#I also thought about ‘why not use both concepts and trans the gender’ but that’s that’s not satisfying my worms

[candycryptids]

Trying my hardest not to make a male au-ra and a half elezen boy....................

Oh my goddddd you’re so valid and I Feel It. I’m a terrible enabler. I say Do It but also I totally misread your ask the first time and thought you were wanting to make a Half Au’ra-Elezen and I was like 👁️👄👁️ (Shakes visibly)

👉👈 I’m still trying to hammer down anything about this elezen in my brain, it’s like. I’ve got ideas for both genders and/or character models so I’m >:0

[creacherkeeper]

happy pride everyone

for some reason i was sitting outside this morning and enjoying some shockingly not boiling hot weather and reflecting on a post i had made like ... 12 years ago on here that "blew up" (like 60k notes on early days tumblr) and thinking like. wow i sure do know a lot more about myself now that makes all that make sense but

the post was someone saying like. hey how can you call yourself an atheist and support gay people because gay people go against the concept of evolution. and my reply was like. actually there are gay members of like every social species weve studied it in and i had a bunch of facts laid out about all the different very gay animals of this world (like giraffes having very largely m/m sex)

but now, like 12 years later, i am thinking about human evolution and queer identity and thought it would be fun to talk about. i am by far not an expert and so if there are experts who want to correct me or talk more in depth about this Please jump in but

... why did humans evolve to be queer anyway?

very short answer: because its helpful to raising kids

longer answer: though its debated whether humans are a prosocial or eusocial species, it is agreed upon that early humans cooperatively raised young, including those that they did not personally sire or give birth to, and that we lived in multi-generation communities where younger members would help raise older members offspring, and vice versa

(note: im using the terms amab and afab for human populations potentially pre concepts of gender but work with me here, i dont want to keep repeating genitalia or genomes when those arent always a helpful 1 to 1 either. sex is a spectrum gender is made up etc support intersex rights)

we know that due to fraternal birth order effect (npr link), youre 33% more likely to be gay with each older amab sibling that you have (not 33% total, but 33% more, so like 2% to 2.6 to 3.5 etc). this is true of both amab and afab people with older amab siblings. we also know that a birthing parent having more of a specific antibody makes their children more likely to be gay (and that antibody is not exclusive to but is highly tied to giving birth to amab children)

in addition, evolutionarily speaking, its just as advantageous for your siblings children to do well than it is for yours to. its incredibly rare you would happen to have a very helpful mutation that your siblings dont have. which means that your siblings kids would be about 25% amab grandparent, 25% afab grandparent, and 50% a parent who is unrelated to you. this is exactly the same for your own children

okay, so what does that mean?

to put it simply, it means that having older siblings, specifically older siblings who are more easily able to sire more children, makes you more likely to end up in a same-sex couple, which means you are two adults with no children who are now around to help raise children you are equally invested in the success of than if they were your own

the more older youth or adults you have around to help who are not also using up a bunch of resources by being pregnant and having non-helping-age children, the better off that community's children will be. more people to hunt and gather and create resources like tools, which means everyone prospers, especially the kids

or, to frame it from the opposite view: having gay siblings means your children are more likely to survive and thrive

(kind of funny how conservatives are like gay people shouldnt be around children when the entire point of our evolutionary development was that we were great to have around if you had kids but like. alas)

so, thats the very basic core of it. but you can apply this concept to a lot of queer identities. aroace? working adult around to help who is not bringing in an unrelated partner or having kids. trans? you now either have an m/f couple who can fill two different social niches without having kids, or you have a gay couple who is able to do more varied physical tasks whether or not they do have kids. bi people may have kids or may not, or their children may be more spread out if they have partners of different sexes over time

not to mention you kind of have some built in, ready to go parents in the case that another community member dies, and there are now orphans that need raising. its a lot harder for someone whos already a parent to take on more children, as opposed to an adult couple who doesnt have any

so yeah :) were queer because we were helpful to have in communities and allowed everyone, but especially youth, to prosper and thrive

tl;dr: queer people were an evolutionary advantage to have in an early community because we were helping-age members who were able to cooperatively raise young and take on orphans without using up resources on birthing and raising our own young

yay science :o) happy pride everyone!!!

