue redemption. and yes, Zuko had help in making that choice that Azula didn’t, and yes, Azula is a victim of abuse, but in a show about children who have gone through untold horrors and still work to better the lives of the people around them, that is not enough for me to uncritically stan her.

Conclusion

misogyny in this fandom runs rampant. while there are some tropes of fandom misogyny that are well-documented and have been debunked numerous times, there are other, subtler forms of misogyny that as far as I know have gone completely unchecked.

what I find so interesting about misogyny in atla fandom is that it’s clear that it’s perpetrated by people who are aware of fandom misogyny who are actively trying not to be misogynistic. when I first joined atla fandom last summer, memes about how zukka fandom was better than every other fandom because they didn’t hate the female characters who got in the way of their gay ship were extremely prevalent, and there was this sense that *this* fandom was going to model respectful, fun, feminist online fandom. not all of the topes I’ve outlined are exclusive to or even largely utilized in zukka fandom, but a lot of them are. I’ve been in and out of fandom since I was eleven years old, and most of the fandom spaces I’ve been in have been majority-female, and all of them have been incredibly misogynistic. and I always want to know why. why, in these communities created in large part by women, in large part for women, does misogyny run wild? what I realize now is that there’s never going to be a one-size fits all answer to that question. what’s true for 1D fandom on Wattpad in 2012 is absolutely not true for atla fandom on tumblr in 2021. the answers that I’ve cobbled together for previous fandoms don’t work here.

so, why is atla fandom like this? why did the dream of a feminist fandom almost entirely focused on the romantic relationship between two male characters fall apart? honestly, I think the notion that zukka fandom ever was this way was horrifically ignorant to begin with. from my very first moment in the fandom, I was seeing racism, widespread sexualization of minors, and yes, misogyny. these aspects of the fandom weren’t talked about as much as the crocverse or other, much more fun aspects. further, atla (specifically zukka) fandom misogyny often doesn’t look like the fandom misogyny we’ve become familiar with from like, Sherlock fandom or what have you. for the most part, people don’t actively hate Suki, they just “stan” without actually caring about her. they hate Mai because they believe in treating male victims of abuse equally. they’re not characterizing Toph poorly, they’re writing her as a “strong woman.” in short, people are misogynistic, and then invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of feminist theory to shield themselves from accusations of misogyny. it’s not unlike the way some people will invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of critical race theory to shield themselves from accusations of racism, or how they’ll talk about “freedom of speech” and “the suppression of women’s sexuality” to justify sexualizing minors. the performance of feminism and antiracism is what’s important, not the actual practice.

if you’ve made it this far, first off, hi, thanks so much for reading, I know this was a lot. second, I would seriously encourage you to be aware of these fandom tropes and to call them out when you see them. elevate the voices of fans who do the work of bringing the female characters of atla to life. invest in the wlw ships in this fandom. drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic (please, drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic). read some yuetara. let’s all be honest about where we are now, and try to do better in the future. I believe in us.

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