#it feels like such a misunderstood part of lesbian culture these days and it makes me sad

[vulpixelates]

me: omg it's okay, no one needs to read a dozen books to understand basic tenants of queerness, just talk to people and listen when it's someone whose experience is different than yours and you'll be mostly fine!

also me: if i see one more person misuse "high femme" i'm going to explode and take them out along w me

[hellomynameisbisexual]

Andrew Ford was questioned and fetishized when he came out as bisexual. The gay community insisted he wasn’t being honest with himself; women at clubs started to excitedly fantasize about hooking up with two guys at the same time.

All the while, the soccer standout stayed true to himself. Ford came out his freshman year at Malone University, a small Christian liberal arts college in Canton, Ohio — home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. His friends and teammates were accepting, which was an incredible relief. But his journey into the LGBTQ community was a little more rocky.

“I got a lot of pressure from the gay community,” Ford told me recently on the phone. “I felt like I was misunderstood, and didn’t know who I was.”

Ford is one of an increasing number of openly bisexual college-aged athletes whom we’ve profiled recently on Outsports. Despite some surveys showing more Americans identify as bisexual than either gay or lesbian, there is a dearth of bi visibility in pop culture and sports.

As bi sportswriter Jeff Rueter challenged me: “name a bisexual man, and don’t say Frank Ocean.”

These kick-ass kids are going to change that.

Biphobia is real

Let’s start here: Biphobia is real. It manifests itself in gestures as seemingly fleeting as dismissive jokes, and actions as harrowing as outright physical violence. Bisexual people typically suffer significantly higher rates of depression and anxiety, domestic violence, sexual assault, and poverty than lesbians, gay men, or straight cisgender people, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

A black-and-white society, most of us grow up with the notion people are either straight or gay. Those attitudes have historically prevailed in the LGBTQ community, too.

Alex Keuroghlian, the Director of the National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center at the Fenway Institute, says bisexual people can be looked at skeptically.

“Within LGBTQIA+ communities, there has historically been a stigma toward bisexual people, and the false notion that they’re really gay and lesbian people who haven’t accepted that about themselves,” he said.

Megan Duthart, a rower at Washington State University who identifies as both bi and queer, has experienced the stigma first-hand. She says she thinks bisexual people are often excluded in the LGBTQ community.

“I’ve struggled a little bit with being identified as an ‘other’ in the community with the term ‘bisexuality,’” she said.

Why are bi people targeted for erasure?

More people are identifying as bisexual. Over three percent of U.S. adults say they’re bi, according to the 2018 General Social Survey. That’s three times the number as 2008.

And yet, bi people are still targeted for erasure. One of the ways it happens is through language. When people see same-sex couples, for example, they may be inclined to label them as “gay” or “lesbian,” without considering that one or both of the people could identity as bi.

While Americans’ attitudes about sexuality are evolving, many still adhere to more binary definitions of sexual orientation. A recent YouGov poll found 41 percent of American adults don’t think sexuality is a spectrum (conversely, 37 percent think it is).

As Ford puts it, bisexuality is stereotypically viewed as “the stepping stone stage.” That ties into one of the more insidious aspects of bi-erasure: the belief that it’s just a phase. It’s a line Ford recalls hearing many times, from both men and women.

“(Gay men) said, ‘I came out as bisexual first. It’s just a phase, you won’t be there long,’” Ford said. “I was also scared how women would think about it. They wanted to change me. Some of them wanted to use it as a thrill they were seeking.”

When professional hockey player Zach Sullivan came out as bi, his father told him it meant he was still making up his mind.

“I remember what my dad said when I told him,” Sullivan said. “‘Well, you aren’t all the way there. You haven’t really decided.’ I was like, ‘no, I know I’m attracted to both genders. I’m not halfway towards coming out as gay.’”

The bi burden

Every LGBTQ person can relate to the fear and anxiety of coming out. But for most of us, once we do it, it’s over.

That’s not the case for bi people.

“We have to keep coming out to our significant others, whether it’s a man or a woman,” Ford said. “If you’re gay and you start dating a gay, you’re not going to be like, ‘I have to tell you something: I’m gay.’ They’re going to be like, ‘no shit.’”

And once bi people do come out, they could get charged with being greedy — the sexual equivalent of having their cake and eating it, too. The insult angers Sullivan.

“The majority of people in the LGBT+ community have struggled with their sexuality, and when they finally become comfortable enough to come out in the open with their sexuality, I don’t think the first thing to say to someone who’s come out as bisexual is they’re greedy,” Sullivan said. “I took over 10 years to get to where I am.”

Duthart finds the concept of bisexuality can be difficult to explain. She largely identifies as queer.

“I’ve had coaches question whether I’m rebelling or going through a phase,” she said. “Then when I explain the whole queer aspect, they’re like, ‘Oh, OK. That seems more justified.’ I don’t want to have to justify those things, but I sort of have to.”

Changing attitudes

Jack Storrs came out as bisexual last year as a college football captain. His teammates at Pomona-Pitzer rallied around him, and wore Pride decals on their helmets.

But even some who were supportive suggested he was on his way to identifying as gay. Storrs said he couldn’t hide his feelings for men anymore, and came out because he wanted to explore.

Maybe he was gay, maybe he wasn’t. The questions didn't bother him. He was a relieved to have the dialogue.

“It was killing me on the inside,” Storrs said. “It got to the point where I was like, ‘screw it.’ This is who I am, and this was meant to be.”

Nowadays, Storrs says he’s more towards the “gay end of the spectrum,” and expects the fluidity to continue.

He’s cool with that, and numbers show his peers are, too. Generation Z is among the most progressive and diverse in U.S. history. A 2018 study from Ipsos Mori shows only 66 percent of young people today identify exclusively as heterosexual.

Young people have a better understanding of how sexuality can evolve, says Keuroghlian.

“There’s been less of a reflex to box people in, and categorize people in ways that could be static,” he said. “A key part of all of this is not projecting behavior or projecting attraction. People tell us — they self-identify that’s who they are. And we have to honor that.”

Visibility challenges misperceptions

But to get back to Rueter’s question: can you name a famous out bisexual person besides Frank Ocean?

It’s challenging, and the lack of bi visibility may be one of the biggest contributors towards bi-erasure. But that is changing. Each person who comes out as bisexual has the ability to change perceptions within their own communities — and many young athletes are.

Bri Tollie, a bisexual college basketball player at Southern Methodist University, wrote in her coming-out story she refuses to conform.

“It is important to be visible because everyone is unique,” she wrote. “Our uniqueness means no one should not have to give up a part of themselves to conform. It is called self-respect.”

Growing up, Storrs tried to shut off his attraction to guys. He told himself it wasn’t a big deal, but the angst became all-encompassing.

Storrs is done hiding any part of himself. He did that for far too long, and is now out for all to see.

“I am bisexual, and my point is, I don’t really give a shit what anybody else thinks,” Storrs said. “This is who I am, and I don’t have to figure it out, but the reason I’m coming out is to figure it out, or at least get to a point where I’m comfortable.”

With their stories, these young bi athletes are making it more comfortable for bi people every single day.

[transitioningforthebit]

Trans Woman Manifesto

by Julia Serano

This manifesto calls for the end of the scapegoating, deriding, and dehumanizing of trans women everywhere. For the purposes of this manifesto, trans woman is defined as any person who was assigned a male sex at birth, but who identifies as and/or lives as a woman. No qualifications should be placed on the term “trans woman” based on a person’s ability to “pass” as female, her hormone levels, or the state of her genitals - after all, it is downright sexist to reduce any woman (trans or otherwise) down to her mere body parts or to require her to live up to certain societally dictated ideals regarding her appearance.

Perhaps no sexual minority is more maligned or misunderstood than trans women. As a group, we have been systematically pathologized by the medical and psychological establishment, sensationalized and ridiculed by the media, marginalized by mainstream lesbian and gay organizations, and, in too many instances, been made the victims of violence at the hands of men who feel that we somehow threaten their masculinity and heterosexuality. Rather than being given the opportunity to speak for ourselves on the very issues that affect our own lives, trans women are instead treated more like research subjects: Others place is under their microscopes, dissect our lives, and assign motivations and desires to us that validate their own theories and agendas regarding gender and sexuality.

Trans women are so ridiculed and despised because we are uniquely positioned at the intersection of multiple binary gender-based forms of prejudice: transphobia, cissexism, and misogyny.

Transphobia is an irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against people whose gendered identities, appearances, or behaviors deviate from societal norms. In much the same way that homophobic people are often driven by their own repressed homosexual tendencies, transphobia is first and foremost an expression of one’s own insecurity about having to live up to cultural gender ideals. The fact that transphobia is so rampant in our society reflects the reality that we place an extraordinary amount of pressure on individuals to conform to all of the expectations, restrictions, assumptions, and privileges associated with the sex they were assigned at birth.

While all transgender people experience transphobia, transsexuals additionally experience a related (albeit distinct) form of prejudice: cissexism, which is the belief that transsexuals’ identified genders are inferior to, or less authentic than, those of cissexuals (i.e., people who are not transsexual and who have only ever experienced their subconscious and physical sexes as being aligned). The most common expression of cissexism occurs when people attempt to deny the transsexual the basic privileges that are associated with the trans person’s self-identified gender. Common examples include purposeful misuse of pronouns or insisting that the trans person use a different public restroom. The justification for this denial is generally founded on the assumption that the trans person’s gender is not authentic because it does not correlate with the sex they were assigned at birth. By insisting that the trans person’s gender us “fake,” they attempt to validate their own gender as “real” or “natural.” This sort of thinking is extraordinarily naive, as it denies a basic truth: We make assumptions every day about other people’s genders without ever seeing their birth certificates, their chromosomes, their genitals, their reproductive systems, their childhood socialization, or their legal sex. There is no such thing as a “real” gender - there is only the gender we experience ourselves as and the gender we perceive others to be.

while often different in practice, cissexism, transphobia, and homophobia are all rooted in oppositional sexism, which is the belief that female and male are rigid, mutually exclusive categories, each possessing a unique and non overlapping set of attributes, aptitudes, abilities, and desires. Oppositional sexists attempt to punish or dismiss those of us who fall outside of gender or sexual norms because our existence threatens the idea that women and men are “opposite” sexes. This explains why bisexuals, lesbians, gays, transsexuals, and other transgender people - who may experience their genders and sexualities in very different ways - are so often confused or lumped into the same category (i.e., queer) by society at large. Our natural inclinations to be attracted to the same sex, to identify as the other sex, and/or to express ourselves in ways typically associated with the other sex blur the boundaries required to maintain the male-centered gender hierarchy that exists in our culture today.

In addition to the rigid, mutually exclusive gender categories established by oppositional sexism, the other requirement for maintaining a male-centered gender hierarchy is to enforce traditional sexism - the belief that maleness and masculinity are superior femaleness and femininity. Traditional and oppositional sexism work hand in hand to ensure that those who are masculine have power over those who are feminine, and that only those born male will be seen as authentically masculine. For the purposes of this manifesto, misogyny will be used to describe this tendency to dismiss and deride femaleness and femininity.

Just as all transgender people experience transphobia and cissexism to differing extents (depending on how often, obvious, or out we are as transgender), we experience misogyny to differing extents too. This is most evident in the fact that, while there are many different types of transgender people, our society tends to single out trans women and others on the male-to-female (MTF) spectrum for attention and ridicule. This is not merely because we transgress binary gender norms per se, but because we, by necessity, embrace our own femaleness and femininity. Indeed, more often than not is our our expressions of feminist and our desire to be female that become sensationalized, sexualizes, and trivialized by others. While trans people on the female-to-male (FTM) spectrum face discrimination for breaking gender norms (i.e., oppositional sexism), their expressions of maleness or masculinity themselves are not targeted for ridicule - to do so would require one to question masculinity itself.

When a trans person is ridiculed or dismissed not merely for failing to live up to gender norms, but for their expressions of femaleness or femininity, they become the victims of a specific form of discrimination: trans-misogyny. When the majority of jokes made at the expense of trans people center on “men wearing dresses” or “men who want their penises cut off”, that is not transphobia - it is trans-misogyny. When the majority of violence and sexual assaults committed against trans people is directed at trans women, that is not transphobia - it is trans-misogyny. When it’s okay for women to wear “men’s” clothing, but when men who wear “women’s” clothing can be diagnosed with the psychological disorder transvestic fetishism, that is not transphobia - that is trans-misogyny. When women’s or lesbian organizations and events open their doors to trans men but not trans women, that is not transphobia - it is trans-misogyny.

In a male-centered gender hierarchy, where it is assumed men are better than women and that masculinity is superior to femininity, there is no greater perceived threat than the existence of trans women, who despite being born male and inheriting male privilege “choose” to be female instead. By embracing our own femaleness and feminist, we, in a sense, cast a shadow of doubt over the supposed supremacy of maleness and masculinity. In order to lessen the threat we pose to the male-centered gender hierarchy, our culture (primarily via the media) uses every tactics in its arsenal of traditional sexism to dismiss us:

The media hyperfeminizes us by accompanying stories about trans women with pictures of us putting on makeup, dresses, and high-heeled shoes in an attempt to highlight the supposed “frivolous” nature of our femaleness, or by portraying trans women as having derogatory feminine-associated character traits such as being weak, confused, passive, or mousy.

The media hypersexualizes us by creating the impression that most trans women are sex workers or sexual deceivers, and by asserting that we transition primarily for sexual reasons (e.g., to prey on innocent straight men or to fulfill some kind of bizarre sex fantasy). Such depictions not only belittle trans women’s motives for transitioning, but implicitly suggest that women as a whole have no worth beyond their ability to be sexualized.

The Media objectifies our bodies by sensationalizing sex reassignment surgery and openly discussing our “manmade vaginas” without any of the discretion that normally accompanied discussions about genitals. Further, those if us who have not had surgery are constantly being reduced to our body parts, whether by the creators of tranny porn who overemphasize our penises (this distorting trans women into “she-males” and “chicks with socks”) or by other people who have been so brainwashed by phallocentricism that they believe that he mere presence of a penis can trump the females ness of our identities, our personalities, and the rest of our bodies.

Because anti-trans discrimination is steeped in traditional sexism, it is not simply enough for trans activists to challenge binary gender norms (i.e., oppositional sexism) - we must also challenge the idea that femininity is inferior to masculinity and that femaleness is inferior to maleness. In other words, by necessity, trans activism must be at its core a feminist movement.

Some might consider this contention controversial. Over the years, many self-described feminists have gone out of their way to dismiss trans people and in particular trans women, often resorting to many of the same tactics (hyperfeminization, hypersexualization, and objectification of our bodies) that the mainstream media regularly uses against us. These pseudofeminists proclaim, “Women can do anything men can,” then ridicule trans women for any perceived masculine tendency we may have. They argue that women should be strong and unafraid of speaking our minds, then tell trans women that we act like men when we voice our opinions. They claim that it is misogynistic when men create standards and expectations for women to meet, then they dismiss us for not meeting their standard of “woman.” These pseudofeminists consistently preach feminism with one hand while practicing traditional sexism with the other.

It is time for us to take back the word “feminism” from these pseudofeminists. After all, as a concept, feminism is much like the ideas if “democracy” or “Christianity.” Each has a major tenant at its core, yet there are a seemingly infinite number of ways in which those beliefs are practiced. And just as some forms of democracy and Christianity are corrupt and hypocritical while others are more just and righteous, we trans women must join allie’s of all genders and sexualities to forge a new type of feminism, one that understands that the only way for us to achieve true gender equity is to abolish both oppositional sexism and traditional sexism.

It is no longer enough for feminism to fight solely for the rights of those born female. That the strategy has dithered the prospects of many women over the years, but now it bumps against a glass ceiling that is partly of its own making. Though the movement worked hard to encourage women to enter previously male-dominated areas of life, many feminists have been ambivalent at best, and resistant at worst, to the idea of men expressing or exhibiting feminine traits and moving into certain traditionally female realms. And while we credit previous feminist movements for helping to create a society where most sensible people would agree with the statement “women and men are equals,” we lament the fact that we remain light-years away from being able to say that most people believe that femininity is masculinity’s equal.

Instead of attempting to empower those born female by encouraging them to move further away from femininity, we should instead learn to empower femininity itself. We must stop dismissing it as “artificial” or as a “performance,” and instead recognize that certain aspects of femininity (and masculinity as well) transcend both socialization and biological sexuality - otherwise there would not be feminine boy and masculine girl children. We must challenge all who assume that feminine vulnerability is a sign of weakness. For when we do open ourselves up, whether it be by honestly communicating our thoughts and feelings or expressing our emotions, it is a daring act, one that takes more courage and inner strength than the alpha male facade of silence and stoicism.

