#*points* we love this cis woman

[dkettchen]

everyone please repeat after me: 👏 gnc-ity is in and of itself queerness, it by itself qualifies you as part of the community, being queer is about not conforming to the oppressive system that is gender roles in any capacity and literally nothing more or less specific than that 👏

also more importantly: I propose that instead of coming out, queer celebrities should simply *reveal* that their cisheterosexuality was actually just a marketing ploy by their corporate overlords to try and stoke controversy and make money off of them pretending to be cishet, I think this will solve many problems and be very entertaining to me personally

[angel-archivist]

It's so interesting and so exceedingly frustrating how agab is being utilized now within the queer community as a way to isolate and sort nonbinary and genderqueer folks into binary boxes that determine their moral purity levels, and their authority to do and write and exist.

The way nonbinary writers are being put under accusation of fetishizing gay men while their AGAB is continually brought up in a way that feels like queer-space-approved misgendering.

The way feminist circles that are supposedly trans-inclusive will use the word AFAB in a way that implicitly but intentionally isolates nonbinary people who aren't AFAB from joining. It's for women*.

The way the language is already flawed and leaves out intersex folks from the conversations while focusing on a binary of sex that isn't truthful.

The constant obsessing over whether someone is AFAB or AMAB and whether or not that gives them the privilege to join, do, write, or be present in certain spaces really really concerns me. How are we supposed to dismantle a binary system of gender if we can't even move past forcibly assigning and focusing on people's genders assigned at birth?

[jaffre]

doctor confirmed that 👉 this guy 👈 got pcos and i just got an implant to at the very least get my whacky periods under control and hopefully get them to stop entirely

[sherlock-is-ace]

.

[wqxian]

Firstly stating, I’m black & genderfluid. Anyone turning this situation to it being people hating black people for DISAGREEING with the things that Rose has said are fucking weird and I hate people like you. Why make everything about hating black people because you don’t like what a black person has said? You’re downplaying this important discussion by making it about “us attacking a small black trans artist” which is odd as fuck. We’re not entitled to be disrespectful, transphobic or sexist just for being black and/or trans. AND if you’re personally not apart of the communities discussed in this IMPORTANT situation, stay the fuck out of it, you have no right to speak on anything. Speak your truth on the parts you’re apart of and leave the rest to voices apart of the communities that were affected by the things said by Rose.

Moving on…

It’s kinda sad seeing you talk poorly about yourself in the beginning of that. Anyone can be understanding to that, that doesn’t mean we should use harsh words towards you because of that. Yeah, being upset about not having more body typed LIs in a game is fair but it’s not like it’s a new thing and you did what you felt you could at the time being why the fuck should we berate you for it when you’re expanding now? Reaching people farther and wider…?

“Fed up” is such a weird thing to say as well, it’s honestly concerning and makes this whole thing even more ridiculous to me. Rose’s job as a sensitivity reader is to be more mindful and point out things in a responsible, respectful manner. In the end, this isn’t THEIR game. You seem to be an open-minded person so I see no reason why they need to disrespect you in the way they do—whether you deny it and slide it off as a joke or not. You may not mind it but seeing that can be really jarring, plus reading the things on their BLOG before even being hired? About the game, about you, about male MCs now, about Terry, about Baxter, it’s all very fucking weird. My tags say it all but yeah.

Disagreeing on Terry’s design is absolutely fair, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. The design could have been better but it doesn’t stray from realism of how transmen wear clothes & how their body types are. They don’t owe you masculinity, to wear xyz to look MASCULINE to you. Especially opinions being stated by someone who isn’t a transgender man. Again, referring to my own identity I won’t speak much on Terry because that discussion is meant to be between transmen only.

Whole thing is disappointing, was hoping better after finding this out but the lackluster apology and response was just absolutely insane to read. If you… forgive Rose’s behavior and expect us to do the same, can’t so much as you’re the dev but this community feels a whole lot less safer and less comfortable. I’ll be keeping my distance in the meanwhile.

EDIT: Rereading the screenshots too, they’re literally giving you a bad look. (Rose and Uri for saying YOU picked them even though they’re the ones starting discourse). Really think you need to step back and think about this throughly.