[drdemonprince]

I'm a trans guy and tbh I feel like I don't fully understand the transandrophobia debate. Based on my understanding of intersectionality & transfeminism, I think that trans men (largely) experience transphobia and misogyny, while trans women (largely) experience transphobia, misogyny, *and* transmisogyny -- I also think it's necessary to discuss issues that specifically affect men without describing them as forms of oppression or discrimination against men. But that's just accounting for intersecting identities (including both marginalized and privileged identities) rather than only accounting for intersecting oppressions, right? I feel like some people using the term "transandrophobia" either seem to be confusing these two concepts or mistaking gender essentialism for discrimination against men (though some just use it to describe a subset of transphobia rather than an intersection, it seems like). In any case, even though misandry isn't a real systemic issue, I can understand why some people feel like there's missing language or frameworks when it comes to discussing the ways men, and trans men specifically, are treated (and the ways they/we treat each other). I'm not sure what better alternatives are available, but I'm sure some are possible. I'm wondering if I'm misunderstanding something or if you have any other thoughts on this. Thanks!

It sounds like you understand this 1000% better than every sincere transandrophobia poster. Not every unique experience is a locus of oppression that needs a systemic oppression label -- but yeah, of course, it merits being talked about.

For example, lots of trans men have a hard time in coping with the shift from being treated with emotional deference and warmth by strangers, to suddenly being treated quite coldly or even in a mistrustful way by strangers. That is a real, painful experience -- and it's one that is wrapped up in damaging gender norms that do also negatively affect cis men. It's not androphobia, but it is a consequence of sexism and the gender binary that sucks, and it merits speaking about.

Where things get dicey and fucked up is when men (either cis or trans) take a painful experience like that and declare that it means they're actually more oppressed than women.

(And, as Lee ButchAnarchist often points out, women's emotions are even more policed than men -- yes men are denied tenderness and warmth from total strangers, but they are showered in affection and caretaking by the women close to them, and they are allowed rage a whole lot more than women, in general. so it's overly simplistic and sexist to say men are more societally emotionally repressed. this dynamic plays out among trans men too -- we are given a lot more latitude to be emotionally explosive. trans women, meanwhile, are told they're being "scary" if they have any negative emotion. This is all also racialized -- Black people of any gender are basically never afforded the chance to voice negative feelings in public no matter how much they police their tone.)

I think a lot of trans masc people have a sudden rude awakening that being treated as a man can be painful and complicated, and that the gender binary harms everyone, and that there is a social price to pay for the privileges of being deferred to, respected, and so on. They also don't want to acknowledge when they are being respected and deferred to -- owning up to having any male privilege feels dirty and wrong to people, which is silly because it's just a reality, it has no moral bearing on the person experiencing the privilege. And of course it's often an incomplete privilege because of sexism and transphobia. But it still happens. Particularly within trans spaces.

I don't think this conversation will move forward productively until more trans men are capable of acknowledging that many of us have privilege and that we are very capable of hurting other people, being sexist, and speaking over trans women. And that's why we gotta make this transandrophobia stuff just completely socially unacceptable in our spaces. It is exactly the same as being a Men's Rights Activist. There are real men's liberation issues! Any worthwhile feminism will also liberate men! There are lots of aspects of the gender binary and patriarchy that are harmful to men, and that's worth talking about. Same with transphobia. But we can't have that conversation when men commandeer it to talk about how actually women have it better and all that vile shit. That talk is used to silence women, trans and cis alike.

[genderkoolaid]

It's honestly really validating to read your thoughts on butch identity. I kept myself from fully accepting I might be a gay trans man for a long time because being a butch woman was so integral to my identity (I wept after finishing Stone Butch Blues. It was like being seen for the first time) and I hated that it felt like there was no way I could be both. So I was sort of performing trans man comphet and trying to convince myself I liked women just so I wouldn't lose that word. There's so much gender nuance to being butch that I feel like gets lost when we only focus on the sexuality aspect of it.

"There's so much gender nuance to being butch that I feel like gets lost when we only focus on the sexuality aspect of it." Yes!!!!!!