We must challenge all those who insist that women who act or dress in a feminine manner take on a submissive or passive posture. For many of us, dressing or acting feminine is something we do for ourselves, not for others. It is our way of reclaiming our own bodies and fearlessly expressing our own personalities and sexualities. It is not us who are guilty of trying to reduce our bodies to mere playthings, but rather those who foolishly assume that our feminine style is a signal that we sexually subjugate ourselves to men.

In a world where masculinity is assumed to represent strength and power, those who are butch and boyish are able to contemplate their identities within the relative safety of those connotations. In contrast, those of us who are feminine are forced to define ourselves on our own terms and develop our own sense of self-worth. It takes guts, determination, and fearlessness for those of us who are feminine to lift ourselves up out of the inferior meanings that are constantly projected onto us. If you require any evidence that femininity can be more fierce and dangerous than masculinity, all you need to do is ask the average man to hold your handbag or a bouquet of flowers for a minute. and watch how far away he holds it from his body. Or tell him that you would like to put your lipstick on him and watch how fast he runs off in the other direction. In a world where masculinity is respected and femininity is regularly dismissed, it takes an enormous amount of strength and confidence for any person, whether female- or male-bodied, to embrace their feminine self.

But it is not enough for us to empower femaleness and femininity. We must also stop pretending that there are essential differences between women and men. This begins with the acknowledgment that there are exceptions to every gender rule and stereotype, and this simply stated fact disproves all gender theories that purport that female and male are mutually exclusive categories. We must move away from pretending that women and men are “opposite” sexes, because when we buy into that myth it establishes a dangerous precedent. For if men are big, then women must be small; and if men are strong then women must be weak. And if being bitch is to make yourself rock-solid, then being femme becomes allowing yourself to be malleable; and if being a man mean taking control of your own situation, then being a woman becomes living up to other people’s expectations. When we buy into the idea that female and male are “opposites,” it becomes impossible for us to empower women without either ridiculing men or pulling the rug out from under ourselves.

It is only when we move away from the idea that there are “opposite” sexes, and let go of culturally derived values that are assigned to expressions of femininity and masculinity, that we may finally approach gender equity. By challenging both oppositional and traditional sexism simultaneously, we can make the world safe for those of us who are queer, those of us who are feminine, and those of us who are female, thus empowering people of all sexualities and genders.

[literallymechanical]

Book Recommendations? Book Recommendations!

This is the list of books I've read during the pandemic, and let me tell you, I am doing all sorts of decision paralysis on what I should read next. If any of y'all vibe with these, do you have anything you'd recommend? Other than the obvious sequels. Ideally nothing too YA-ish, right now.

In reverse chronological order: Skyward, Ancillary Justice, A Desolation Called Peace, A Memory Called Empire, Spinning Silver, Empress of Forever, Red Mars, The Priory Of The Orange Tree, This Is How You Lose The Time War, Harrow the Ninth, Gideon the Ninth, Rhythm of War, Dawnshard, The Ruin of Angels, and Four Roads Cross. I've put a little review of each of them under the cut!

Skyward, by Brandon Sanderson, 2018. Your usual story about an outcast, misunderstood teenage girl finding an injured dragon and nursing it back to health, except instead of a dragon it's a starfighter spaceship. Really solid YA scifi with Sanderson's trademark meticulous worldbuilding. An enjoyable read, though much lighter than his usual epic fantasy.

Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie, 2013. Honestly, I didn't enjoy this one. It was pitched as a queer science fiction space opera, but the "queer" bit was gimmicky and falls apart if you think about it, I didn't find the characters interesting, and the plot didn't even try to hide that it was just a list of checkboxes. Felt like a YA novel that refused to admit it. This is the only book on this list that I personally wouldn't recommend. But all my friends seemed to enjoy it, so I might be the odd one out here.

A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace, by Arkadiy Martine, 2019 and 2021. The first two books in what will presumably be a trilogy, and the best stories I've read in a long time. Twisty political thrillers wrapped up in gorgeous science fiction, and by FAR my favorite books on this list. Vibrant characters with nuanced relationships, scifi worldbuilding that is frankly breathtaking, a captivating story, and an all-around delight to read. Language, identity, colonialism/imperialism, and cultural assimilation are tackled through the lens of scifi. In my opinion, this is what science fiction should be. Also there are lesbians. Above every other book here I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THESE ONES. Martine seriously earned her Hugo Award.

Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik, 2018. Folklore-fantasy about three young women — the daughter of a jewish moneylender, a poor peasant girl from an abusive home, and the daughter of a nobleman who wants to marry her to the Tsar — caught up in a conflict between the Faerie realms, the human world, and something much more sinister than either. Highly recommend, especially if you're jewish.

Empress of Forever, by Max Gladstone, 2019. A fantastical science fiction breakneck-pace adventure romp that puts its foot on the gas in Chapter 2 and doesn't let up. It's also quite explicitly a genderbent retelling of the classic Chinese epic Journey to the West, with more lesbians this time. This book has all kinds of energy, extremely fun characters with more depth than you'd expect, and some bonkers high-concept SF. Highly recommend if you like swashbuckling found-family adventure stories, and wlw romance.

Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson, 1992. Every book, movie, and TV show about colonizing Mars since Red Mars was written owes pretty much everything to this book. It can be a bit dense if you're not up for lengthy (but gorgeous!) descriptions of Martian landscapes, and there are one or two bits where you just have to keep in mind that it was the 90's and this was quite progressive for its day. That being said, I am a sucker for a two-page description of a martian sunset. If crunchy hard-science fiction thrillers (emphasis on the "science") are your thing, I recommend this one. I'll read the sequels (Blue Mars and Green Mars) at some point.

The Priory of the Orange Tree, by Samantha Shannon, 2019. The prose and plot read like classic high fantasy, but with a modern eye towards character-driven storytelling. It's not often that you get something that feels so classic and so modern at the same time. Scratches that Lord of the Rings itch, with Queens and dragons and glorious heroes, but queer romance and a heavy focus on character development makes this a modern fantasy classic. Highly recommend if you like doorstopper-length high fantasy, and lesbians.

This Is How You Lose The Time War, by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar, 2019. A novella, you can read it in a couple of days — or a single marathon sitting, if you get into it. Gladstone (same author as Empress of Forever) and El-Mohtar take turns writing letters back and forth from time-traveling spies of rival timelines: Red works for the post-singularity mechanical Agency, and Blue fights for the Garden, a post-solarpunk biofuture. Their letters start out as taunts, and gradually change in tone as each develops a grudging respect for her rival. That rivalry blossoms — or compiles — into something deeper. It's emotional and raw, and it cartwheels merrily down the tightrope of fantasy, science fiction, and poetry. Highly recommend, though the flowery prose and gleeful disregard for explaining itself to the audience might be off-putting for some.

Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, 2019 and 2020. I'll let the pull quote from on the cover of Gideon from Charles Stross' review describe these: "Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space! Decadent nobles vie to serve the deathless emperor! Skeletons!" This one is horrifying, and it's funny, but I wouldn't call it comedy-horror. It kind of defies genre, outside the very broadest scope of "science fantasy." Read it if you like lots of gore, graphic violence, madcap humor, and extremely unhealthy, codependent, dysfunctional relationships that are always on the verge of self-destructing into multiple-homicide. Highly recommend.

Rhythm of War and Dawnshard, by Brandon Sanderson, 2020. Rhythm of War is book 4 of the Stormlight Archives, one of several epic fantasy series by Brandon Sanderson. Dawnshard is a novella set between books 3 and 4. This is the same author as Skyward, but intended for a more mature audience. Stormlight is definitely my favorite epic fantasy series, and I've read a lot of epic fantasy. These books have some extremely interesting takes on racism, mental illness, trauma, disability, identity, family, and regret, far more so than pretty much any other high fantasy I've read. The first book is The Way of Kings, and if you like bigass doorstopper multi-book fantasy series, The Stormlight Archives should be at the top of your list.

Four Roads Cross and The Ruin of Angels, by Max Gladstone, 2016 and 2017. While Empress of Forever and Time War were standalone novels, these are books 5 and 6 in Gladstone's Craft Sequence, and they are absolutely brilliant. This is a world where about sixty years ago, humankind went to war with the Gods, and the Gods lost. "Magic" in this world is more or less synonymous with "legal contracts," where you can literally sell your soul to your student loan company and resurrecting a dead god is basically bankruptcy restructuring. "Necromancer" is roughly synonymous with "lawyer." The first five books can be read more-or-less out of order, but I recommend you start with Three Parts Dead. Gladstone is probably my favorite author these days. Everything he writes feel like it could be a poem. Also, once again, lesbians.

I am really not sure why about 2/3 of these books are about lesbians. Like seriously, I went into almost all of these books completely cold. The only ones where I knew ahead of time to expect lesbians were the Locked Tomb books, and The Priory of the Orange Tree. I don't know if this is just because a lot of modern scifi and fantasy has lesbians, or if all my friends who recommend me books are queer, or if it's just a coincidence, but hey, I'm not complaining.

[letterboxd]

Bridging the Gap.

Filmmaker So Yun Um highlights ten underrated Asian American and Pacific Islander films set against the backdrop of America.

Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month has many film lovers seeking to celebrate Asian American cinema. Beyond Minari, Always Be My Maybe and Crazy Rich Asians, there are dozens of films that depict the Asian American experience. In choosing to focus on ten of the lesser-seen, I contemplated the notion of what defines AAPI cinema.

For me, it goes deeper than films that have been directed by, or star, Asian American and Pacific artists. Having watched a wide selection of Asian American films, I can firmly say our cinema, no matter the genre, puts Asian Americans at the forefront on both sides of the camera. I believe the essence of Asian American cinema was born out of resourcefulness, mining themes and ideas that distinctly bridge the gap between Asian and American culture. These films tell stories that explore the vast differences between the two, and the ways in which they coexist, whether comfortably or uncomfortably.

In selecting these ten underrated AAPI films, I searched deep to find stories with uncompromising vision and character; stories about Asians that could only be told within, and against the backdrop of, America. These ten films highlight intimate, distinct and unfiltered experiences mostly unseen at our local multiplexes: family and cultural obligations, generational and cultural gaps, and raw, mostly obscured views of American life.

Chan is Missing (1982) Directed by Wayne Wang, written by Isaac Cronin and Wayne Wang

There would be no Asian American independent cinema without Wayne Wang’s Chan is Missing. Shot on black-and-white film, this striking noir follows Jo, a San Franciscan cab driver, and his nephew, Steve, as they track down the titular Chan after he disappears with their money. Wang’s unpredictable directing career spans neighborhood intrigues, rom-coms and family movies; alongside which, he has kept a strong focus on Asian American stories (he helmed the adaptation of Amy Tan’s generational bestseller, The Joy Luck Club).

In Chan is Missing, for the first time on screen, we get to finally see an “ABC” (American-Born Chinese) story from the source, with an all-access pass to the often misunderstood terrain and people of Chinatown. It’s the tightness of the plot and the authenticity of its characters that make this movie such a classic. Even after 40 years, Chan Is Missing doesn’t feel dated—its laugh-out-loud dialogue (they actually utter the word “FOB”!) and moody tone capture why Chinatown continues to be an enigma. Spoilers: Chinatown runs by its own rules.

Available on DVD via Indiepix Films.

Better Luck Tomorrow (2002) Directed by Justin Lin, written by Ernesto Foronda, Justin Lin and Fabian Marquez

Justin Lin’s directorial debut film is a visionary portrait of Asian Americans that’s still relevant two decades on. Since its release in the early aughts, there has yet to be a film that explores the nuances and complexities of the average Southern-California Asian American teen like this film does. Better Luck Tomorrow focuses on a group of Asian American overachievers who become bored with their lives and enter a world of petty crime. It’s loosely based on four Sunny Hills High School students and the real-life murder of Stuart Tay, a teenager from the OC.

With its depiction of overachieving A+ students who are also foul-mouthed, drug-taking kids, this film was the launching pad for many iconic Asian American actors today—Sung Kang from the Fast and Furious franchise, John Cho (Star Trek) and my personal favorite, Jason Tobin, star of the Warrior TV series. (It’s entertaining to see the seeds of the Fast and Furious series planted in this film in the character of Han, played by Sung Kang, before the explosion of the franchise: one of the characters mutters, “Rumors about us came and went fast and furious”—and the rest is history.)

Better Luck Tomorrow still stands as the most iconic film to capture the suburban Asian American teen existence in all its good, bad and ugly light. “I was part of a movement,” Tobin recalled in this GQ oral history of the film, “and it was a culmination of all the battles I had fought before that to get Asian faces on the big screen.”

Available to stream and rent on multiple platforms.

The Grace Lee Project (2005) Directed by Grace Lee

If you’re an Asian American who grew up in California or New York, chances are, you know at least two Grace Lees in your life. But growing up in Missouri, Korean American filmmaker Grace Lee was the only one she knew with her name. She soon discovers that with the name comes a certain stereotype, that of the “good” Asian—quiet, well-behaved and a hard worker. Lee goes on a quest to interview a wide range of women who have the same name and soon discover if this wildly common stereotype is true.

Lee’s witty, autobiographical documentary is effortlessly funny and insightful. The Grace Lee Project dives deep into identity politics to reveal that sometimes, a name is simply a name. This was the start of Grace Lee’s journey as a filmmaker and she continues to be an important voice in not just the documentary space but in narrative stories as well.

Streaming on Kanopy.

Saving Face (2004) Written and directed by Alice Wu

Alice Wu’s Saving Face is a timeless queer love story. Produced by none other than Will Smith (yes, that Will Smith), Saving Face follows a Chinese American lesbian woman and her traditional mother (played by Michelle Krusiec and Joan Chen, respectively) as both battle with their reluctance to go against cultural expectations and reveal their secret loves. It’s part family drama, part rom-com, exploring expectations specific to Asian women across generations.

While most Asian American films focus on familial obligations through the point of view of the children of immigrants, Wu’s film considers the conflicts of both daughter and mother. For Asian Americans, it’s a tale as old as time but with a twist that shows that no matter how old you get, you still have to, unfortunately, fight to be who you are. I also highly recommend Wu’s spiritual sequel, The Half of It, on Netflix.

Streaming on Amazon Prime and Tubi, and for rent on various VOD platforms.

In Between Days (‘방황의 날들’, 2007) Directed by So Yong Kim, written by Bradley Rust Gray and So Yong Kim

So Yong Kim’s debut feature, In Between Days, follows Jiseon Kim, a Korean teen immigrant, who falls in love with her best friend while navigating the challenges of living in a new country. Director Kim is a masterful storyteller and captures life as it should be seen: unfiltered and trivial at times, but using the mundane to find cinematic magic.

I like to categorize So Yong Kim’s work as a showcase of extreme intimacy. Her story features painfully delicate characters and moments so real, you’ll wonder how any of these scenes could be fiction. There’s a sense of vulnerability and loneliness that fills the air as Jiseon struggles to assimilate to a new country, replete with toxic relationships, self-sabotage and unrelenting jealousy. So Yong Kim’s work is so painfully real, it hurts to watch.

Available on Kanopy and Amazon.

Ping Pong Playa (2007) Directed by Jessica Yu, written by Jimmy Tsai and Jessica Yu

There are two things that embody countless Asian American men’s experience: their love for basketball, and their love of rap music. Ping Pong Playa covers both, and is exactly the kind of Asian American comedy I’ve been waiting for! Christopher “C-Dub” Wang (played by co-writer Jimmy Tsai) is a wannabe baller and a supreme slacker who has to step up to the plate when his family’s business and ping-pong-champion reputation is on the line. In addition to being centered around an Asian family, the core of the film rivals any other low-brow, underdog sport film.

Laugh-out-loud hilarious, this is Academy-Award-winning filmmaker Jessica Yu’s first narrative feature, following a groundbreaking career full of daring documentaries (her Oscar was for this portrait of writer Mark O’Brien, who spent much of his life in an iron lung). Seeing C-Dub as an NBA-loving slacker turned ping-pong playa felt validating; it showed that even if you’re a lazy and immature Asian, you can always find something to succeed at.

Streaming on Tubi, and for rent on Amazon and iTunes.

In Football We Trust (2015) Directed by Tony Vainuku and Erika Cohn

While Salt Lake City, Utah, is seen as predominantly a white Mormon town, it in fact has the largest population of Pacific Islanders in the US mainland, due to the strength of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ proselytizing in the Pacific. The documentary In Football We Trust follows four Polynesian high-school students, as they chase their lifelong dream of attaining professional recruitment. Told in moments of adolescence, the film follows the greatest challenges for these four young men, as they chase their dreams while trying to grow up.