GB Patch Games: Response About Sensitivity Reader

[Some of you might not have heard of this happening, but I wanted to address it across the board]

Hey everyone,

I want to make a post about the screenshots of comments from one of our sensitivity readers. The situation is that neither me or Rose want people to feel uncomfortable with Our Life: Now & Forever, but Rose hasn’t done anything terribly wrong and isn’t going to be punished.

The comment about OL MCs wasn’t meant to be genuine hatred towards all male players/MCs of OL. Rose wrote a reply about it-

"Hi everyone! This is Rose, I want to address the male MC comment since it was taken wildly out of context and without the lengthy discussion that was after it. I don't hate male MCs, in fact far from it, male MCs are integral to the story in OL:NF as female and trans MCs are. I think the relationship they could potentially have with Qiu could be a great asset in my opinion as they figure out their gender alongside the MC. The discussion itself was about how I noticed players were sticking to heteronormative norms by shipping Tamarack with a man purely out of societal norms than it was genuine thought into the characters and how I personally wished there was more sapphic relationships with Tamarack or just Tamarack with trans characters as a sapphic trans person myself. I didn't mean to offend anyone by it as no one but my friends who understood what I legitimately meant behind my message and it definitely wasn't meant to be seen seriously. I am sorry regardless to anyone I have offended and I love your male MCs regardless."

And most of the comments were about me. I’ve seen screenshots of the full conversations and they’re not as harsh as the cropped snippets made them out to be. It was longer discussions about not including Derek in any base game Moments for no good reason and not having any plus-sized love interests in OL1 because I was afraid players wouldn’t accept it. That’s not a lie, it’s what I decided for the game I created, and it is ridiculous of me. I’m the one who should be feeling embarrassed over how OL1 will forever be that way, not the people who remember that I did that. I’m not perfect and Rose actually cares more about the players than making me feel like I am flawless.

I also don’t want to tone police an employee venting about their boss in private, on their own time. Both the OL games deal with personal, important topics. This is sensitive work, and it can bring up frustrations. Sometimes people do use harsh words among friends, but they wouldn’t ever say it to a person seriously and directly.

I understand if you wouldn’t want to see anyone speak badly of a dev you like, but I promise it’s not a point of contention between me and Rose. I don’t feel mistreated in anyway. Rose genuinely cares about the Our Life series, and that’s why they get fed up with me over certain parts of the game.

Rose has never been unkind or unreasonable to me when working on the project, and their advice is detailed and well-explained. They do care about the game and want it to avoid having content that upsets people because of my own ignorance/shortcomings.

This being shared publicly from a private server is targeting Rose and seems to be a continuation of things that have happened before this. I don’t want this to continue happening. If you do still have concerns over the one comment about the community, you can let me know. But again, I don’t want people being mistrustful of Rose on my behalf for comments about me in conversations with missing context.

Do not send angry messages to Rose about any of this. We’ll do our best so that OL2 will be better than I was before. Thank you to everyone who reads this and participates in the community!

[manicpixiedckgirl]

one thing you have to get ready for as a trans woman who's about to come out is certain cis people are going want nothing to do with you afterwards. we all know this, we all talk about this. transphobes going transphobe

but what i dont think we talk about enough is you need to be prepared for a second wave of this. it will come later. it's not tied to anything body change or surgery or whatever.

trans women are treated so poorly by society that we inevitably shrink. we learn how to exist in the spaces that will have us, even if that means cramming ourselves into boxes that don't really fit, being treated in ways we often don't like, doing things we often don't like doing, often even fucking people we don't want to fuck.

at some point, you're going to learn to stand up for yourself. i don't say this to scare you into thinking you'll become a 'mean trans girl' or whatever. but just like transitioning in the first place, it's change or die. you found the first safe harbor and fashioned your anchor to it but you can't go on living with people who don't respect you, working a job you're too smart for, living a life you don't really love.

and when you do, there will be cis people in your life who only liked that meek, quiet girl who would do as she's told. some of these people were malicious, doing it on purpose because they've known enough trans women to know who's vulnerable. some are doing it unintentionally, believing themselves to be a good ally, you've just gotten angry and bitter (this one hurts the most). and some just plain won't like the person you really are, having only known the people pleaser they got to know.

but it's change or die. if you're not you, you're not living. there are so many better people just waiting to love you, but you won't find them chasing after cis approval. and girl, i promise you, you deserve so much more than what you're getting right now. be strong. you've been strong before. i love you.