I came out very young (elementary school) as a lesbian, and cut my long hair to a pixie in the same year. And then shortly after began realizing was I was trans as well. I spent essentially my entire life being visibly queer and visibly queer-masculine a lot of the time. And this affected so much, because I latched onto "butch" extremely young and that became my model for my gender. I never shaved largely because, due to reading about butches, I felt that it was part of my path, even though I also knew it distanced me from others. My sense of masculinity and masculine fashion has always been deeply butch, regardless of my gender. Its such a deep and integral part of me and has been my whole life. I truly feel that I can't not be butch. I don't relate to a lot of "female socialization" both due to being autistic and being visibly queer; I always knew that, while being categorized as "girl," I was also never going to be a "real girl," and everyone knew that. Becoming a butch adult felt more natural than puberty.

Which is why its so annoying that people center butchness on sexuality, and specifically romantic-sexual attraction to femmes!!!! Because while I have, in fact, dated femmes (arguably I dated too many cis femme women who I felt I had to walk on ice around to avoid scaring them with my butch gender), like I said, my butchness is a natural part of me. Being queer is a part of being butch, but the way we talk about butchness makes me feel like people can only view it existing in relation to romance (and femmes). And obviously because of radfeminism, trans men & mascs' unique relationships with butchness have been largely ignored in any way besides "I used to be butch, but now I'm a Normal Straight Man!" & also the general erasure of transmasculinity in lesbian history. Lesbian spaces have always been a haven for trans people, because for a long time in the West, your options were generally "move to a new town and go completely stealth for as long as possible" or "find your local lesbians and be a dyke within a community." There's a reason "butch" has always held so much gender nuance. Radclyffe Hall, who wrote the famous lesbian book The Well of Loneliness, has been argued to have been transmasculine- but the idea that butches may truly call into question the gender binary causes too much anxiety, so we have to constantly re-affirm that butches are above all else women. I'm a firm believer that butch4butch relationships have long been a way for gay trans men to indulge their desire for men within the context of lesbian identity (because all the trans guys are fucking each other and always have been).

Anyways. yeah. let butches exist beyond our sexuality. Understand that "butch" carries so much color and cannot be reduced down to a simple binary concept.

(Also anon, if you haven't, you should read this article about transmasculine comphet wrt gayness).

[olderthannetfic]

Apparently my fanfic helped someone in my readership realize he's agender because reading about a character who has zero attachment to the concept of gender, does not feel like any gender, doesn't care about pronouns being used for them and wants to dress any way they want without anyone gendering it really resonated with him and he did some soul-searching afterwards. And I love that for him, truly, I do. But what surprised me is that he really thought that "everybody but trans people" didn't like being associated with a gender, didn't feel like any gender, didn't care about pronouns and didn't have any attachment to the idea of gender. He thought we were all just going along with it because it's just what you do in society and everyone actually felt roughly the same as he did about it.

I was surprised, because although I'm neurodivergent, I had inferred fairly early on in life that people are pretty attached to these things on a genuine level. So I asked him how he arrived at that conclusion and he said that the way his very conservative, Republican family - which is mostly men, he was raised by his dad and grandfather, alongside his brothers - talked about being a man made it sound like an awful, arduous task that you have shoved onto you and can't escape but being a woman also sucked in similar ways according to them. Thus he arrived at the conclusion that nobody actually likes being a gender, you just have to put up with being one. And the fact that he had to put up with it was immensely depressing to him because he hated both of what he perceived as the available options.

Somehow my dinky little Reader POV fanfic where I made the Reader Character agender because I dislike how many Reader fics portray being an AFAB person who identifies as a woman... that little fanfic, without any ships in it, without any deep lore dives, without the things that this fandom usually likes, managed to plunge this reader into total gender euphoria because it made him pluck up the courage to wear something pink, let him know you don't have to be a man or a woman, and told him you're not a bad NB if you use any pronouns and you're AMAB.

And like... I know fandom is a shitty, hostile place a lot of the time. Especially in my fandom, it's a disaster. But reading the mountain of text he posted about how in the two weeks since he realized he's agender, his depression has lessened so much and he hasn't thought about suicide once... I think I remember why I got into writing in the first place, now. It's not just to tell fun stories. It's to tell fun stories about people that don't conform to the white cishetallo culturally Christian secular middle class able-bodied cookie-cutter bullshit that media is still drowning in. Because sometimes somebody is drowning and they think it's mandatory and fiction can tell them, "It's not, actually."

Nobody I know IRL likes the idea of fanfic because why write if you're not going to make money from it? But honestly I feel like this kind of moment has a value money can't really produce.