In no time, they’re faced with the harsh reality that just maybe, football isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. As much as their hefty attributes and builds serve as their greatest advantages, these boys’ cultural and familial obligations become both their greatest motivations and, possibly, their downfall. Filmed over the span of four years, first time filmmakers Tony Vainuku and Erika Cohn chronicle the NFL hopefuls as they navigate the pressure to balance dreams and family to win a golden ticket out of gang violence and poverty.

Streaming on Kanopy, and for rent on various VOD platforms.

Spa Night (2016) Written and directed by Andrew Ahn

In his directorial debut, Andrew Ahn perfectly captures a specific corner of Los Angeles’ Koreatown. Spa Night’s focus is David, a closeted Korean American teenager who takes a job at a Korean spa to help his struggling family, and then discovers an underground world of gay sex. You may recognize Joe Seo as the goofy bully in the Netflix hit show Cobra Kai, but it’s Spa Night where you can see him truly shine��he won Sundance’s US Dramatic Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Performance.

Seo delivers a powerfully restrained performance, exploring the burden of hiding your true self from your family. Spa Night is more than a coming out story, it’s also about the broken American dream that so many immigrants experience. Ahn’s direction is finely tuned, honing in on the specificity of Koreatown. It is an acutely queer story of second-gen Asian Americans, where coming out is never really about just you, but also your family.

Streaming on Kanopy, and for rent on various VOD platforms.

Punching at the Sun (2006) Directed by Tanuj Chopra, written by Tanuj Chopra and Hart Eddy

Mameet is young, angry and has always lived in the shadow of his basketball-legend brother, Sanjay. When Sanjay is suddenly killed during a robbery at the family store, Mameet spirals and takes his anger out on anyone and everyone. Coping with loss at a young age is hard enough, but Punching at the Sun mixes in the specific anxieties of being a South-Asian man amidst the backdrop of post-9/11 America. In doing so, the film addresses the difficulty of juggling teenage angst and immigrant identity—Mameet is not afforded the option to express his anger and grief.

Cathartic and emotionally validating, this is a simple yet nuanced slice-of-life story that conveys the heaviness of growing up with the weight of the world on our shoulders. In Mameet’s case, thank goodness, he ultimately shares some of that burden with his comical friends and knit-tight family.

Available to rent on Vimeo.

Meet the Patels (2014) Directed by Ravi Patel and Geeta Patel, written by Ravi Patel, Matthew Hamachek, Billy McMillin, and Geeta Patel

In the romantic documentary Meet the Patels, Ravi Patel is a dutiful first-gen son whose parents are continually nagging him to marry a nice Indian girl. With Ravi's sister Geeta Patel co-directing and co-writing, and his parents in the frame, his film (and true-life story) are indeed a family affair. What starts as his journey to find a wife to make his family happy becomes an enlightening intro to Indian culture and modern love—think dating apps, weddings and a Patel Matrimonial Convention (gotta see it to believe).

Humorous as it is outrageously charming, Meet the Patels ultimately shows the struggles and cultural expectations most immigrant offspring face, on top of the million other obstacles of trying to find your one and only true love in this mad, mad world.

Streaming on various platforms.

Related content

Ten Underrated Asian American & Pacific Islander Films, a Letterboxd list

Best Asian American Films: So Yun Um’s list

Debbie Chang’s comprehensive Asian American film canon list (also features Asian-Canadian, Asian-British and other diaspora)

Bellamy’s list of feature-length films directed by Asian Americans

Follow So on Letterboxd

[sapphos-darlings]

I've heard a dozen times "Lesbians! You are not creepy or predatory by being attracted to women! You're nothing like straight men!" But like... how? How is it actually, qualitatively different?

Hello, Anon! This is a good question. I do believe we should absolutely explore and explain more than just throw around slogans, because it’s not the slogan but the thinking behind it that’s the thing that actually educates and heals us.

“Lesbians are predatory” is a false statement that’s founded on two presumptions: 1: Heterosexual men prey on women, and lesbians are attracted to women too, so they are just like straight men, and 2: Homosexuality is a dangerous perversion. All this is sprickled with plenty of misogyny targeting women who, according to patriarchy, should be a) submissive and passive in our sexuality, b) available to men and c) subservient to men as wives and mothers and so forth. Lesbians are an antithesis to all of that, thus going against the status quo. (This is also what makes lesbophobia a distinct form of oppression from just homophobia: it’s an intersection of misogyny and homophobia.)

Exploring the points in order: Heterosexual men are the group that commits the vast majority of sexual offences, but not because they are attracted to women, but because they grow up as men in a patriarchal culture that teaches them that women are inferior, that men are sexually entitled and aggressive, and their ideas of sex come from porn. Abuse is a problem of values, and unfortunately there are way too many chances for boys literally anywhere to learn that they can do whatever they want to women, that there are no concequences to their actions, and that it’s the normal thing to do. For more on this, look up our friends “rape culture” and “institutionalized misogyny”.

Lesbians get lumped under this because we are attracted to women, and because accepting things like the existence of sexual orientation and gender non-conformative behavior have been pretty much unheard of for very long.

But lesbians are not men. The biggest, toughest, butchest butch is still a woman. She moves through this world while a woman and has never had any part on those things that are targeted and taught to boys and men.

Sliding to the point 2., we are not heterosexual either. Homosexuality has long been painted as a wrong, deviant thing to do and classified as a mental illness, even a crime. There are all sorts of false narratives attached to it, like “they will turn you gay too!” and “watch out for those perverts!”, and this “predatory lesbian” stereotype is a part of those. As a marginalized group we don’t enjoy the entitlement and power that enables or encourages sexually predatory behavior.

We can also internalize these messages. We don’t grow up like heterosexuals do, learning that our sexual orientation is normal and celebrated and healthy, so it’s a very common thing for lesbians and just same-sex attracted people in general to feel ashamed and afraid of our own sexuality, or to believe that we might hurt people with it. This is of course false: We love and desire just like heterosexual people do. We live our happiest lives when we get to express ourselves like is natural to us, we have families and long-term partners whom we love, our sex isn’t harmful, and we don’t hurt anyone by living and loving.

So to conclude: Lesbianism (female homosexuality) is often painted as predatory and dangerous because women who don’t want men go against the patriarchal status quo and disapprove misogynistic beliefs about women, thus we are dangerous. We disrupt the power dynamic and go against social norms as women, and thus we have been long feared and punished.

Homosexuality has been historically misunderstood and feared as well, and it has been drenched with fear about corruption and sexual deviancy. Because we grow up surrounded by those messages, we often internalize them.

So women and homosexual people are groups of vulnerable people, and as a part of both groups, lesbians get double the trouble. We are a vulnerable group but painted as dangerous so that punishing and marginalizing us becomes justified for groups that hold real power in society.

This isn’t of course to suggest that women, gay people or lesbians can’t act predatory. This reply is an explanation based on institutional structures, social trends and stereotypes. One on one, in person, anyone can do just about anything. Anyone can become an abuser or a sexual predator, and it’s always wrong. You don’t ever have to endure or accept any inapproriate, scary or threatening behavior from anyone no matter who they are, or who you are. If something makes you uncomfortable, tell them to stop. You can always say no, and it always deserves to be respected.

I hope this explanation shed some light on the matter and will help you forward, Anon. I encourage you to think it over and do some research of your own to build your own views and opinions instead of just accepting mine at face value. I’m not going to pretend that this is the only way other lesbians have experienced this or the only thought process behind the argument against it, so even though I won’t debate anyone on this blog or reblog discourse even on our own posts, I do encourage conversation and different experiences and takes from our followers.

Have a nice day, Anon!

- Lavender

[thebarefootking]

The Rocket Ship

It's a well-observed fact that the strange ones tend to find one another.

We all have heard of cliques in high school (or even earlier) that, over the course of life, individually discover themselves (and often, then, each other) to be queer, neurodivergent, or some other kind of not-normative. Many of us belonged to them.

This is the story of my friend KV and how we fell into mutual weirdness.

KV and I met for the first time in daycare, just before I aged out at ten years old. They were half a year younger than me, and a grade lower in school. (They, like myself at the time, were not out as nonbinary; I didn't know anyone who used singular they pronouns or who was out as nonbinary, or even what that meant, until I was well into adulthood.)

We were fast friends, possibly because neither of us had bonded particularly well with any of the other kids at daycare. Maybe one or two would acknowledge and chat with us at breakfast, but most of our recreation time was spent just the two of us, playing imaginative games among the playground equipment.

The next year, I aged out of the daycare, and KV aged up into the same middle school I attended. I frequently made time to visit their locker between classes, and we grew closer.

One catalyst for this closeness was a number of musicals we performed in together. The first was a local production of Children of Eden which had open casting for children, and which was being directed by a mutual friend of our families. Both of us were accepted into the production.

As the children's cast for this play was only needed for two scenes or so, there was plenty of time to screw around doing whatever we wanted to do (so long as we were quiet about it). There, one of our playground games solidified into a full-on roleplay of sorts, an unending game in which the two of us took the parts of anthropomorphic cat people sent by a rocket ship from the planet Meowmix in the Eukanuba galaxy, in order to complete a long-term recon mission.

It suited our (to this day undiagnosed, but very much present) autistic traits. What autistic person hasn't at least once felt like a different species, trying to learn the culture and habits of Earth's dominant lifeform? We simply made a canon of it, and developed that canon everywhere.

We even had a secret substitution code, full of words that meant other things. "I'm going to buy a pineapple," they would say, before slipping off to use the restroom.

"I'll keep an eye out for sprinkles," I'd reply, and begin to covertly sweep the area for cops/untrustworthy adults/mall security… for some reason. 

It was the sort of game that could truly be an artificial context for anything else.

Mostly, though, it tended to be an artificial context for our profound isolation and loneliness, even if we never dared break character long enough to say so to one another. If our alien characters talked about being misunderstood and missing home, it meant we never had to admit to being estranged from our cohort. I, for my part, didn't even admit to myself what emotions we were loading off onto our game.

Besides, our 'Cat-Human' counterparts had something we did not, when it came to that topic: hope of a return to 'normalcy'.

I could write for hours about our game, and all the fun and weird things we got up to. (For a while, our thing was giving individual nickels [which we called 'engravings of Thomas Jefferson'] to random mall-goers, just for the thrill of human interaction, and to see how they would react. Once, one dude gave us an 'engraving of George Washington' in return, for a profit of 20 cents!)

Instead, though, I'll tell you about the ostensible end of the game.

It was another play we were in together, some two years after the first. Both of us had tried out for middle school 'children's' roles in the high school's yearly musical, and gotten our parts. Mine was a major speaking role; theirs was a chorus part. Even so, I still had few enough scenes that we had time to play in between.

Things went pear-shaped, though, in a way I didn't expect. On the first night of the show, KV was dealing with unexpected and intense stage-fright. I walked onto the backstage floor from the back entrance, and half a dozen other kid actors were surrounding them, trying to talk them down from what I now know was either a panic attack or an autistic meltdown. (Maybe both! Hell knows I sometimes can't tell the difference in my own.)

I told all the other actors to back off and give them some space, and then I moved in to check on them. They were speaking rapidly and almost incoherently about there being too many humans in the audience, and how they weren't ready to be seen. They were talking to me as if still in the game.

And I, twelve-year-old that I was, and in an empathic panic on their account, didn't understand.

I didn't know that they were communicating their emotions about the impending performance in the only way they knew how (that being, through the game we had both used for so long to frame our emotions). I thought they were confusing the game with reality. I thought that they were legitimately convinced they were a humanoid cat alien and that the Earthling audience was dangerous.

And with about twenty seconds to go before our scene, I was pissed. They picked now to play a stupid game?

I snapped on them. "It's not real, KV. You're not a freaking cat person. You're a human, and you already committed to doing this show. No one here is dangerous. There's just you, and you've done plays with a way bigger audience than this, before."

I didn't stop to think that this role was much more intricate than most they had performed before. Or that it was much closer to home, with their father leading the pit orchestra below, and likely with their entire extended family watching. Or any of the other reasons they might have had on this particular night that I couldn't know about. It didn't even occur that I was taking away their last support in the face of sheer panic.

In my opinion at the time, they were just being childish. And I let them know it, as viciously as I could manage in fifteen seconds. Then I pushed them into the lineup, went to my own spot, and seethed.

Really, I thought, how dare they try to use our game as a way to avoid responsibility?

We didn't talk much for a while after that.

Thankfully, it was a short while, and -- somehow; I have no idea how -- we eventually came up with a new game. Somehow -- I have no idea how -- we fell into a solid friendship again, if a slightly more formal one.

After all, we had to hold the fort; both of us were the topic of bitter rumours, usually about our sexualities and what we did with them. (Oddly, despite us both being rumoured to be lesbians, no one ever rumoured that we were together. I suspected it was because of the class year difference, but it's more likely because we each had closer friends that filled the rumour role better.)

At any rate, things moved along, all the way past my graduation from high school. Even then, I frequented the school football games, just to hang around the band, in which they played the saxophone. (This irritated KV’s father, the band director, to no end! haha)

And one night, at a house party one of our mutual friends was hosting, they verbally pulled me aside. We moved to an out-of-the-way porch swing in a darkened corner of the yard. For a while, we just played catch-up; there had been something of a lull in our friendship, just on account of scheduling. And then,

"There’s something I wanted to tell you. I'm a lesbian."

We were both silent for a moment.

"I know," I eventually admitted. Because I did; there had been too many hints for too long. Even beyond just rumour.

This, in retrospect, was a fucking shitty way to respond, but they took it in stride. After another silence, they prodded me further. "And what do you think about that?"

"I think it's a sin. But I still care about you, and this doesn't change my opinion of you."

Again, a shitty thing to say.

"Well," they said. "It's just... how I am."

I really can't overstate how unfailingly kind and polite they were to me, when I very much did not deserve it. Maybe they were trying to salvage the friendship. I don't know for sure. For my part, I just assumed that being gay meant you weren't trying hard enough. After all, I was attracted to girls, too, and I wasn't gay. Right?

Not that I said that to them. We didn't really hang out much after that, and they soon moved away for college.

College, and then the subsequent year and a half spent living away from my family, had an enormous impact on my views toward many things, but sexuality in particular. Eventually, I was able to apologise, some time after I got kicked out of my parents' house for coming out as bisexual. (Surprise!) We discovered at that point that we had both drifted away from Christianity in favor of eclectic paganism.

We've been oddly in step, that way.

When I told them recently that I was nonbinary, they told me that they were as well. Later, when they came to town, we got Mexican food and had a long talk, during which we discovered that we are both neurodivergent, and in some extremely similar ways… which caused us both to drop out of college.

We each finally got a cat, which we'd both been wanting for years.

Halfway through lunch, KV said one of the most weirdly intimate things I've ever had said to me: "If there was anyone on Earth I was drift-compatible with, it'd be you."

It was blown away for a second or so; that's like admitting to a form of soulmatedom. But then… I got it, y'know?

Because, honestly, there's no one I've been more understood by than them, even if we sometimes had to create a new language to make it happen.

I wish I got to see them more frequently. I feel like I can appreciate them now in a way I didn't know how to before. I haven't been the best friend to them; in fact, I've been downright abhorrent at times. But I think I can make it up, now.

[ournewoverlords]

Booksmart slaps. It’s just a huge amount of fun to watch - the key word here for me is “good-natured”. This is a good-natured movie that teases and pokes fun at a lot of people - a lot of *kinds* of people, from the queer drama kids to the dopey jocks to the Gen Z overachieving feminist types who have pictures of Michelle Obama on their wall and can quote Susan B Anthony from memory - without ever making fun of anyone in a mean-spirited way, and highlighting that no one is ever “just” their tribe. The ending ties the story up neatly with a feel-good bow about how no one is really what they seem on the surface, especially not in high school, when everyone’s trying so hard to be invulnerable… which also means they can’t be *seen*. There’s a lot of great character work here that I think could’ve been fleshed out even more (the 1 hour 45 min runtime feels shockingly short in the day and age of Endgame) but still feels natural and sincere, and the huge array of secondary characters - real characters, not just insert-famous-cameos - gives this movie not just humor but so much life and buoyancy.