[vamptoll]

I'm not offended or anything but there's something very odd about taking Andrea Long Chu's Quote "The problem with the transsexual is that she’s always been too much of a woman. It’s hard to make something as politically dowdy as a woman into a cover girl for that trendy new metaphysics you’re hawking", cutting out the sentence with transsexual, and following it up "a woman who desires men is dowdy times two", as if straight women have never in the world been cover girls for metaphysics???

[catboybiologist]

Yay I'm going to get all Political and angry again.

So pretty much every trans American is probably aware of the Sarah McBride situation at this point, but here's the bullet point summary if needed for anyone else:

Sarah McBride gets elected to the House as the first transgender member of Congress in US history.

Republicans predictably flip their shit. They pass internal rules of conduct that prohibit trans people from using bathrooms of their gender and stating that bathroom use is defined by AGAB. It obviously singles out McBride, but I believe there are trans staffers that are also affected.

McBride issues a statement that she will abide by these rules, and pretty much only use the bathroom directly associated with her physical office. She issues a statement saying she "wasn't elected for bathrooms" and will instead fight in issues that matter, with a milquetoast criticism of Republicans for wasting time on this.

Many trans Americans are predictably scared and disappointed by this, especially because this internal house rule is being used as a blueprint for more extensive laws, including a likely ban on trans people in gendered bathrooms in all federal land and buildings (including, notably for me, national parks. Which breaks my heart, but that's a different rant.)

There's been a lot of disappointment and criticism of McBride over this. The general leftist reaction has been criticism. There's lots of people that have expressed disappointment or rage, including Erin Reed, and also more "personality" type people like Vaush and Jessie Gender.

Now.

I'm disappointed too.

But. And please keep reading before chewing me out for being an apologist.

I think we can all understand that McBride is in an impossible situation. If she fights this too hard, then it vindicates the Republican rhetoric that Dems are crazy trans obsessed leftists. But there's a fear that this will only lead to more infringements of rights for trans people. McBride is completely stuck, and is a junior, freshly elected member of Congress who is trying to figure out how to make her voice the most effective.

I am so, so fucking tired of rights being ceded one by one. So I'm disappointed. But yeah, I understand McBride's statement.

But there's just one tiny. Eeny weeny. Minor. Itty Bitty question having over all of this. Just one little concern.

Where.

The fuck.

Are the rest of the Democrats?!?!?!?

There is a PAINFULLY fucking easy solution to all of this. McBride needs backing, solidarity, and other people to speak for her. If she's worried about her voice being effective, and being branded as the crazy trans representative, then step the fucking up, you spineless liberal slimebags.

AOC is the only one that I know of that has expressed any real opposition or anger. Her statements are getting aaallll the airtime.

But the real story is McBride's sentiment being echoed amongst the entire party. This is absolutely some kind of official platform. The fucking grumbling, milquetoast finger waving and "well I don't like this, but there's nothing to be done! Anyways"

Of fucking course minorites are abandoning the left. The message they're sending is "we'll abandon you with the most pathetic of excuses. We don't give a shit." Trimming groups out of their support one by one.

McBride is doing the impossible calculus of trying to be the most effective on the house floor. It's an insane task for a trans woman. And yeah, she got it wrong this time. But where the fuck is the anger for her cis colleagues? Why the fuck aren't people angry and terrified for everyone that let this shit happen?

As much as people love the narrative of the line wolf resistor, resistance takes coordination, effort, and solidarity. Without that, what would McBride raising opposition even be? One representative against the hundreds of others.

And yeah, of course I didn't expect any better from the Democratic party. But you should be disappointed and mad at your representative, not just McBride.

[nerdvi]

In the wake of the whole james somerton fiasco and inspired by this post, I wanted to share a few of my um, soft signs, like, orange flags to detect when someone is bullshitting you.

First of all, I am on the spectrum which means 1) I tend to take what people say at face value and 2) I have a strong sense of justice which makes me prone to biases, all of which combined means I am at perpetual risk of swallowing the bullshit.

So, what to do about it? You turn on the critical thinking and pay attention.