Sorry, I know I'm rambling. I just thought I'd briefly provide a small break from the sea of negativity in your inbox to share how fanfic and fandom can be good, instead of always being bad, as is so often the way fandom gets framed these days.

--

[karniss-bg3]

I would like to hear your thoughts about Larian giving Kar’niss female pedipalps?

Personally I feel like it was just another f you from Lolth

Alright so, this is a complicated and detail-heavy topic. For that reason I’ll be splitting this theory into two sections: Technical Aspects & Lore. There will be a TL;DR at the bottom.

Technical Aspects

Kar’niss is a complex model and I imagine the rigging on him was wild. To my understanding his walking animation was done by hand which makes sense. His torso could be motion captured but the arachnid portions needed to be moved in engine. The best time to witness the separation is if you play music for him as a bard. His torso will bob and sway the same as the rest of the NPCs but his legs stay perfectly stationary. I do get a kick out of the idea of the Larian devs trying to put a tiny motion capture suit on a spider but alas.

I bring this up because the pedipalps add an extra layer of complication that the devs didn’t really need. In fact the concept art for driders doesn’t include them at all which suggests they weren’t part of the original design. A lot changed from concept art to the final version it seems. He used to have extra arms, his legs were longer, and his facial features were more twisted. His skin was also darker but it was either changed because he is a Szarkai or because his skin tone blended too heavily with the color of the chitin.

This would align with a lot of the concept art from D&D. There are many examples of driders without pedipalps, both male and female.

All that said, when it comes to the technical aspects, I have a theory as to why the original and final designs were so vastly different: Time. Kar’niss is one of the more detailed models in the game and even the final version didn’t turn out perfect. If you look closely at where his torso attaches to the spider body you can see some model tearing when he turns at certain angels, as well as what I refer to as “tubing”. I’ve seen this in a few games and it’s where limbs or portions of a body thin out to an impossible degree and they look like a squeezed out tube of toothpaste. This could be due to improper skeleton models, broken seams or rigging but as I don’t work in the industry those are my best guesses.

When you have a strict budget and time limit sometimes a development team has to cut some fat. They didn’t have the time to add in the extra arms, super long limbs or highly detailed face model. Perhaps they looked at the final design and weren’t satisfied with the lack of monster features. Thus, the pedipalps were introduced. But since drider are canonically sexless they designed the palps in such a way that they were made for battle; hence the sharp barb present at the tip of each. They are located face level for most races which make them perfect eye gougers or maybe they use them to subdue prey. Palps are also used to “taste” in most spider species and he could likely use them to discern if prey is edible or not.

“Pedipalps contain sensitive chemical detectors and function as taste and smell organs, supplementing those on the legs”

As for why they are female in design the simplest answer I have is that it was an oversight. If they were already scrambling to finish the model then they were likely going for the path of least resistance. Male pedipalps would’ve required a bit more work and either they didn’t think that much about it or chose the easiest design to model. I know about the Kar’niss is trans theory and I’ll be touching on that in the next section.

Lore

Anyone who has followed me for a while knows I’ve discussed drider lore a lot here so I’ll try to be a bit more brief in this section. Drider are meant to be sexless as Lolth didn’t wish for them to reproduce and rise up against Her. If Larian’s design of the palps were with intent then I believe we’re looking at Jurassic Park situation here. Maybe Lolth’s manner of birth control was to make all spider bodies female regardless of the gender of the drow who is changed. It would also align with the Matriarchal society drow come from as well as Lolth choosing to make driders in “Her image”. So yes, a “fuck you” from Lolth would be accurate in this case. The issue I run into is that Kar’niss is the only drider model in-game and so I have nothing to compare him to. I don’t know if all driders in this universe look the same or if there would’ve been a difference between females and males. It leaves it all up to pure speculation, sad to say.

There is a theory that’s been around for a while now that Kar’niss is transgender. While I think it’s a perfectly fine theory I don’t necessarily agree with it. It’s not because I’d be against him being trans, it’s more that I can’t find enough evidence to support it. For starters if he is trans, is he a trans man or a trans woman? We’ve learned that Kar’niss is a female name according to drow naming conventions and of course his palps suggest a female body. The name can be explained as an act of defiance as it is stated that if a man takes on a womans name they are considered troublemakers. If he is a trans woman, why would he ever allow himself to be misgendered?