(Warning: light spoilers beneath cut)

What keeps it from reaching the top tier for me, though, is that it somehow still feels like something I’ve seen before, even though the window dressing is so different. It’s definitely rare to see female best-friendship displayed so frankly, genuinely, and *hilariously* on the big screen, and I can’t remember another movie where the nerdy valedictorian is a boss and knows it, not to mention one where one of them is a lesbian (my young baby lesbian Amy!! protect that cinnamon roll), but the story of two blood-sworn, childhood-, everything-friends reaching the last chapter of their adolescence together in fun and games and boozy celebration, all while the fear of how they’ll face the great unknown without the other is this silent undercurrent churning beneath… that feels familiar to me? That doesn’t keep me from loving this particular theme, because it IS a great one, I just mean it’s not as original as Ladybird, so it lends itself to comparison more easily. 

Superbad, for instance. I actually kinda hate how every review (including the one linked here, which is totally in line with my sentiments) keeps calling this “the female Superbad”. Yes, it’s a coming-of-age comedy about two friends at the end of the senior year trying to go out with a bang together, and yes, it’s a little raunchy, and yes, it really is all about the friendship between the two main characters at its core… but the whole texture, color, and point of Booksmart are completely different. 

By texture, I mean that even as the two girls are the “heroes” of this quest, it’s still interested in the characters outside them, such that you really get the sense that they are their own people, with their own lives and inner life. In the briefest of screentimes you grasp instantly why someone like Molly would be attracted to easygoing jock Nick (but then connects to the hopelessly-messy-but-sweet Jared), and why Amy likes the skatergirl with the big toothy grin. The other kids and love interests aren’t just vessels for Molly and Amy’s own awakenings. In fact, some of them have their own troubles, and they’re all really pretty good kids.

It’s interested in the way that the two mains are, in their own way, not the most perfect people. How the world’s really not out to get them; in fact, they’re the ones who have to learn to fit into it. I talk more about this below, but this was the part I liked the most, because it feels particularly true to life in a way that I don’t think I’ve seen in many other coming-of-age narratives, much less light-hearted comedies.

Speaking of light-hearted, the whole tone of the humor is waay different from Superbad’s too. It’s funny as hell, which is probably the most important thing at the end of the day — there were a few scenes that had me and my entire theater howling — but amazingly for a coming-of-age comedy, I remember very few of the jokes being gross-out or sexual, or even all that cringe. Booksmart mines a lot of physical humor just in their sheer facial expressions (if a picture is a thousand words, Beanie Feldstein’s face does the work of a thousand punchlines), but it’s mostly the little throw-away lines and hilarious sketches (the attempted robbery in the car! Amy’s overly-well-meaning parents! everything GiGi and Jared do) that string everything together and carry the day. That’s not to say that there aren’t serious moments that are given due weight too — Amy under the water, submerged in that song is just an absolutely beautiful shot. 

It reminds me a little of Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade, which I think is a more interesting comparison than Superbad here. Booksmart tries to capture some of that raw realness that Eighth Grade had, underneath all the silliness and humor; it is, in many ways, about how hard it is to be vulnerable to someone else, even (especially) the people you love. It pulls at a lot of strands and among them are the idea that this is what high school is really like, that to be honest all these boys (and girls!) who hold your heart in their clumsy, sweaty fingers will be like leaves in the wind years from now, that standing on the entrance to adulthood isn’t a physical change, it’s not about booze, or losing your virginity, or getting accepted by your peers. Becoming an adult is inner work, alright, but it’s also not work you can do on your own. Because it’s about how you treat yourself, but it’s about how you treat other people too. 

But I think where Eighth Grade really succeeds is this it has this kind of specificity to it — it really, really is about this awkward girl, and her lonely existence, and about being a girl who is becoming a woman in a certain context. And that specificity gives it a kind of honesty that rings painfully true to me. Booksmart — probably because it is trying to avoid stereotypes and do something entirely new here, which is totally commendable — almost feels a little too universal. It feels like you could replace Molly and Amy here with dudes, and it wouldn’t be a huge change in dynamics outside the pussy hats and Malalia worship, because these two are defined more by their identities as “overachieving party-pooping best-friend NERDS” than by being girls per se. These are two whipsmart dorks who are best friends, and happen to be female, rather than a portrayal of female best friendship per se. And the other kids treat them that way too: no one gives a shit Molly’s chubby or Amy’s a lesbian, they give a shit that they’re exasperating know-it-alls.

Which is REALLY refreshing. I’m being unfair here — it’s *because* it’s so rare to see female friendships or just girls in general depicted this way on screen that I think it doesn’t quite “fit” my own intuitions about real life. But I’m a weird case of someone who really struggled in high school, and definitely didn’t have friends much less deep ones like theirs, and I bet other women would recognize themselves in these two and their relationship much more. The frank vagina talk and the fact that Molly and Amy are actually really self-assured and even pretty damn well-liked are just super freakin’ cool anyways. In particular I LOVE the way they’re still dorky, in a way I so rarely see female characters allowed to be because female characters written by dudes tend to be so poised and “above” the main male protagonist (probably because the screenwriters are thinking back to their own high-school crushes, who must’ve seemed so mature and unattainable to a nerdy teenage boy). 

It goes back to what I said about this being an affectionate, feel-good movie where everyone turns out to be pretty decent in the end. It doesn’t set out to be much more than that, and I’m not sure if I wanted it to be, but I think it’s that fact they didn’t go all out that keeps it from being a 10/10 for me. It’s just very sweet and knowing and funny and always making sure to laugh with these oddball kids, but that same gentleness keeps it from being something great; it’s like you need some claws to expose something “real”.

It’s a little strange to me, for example, that the movie dishes out a lot of high-school tropes — all the kids are playful representatives of some stereotype — but doesn’t seem to have any real bullies, and happily accepts the two not-very-outcasted outcasts at the party with open arms. And the girls each get their heart crushed, but only for like five minutes before they (tbqh) each get an upgrade. Every Gen Z tribe gets represented — from the failing stoner who actually has an offer from Google to the misunderstood school slut to poor Jared, my sweet beautiful mess of an unloved richboy — in this kind of Glee grab-bag kinda way, but without Glee’s sense that what ties us all together is this fucking shared suffering called high school; Booksmart’s high school is more like a utopia where everyone wears what they want and gets to be quirky and different and much cooler than you think in their own individualistic way. (They even have Jessica Williams as a teacher! UGH, so jelly.)

There’s something that’s actually really subversive about this, because 1) no one’s a villain and 2) to the extent that Molly and Amy are unpopular, it’s kinda brought on by themselves. *They* were the ones who chose never to hang out with the other kids, because studying was more important. *They* are the ones who have to learn something. Molly was the one who judged everyone by the school they got into, even as the others never gave a shit about it. Amy came out two years ago, but the reason she’s never had a kiss isn’t so much because she’s a lesbian, but because she’s too timid and unassertive as a person. Molly’s character arc is discovering that she’s too freaking judgey and she needs to stop assuming she knows everything from the cover, Amy’s is to realize herself as her own person outside of the (admittedly powerful) centrifugal force of her best friend. 

Those are GREAT ideas for arcs, it’s just that the execution of them didn’t completely land for me — maybe because the jokes were competing so much with the serious bits for screentime, it had to scramble at the end for the moment of character growth. So it didn’t feel fully “earned” to me, even as it worked on the thematic level of truly seeing people when you aren’t blinded by your own assumptions. 

Still, it’s a really satisfying movie with a different take on a common trope, and packed with killer lines and secondary characters like Jared that are just so great (he’s one that feels especially on-point to me because I recognize one of my old classmates in him — a great kid, just… swimming through life in a different lane). The cameos by the adult actors — Jessica Williams, Lisa Kudrow, Jason Sudeikis, Will Forte — were predictably fantastic. In fact all the acting and casting was SO GOOD (I found out later that the casting director was the one who did Freaks and Geeks!). I’m impressed by Olivia Wilde in her directorial debut here, it’s clear that she has an ear for comedic beats and some of the shots were wonderful — in a lot of comedies the camera is just kinda static and it’s all talking heads, but here the angles, the POV shots, the longer takes that move in and out of sound add so much dynamism. Excited for what she does next.

[blackgirlsuperherorants]

I know Freddie Mercury isn’t a superhero, but he’s also maybe a superhero, and I guess I’m gonna put this movie discussion here, because... this blog is already used to my bullshit.

No, but, this is actually a serious thing. This will be lengthy, because I’m approaching this not as a rant, as per usual on this blog, but as a study? I guess? I mean, without research, because I’m in grad school and my brain will crumble if I add any extra research, but yeah. 

I have seen a lot of criticism of the Bohemian Rhapsody movie that I have been giving a lot of thought to. To be completely fair, I sort of have always had this view of Freddie Mercury as a godlike figure. And I love Rami Malek. So, I have been checking and double-checking myself for bias, which is the thing to do in this situation. 

I really enjoyed the film. I am also a screenwriter (MFA student) and I understand and cannot totally ignore the problems with the film. 

One of the things we’ve been taught to do, in my MFA program, is pay attention to things like cultural markers and identity markers in our writing. As in, if we write a bisexual character, what makes them bisexual? If we write a South Asian character, what makes them South Asian? Often, writers will write “diverse” characters just for the sake of having them in the picture, but they will inadvertently be devoid of whatever it is that makes them... part of their culture. This is not my criticism of BoRhap. In fact, this post will not be a criticism, per se. It’s... it’s an examination, and a question. And, full disclosure, I should absolutely be working on stuff for class, right now.

This will be focusing on the portrayal of queerness in BoRhap more than anything. 

When I saw the movie, being queer myself, I was very... excited to hear Freddie say, on screen, that he thinks he’s bisexual. Like, what a moment, in film. I don’t think that happens, often, and I don’t think screenwriters write shit like that. I believe it’s because bisexuality is misunderstood. People assume bisexual men are gay. People assume bisexual women are straight. People think of bisexuality as something you do while you’re in college out of curiosity, or the last stop over to gayville. People think bi people who date or marry members of their same gender are gay/lesbian. People think bi people who date or marry members of a different gender are straight. It’s just a very, very misunderstood sexual orientation, and those of us who identify this way (I mostly do, although I kinda like queer as a general term) really walk on eggshells all the time trying not to ... be constantly judged from all parties, I guess. So, to hear a character say it in a film? And it’s sincere and not a character flaw or played for laughs? I C O N I C.

But the film also undercuts that line immediately, with Freddie’s girlfriend yelling at him that he’s gay. Because a man can’t be bisexual, yenno? If he likes dick at all, he’s gay. (Of course this is wrong as hell, but whatever.)

I guess, that’s part of the reason so many people are unhappy or even angry with the portrayal. One criticism I keep seeing is how it treats queerness as a cautionary tale. How Freddie gets caught up in this “gay underworld” lifestyle and it literally kills him. How redemption is him “straightening up”. (Which actually does not happen in the movie. The movie... ends with him finally settling down with JIM, a man, JIM! How that was read as “straightening up” or I guess becoming hetero to some people is beyond me.)

And mentioning that, there’s criticism of showing Paul Prenter, who I understand re: Queen fans, to be a slimy slimeball piece of crap, as the villain, because Paul is also a gay man. 

So, this is my concern, or I guess, my issue, with these criticisms: much of this is based in the reality of the situation. I’m not suggesting that this film is historically accurate. I’ve seen discussions of timeline issues, invented moments, and Freddie actually never told his bandmates he had AIDS until the day before he died (unlike in the film). But I struggle with the argument that it presents queerness as a cautionary tale when Freddie’s battle with AIDS is actually what happened. He actually died of AIDS related illness in 1991. That’s not to say being gay killed him. A lot of people were gay in the 1980s and did not contract HIV or die of AIDS. But unfortunately, Freddie did.

So, what is the line? When we’re handling stories based on true events, based on real people... what are we supposed to write? Would it have been worse to show Freddie as a healthy man who died in his sleep of natural causes, ignoring his battle with AIDS completely? 

What about the Prenter situation? The man wasn’t a good person, and wasn’t good for Queen or Freddie. I’m not extremely well versed in Queen history, but I do know that Paul Prenter is, well, a villain in the eyes of Queen’s fans, and he did do snake shit to Freddie. Does the fact that he’s also gay mean that should be left out? Or should they have erased Paul’s queerness, so that it’s not suggested that the evil gay person ruined Freddie’s life?

Some of my opinion on that matter should be clear, but I also don’t really know the way they should’ve handled this stuff. I thought, personally, that they handled AIDS delicately, and maybe a little too delicately, but... I thought it was done fine. Freddie wasn’t even blamed for having the disease. And the invented scene where he tells the band before Live Aid (I don’t know that he had even been diagnosed, yet, in real life), was a touching, beautiful scene. Nobody scolds him, or says “you shouldn’t have fucked all those people!” They aren’t angry. They cry together, and tell him he’s a legend and they love him. Then they go get a drink. It wasn’t... at all... very “cautionary tale,” to me. Especially because directly after that moment, he goes and finds Jim Hutton, the man he’s been wanting for a long time, and finally pursues being with him for real. So, what’s the caution, here? Don’t be gay, just be gay? I don’t... get it....

Like, it’s a hard line to tow. Do you... make a huge show of an icon dying from a horrible disease that ravaged the LGBT community terribly during the 1980s? Or do you.... not mention it at all? Or ... do you do what they did and mention it lightly, and try not to make it a huge deal? I don’t know. I’m sure you don’t really know, either. You’d probably try your best, if you were writing this, but ultimately, it’s hard to know what the move is, here. 

That’s not to say that the movie doesn’t have faults. It doesn’t know which story it’s telling. It sort of moves like a “brief history of” type of thing. It’s also 2 hours and 30 minutes long, and still feels like it didn’t go in depth at all. 

I also agree that we see much of Freddie’s vices and little of the other members’ vices. I mean, we get hints of Roger’s affinity towards being with multiple women, but barely. And John and Brian were basically angels. Which... can’t have been realistic, considering they were hot rock stars in the 1970s, when everyone was fucking everyone and everyone was snorting cocaine. I do wish they would’ve showed them all behaving like rock stars, more, instead of showing Freddie throwing lavish parties and the other guys sort of shaking their head and going home to their wives. But also, we don’t see very much of Freddie’s wildness, either. The movie is very, very tame, as rock star biopics go. There’s not even a sex scene. There’s cocaine on a table, but nobody snorts it on screen. There are parties with lots of boys making out and whatnot, but Freddie isn’t even shown really participating in that shit. I honestly think it’s even this tame because the living Queen members had a say.

Like, if Brian May and Roger Taylor weren’t involved in the production, I’m sure we would’ve seen more of their vices, too. And probably more of Freddie’s vices. I think it’s silly for people to suggest they are jealous of Freddie and made it look like Freddie was the only one partying to make themselves look better, because I think Freddie looks damn near innocent in the film, and I think that’s thanks to Brian and Roger protecting his legacy. For instance, we learn towards the end that Freddie has AIDS. But WE NEVER SEE HIM CONTRACT HIV. We don’t see him sleep with some dirty bear in the back of some gay bar in NYC or something. We just... learn he has AIDS. 

That can either be cause for criticism or praise, I guess. From a writing perspective, generally you wouldn’t randomly reveal a character has AIDS without some hint as to how they contracted it, in a narrative like this one that spans like 15-20 years. And also, maybe you could stretch it as an example of that “cautionary tale” business, like “even though Freddie was a good boy, he still got AIDS because of all the gay.” Which... is a reach, and I’m sorry I pulled it out of the sky. They also did one of my least favorite movie tropes, which is “character coughs up blood, so you know he gon die.” Although, IDK if that’s something that every happened to him. Singers can cough up blood just from damaging their throat while doing certain things with their voice, and getting infections and things...

Anyway...

I just... I get the criticism, and I get the instinct to be hypercritical of this movie. After all, Freddie was one of the most unapologetic and influential queer artists in the world. In history. You want to make sure it’s done right and with respect.

But, I genuinely don’t know how they could’ve approached this differently. I mean, I see how changes could be made to make it a better film, narratively speaking. But I’m not sure how I’d write a movie about Freddie Mercury and discuss his battle with AIDS... without the reality that Freddie succumbs to the illness in 1991. Or, how you write about the doomed dealings with Paul Prenter, without acknowledging that he’s a creep, even if he is gay.

See, when shit is based on a true story, it’s harder to navigate these things. Because, I totally understand the reaction to what many perceive is a slight against their people. But, IDK, if I’m writing a Freddie Mercury film, I’d know that he’s going to die, and from what, and I’d know that he kept it to himself, and explore why that is. 

And as for Paul Prenter, fuck that guy. One can be evil and gay. Just as one can be a sweet baby angel and gay (like Jim Hutton.)

The movie has problem. (Another topic for another day). These aren’t problems it has, to me. 