As one of my favorite youtubers, Hannah Alonzo, likes to say: "consider the source, remember the motive". Who is talking to you?? What do you know about them?? What biases might they have?? How do they interact with your own biases?? Where are they talking from?? Is it anger?? happinness? boredom?? Also, why are they talking to you? Are they trying to sell you something?? Are they trying to convince you and why?? How do they go about the finantial motivation, if present? If you have, in this case, a white cis gay man talking to you as it he has it the worst of the worst in the world, there's probably some exaggeration and you should start to wonder. There's a good chance he's bullshitting you.

How they talk about women and POC No, no, stay with me. There's a rule I had back when I was dating men: Always beware of how they treat their mother. With the exception of extremes like mama's boys and cases of abuse, how a man treats the woman with whom they have that familial bond is a good indicator of how they are going to treat you. Do they berate her? speak ill of her? are aggressive or controlling? do they dismiss her opinions? Same with creators, and by god I tell you, specially cis male creators, queer or otherwise, always always beware of how they speak of women, how they treat women, how they treat POC. Somerton had a weird vendetta against straight women. It went mostly unnoticed. Then, he was dismissive towards lesbians and other queer women and it was once again overlooked. Then he went ahead and made sinophobic content about genres and cultures he knows NOTHING about. Again, it went unchecked. What I am telling you is IT'S NOT NORMAL. Contempt about women and non white-western cultures is not normal and if someone has them as them as an enemy or a scapegoat, they're probably bullshitting you. Take what they say and fact check it, see for yourself.

If at any point in a video or an essay you find yourself thinking "wait, really??" then it's time to fact check. Is it a bit suspicious?? is your logic telling you that's not quite how this works?? Then take to google, my friend, they might be bullshitting you. At worst, you dodge a fake fact, at best, you learn way too much about a topic you were already interested in.

Beware of the lack of nuance. I can not stress this enough. We all love monochrome, but life and societal issues are never black and white. It's just impossible, there's too many factors to consider. If you are being presented situations or anecdotes as absolute truths, you're probably being bullshitted. If it's too good to be true, it is. If it sounds waaay too convenient, it probably is. A good researcher, a serious investigator, will always have some nuance because they have done the work and checked the sources. If someone provides you 1) no nuance and 2) no sources, THEY'RE BULLSHITTING YOU.

These are the ones I can come up with just of the top of my head, I'm sure there's more and please, add them. Remember that naivité isn't a crime, I'm fairly naive and that's made me distrustful, and these are some of the techniques I've found that help me navigate through a world of information without losing myself.

[genderqueerdykes]

its so frustrating when people prevent transfeminine people from entering lesbian, sapphic and dyke spaces, because we would not be where we are today in terms of queer rights in the United States if it were not for the hard work of trans lesbians and bi/pan/queer trans women. transfemininity and lesbianism are impossible to separate. lesbianism is inseparable from all trans experiences, but most importantly from transfeminine experiences.

if you interact with multiple communities for trans women and transfem people, you will see that there are many sapphics, lesbians and dykes who are transfems and trans women. i've met a lot of transfems irl and online and the vast majority have been bi/pan/polysexual and/or lesbians, dykes and sapphics. all of my irl transfem friends are bi, lesbians and dykes. there are lots of straight transfems and trans women and that's okay, but transfemininity goes hand in hand with lesbianism

it may be hard to encounter transfeminine lesbians at times if you are in a white, rad fem or rad fem pilled space where those in charge only allow skinny, short, AFAB or AFAB adjacent cis lesbians. there are many spaces who chase out transfeminine people for their own "safety". these are very common, so if you encounter this a lot, don't necessarily give up. it's just an unfortunate symptom of people refusing to take the time to interact with a group outside of their own narrow echo chamber.

many people are afraid to include transfeminine features in lesbian posts and in lesbian art because they're so used to AFAB and AFAB adjacent bodies and people being the "norm". we're still at point where we prioritizing AFAB bodies in lesbian spaces and it's time we stopped. transfeminine bodies deserve to be represented in lesbian art, representation, health and information. transfeminine people, and bodies, are a very common fixture in lesbian, dyke and sapphic experiences. some of these groups of people take estrogen, have deeper voices, broader shoulders, facial and body hair, narrow hips, and dense muscles. we should not be prioritizing these things in cis butch lesbians, but rather celebrating the diversity in lesbianism.