I’d be open to hear others’ opinions, here, but only if you promise not to yell at me (CAPS IS YELLING) or call me names or be a general jerk about things. 

[loverawakeatnight]

Define Feminism...

When you see women today, they are greatly different than they were years ago, through the years they have created their own styles of dressing, ways of living, and ways of thinking–some rooted from traditionalism and some based from modern culture. Both of these kinds of women have an affect on the people around them and the culture that they are apart of. The women who have rejected traditional restrictions, oppressive views, lower ways of living, being on the lower hand, and being told who to be, are feminists. These are everyday women, who support a new wave in the making for over 100 years.  Feminism, is misunderstood and is beginning to be represented in our everyday culture more than ever before. It is based on empowerment, appreciation of originality, being in your own skin, and freedom.

We are seeing feminism shown in our classes, social media, movies, the news, politics, and countries around the world. Everyone has some sort of opinion on it and it is hard to know what feminism is and what it pertains to. When you bring up the word feminist, or feminism, a lot of people are either for it, or against it, without even knowing what it means. This is why so many are against it, not because they don’t support equality, but, because they think feminism is the opposite of equality. They don’t understand that feminism is much more than what people talk about.

One who misinterprets feminism will say, “Why does it have to be all about women? What about men too? How is that equal when you are making it all about women?” Well, it isn’t all about women. Years ago, when women went to work in the factories, it wasn’t to say the men were incapable, but to be equals and to help the needs for production. They didn’t do it for just them. There was a larger intent behind the actions. When a woman says she can pay for herself, it isn’t to demean the man and say he can’t pay, it is to show that she can, because she can. Feminism is about balance and equality. The intent is not focused on being superior or putting anyone down. Many misunderstand this. Feminism is not inequality. Why can’t we put one up in society without seeing another as down? That is not what this movement is. Feminism is the single mother who works three jobs and refuses to give up being a strong woman. Feminism is the woman who lets herself cry in front of others with no shame, she is free to feel, and free to show what she is feeling. Feminism is the woman who demands more pay, and who says “you can’t put me down”, she knows what she is worth.  Feminism is the woman who sets the standard for equal rights, having a considerate nature, and being within your own skin. Feminism is the woman who says no one is superior or inferior, we’re just coexisting.

Through the years feminism has been subjected to change, redefinition, ridicule, rejection, and praise. This has shaped it into something that is diverse, ever-changing and a bit confusing.

Many women thinking that this changing feminism means, “we hate men” and “lets be victims so we can control the situation.” This type of woman does believe she is a victim, and feels the need to use the sympathy that equality brings as means of getting what she wants in society. These women do not encourage equality but in fact discourage and demean the act of feminism itself.

We have treated feminism, like clay, since the beginning of women, and kept adding onto it. New standards need to be implemented as the world changes and grows, feminism requires a certain mindfulness. It has become something that is more natural and admired, something more generally accepted. As the definition changes, the opinion changes. It has evolved over the years, through every woman and her unique sense of self.  Feminism has become a stitched-together collage of struggle, strength, and diversity, constantly thought provoking, making us question our treatment of ourselves and others. By being dissatisfied with the outside world around us, we have been able to look inside. A feminist will treat you the way they want to be treated. This is where feminism is unique, they end up looking at both sides without necessarily meaning to. We find ourselves in an unfamiliar middle ground where it can go either ways, society is starting to hate and dislike it. Though it is a misunderstood topic, it is relevant and essential to an equal society.

Though parts of society disagree with feminism, I can say without a doubt in my mind that feminism is helping to empower the women of today, they are speaking for themselves and being themselves. Women do as they please these days, which causes a lot of people to say anything from a range of, “how terrible” to “wow, I love that!”. They will say, “how degrading!” or “she is so free looking!”. There are two extreme ends of the spectrum.

Nowadays, a woman can wear what she wants, say what she wants, date as she wants, not date, shave her head, grow her hair out, marry, divorce, and pursue whatever careers she pleases. These things are not bad, they are beneficial. We can’t prosper in society without growth through diversity, change, rejection of traditional detrimental customs, and an open mind. This applies to women and men alike. That is why feminism is so important, it isn’t just practicing empowerment, it is practicing a more mindful, constructive and insightful way of life. But traditionalism has been around for years? How can we move away from it? How can we move away from the usual way of being, and seeing women? Well, we have to. We just have to put a great deal of effort towards it. We have to fight what is wrong. We wouldn’t be having to fight for anything had these values not been instilled in the first place.

We can start by acknowledging that there is an imbalance issue, and then go from there. The first step is to know that maybe the same way of living and lacking important traits won’t work for  all of the years in the changing world. I have been taught to lead by example and the world seems to lack these crucial traits that feminism holds, so it is natural for I and many women, to try and initiate a general collective effort, to nurture and teach the situation into something we can all grow from. When someone is completely comfortable, open, and there without judgement, it makes it easier for you to act and feel that way around them. So isn’t it safe to say that feminist can help teach the world to think a bit more openly and considerately? We can conclude that through feminism, we can reach a place of teaching and growing.

When you talk about feminism, clothing is brought up often. The topic of female clothing can even be described by the general public as “scandalous” at times, because apparently what a woman wears, is just that offensive and impressionable. This leads me back to traditionalism, traditional values are what the world has been grown from, it is natural for people to not be with the changing ways. Many people who disagree with a woman dressing how she wants, are the ones who also think that choice of clothing speaks for you. They believe in a certain social agenda regarding proper ladies that don’t say much. If it is not the classic dress, it is “revealing, masculine, or too simple”. A woman can’t just wear what she wants just to wear it. She has to have some hidden intent, leading to a great deal of issues in the world where people think clothing means everything. “Her clothes were really skimpy so she must have been a huge slut, she was asking for it.” As if the women can’t tell you she is interested herself. “She is dressed so boringly, she has nothing to say.” Wrong. She has everything to say, she is just comfortable. “She is dressed like a boy, so she is probably a lesbian.” She wears her brother’s hand-me-downs and she has a crush on a lot of guys, she can tell you if she is lesbian, which isn’t your business anyways. My little sister shaved her head, and my grandmother commented about her, “not being pretty anymore.” I didn’t know you had to have hair to be pretty. You do not need hair on your hair or a certain look to be pretty, pretty is a feeling. Maybe, my little sister wasn’t even trying to look pretty; she just wanted to do it for the sake of it. Her hair wasn’t speaking and saying, “ tell me I am pretty”, it is just saying, “ Hi, I am me.” Why do we feel the need to think that a woman can’t outright tell us what she is thinking? We have been taught to guess. All these things I have personally heard in my life when my outfit or another woman’s wasn’t what they had been taught about growing up, or when I was dressed cute and would be told, “boys will look at you”. They should be taught to not stare at others then. We should teach that a woman can speak on her own, and to lessen the judgement.

When a female steps into her day her appearance is judged instantly. People will say that her bold makeup and tight clothes insinuate that she wants to be hollered at, that her clothing choice means she is unintelligent, or that she is being degraded. These are personal choices that she makes and can voice if she likes. People can say, she is degraded or she is empowered, I say, they can’t feel for her. Being degraded or empowered is a feeling. No one can dictate which of those a female feels during her day. Traditionalism has said that women don’t need to speak, which has led people to thinking that they can’t! Feminism reminds females of their voice in the world, and of the choice that they deserve to have.

During class we have been talking about Wonder Women, a classic debate between feminists for years. At first, I judged her character from a traditional standpoint, I thought to myself, “they sexualize her” , until I had read up on the matter. Even myself, a proud feminist, was thrown off. Her costume wasn’t originated for fashion, but for power. She wasn’t made to be sex, but a goddess-like warrior, she is empowered enough to wear what she wants, in this case, it is not much, but that is just the idea, it doesn’t matter what it is because it is her who decides. Wonder Woman was made during the time of pinup girls, some of the original feminists in my eyes. Pinup wasn’t aimed for sex, it was aimed for style and flair. Wonder Woman comes from a place of inspiration and leadership-driven intent. She is a display of feminism. She is heroic, independent, confident, and has been relevant through the years. The challenge and length of time if took to put her onto the big screen reflects the rejection and doubt that feminism has gone through, Wonder Woman has grown and struggled right along side feminism. Wonder Woman is in fact, an  accurate symbol for feminists to look at and better understand why today is the way it is.

      Because the oppression of females has gone on for so long, this has lead to an over compensation within feminism. Many females feel the need to prove that they are not inferior, myself included. I work a hard job, and refuse help because I am there receiving the same pay, so I will do the same work.  We feel the need to say “ We can do what we want!” almost to remind not only the ones around us, but ourselves of this reality as well. This constant proof of freedom can later form an extremist feminist, who hates men, and feels superior. This feminist adds onto the daily confusion of “man hater” or “equality supporter”. When we define feminism, we do not include these hateful stereotypes. We have to ignore the stereotypes and know that generalizations will hold us back from the true idea. This kind of feminism slows the progress and benefit that true feminism brings. Women did not fight to be able to vote, just so they could angrily demand that their female candidates be voted for. Women did not fight to be seen as more than small and frail, all to try to start physical fights with males. Women did not bring up being equal just to have some go and say they are number one, becoming exactly who they were against. Feminism is not meant to be used as some terrible tool. Just because Cindy with the blue hair at Starbucks hates men and says mean things, doesn’t mean all feminists do. That is why it is important that we define feminism in a positive manner and talk about it as a normal, casual topic. Feminism is not so rough-around-the-edges as we make it, but more of a personal feeling or stand-point. It needs to be discussed more, with less fear and more questions—less judgement, and more openness.

Some may ask, what is the difference between feminism, and egalitarianism? Feminism has to do with unique qualities being appreciated, therefore putting a woman into a different category, but not one that is superior, they are just not the same. Feminism begins with women, as I was saying earlier, she is setting the example. Like a lotus growing through murky water, feminism has been shaped through repression, and wouldn’t exist without the imbalance. Feminism acknowledges the imbalance, whereas egalitarianism has to do with everything being one side, everything being the same. Feminism is not saying that we are 100 percent the same, but that we can be different and equally special.

Feminism is a demonstration of something new and for the future. In 2019 and the years to come we can see a world that opens themselves to feminism and its equal mindset that follows. Through adamant and passionate people supporting this new wave movement, we will see change, we will see equality, we will see the standards being exceeded and respected. Feminism isn’t against the world, it is for it.

[infiniteandmindful]

Define Feminism...

When you see women today, they are greatly different than they were years ago, through the years they have created their own styles of dressing, ways of living, and ways of thinking--some rooted from traditionalism and some based from modern culture. Both of these kinds of women have an affect on the people around them and the culture that they are apart of. The women who have rejected traditional restrictions, oppressive views, lower ways of living, being on the lower hand, and being told who to be, are feminists. These are everyday women, who support a new wave in the making for over 100 years.  Feminism, is misunderstood and is beginning to be represented in our everyday culture more than ever before. It is based on empowerment, appreciation of originality, being in your own skin, and freedom.

We are seeing feminism shown in our classes, social media, movies, the news, politics, and countries around the world. Everyone has some sort of opinion on it and it is hard to know what feminism is and what it pertains to. When you bring up the word feminist, or feminism, a lot of people are either for it, or against it, without even knowing what it means. This is why so many are against it, not because they don’t support equality, but, because they think feminism is the opposite of equality. They don’t understand that feminism is much more than what people talk about.

One who misinterprets feminism will say, “Why does it have to be all about women? What about men too? How is that equal when you are making it all about women?” Well, it isn’t all about women. Years ago, when women went to work in the factories, it wasn’t to say the men were incapable, but to be equals and to help the needs for production. They didn’t do it for just them. There was a larger intent behind the actions. When a woman says she can pay for herself, it isn’t to demean the man and say he can’t pay, it is to show that she can, because she can. Feminism is about balance and equality. The intent is not focused on being superior or putting anyone down. Many misunderstand this. Feminism is not inequality. Why can’t we put one up in society without seeing another as down? That is not what this movement is. Feminism is the single mother who works three jobs and refuses to give up being a strong woman. Feminism is the woman who lets herself cry in front of others with no shame, she is free to feel, and free to show what she is feeling. Feminism is the woman who demands more pay, and who says “you can’t put me down”, she knows what she is worth.  Feminism is the woman who sets the standard for equal rights, having a considerate nature, and being within your own skin. Feminism is the woman who says no one is superior or inferior, we’re just coexisting.

Through the years feminism has been subjected to change, redefinition, ridicule, rejection, and praise. This has shaped it into something that is diverse, ever-changing and a bit confusing.

Many women thinking that this changing feminism means, “we hate men” and “lets be victims so we can control the situation.” This type of woman does believe she is a victim, and feels the need to use the sympathy that equality brings as means of getting what she wants in society. These women do not encourage equality but in fact discourage and demean the act of feminism itself.

We have treated feminism, like clay, since the beginning of women, and kept adding onto it. New standards need to be implemented as the world changes and grows, feminism requires a certain mindfulness. It has become something that is more natural and admired, something more generally accepted. As the definition changes, the opinion changes. It has evolved over the years, through every woman and her unique sense of self.  Feminism has become a stitched-together collage of struggle, strength, and diversity, constantly thought provoking, making us question our treatment of ourselves and others. By being dissatisfied with the outside world around us, we have been able to look inside. A feminist will treat you the way they want to be treated. This is where feminism is unique, they end up looking at both sides without necessarily meaning to. We find ourselves in an unfamiliar middle ground where it can go either ways, society is starting to hate and dislike it. Though it is a misunderstood topic, it is relevant and essential to an equal society.

Though parts of society disagree with feminism, I can say without a doubt in my mind that feminism is helping to empower the women of today, they are speaking for themselves and being themselves. Women do as they please these days, which causes a lot of people to say anything from a range of, “how terrible” to “wow, I love that!”. They will say, “how degrading!” or “she is so free looking!”. There are two extreme ends of the spectrum.

Nowadays, a woman can wear what she wants, say what she wants, date as she wants, not date, shave her head, grow her hair out, marry, divorce, and pursue whatever careers she pleases. These things are not bad, they are beneficial. We can’t prosper in society without growth through diversity, change, rejection of traditional detrimental customs, and an open mind. This applies to women and men alike. That is why feminism is so important, it isn’t just practicing empowerment, it is practicing a more mindful, constructive and insightful way of life. But traditionalism has been around for years? How can we move away from it? How can we move away from the usual way of being, and seeing women? Well, we have to. We just have to put a great deal of effort towards it. We have to fight what is wrong. We wouldn’t be having to fight for anything had these values not been instilled in the first place.

We can start by acknowledging that there is an imbalance issue, and then go from there. The first step is to know that maybe the same way of living and lacking important traits won’t work for  all of the years in the changing world. I have been taught to lead by example and the world seems to lack these crucial traits that feminism holds, so it is natural for I and many women, to try and initiate a general collective effort, to nurture and teach the situation into something we can all grow from. When someone is completely comfortable, open, and there without judgement, it makes it easier for you to act and feel that way around them. So isn’t it safe to say that feminist can help teach the world to think a bit more openly and considerately? We can conclude that through feminism, we can reach a place of teaching and growing.

When you talk about feminism, clothing is brought up often. The topic of female clothing can even be described by the general public as “scandalous” at times, because apparently what a woman wears, is just that offensive and impressionable. This leads me back to traditionalism, traditional values are what the world has been grown from, it is natural for people to not be with the changing ways. Many people who disagree with a woman dressing how she wants, are the ones who also think that choice of clothing speaks for you. They believe in a certain social agenda regarding proper ladies that don’t say much. If it is not the classic dress, it is “revealing, masculine, or too simple”. A woman can’t just wear what she wants just to wear it. She has to have some hidden intent, leading to a great deal of issues in the world where people think clothing means everything. “Her clothes were really skimpy so she must have been a huge slut, she was asking for it.” As if the women can’t tell you she is interested herself. “She is dressed so boringly, she has nothing to say.” Wrong. She has everything to say, she is just comfortable. “She is dressed like a boy, so she is probably a lesbian.” She wears her brother’s hand-me-downs and she has a crush on a lot of guys, she can tell you if she is lesbian, which isn’t your business anyways. My little sister shaved her head, and my grandmother commented about her, “not being pretty anymore.” I didn’t know you had to have hair to be pretty. You do not need hair on your hair or a certain look to be pretty, pretty is a feeling. Maybe, my little sister wasn’t even trying to look pretty; she just wanted to do it for the sake of it. Her hair wasn’t speaking and saying, “ tell me I am pretty”, it is just saying, “ Hi, I am me.” Why do we feel the need to think that a woman can’t outright tell us what she is thinking? We have been taught to guess. All these things I have personally heard in my life when my outfit or another woman’s wasn’t what they had been taught about growing up, or when I was dressed cute and would be told, “boys will look at you”. They should be taught to not stare at others then. We should teach that a woman can speak on her own, and to lessen the judgement.