while not every lesbian has to be a woman, it's important to allow people who are in love with womanhood into the lesbian community. that is a huge part of what we are here for, is loving women and celebrating womanhood. its so lesbian to want to build other women up, too, to want to celebrate how they experience womanhood. to help them feel like a woman. to help them transition into being a woman. to validate their butchhood or femmehood. ofc there's people with other genders in the lesbian community, make no mistake. but it's so crucial to have people who love womanhood. to have a passion for womanhood. something that can be related to attraction, but goes very deep. and this positively impacts the other lesbians in the space around us.

intersex people are also heavily empowered by this. intersex people are a huge part of the transfeminine and lesbian communities as well. there are a lot of intersex transfems and trans women and these experiences are also very heavily related to lesbianism. people almost never talk about intersex transfems and trans women, and especially when it comes to lesbians, but many, many trans women and transfem have intersex bodies and identities and are very often part of lesbian and dyke spaces, either for reasons of what they get referred to by others, their passion for lesbianism and/or womanhood, or their attraction.

to love their own womanhood so much that they love other people's womanhood. people who are in love with being femme and what femininity represents joining these spaces only empower other people. and it's by no means a rare experience. many transfemmes and trans women find themselves loving femininity and/or womanhood so much that they just love women and femmes in general. this is such a common experience

there's no way you could ever separate lesbianism from transfemininity. there's a deep, powerful passion for womanhood and femininity in many transfemmes and women, and it motivates them to express it to any and all women, femmes, and lesbians. to protect and care for and look after women, femmes, lesbians, dykes and sapphics. it's an act of radical self love. not only do we love how we feel, but we love seeing other people experience euphoria when allowed to participate in womanhood and/or femininity.

it's a very natural way to experience one's own expression, one's love for their own gender, it transcends their love for themselves and is passed on to those around them. it's liberating. it's beyond liberating to be around someone who says that lesbians can be transfeminine and trans women. that lesbians and dykes don't have to perform femininity or womanhood to ridiculous degrees. that lesbians and women don't have to be body/facial hairless, short, tiny, quiet, big breasted, wide hipped, narrow shouldered, small handed, and so on.

it's so empowering, feminist, and lesbian to be around someone who says a woman and/or a lesbian, dyke or sapphic can and do look like anyone and anything. that transness and lesbianism cannot be separated, because they are so closely related to one another. it's ridiculous and inaccurate to insinuate that transfeminine people and trans women are ever out of place in lesbian spaces. we have to continue to fight this behavior, because the two are so close they have always been related to one another from the start. from the beginning of the lesbian and trans communities, there have been transfemmes and trans women in lesbian spaces. we have always been here.

[befemininenow]

Admit it. You want her outfit more than anything. Still afraid of being called a sissy? Honey, sissy is just a mindset. But deep inside, your identity is female. There is nothing sissy about wanting to wear such a tightfit bodysuit, a lovely skirt, shiny pantyhose, and some tall high heels. That is an outfit women generally wear. Women like you, whether cis or trans. Does it feel emasculating? Perhaps. But is it also affirming for your feminine side? Absolutely! I bet your nice little egg has hatched at this point. (I feel like a mistress just writing this lol

There's a voting poll underneath. If want to skip the long description, scroll below and vote. Good luck!

Now that I feel better after the shitshow last night, it's time to leave politics behind and move on to another voting topic: outfits! This is not only such an affirming outfit for the fall season, but it's also one of the most feminine and modern outfits ever. It just screams femme! I even have a near identical outfit because I love it so much!

That got me thinking: there's just so many outfits that feel "emasculating", but few that affirm the trans woman in you. You know the ones: schoolgirl uniforms, maid costumes, ballet outfits, office secretary, housewife attire, and even waitress outfits. While not all the mentioned outfits are bad (I have a guilty pleasure for Hooters outfits), I feel that some of them are too flashy and have too plain in the feminization world.

We need something more affirming, more unique, more aesthetically pleasing, more... permanent. More in line with your transfeminine identity as opposed to fulfilling a kink. IMO, I feel that this outfit is one those that accomplish that. Not too flashy, but not too plain. Balanced enough to make you feel affirmed while looking like another girl in the outside world. IMO, one can never go back to wearing boy's clothes once you try something sexy like this!