When a female steps into her day her appearance is judged instantly. People will say that her bold makeup and tight clothes insinuate that she wants to be hollered at, that her clothing choice means she is unintelligent, or that she is being degraded. These are personal choices that she makes and can voice if she likes. People can say, she is degraded or she is empowered, I say, they can’t feel for her. Being degraded or empowered is a feeling. No one can dictate which of those a female feels during her day. Traditionalism has said that women don’t need to speak, which has led people to thinking that they can’t! Feminism reminds females of their voice in the world, and of the choice that they deserve to have.

During class we have been talking about Wonder Women, a classic debate between feminists for years. At first, I judged her character from a traditional standpoint, I thought to myself, “they sexualize her” , until I had read up on the matter. Even myself, a proud feminist, was thrown off. Her costume wasn’t originated for fashion, but for power. She wasn’t made to be sex, but a goddess-like warrior, she is empowered enough to wear what she wants, in this case, it is not much, but that is just the idea, it doesn’t matter what it is because it is her who decides. Wonder Woman was made during the time of pinup girls, some of the original feminists in my eyes. Pinup wasn’t aimed for sex, it was aimed for style and flair. Wonder Woman comes from a place of inspiration and leadership-driven intent. She is a display of feminism. She is heroic, independent, confident, and has been relevant through the years. The challenge and length of time if took to put her onto the big screen reflects the rejection and doubt that feminism has gone through, Wonder Woman has grown and struggled right along side feminism. Wonder Woman is in fact, an  accurate symbol for feminists to look at and better understand why today is the way it is.

        Because the oppression of females has gone on for so long, this has lead to an over compensation within feminism. Many females feel the need to prove that they are not inferior, myself included. I work a hard job, and refuse help because I am there receiving the same pay, so I will do the same work.  We feel the need to say “ We can do what we want!” almost to remind not only the ones around us, but ourselves of this reality as well. This constant proof of freedom can later form an extremist feminist, who hates men, and feels superior. This feminist adds onto the daily confusion of “man hater” or “equality supporter”. When we define feminism, we do not include these hateful stereotypes. We have to ignore the stereotypes and know that generalizations will hold us back from the true idea. This kind of feminism slows the progress and benefit that true feminism brings. Women did not fight to be able to vote, just so they could angrily demand that their female candidates be voted for. Women did not fight to be seen as more than small and frail, all to try to start physical fights with males. Women did not bring up being equal just to have some go and say they are number one, becoming exactly who they were against. Feminism is not meant to be used as some terrible tool. Just because Cindy with the blue hair at Starbucks hates men and says mean things, doesn’t mean all feminists do. That is why it is important that we define feminism in a positive manner and talk about it as a normal, casual topic. Feminism is not so rough-around-the-edges as we make it, but more of a personal feeling or stand-point. It needs to be discussed more, with less fear and more questions—less judgement, and more openness.

Some may ask, what is the difference between feminism, and egalitarianism? Feminism has to do with unique qualities being appreciated, therefore putting a woman into a different category, but not one that is superior, they are just not the same. Feminism begins with women, as I was saying earlier, she is setting the example. Like a lotus growing through murky water, feminism has been shaped through repression, and wouldn’t exist without the imbalance. Feminism acknowledges the imbalance, whereas egalitarianism has to do with everything being one side, everything being the same. Feminism is not saying that we are 100 percent the same, but that we can be different and equally special.

Feminism is a demonstration of something new and for the future. In 2019 and the years to come we can see a world that opens themselves to feminism and its equal mindset that follows. Through adamant and passionate people supporting this new wave movement, we will see change, we will see equality, we will see the standards being exceeded and respected. Feminism isn’t against the world, it is for it.

[notokj]

my coming out story (i guess)

Warning - This is probably going to be long and boring, but it’s my truth. And I guess I should start off with a disclaimer.

I am not a lesbian. I am bisexual.

My name is KJ, I’m currently 18 years old and I live a relatively happy lifestyle. From a very young age, I’d been attracted to boys. Specifically (but not exclusively) Robert Downey Jr., Nick Jonas, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Brenden Urie, and various others. I always thought girls were pretty, but I never let myself think anything further. In the early 2000s, sure, being ‘out’ was slowly becoming normal, but I was a kid and nobody my age was talking about it... so why should I? I had a mom and dad, and so did my friends, I didn’t even consider two moms or two dads or anything in between. I was completely in the dark. But for hours, I would obsess over Miley Cyrus (or Hannah Montana) not just as a TV celebrity, but as somebody I found attractive. I never felt scared to admit this out loud, simply because I believed that I was just being stupid or irrational. I let myself continue to fit in the way I did.

One of the earliest memories I remember about me trying to shut down my feelings was about in the third grade. There was an exchange student from the middle east who was just learning English, and for whatever reason they chose me to help her understand that seasons. You know, fall, winter, spring, summer, it was fine. We were having fun like most little kids do, even with the language barrier. She was having issues understanding what the different words meant, and I was having issues explaining it to her because I couldn’t communicate in a way that she would understand. Giving up on the seasons, she took notice to my disney princess lunchbox. I told her my favorite princess was Ariel, and I’m not sure if I misspoke or she misunderstood but she stated that she “wanted to kiss a princess”. Now, I cannot confirm if that was her true feeling at the time or if she was unable to translate correctly what she said, but I was shocked to hear her say it. I didn’t comment on it, I didn’t make her uncomfortable, I simply moved on and pointed out all of the princesses on my bag. After school that day, I was hanging out with a family friend that was a couple years older than me. Being confused and trusting this friend, I told them what the exchange student said. My friend proceeded to tell me that I was lying, that a girl would never say that, and I laughed it off and agreed with her and told her the girl was probably just crazy. I quickly regretted my words, but kept all my opinions to myself. I didn’t want to seem weird or out of it.

Fast forward to the seventh grade, I had just transferred to a new middle school and was enjoying my time meeting new friends. At this time, it was super cool to girls if a guy was gay, but lesbians were unheard of. In my friend group, there was this one girl, let’s call her Brooke. Brooke was broken up with her asshole ex-boyfriend when we met, and shortly after she admitted to me that she had feelings for another girl. Of course, knowing somebody who had positive thoughts about girls liking girls, I fully supported her. I even helped her to portray her feelings. During this time, I hadn’t outed myself, but I was able to confirm that I did like girls... all because Brooke did it first. Somebody I trusted was brave enough, even though nearly half of her family was homophobic, she was able to say out loud that she liked somebody of the same sex. I respected her for that. We became best friends through that experience. It was special to me, and in eight grade I admitted to my entire group of friends that I liked girls and boys, They all supported me but I hadn’t yet been out to my family.

Two weeks before high school, Brooke had a birthday party. I went, of course, and at a point in the night, a kissing game was played... and, well, I lost my first kiss to Brooke. Do I regret it? No. Was it kinda cringy and gross? Yes, as most fourteen year old kisses were. I immediately knew everything I was feeling was real, and all I wanted to do was give Brooke a chance. I had known for a while that Brooke had feelings for me, and I was starting to have feelings for her. During her party, she claimed that on the first day of high school, she would get down on one knee and ask me out in front of everyone. That was said as a joke, but slick little KJ took advantage of it. Right before I left the party, I whispered into her ear “Why wait until school starts, when I’m saying yes right now?”, THEN I RAN OUT! I ran out like a little pussy but it’s okay! She texted me later that night and asked if I was kidding. I said no. Feelings from both sides were admitted and we confirmed that we were now girlfriend and girlfriend.

Three months later, me and Brooke are still together. Since we started High School as a couple, it was really easy to transition into the culture of our school. We didn’t have to come out to our classmates, because everyone had already assumed we were out. It was okay! Sure, there were “Fag”s and “Dyke”s thrown around, constant mocking and teasing, but we were strong. We didn’t let it get to us and we stuck together. I was at the point where I realized I was falling in love with this girl. I decided to tell my mom. At this point in time, my parents had recently divorced and weren��t living together anymore. I primarily lived with my mom, and I wanted to open up to her about this part of my life. So, I did. She was upset that I hid it from her for three months, but she was happy for me and also confessed that she too was/is bisexual! I’ve never felt so much comfort and security in my life.

But wait, this isn’t a cute happy coming out story that will end up on facebook.

The next hurdle was telling my dad. He’s always been a bit old school and traditional, and both my mom and I KNEW he would not be happy about it. He’d never really liked my friend group, specifically Brooke, and I just knew that being bisexual was not going to be a good thing. Also, knowing my dad, because I was dating a girl, I’d have to come out to him as a lesbian. He was the kind of old school that didn’t believe you could like both. Whatever, I just wanted to tell him. For some reason, this really stressed me out because I wanted nothing more than to be supported by my dad. I had gotten to such a low point, and mixed with high anxiety and depression, I made the mistake of cutting myself (take note it was the first and last time. I’m proudly four years clean). I’d worn a heavy red sweater the day after to hide it, and stupid me wrote my girlfriend a note about what I did because I wanted to be honest. The note got dropped somewhere, and I was reported to the office. The counselor checked my arm, and I swore it was just marks from falling into a bush. I caved, though, called my mom and told her what I did. My mom picked me up from school, and took my home. She stood out on the porch and told my dad what I did and how I did it. He was so angry, he left right away... After that, everyone acted like nothing happened. Nobody asked about me, my feelings, or Brooke. It was uncomfortably normal.

Shortly after, it was my fifteenth birthday. Being a latina, this was a big deal. I had a quinceanera! It was beautiful, Phantom of the Opera themed. I had fifteen roses, and I handed each one to an important person in my life and also gave them a speech. One of those roses went to my girlfriend, of course. But I was very courteous of my dad, and kept the speech platonic. As the night went on, my dad lingered and I had just wanted to apologize to Brooke for not spending much time with her. so I pulled her into the bathroom and we talked. She was okay so we both exited but my dad caught us as I was leaving. He screamed at me in front of everyone and made me cry, all for being with Brooke alone. He got so angry, he left and went drinking. I was miserable.

We talked after that. I told him I liked girls and boys. He told me he felt as if I was pressuring myself into some new societal norm, and that he specifically did not like Brooke. I was hurt, but I knew it would heal with time. And you know what? It did.

Three years later, Brooke left me for reasons not worth putting into a story like this. I was crushed. She was my first love, but I knew it was not meant to be. My dad and I were able to talk without her weight on my shoulders, and he had changed his mindset after years of watching me grow. He’ll never be the dad that’s going to gawk at girls with me, he wasn’t raised that way and I respect that. But he’ll never be the dad that puts me down if I do end up with a woman. I’m proud to say my dad is fully supportive of me, as long as I’m happy and safe. So many people are quick to judge him on the first half of this story, but family to recognize how far he’s come in loving me for me. I trust him with anything now. And having listened to why he didn’t like Brooke, made me realize that his previous anger was not completely directed at my newfound sexuality. He didn’t like how I was treated, not the gender of who I was with. He changed, for my happiness. And he is one of my biggest supporters now.

After Brooke, I had two other partners, both boys. I was the talk of my school. People would say that Brooke was just a phase, and that I faked being gay, and that I was just some phony. Both of those relationships didn’t last, and it was just six months ago that I decided I wouldn’t date until college because I was so put off by all the rude comments. Nobody wanted to believe that I was bisexual. They all wanted to believe that I was straight, or just a weird lesbian. It hurt, all the biphobia. 

A month ago, let’s just simplify things and say I started dating my current boyfriend, who I’mma just call 2K here (cause thats his life smh). I am in love with 2K, and I was worried that being bisexual would be a bad thing for him but,... he does not care. He’s loyal, trustworthy, and completely supportive of the fact that while yes- we are in a straight relationship, I am still bisexual. It doesn’t bother him, and I’m lucky enough to have some wonderful friends who are also very supportive! I’m at such a good place in my life right now. 2K is on great terms with my family, I trust him more than anyone, and it’s so comforting to know that the person I love isn’t telling me that Brooke was just a phase. Christ, I was with the girl for three years. That would be a long as phase!

To this day, I still experience extreme biphobia. But you know what? I’m okay. My boyfriend, family, friends, all support me and know who I am. I am not a lesbian. I am not straight. I’m proudly bisexual! And I’m starting college in a few short months. That’s not relevant, but I’m excited. I went through highs and lows to get to this solid point, and I wouldn’t change a damn thing.

So to all of my bi friends... You are HERE. Be proud and be loud. You are not confused, and nobody has the right to make you choose who or what to love!

[centerofstupidity]

Dracula the Undead: Author’s Note Part 1 Snark

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Interested in reading the previous Dracula the Undead chapter snarks? They can be found here.

Summary: An aperitif of the clusterfuckery that is to come. This is a long-winded and self-congratulating author's note.

Both writers claim that their novel stays true to Bram Stoker's vision even though it contradicts and re-writes the original story.

In case anyone wants to read the original author's note in order to form their own conclusions, you can read it here.  

~ Dacre's Story ~

Since I am a Stoker, it is not surprising that I have had a lifelong interest in the work of my ancestor.

At the risk of sounding like a complete ass...

This "interest" is financially motivated. 

Bram’s youngest brother, George, believed to be the sibling with whom he had the closest relationship, was my great-grandfather, so I am Bram’s great-grandnephew.

"Which means that I am related to Bram Stoker and can write an 'official' sequel to Dracula. And that will make me a shit-load of money."

In college, I wrote a paper on my great granduncle,

I'm getting the impression that is statement is supposed to make Dacre Stoker sound unique...

Even though there are plenty of other college students who have written an essay about Bram Stoker or Dracula for an assignment.

For instance, yours truly did a PowerPoint presentation on Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley for a class in college. 

examining what may have motivated him to write Dracula.

Again, this isn't groundbreaking stuff. 

Many people have published articles or books discussing Dracula. 

Scholars like Professor Elizabeth Miller have dedicated their lives to studying it. 

My research opened my eyes to how, from my family’s perspective, the history of the book Dracula, is pretty tragic.

"And before I give everyone a history lesson, I'm telling you all this so I can justify butchering my ancestor's work."

Bram Stoker died without ever seeing Dracula become popular. The sales of the novel were so limited at the time of his death that his widow, Florence, thought she would never benefit financially from Bram’s “wasted” seven years of research and writing. With Bram’s other fiction and nonfiction books out of print, Florence was convinced she would live out her days on a tight budget.

Actually, that isn't true. 

According to scholar John Edgar Browning, the majority of critics gave positive reviews. 

His findings were published on February 1st, 2012. 

It is important to note Dracula: The Undead was published in 2009.

But in an interview in 2013, Dacre Stoker said this: There is this statement that used to kind of drive me crazy—‘Dracula was met with mixed reviews when Bram was alive’. 

He then briefly discusses Browning’s research.

Which means that Stoker knew about Browning’s findings...

But he ignored it and printed misinformation. 

Dacre adds that it was only "ten years after Bram’s death" when Dracula became popular.

Posthumously, Bram started to receive recognition as the progenitor of the modern vampire/horror novel.

Not to diminish Dracula and its impact on popular culture...

But it is not the first influential vampire novel. 

Varney the Vampire is. 

Dacre Stoker goes on to talk about Florence Stoker (Bram Stoker's wife) and her legal dispute with the creators of Nosferatu.

He also states that Dracula became public domain in the U.S.A since 1899 because Bram didn't complete a requirement so Florence Stoker had to live off the U.K. royalties.

With the U.S. copyright lost, Hollywood, corporate America, and anyone else was free to do whatever they wanted to Bram’s story and characters.

This is the part where the reader is supposed to boo and hiss at Hollywood...

And then give Holt and Stoker a standing ovation for writing Dracula the Undead. 

Dacre Stoker talks about how his family wasn't asked for approval of "any of the hundreds of incarnations of Dracula over the next century."

My father’s generation had a negative feeling for all things Hollywood and Dracula.

Which is understandable given what happened. 

But after reading the author's note...

The history of Dracula is being used in order to deflect any criticism.

And to justify bastardizing Dracula under the pretense of honoring Bram's original vision and righting a past wrong. 

—except, of course, for Bram’s original novel.

So we have two options:

They knowingly endorsed a novel that defamed Bram and mocked the original novel. 

Or they loved Dracula and would be appalled that Bram was dragged through the mud and the original lore was ridiculed. 

According to Ian Holt in an interview in 2010, he says that “Bram’s bitter demeanor was even worse in real life than we depicted in the novel.”

And in the same interview, Holt passively aggressively says: “Do your research. The fact that the chapters with Bram were written almost completely by Dacre in consultation with his family means nothing to them.” 

So yeah...

I’m leaning towards option number one. 

I didn’t write about these issues in my college paper, but they were always on my mind.

Dacre Stoker admitted that he didn't read Dracula until he went to college.

Stoker says it was "a shame" that his family was unable to "control the legacy of my great-granduncle" and  "lay claim to the character of Dracula."

It was many years after college that I met an interesting character, Ian Holt.

Stoker doesn't realize that calling someone "an interesting character" can be a veiled insult.

Ian is a screenwriter who has been obsessed with all things Dracula since childhood.

A lot of people love all things Dracula.

Doesn't mean that they are a talented writer.

Ian, being a true idealist, had a plan that inspired me to not accept the frustrating history of Dracula.

"He was my knight in shining armor!"

He wanted to change history.

History reveals that change isn't always positive. 

Sometimes it is negative. 

Ian’s plan was simple: to reestablish creative control over Bram’s novel and characters by writing a sequel that bore the Stoker name.

To my surprise, none in my family had ever considered this.

Translation: "Why haven't any of my family members tried writing a novel? It's the obvious solution to the problem." 

And it didn't occur to Stoker none of his family members had any interest in being a writer. 

It really pisses me off when people act like writing any kind of fiction is easy or that anyone can be a writer. 

While any literate person can write, not everyone can be a writer. 

It requires talent and passion along with the desire to learn about the craft and improve your writing skills.  

Intrigued, I decided to join Ian on a roller-coaster ride as coauthor.

And for readers, it is a nightmarish ride where clusterfuckery gallops and a literary classic is violently raped.

In writing Dracula the Un-Dead, I felt a strong sense of duty and familial responsibility.

"It isn't because I wanted to piss all over my relative's legacy and make a shit load of money."

I hoped to work with Ian to represent Bram’s vision for the character of Dracula.

Bram's vision should be called Sir Not Appearing in This Novel.

We aimed to resurrect Bram’s original themes and characters, just as Bram conceived them more than a century ago.

The Dracula characters appear in name only.

They are cast in an unfavorable light. 

As for the themes?

They are discarded. 

So many books and films had strayed from Bram’s vision—

It is extremely rare for adaptations to stick extremely close to the original story. 

Usually, adaptations take artistic license with the source material. 

And just because an adaptation or a retelling differs from the original story, doesn't mean that it will automatically suck. 

For instance, I like films, mangas, and video games that are inspired by/loosely based on Dracula. 

and thus our intent was to give both Bram and Dracula back their dignity in some small way.

Dracula is depicted as a misunderstood man with fangs who is every woman's erotic dream. 

And readers are supposed to despise Bram. 

I think Bram would be proud that a family member has taken this initiative, and finally done justice to the legacy he created.

Bram would be livid that his work was bastardized and that his descendant depicted him as a desperate and a talentless hack.

~ Ian’s Story ~

I am not ashamed to say it, I LOVE horror films.

Ah, all-caps.

How I loathe thee.

A lot of people like horror and it is a popular genre. 

So that doesn't make you unique.

And horror movies are no longer considered depraved or scandalous.

Holt mentions that his favorite horror movie as a kid was Dracula (1931).

When I was ten years old, my mother bought me a record for Halloween with Christopher Lee narrating the story of Dracula by Bram Stoker. Reading that record sleeve changed my life, for it was then I learned that Transylvania was an actual place and that Dracula was a historical figure.

Where do I begin? 

If you are LISTENING to an audiobook, you are not READING IT.

Ian was "inspired" by the audiobook that he decided to read Dracula.

I was surprised at how different the novel was from the films—and I had seen every Dracula film ever made.

"Who knew that Count Dracula swings both ways? Or that Mina is an assertive and intelligent woman and not a stupid Dracula fangirl?"

The novel was more intelligent, astute, and dark.

While this literary abomination is a cash-grab filled with gratuitous gore and sex.

The novel had more intricate and exciting characters than I could have ever imagined.

While Dracula the Undead has depraved lesbian vampires and a whiny prat along with a handsome and misunderstood vampire who only wants tru luv.

I felt cheated by Hollywood. I vowed revenge!

I get it, Holt and Stoker. 

I'm supposed to hate Hollywood but adore your literary travesty. 

Fifteen years later, my opportunity came.

And Dracula fans wished that it never arrived.

Flipping channels one night, I came upon a program on the making of Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

I'm getting the sneaking suspicion that this story will result in name dropping. And Holt insisting that he is a scholar.

On the program, Coppola held up the 1972 book In Search of Dracula written by Fulbright Scholars Professor Raymond McNally and Professor Radu Florescu (Prince Dracula’s actual descendant).

Vlad the Impaler is also known as Vlad III, Vlad Dracul or Vlad Dracula. 

Sometimes he is referred to as Vlad III of Wallachia or Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia. 

But I have never heard of any scholar referring to Vlad III as "Prince Dracula."

A quick Google search reveals only this book and a YA novel called Hunting Prince Dracula. 

Every time I see Vlad III being mentioned as "Prince Dracula", I can't keep a straight face. 

Because it reminds me of Beni Gabor calling Imhotep his "prince." 

Coppola had used the professors’ research of the historical Prince Dracula’s life as inspiration for the opening sequence of his film.

And he discarded the rest of it in order to make Dracula a guy who is looking for his one tru luv.

Before taking a breath I was on a plane to Boston College to meet the professors. After showing them some notes on the screenplay I planned to write based on their book,

"I smelled an opportunity to make some money!"

the professors sold me the rights for one dollar

"They were impressed my awesomeness!"

The friendship I forged with McNally and Florescu has borne fruit in many ways. I soon began traveling with the professors giving lectures on the impact of Bram Stoker’s novel on our culture.

According to Dracula the Undead on the official Penguin Publishing House website, Ian is being described as:

There is a BIG difference between being a fan, a historian, and a documentarian. 

A quick Google search reveals that Ian Holt has not published anything in an academic journal.

However, one of the first things that pop up in an internet search is this. 

This garnered me an invitation to speak at The First World Dracula Congress in Bucharest, Romania, in 1995—a gathering of Dracula/horror scholars from around the world.

I don't doubt that Holt went to The First World Dracula Congress.

But I don't think he was a speaker.

Elizabeth Miller wrote a report about the gathering. 

And Ian Holt isn't mentioned among the speakers. 

Holt went sightseeing in Romania and how he made "the dream I had as a ten-year-old come true."

Thanks to the friends I made at the First World Dracula Congress, I was asked to join the Transylvanian Society of Dracula—a scholarly organization dedicated to the study of all things Dracula.

We get it, Ian Holt. 

You want us to think that you are a scholar because you are friends with scholars and historians. 

But I don't think a scholar would be constantly name-dropping.

Through friends in the society I met Professor Elizabeth Miller, the world’s foremost authority on all things vampire, Dracula, and Bram.

"And I'll use my scholar friends as a shield to deal with criticism."

Professor Miller asked me to speak at the Dracula convention in Los Angeles in 1997, where we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the release of Bram’s novel.

According to a report on the 1997 Dracula convention in Los Angeles, Holt isn't mentioned as being one of the speakers.

Holt says during the convention he came up with an idea to write a sequel to Dracula. He admits that a Dracula sequel isn't a new idea.

But a Dracula sequel was never written with "input from a member of the Stoker family."

Holt goes on to say that "securing that input became my goal" and contacted the Stoker family patriarch.

Still scarred by the Nosferatu copyright affair and years of being ignored and abused by Hollywood, the members of this generation of the Stoker family wanted nothing to do with me.

I could be wrong...

But I'm getting a strong feeling that Holt was miffed that some members of the Stokers didn't want to touch him with a ten-foot pole. 

Especially since Holt said the Stoker family at "long last" supported the idea for an official sequel.

But I wouldn’t give up.

Holt says how he "kept building up my film-writing résumé and Dracula connections." He eventually meets Dacre Stoker.

I pitched him my sequel idea, which at the time I had been planning as a screenplay. Dacre was enthusiastic and suggested that the proper way to proceed was with a book first.

If it is a novel, then it will be proper lit-ra-choor.

Because a movie wouldn't be "deep" or "elevated". 

Both Dacre and Ian agreed to a writing partnership.

And Dacre contacted his family members and presented them with the sequel proposal.

Once it was understood that this would be a labor of love,

"We gleefully shit all over the original lore and insist that it was all a lie."

our intentions honorable, and that our plan was to restore to the world Bram’s original vision and characters,

If that was the case, then:

The original lore of Dracula wouldn't be repeatedly violated.

The Crew of Light wouldn't be depicted in an unflattering light.

And Bram Stoker wouldn't be vilified. 

the Stokers offered support, at long last.

Translation: They finally appreciated my genius!

Dracula the Un-Dead is the culmination of my lifelong dream and years of hard work.

"And why is the Devil laughing and doing a victory dance?"

It is my gift to every horror nut out there.

If by "gift", you mean a literary turd, then I agree with you.

My greatest wish is we have created a book that is close to Bram’s original gothic vision

"Close to Bram's original gothic vision"? 

Hell no! 

It contradicts the original story and reads like a shitty Coppola's Dracula fanfic. 

—while modernizing it at the same time.

By stealing a twist from The Empire Strikes Back and copying a scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Believe me, I realize how lucky I am.

And readers will regard this novel as a plague upon mankind.

I have been truly blessed that in some small way, my name will be linked with

a mean-spirited and shitty novel.

that of my hero, Bram Stoker—

I'm not convinced that Dacre or Ian regard Bram as their hero.

Here is an excerpt from the novel:

"If there were to be any truth to Stoker's novel it would have to be where no sunlight could ever reach."

Translation: you can stick it where the sun don't shine.

the man who invented modern horror.

I'll say it again...

Stoker wasn't the only one who invented modern horror.

Some of the other writers were Edgar Allen Poe, Ann Radcliffe, Sheridan Le Fanu, Algernon Blackwood, and H.P. Lovecraft.

[faecaptainofdreams]

Uttu is a cultural figure being used in a major arc i'm working on. Her story and what she represents varies greatly in my works. I do not own Marvel or the gods depicted in cultural stories. Phobis bio: www.deviantart.com/foxdragonlo… Karn bio: www.deviantart.com/foxdragonlo… ------------------------------------------------------------------ (Trigger Warning: mentions of sexual abuse) Name: Uttu Origin: Sumer, Mesopotamia Height: 4'11" Age: roughly 5,000 years Temple Gateway: Euphrates River, Iraq ~~Uttu~~ Pronounced "uh-too," she is an ancient Sumerian deity known most popularly in a story depicting her as a victim of her father's sexual appetite. A simple, albeit LARGE spider spinning a web, Uttu was told by her father's wife that he would try to seduce her. Afraid, Uttu built a great web and hid herself in the thick silk. When her father arrived and tried to win her services, she refused him. Her father later came back with the promise of fresh produce and marriage. After a while, Uttu let her guard down, removing part of the web and allowing him in. Once in her company, Uttu's father intoxicated her with beer and assaulted her. Not long after, her father's wife came to her rescue, fending him off and scooping his seed from her body. Deeply hurt by all she had endured, Uttu scuttled away in the darkness. In her travels, she was seen by Karn, the Web repairer. He reached out through a loop in the Web of Life, and offered the hurt and scared Uttu refuge and a peaceful place in the Loomworld alongside himself and his mother, Phobis. After some deliberation, Uttu hesitantly allowed him to take her, and was relieved to see his promise was true. There, she began her journey of healing from the traumatic event, and expressed herself through simple weaving, and she crawled along the Web. She had a tendency to crawl over the same spot in our world over and over again. In time, Uttu's story echoed across the Web, being passed along by generations as an example of strength in the face of adversity. She became a goddess -- one of healing, self-care, and life after trauma, mostly from sexual assault/incest. She made it her mission to protect people, especially women and girls, from sexual attacks and offer healing to those who had suffered it. As time went on, she learned men and all genders experience this plague, and so she now represents such sentiments to all people. Uttu resides in the Loomworld, whispering hints to people in potential danger of kidnapping or sexual attack, manipulating circumstances in order to protect them. If one has suffered from such events, they may call out to her for help easing the pain and beginning a path of recovery and self-care. She also represents preservation, virginity, and rebirth. ~~Personality~~ Uttu is meek, soft, and tender in nature. A virgin who narrowly escaped unwanted motherhood through forced incest, she cherishes innocence, color, and the day. Somewhat childlike and simple, Uttu is one of the oldest deities (and the third arachnid deity in total). She lives simply to enjoy her life. Her favorite pass-time is spinning webs, or observing the events of the multiverse. If there is something new to see or experience, she wants to see and experience it. Uttu is also very kind to the animals and small plants, admiring even the simplest of  life forms. Uttu can be angered, but she's more prone to hurt and fear than rage. She would rather hide than fight, but she does have fangs. Interestingly enough, most natural spiders prefer to run and hide than fight. She is rare in that she represents a misunderstood nature of spiders. ~~Physiology~~ She's quite literally just a giant orb weaver spider. Due to the fact that giant arachnids and insects would be crushed under their own exoskeleton, Uttu doesn't have one. Rather, she is a vertebrate, having bones inside her body, a spine, and a rib-like lining in her backside to protect her organs. Uttu's bright colors are meant to inspire, uplift and intrigue those who see her. She was once merely tan and brown with few patterns, but as she healed and assumed her role as the goddess of healing, her colors changed, reflecting what she learned and her optimism, as well as her love for life, trials and all. ~~Magical Prowess~~ Uttu's greatest ability lies in empathy. She can influence the feelings of others, calming someone who is deeply distressed so that they may think clearly and make wise decisions, or otherwise listen to their heart. Uttu also has the ability to mysteriously influence the environment in small increments in an emergency, causing events to turn in her favor, or in the favor of others. ~~Preference~~ Uttu is lesbian, and always has been. She prefers the company of females and is closer to them due to her origins and the statistics of female strife, but she has never mated with another woman/female. Uttu is very passionate and gentle in nature, and thus is determined to have everlasting love before a sexual partner. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

[sanaseva-archive]

okay, hi. it’s me—the annoyance in this fandom. and i’d like to talk about something, so bear with me.

 there’s a problem in this fandom that doesn’t need to be discussed. why not? it’s not up for discussion, basically. it’s up to you all to sit back and learn that this shit you all are pulling needs to be stopped. period.

 i’m breaking it up to a couple of core parts so you all know what i’m talking about.

 first of all, let’s talk about the islamophobia and racism in this fandom.

 here’s the deal: shut up and listen. is that too hard? then just shut up and close your browser. delete your blog. take a walk. go on with your shitty life.

 i don’t know why this needs to be explained—seriously. i don’t understand it. it’s not physics or the study of runes. it’s the basic thing called logic thinking and common decency at the least.

 you’re all doing something incredibly harmful and it’s not okay. when you started calling a brown character a rat i—i thought it was a joke. and when it was pointed out it’s racist, by people of colour in this fandom, you kept doing it. why? do you take enjoyment in calling brown people rats? do you think you can get away with it? guess you can, but you can stop doing it to people of colour. it’s disgusting.

 next. the idea of this season is: please don’t let me be misunderstood. the reverse of this? please don’t let me be understood. just so we’re clear. there’s no reverse. the song was in reverse, the message was clear. so you can shut up about that.

 so when the fight broke up, and sana was hiding in the bathroom stall, what did we hear? the two white random, irrelevant white girls talking about how they thought (assumed, didn’t know but talked anyway) it was about homosexuality, and how muslims are homophobic. was it there for the lols? no. it was there for us. to know. that it wasn’t about that.

 my point: shut the fuck up about it. it’s tiresome, getting old, it’s toxic. if you keep talking about this, you’re spreading harmful messages to others. what messages? that muslims are homophobic. which they can be, i’m not saying some aren’t. i’m saying that that’s not the point of this season and that non-muslims are equally likely to be homophobic. don’t believe me? wow, i guess it’s something that has been fed to you by media representation and… dare i say it? people talking shit of shit they don’t know on social platforms. precisely what you’re doing right now.

 second thing we need to talk about: the series. yes! let’s talk about what content we have right now and why us people of colour and why muslims are upset, shall we? (note: we have all the right to be upset.)

 let’s first get this out of the way: we know it’s written this way to prove some point later on in the season. probably something along the lines of muslim and brown boys not all being homophobic and shit. you know. that thing you keep shutting your eyes from. we understand that, we know that.