I'm dying of trying something new for this blog: For this month only, I want to make at least 4+ feminizing captions per week with women wearing this outfit. The main purpose is to convince you to go deeper into feminization by trying this outfit out. Once you try it out and love how it feels so femme instead of humiliating, you will have the rite of passage into becoming a trans woman. You can still wear the other outfits if it's your thing, but your feminine wardrobe will expand further after this moment. If the first option wins, I will fulfill that new plan of 4+ captions in addition to my regular caption posts and reblogs. If the second option wins, I will just continue making my regular posts when I have the chance or need to upload (Hint: I'm not really uploading as much).

Now, let's get to the polls, the feminization polls, that is!

[wordslikesilver]

I feel kind of privileged dating a cis lesbian woman as a trans woman because the minute TERFs try to say anything at all to me about what “biological women want” I can turn to my gf and before the question leaves my mouth she’s trying to rip my clothes off for another six hours of hot lesbian sex. She tells me men call all go fall off a cliff and spends all day literally just thinking about me naked pressed up against her. TERFs will try to tell you this lesbian doesn’t exist, that she’s not a real lesbian and she’s right there in my arms, begging for more. We met on a swiping app and she didn’t even know I was trans til after we matched and all she thought was “Huh, neat!” and promptly spent the next two ish years fantasizing about my hands all over her skin basically perpetually. She fucking loves me and my built in strap on more than words can express and it’s SO FUNNY when TERFs tell me “lesbians just want biological men to leave us alone.” GIRL TOUCH GRASS LESBIANS ARE RIGHT HERE IN MY ARMS BEGGING ME TO UNDRESS FASTER.

Anyways, circling back to my original point, I do feel kind of privileged for the ability to hear random transphobia and just have the genuine proof against it right there beside me all the time. Not needing to reassure myself alone that of course I belong with other women. I have so much love for the trans women who feel like they’re struggling against these things alone, I promise you’re not. Please always remember that there’s literally so fucking many cis lesbians out there who want to smash you through the bed whichever way you desire most and TERFs need to touch grass so badly given how blind they apparently are to that fact. And oh yes, it’s a fact. My gf is NOT the first cis lesbian who’s wanted to jump my bones with sheer fuckin hunger in her eyes. Babes, women want you, trans, cis, enby, you have no idea how sexy you are for being the way that you are. Give yourself some love for me n my gf yeah? ♥️

[sarasade]

One of the most generally useful things to come out of Hbomberguy's plagiarism video and Todd in the Shadows' similar video on misinformation is how they bring transparency to the internet phenomenon of "I made up a guy to get mad at".

Seriously, I've seen people make up a lot of stupid shit on the internet over the years and it's often just a manipulative attempt to paint a group of marginalized people in a bad light.

That's the TL;DR version of this post. 

ANYWAY here is the long version

Those videos are mostly about James Somerton's plagiarism of other queer people's work. However I'd like to talk about that 20-30% of Somerton's original writing- and oh boy. It's mostly about complaining about White Straight Women and misgendering well-known trans creators such as Rebecca Sugar and calling Becky Albertalli a straight woman while it's pretty common knowledge that she was forced to out herself as bi because she received so much harassment over "being a cishet woman who appropriates LGBT+ stories".

One thing that irks me especially is how in his Killing Stalking and Gay Shipping videos Somerton brings up how straight women/ teen girl shippers exploit gay men for their personal sexual fantasies. This gets brought up several times in his videos.

Being all up and arms about Somerton being a "White Cis Gay Who Hates Women and Queer People tm" is not that useful because the kind of rhetoric he's using is extremely common in fandom and LGBT+ spaces on Tumblr, TikTok and Twitter. We really don't need to bring Somerton's identity to this since he is in no way an unique example.

It's hypocritical to make this about an individual person when I've seen A TON of posts, tweets and videos where queer people talk about these Sinister Straight Women who are supposedly out there fetishizing and exploiting queer men. It's pretty clear to me that this is just an excuse to shit on women and queer people for having any sexual interests. At worst these comments are spreading misinformation about BL, a form of media that has been excessively studied by both Asian feminists and Asian queer women.

This all sounds really familiar and I think it's good that people are calling it out as what it is: misogyny and transphobia. I'd also point out the potentially racist motives behind being this hypervigilant about Asian media.

People can absolutely be misogynist regardless of gender or orientation. I really don't know why we need to create some kind of made up enemy to get mad at. I actually think it's almost sinister how "anti-fujoshi" people call Slash shippers and fujoshi misogynists or claim that they have internalised misogyny while being dismissive about women's interests and creative pursuits under Japanese obscenity laws, China's censorship, book bans in American schools and various other disadvances that are part of being a queer and/or female creator.

I think we shouldn't be naive about the bad faith actors who want to turn queer people against each other. For example Fujoshi.info mentions anti-gender (TERF, GC etc) movement using this kind of rhetoric as well.

Anyway if you want to read more:

- about the false info around BL fandom fujoshi.info

-There is the scholar Thomas Baudinette who studies gay media in Japan. Here is a podcast with him and the scholar Khursten Santos

-James Welker is a BL scholar as well. Here is a podcast interview about the new international BL article collection he edited.

-I've already talked about this Youtube channel by KrisPNatz and his great Killing Stalking video that actually engages with the themes of the manhwa

- There is also HR Coleman's thesis DO NOT FEED THE FETISHIZERS: BOYS LOVE FANS RESISTANCE AND CHALLENGE OF PERCEIVED REPUTATION where she interviews 36 BL fans and actually breaks down why fetishization has become such a huge talking point in the fandom discourse. Spoilers, it's mostly about young queer people and women being worried that they will get judged and pathologized for their interest in anything sexual.

-Great podcast about Danmei and censorship with Liang Ge

[comicaurora]

I'm sorry that the terfs made their way onto your blog but it does feel good to see you support trans people. Thank you for that

Always.

I think, charitably, that the discourse going down on that post is an extrapolation and over-focus on one element of the point I was making: that for me, determining with certainty that I was cis was a rather fraught process. I was presented with many alternatives, but underlying their imposition on me was the oddly regressive idea that the things I liked, the principles I valued, the parts of myself I was proud of were not permitted of women. My whole life I got smacked with the background radiation that I couldn't like being strong because women aren't allowed to be stronger than men. I couldn't like being loud and boistrous because women aren't allowed to take up space. I couldn't be a math geek because women aren't smart. It was all deeply regressive misogyny from day one, but I started getting hit with it slathered in a fresh coat of paint - all those assumptions still held to be true, but now there was the out that I could do all those things if I just wasn't a woman.

Concluding that the underlying bioessentialist premise was wrong was very important. Absolutely none of those statements were true, and were only ever maintained by cultural saturation, goalpost-readjustment when they were actively disproven, and the occasional bout of lying with statistics to pretend they weren't just Shit All The Way Down. The core premise that certain things were only permitted of or possible for men was bullshit, and I didn't need to surrender the gender I liked best in order to play in the spaces I wanted to. I could simply exist the way I was already existing. I didn't need anything else.

The misinterpretation is the assumption that this being true of me means this is everybody's relationship with gender. I turned out to be cis, so for me, feeling that holding onto my assigned gender wasn't allowed was distressing - just another invocation of the same bioessentialist bullshit I'd been dealing with since the preschool playground. This is because misgendering is fundamentally denying that a person has the right to express themself the way they want. When aimed at me, it says I'm not performing traditional femininity well enough to deserve my pronouns. The same disrespect is the root of misgendering when aimed at trans people. "Perform your gender to my satisfaction or I will confiscate it."

The problem is, bioessentialism is 100% ingrained into the terf playbook, which is why, for instance, all their shitty talking points about trans athletes eventually boil down to "no woman can ever defeat a man in any contest because we are simply naturally weak and stupid and there is nothing we can do about it" and quite frankly nothing disgusts me more than the defeatist acceptance of the very lie that feminism is dedicated to overcoming. Instead of accepting that the paradigm of bioessentialism is a false dichotomy right from the jump, they embrace and weaponize it against the people whose existence proves the dichotomy is a lie. If gender essentialism is fundamentally false, then it is nobody's fucking business what anybody does with their gender. If the lines don't exist, nobody needs to enforce them. And yet there the terfs go, hunting down people whose lives are none of their business and trying to argue that they represent some great and terrible evil, some downfall of society made flesh, something that makes it totally correct and normal for them to spend so much time thinking about strangers' genitalia. They want this to be a noble crusade so badly they won't even examine what flag they're flying.