 we’re just. not. happy. about how it’s written. it’s kind of doing a lot of damage right now. look at some of the messages some people (people of colour, muslims, muslim people of colour) receive. and what we should be getting is much more healthy scenes between muslims, muslims and people of non-faith, people of colour and white people, to weigh up to the damage its doing. we don’t get that much of that. and it’s frustrating, because we understand why (sana’s lonely) but there are so many ways to portray loneliness than completely erase healthy interactions between people on the fucking screen.

 don’t bring up the hei briskeby videos, because they don’t count. i’m talking about the real episodes here. the real clips. the clips that the casual viewer will watch.

 so yes. the series itself is… partially at fault here. the writing, i would say. especially filming only the people of colour in a fight and—wow. that chokehold they had on the only black guy? yikes.

 what’s worse is that they surely know—or at least have a slight idea—of what outbreak their clips will give. and they keep doing it. keep feeding this shit to us, and leave us to either deal with it, or completely shut down our inboxes. which results into people thinking we’re selfish, because we don’t answer their wish to learn more about culture and islam and the experiences people of colour have.

 third thing we need to talk about: vilde and noora. yup. i’m putting them on the agenda.

 i, as a lesbian of colour, wholeheartedly believe that vilde’s character is poorly written this season. she’s obviously not too different from earlier seasons, but she’s definitely had more emphasis on her ignorance, and how that ignorance is dealt with is—less acceptable. i do believe, on top of that, that she will be “redeemed” (i’m just not sure i’ll buy into it) and that she will learn, apologise and maybe grow the last episode or something, since we won’t be getting any more.

 but what bugs me the most about the way they’re writing her this season is that, she’s coded as possibly lesbian (or bi, if you prefer, but i’m gonna talk about her being lesbian, and you can make your own post about her being bisexual). and she’s literally the only character fully coded this way. if you’re interested in why, just… google it. believe it or not, we aren’t google. but the key point is that she is doing a lot of what us lesbians perceive as compulsory heterosexuality. and they completely villainised a potential lesbian this season which is just falling into the same shit people have done over and over again. lesbians are bad, lesbians are racist, lesbians are this and fucking that and that pisses me off. if, by the off chance, she eventually is canonically declared as lesbian, i’m not sure i will rejoice or throw my phone through my computer screen. they ruined her character to me, they ruined a (coded) lesbian to me, a lesbian, simply because they wanted to put her to be the ignorant girl who keeps shitting all over sana.

 and noora. man. i’m not too mad about noora as a character herself. she’s flawed, she has her good moments and shit. but she takes up so much of her own storyline from sana’s. it’s a mess. she’s talking about herself, her problems with dickhelm, and sure, that’s what friends do—talk about what bothers you. but we’re so frustrated that she’s once again on the screen, talking about the same old thing, and rip the minutes that could’ve been spent on sana from our hands.

 don’t get me wrong. we all know that sana is a listener. but there’s a line. and they jump over it, time and time again.

 and then there’s the misogyny in this fandom that needs to be addressed. and this is a harder one, because it’s hard to spot.

 during the course of season three—up to this day, i see this shit—people keep shitting on sonja and emma for no other reason than them being girls who got hurt in the process. sonja? remember her? she got cheated on. and while even kept saying he felt controlled by her you somehow got the idea that she’s toxic. she isn’t. a toxic relationship would not end with isak thanking sonja for the help she’s given. she knows even and—well, at the most, she might have been a bit controlling because she doesn’t understand that even is his own person with or without his bipolar disorder.

 and emma? she outed isak, which is fucked up and there’s no excuse. but stop thinking she’s the absolute villain to isak’s life because she’s a girl, who got hurt, in the process. accept that, move on, because isak sure did.

 you thought i’d end there? really? nope. ain’t gonna happen. i’m gonna bring up vilde specifically again.

 you think she’s just a dumb ignorant islamophobe? partially true. she’s islamophobic and is not a good friend to sana. she’s ignorant, yes. but you’re reducing her character to something she isn’t. you’re reducing her to the blonde dumb girl, which is just as shitty as people defending her islamophobic behaviour. her islamophobia does not correlate to her dealing with whatever she’s dealing with (compulsory heterosexuality, if you will), but if you reduce her to a two-dimensional character it’s quite misogynistic itself. if you’re woman and doing that—check yourself in the mirror.

 same goes for noora, basically, but i don’t think anyone is genuinely despising her for anything else than the shitty line here and there and the serious screentime she’s clocking.

 we also had a run in with the lovely subjects of biphobia and ableism too. you all can’t stop anywhere, can you?

 since we aren’t discussing, let me just point out these things:

 bisexuality does not equate to cheater. a cheater can be of any sexuality. the stereotype is that bisexual people are cheaters is harmful and it ends here. whether a bisexual person/character has cheated can be discussed without bringing in their bisexuality to the conversation.

 and mental illness… it seems it’s harder for you to grasp this part. so let me put it this way: think of the most embarrassing shit you’ve done. called your teacher mum and everyone laughed? peed yourself in public? pretended to talk on the phone and your phone ended up ringing? whatever. the most embarrassing shit you’ve done. think of that. feel what you felt at that point. oh my god, what did people think of you?

 do you want your crush or your partner of a few months know… that? say it involved a second person. say you… shat yourself on your best friend’s expensive, newly bought couch, felt so embarrassed you left the house and deleted all your social media and never answered their calls.

 say your partner brings them up.

 would you… tell them that?

 i don’t mean to trivialise mental illness here (i’m struggling with my own). it’s much more complex (guilt, self-blaming, embarrassment, sadness) than what i’m saying here. i’m just breaking it down to a point where hopefully even the most abled person can understand.

 you’re expecting someone who deals with this every day to just tell their partner. it’s not that easy. it’s a lot of compartmentalising that needs to be done, so you can tell that story without breaking down completely. what happened to even broke him enough to switch to a new school. that’s not something you just tell someone, regardless if you’re together with them, without having thought it through for weeks—even months—and analysed each possible turnout and reaction. that’s not something you tell someone unless you really, really, really need to.

 that’s not to say that it’s… bad. that even and sana weren’t honest with isak from the start. but it’s what it is. even isn’t perfect. sana isn’t perfect. isak isn’t perfect. none of these characters are completely perfect. why not? because they’re supposed to be realistic, human and resound to us. we’re supposed to be able to relate to them, in a way.

 lastly, but most importantly: stop thinking you’re so bloody entitled to send shitty asks to people, especially the muslims, people of colour and disabled people of this fandom.

 now that i’ve said my piece, kindly don’t find your way into my inbox and think it’s time to discuss. as i said, it’s not up for discussion.

 don’t understand what i’m talking about? congratulations, you just won the prize: read this post again until you get it.

 peace the fuck out.

[maria-marsden]

“No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed by all the members thereof”. – William James, (1890),The Principles of Psychology.

“I is for Intersex, not Invisible!” – a popular LGBTQIA+ Pride slogan.

I am intersex, but I have not always identified as such. An intersex person is someone who is born with variations in their biological sex characteristics that do not conform to what is biologically or culturally considered typically male or female.

Sex characteristics are genitals, reproductive organs, chromosomes and hormone patterns.

In my case I was born with Mullerian Aplasia (aka MRKH or Mayer Rokitansky Kuster Hauser Syndrome) and unilateral gonadal agenesis. MRKH affects about 1 in 9000 of the world population. Intersex people as a whole number >1.7%. We are more common than autistic people. We are more common than people born with natural red hair.

Like many intersex people, l was born with more than one intersex variation. My uterus was not formed properly, I was born without a cervix and 3/4 of my vagina canal has been absent since birth. I ovulate and have very bad period pains, but have never “started my periods” in the typical understanding of the term.

At birth, I was presumed to be female. I had a vulva that appeared typically female. At puberty, I developed breast tissue, pubic hair ET cetera. However, by the age of 18, l had still not started my periods. I was very thin then and at first, doctors thought this was due to me being underweight.

In 1989, I had a laparoscopy. The female doctor informed me that I was born without a uterus and with a very short vagina [ about 2 centimetres ]. She said that I would never be able to have sex without surgery and also suggested that I might find it very difficult to find a partner who would accept me.

“But there are a few nice men out there,” she said. I was told that I should come back and have surgery when I was about to get married. The surgery would involve cutting skin off my arm and grafting it into a vagina. It’s a lot to take in when you are 18.

I was actually just about turn 18 at the time....traditionally the age of reaching adulthood. I reached a state of something, but I couldn’t articulate what it was. I couldn’t articulate what I was.

Of course, there was a part of me that really wanted to challenge the doctors. I wanted to say things like, “what do you mean I can’t have sex? I can already have orgasms.” I wanted to say, “How do you know that I am heterosexual? I might be a lesbian for all you know.” (I hadn’t answered the question of my sexuality then. This medical trauma always intruded on my attraction to women.) I wanted to shout, “How do you even know that I want to be a female? I might want to have a penis!” [ I didn’t, but l certainly considered this option] I wanted to ask, “but what about anal?” But I didn’t dare. [ I was a shy, withdrawn 18 year old. ]

I did have sex and healthy relationships, including penetrative sex without dilation or surgery. I’m happily married, but for a long time I thought that by having sex without medical treatment, I was doing something wrong. This is one of the perils being diagnosed a malformed female.

Whatever you do misdiagnosed as a malformed female, you're always going to think that you're doing something wrong... that you are wrong or inadequate in some way.

When I tell people that I am intersex, a lot of folk assume that being intersex is a term that medics diagnosed me with. The truth is that since the beginning of gynaecological medicine, doctors and surgeons have hardly ever diagnosed anyone as intersex.

When medics first became interested in what they termed “hermaphroditism” or “people of doubtful sex”, their interest was not in diagnosing intersex, but just the opposite. Medics were then (and still are) only interested in finding intersex patients so that they can diagnose our true sex as female or male and force treatments or surgery that will make us less queer in the minds of those around us. Politically and throughout Western history, this is to maintain white cis heteronormative male privilege.

At the age of nearly 18, I wasn’t diagnosed as being intersex. I was diagnosed as a malformed female who hadn’t formed properly and would never do so without intersex genital mutilation [surgery] or prescribed self harm [ dilation with a glass dildo/test tube].

Medics suggested that as much as possible I keep what little information they have given me about my body to myself. For the most part I did. I spent the next 30 years of my life living in shame and secrecy. This shame and secrecy was compounded when my female friends talked about their periods or sex life. I was different. I didn’t have a language for describing my experiences.

I didn’t have the exact same experiences in terms of rights of passage assumed to be common to all women. I felt included in the category of female, only in as much as I was excluded by a body that didn’t conform and the lack of language for my experiences. I felt invalid as a female and invisible.

I didn’t have intersex genital mutilation. I was almost persuaded to, but I became traumatised by the pre op dilation and the thought of having to continue to do this.

Being diagnosed a malformed female destroyed all sense of my personal and body integrity. The only way that I could keep myself together, was to tear myself apart. I was ending up in A and E every other day with severe self harm. The only way to make myself visible, was to visibly disappear. I became anorexic. I had been starved of the opportunity to grow up knowing other intersex people. I was in my own prison of shame and secrecy and on a hunger strike.

I ended up spending two years as an inpatient in various institutions in the psychiatric system. I was further pathologized and invalidated by the psychiatric system in the UK . In addition to my diagnosis as malformed female, I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.

BPD is basically the mark of Cain of the DSM. When a BPD diagnosis is put on a person, whole heap of assumptions are made about that persons personality. These assumptions include, manipulative, attention seeking, passive aggressive, incapable of healthy personal relationships, emotionally immature, unable to grow up, promiscuous, reckless, impulsive ET cetera

Indeed a number of studies and critiques have shown that sexual minorities, trans, non binary and gender non conforming people are more likely to be diagnosed with BPD. Some psychologists and mental health professionals even have the audacity to suggest that what psychiatrists now term “gender dysphoria” is caused by having a borderline personality disorder. One psychiatrist had me fill out a questionnaire to see how much my gender conformed to what is considered typical for women. (To this day, l don’t know why).

I certainly did not come out to psychiatrists as being agender/non binary. I did acknowledge identifying as a lesbian and experienced some psychiatrists trying to tell me otherwise. Despite never having had surgery, one psychiatrist felt it necessary to put in my medical notes that l had a vaginoplasty (even though l had no such thing)! He even asked me if l hung around dark alley ways late at night so that l could get raped. (WTF??????)

Not all the psychiatrists l saw agreed that l had “borderline personality disorder”. The psychiatrist whom l did get along with and who was my main psychiatrist diagnosed PTSD and depression. He said that “borderline personality disorder” was just psychiatric speak for “bugger off and die!”

At that time under the 1983 mental health act in the UK, BPD was deemed “untreatable”. This meant that if a psychiatrist diagnosed a patient with BPD and they committed suicide, the psychiatric team would not legally be held accountable. Indeed, in one hospital a psychiatrist who had insisted that l had BPD said that if l were to leave the hospital and jump off a multi storey car park, he wouldn’t try and stop me!

I did not have a borderline personality disorder. If l was guilty of anything, it was a kind of “trauma re-enactment”. Traumatised by medical violence and psychic mutilation at age 18, I turned to mutilating myself and seeking help from the very same people who had traumatised me in the first place, [the medical system].

Self mutilation led to more psychic mutilation at the hands of the psychiatric system. Now, not only was my body and sex malformed, I was told that my personality was malformed too.

With the help of some good friends who were also psychiatric survivors, I eventually managed to recover and distance myself from the psychiatric profession, challenging their assumptions about me. It took me a long time after that to feel brave enough to reach out and find other intersex people like me.

In 2020 during the first Covid 19 lockdown, I reached out to MRKH groups and found others with the same variations in sex characteristics as myself. I wasn’t alone anymore but I was still a female with missing pieces.

I found the missing pieces in Esther Leidolf’s “The Missing Vagina Monologue and Beyond”, the documentary “InterseXion”and Hida Valoria’s book “The Spectrum of Sex”.

I learned that I wasn’t a female with missing pieces, but an intersex person who had been mistreated, misunderstood and misdiagnosed as a malformed female. I found my community, my anger, my grief and I found myself.

I admit, that when l first learned that MRKH is considered an intersex variation by intersex activists, l had a huge fear of reaching out to those communities. In many ways, l was afraid to become the person that l am today. I was afraid of being someone who could talk just as easily about being intersex as l could about being autistic.

I was also afraid that if l were to come out as intersex, people might make assumptions about my genitals. To be honest, l got so much support from the intersex community that l very quickly realised that other people’s assumptions were not my problem.

It’s much easier now that l am comfortable being intersex to chat with my female friends when they talk about their periods or sex life. As an intersex person, l am not incomplete, invalid or inadequate, l am just different from the majority.

The main benefit of connecting mostly with intersex groups (as opposed to MRKH “syndrome”) groups is that l no longer have to focus on what is supposedly “wrong with me”. I don’t have to see myself as broken. I have had trauma certainly, but I am no longer broken.

I still connect with the MRKH community. As an intersex activist, it’s important that l understand the issues faced by those who identify MRKH as a female variation or condition. I certainly would not have found my way to the intersex community had it not have been for some of my MRKH Sisters and Siblings.

I spent the first thirty years after my laparoscopy, diagnosed as a malformed female, forced into a space where I would be alone with my difference, silenced and invisible and unable to grow.

Finally, having found the intersex community, I feel like I have found an environment to nourish me, to enable me to grow my way and become my myself. I am unlearning and learning continuously about myself. I have some new language and l am beginning to create my own words and terms.

I am nearly 50 now and have come to the conclusion that life is too short not to be myself and l don't give a shit about what other people might think or gossip about me.

I use identity first language. The natural variations in my body and mind are not disorders. I am an autistic intersex person, rather than a person born with autism and an intersex variation. I mean how many people say that they were born with maleness or femaleness?

And just because l describe myself this way l am not saying that being intersex and autistic are the only things about me. Yet to me, they are important things about me because l would much rather have been born with a very fertile mind than a fertile reproductive system.

Many intersex people are autistic or neuro diverse. I feel that l am "inter" in many ways other than just biological sex characteristics. I travel between worlds and have had visitations since childhood from other worlds. The indigenous people of America understood this. Intersex autistic people were seen as the "bridges between worlds" and had important roles in the healing of their communities and as peacemakers. Perhaps this is why l have developmental topographical disorientation. (l can read physical maps well, but get lost in familiar places). I am not broken, just different. Where l lack development in one area, l excel and am evolved in others. Nature does not make mistakes.

XOXY