I love and support the trans people in my life and will always, always stand on the side of your right to exist, but alongside that, terf rhetoric especially disgusts and infuriates me because it is, at its heart, utter cowardice. The world told them they were weak and stupid and inferior and they fucking believed it. And now they think Fighting The Good Fight For Women means turning around and using the same paradigmatic weapon that hurt them to hurt the people whose existence outside the binary proves the weapon is a lie. They're the same shithead schoolyard bullies who made me believe my entire existence was foundationally wrong for years of my life and I will never, ever side with them or the shitty, cowardly rhetoric that contributed to the loneliest years of my life.

Figure out who you are and do it on purpose. Find the real source of the misery in your life and try fighting that instead of the other crabs in the bucket. Trans rights.

[punkitt-is-here]

Hey, a little while ago you reblogged a post which says "If you believe a group of trans people has systemic privilege over another group of trans people, you are transphobic." This isn't a callout post or anything so trite, but I think I really respect you as a person, and so I wanted to ask you to think a little more carefully about that statement:

Does a white trans person really not have systemic privilege over a black trans person? Does a neurotypical trans person not have systemic privilege over a neurodivergent trans person? Does a trans man not have systemic privilege over a trans woman? Do you need to be transphobic to believe that?

Agh, I don't really know why I'm sending this. It just feels like the trans community writ large has been regressing pitifully in its understanding of intersecting axes of oppression, and it's really miserable to see that and not know what to do about it.

Sorry to bother you with this, I hope you have a lovely day.

i think i remember your message from a bit back! meant to get to that, but forgot to. i dont got the post on me, but it seems clear to me from what i remember that it was talking exclusively about gender when it was talking about one trans person having systemic privilege over the other. I think many of us already know that a white person is going to have far more systemic privilege than a non-white peer, and that neurotypical people have more systemic privilege over neurodivergent people. this is true whether or not they are trans. I think the post assumed in good faith that we can intuit this and the post doesn't need a million disclaimers for every power imbalance out there.

And I will say, I don't believe a trans man has systemic privilege over a trans woman, thats the whole posts point! Maybe some do, but I'm sure there's an equal number of people in the reverse situation. Disregarding the idea that becoming a man automatically gives you the same privileges as a cis one, there is an extremely wide, near-infinite spectrum of how gender presentation and gender identity intersect, and acting like all trans people of a certain gender have privilege over another IS transphobic. The posts point, from what i recall, is that its shitty to create little microgroups and assume others are your enemy in a privilege pyramid, because we are all trans and therefore we all need to lift each other up.

I'm not really gonna think on it more because I don't have the post but disregarding the systemic privileges that are factored in aside from being trans is fine because I dont think every post needs to cover every alternative point in the entire world because sometimes when you're making a post you just hope people will intuit the obvious. otherwise, nothing concise would ever exist.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for buying plus-sized clothes at second hand shops?

I'm a fairly big girl - about six feet and rather wide. I also love wearing unique clothes and I always get happy when I see something fun my size when I visit second hand shops because the mass produced clothes aren't always very fun for plus sized women. I never saw a problem with that, but lately my friend started questioning me.

We went shopping together and I found a blouse that fit my wide shoulders perfectly. My friend said "are you sure you REALLY want to buy that?" and I asked what was wrong. she said that perhaps a trans woman would want to buy it, but I took the only one? It was cute and feminine, and as hard it is for me to find nice clothes my size, it must be even harder for trans women, especially quite and girly ones. "A trans girl could have found that and it could have given her euphoria, but now you will basically steal it from her. Do you really want that on your conscience?" I said that she couldn't know whether another potential buyer would be a trans woman or cis like me, but she said this wasn't exactly the first time this would happen since I often buy my clothes at second hand shops.

Basically, I ruin the supply by buying clothes, and it's a bummer for me that it's hard finding clothes, but I should consider myself privileged even so. That expressing oneself is more important to trans people. I just don't know. I think she has a point, but it feels weird to cater my shopping experience to potential people.