There are several NPCs that refer to him as “he” and Kar’niss never once barks at them. It’s not as if he’s shy and in fact he’s proven to have quite the temper. He no longer follows nor worships Lolth and he’s under the protection of the Absolute, a cult that allegedly loves and accepts him. Why hide himself as a trans woman under these conditions? Especially in a game that is very progressive in terms of character creation and pronoun usage.

If he is a trans man then the spider body becomes a moot point. Did he transition before the drider transformation or did Lolth change his sex but slap on the female spider body as a way to mock him? Is that why he was changed? I imagine in a drow society where being a woman is a big deal having one that wanted to become a male, a lesser, would be the talk of the Underdark. I’m sure it’s worse for men who want to be women as that could be seen as “rising above their station”. It’s hard to say as modern day gender identity isn’t really addressed in drow lore.

There is a trans woman in Baldur's Gate 3 that the player meets during Shadowheart’s storyline. It can be easy to miss as her past isn’t revealed unless Shadowheart consumes the noblestalk Tav picks up in the Underdark. This is an excerpt from Nocturne’s journal.

“I am Nocturne. I think as her. I see her when I look in the mirror. I can't remember the last time someone called me by the wrong name - Shadowheart has been swift to gently correct slips of the tongue, and even swifter in challenging those who'd use my forsworn name in malice. I'm lucky to have her as a friend. “

While it seems she had trouble in the beginning, those under Shar came to accept her in time as far as I can tell. With this we can at least say that Larian has no issues adding in trans characters but Kar’niss doesn’t receive this treatment. Another thing to note is that Nocturne is voiced by a trans woman, Abigail Thorn. Where as Kar’niss is voiced by, what I assume to be, a cisgender male. In my mind if Larian would take that much time and care for accuracy wouldn’t they do the same for Kar’niss?

With all of that said if people have the headcanon that Kar’niss is trans that is a-okay, I have no issues with that or any other character! It’s simply a theory I don’t personally subscribe to because the elements don’t line up well enough for me. But hey if they ever expand on his story and he is trans that’d be cool. I don’t know if there is a trans man elsewhere in-game so it’d be nice to see that representation there.

Phew, that was far longer than I anticipated but I hope I covered the topic well enough as it has been debated quite a bit in the fandom. Once again I want to express that I believe folks are allowed to write and draw these characters how they see fit. It’s fantasy fun folks, go wild and enjoy your faves as you desire.

TL;DR: I think the female pedipalps are a technical oversight and were only added in to give Kar’niss a more monstrous appearance or to round out his design. I don’t believe he is trans due to the lack of evidence to support the theory. If Lolth had any bearing on the spider body it was likely to prevent reproduction or in an effort to make driders in her image. Overall, the pedipalps are more up to interpretation than hard evidence.

[lycanr0t]

if you'd like to share your thoughts on gay trans man marcille i'd love to read them and/or see your art of him! (no pressure of course!)

oh man will I share my thoughts dfjkh I was maybe going to eventually make a post to ramble about it but this gives me the perfect excuse to now :J

This ranting WILL have spoilers for anime only fans/ppl who haven't finished the manga!

Marcille is interesting to read as a gay trans man though. Because how I see it, during the events of the manga he would not know he's trans! Or at most, he would maybe have some Gender Feelings but he wouldn't really understand it yet.

To me, Marcille is the type who would at first do everything in his power to deny it/convince himself he isn't trans. I think he would have a fair bit of internalized transphobia just as a result of his fairly rigid way of going about things. He has specific standards for himself especially but also for others.

This is where my gay trans man headcanon for Falin comes in lol.

Not for romance reasons specifically, but because I think the way Marcille treats Falin when looked at through the lens of Marcille being a trans egg is especially interesting.

For my Falin headcanon, I see Falin as a gay trans man as well, but I think that he wouldn't be out to Marcille until after the events of the manga. This is very integral to how I view Marcille's gender discovery happening.

I think that during the time they're in school together, Marcille would have feelings for Falin that are confusing. In Marcille's mind they're both girls, so he must just be a girl into girls, right? Meanwhile Falin performs girl wrong and this challenges Marcille's worldview. Marcille cares for Falin, and this manifests as Marcille trying to 'help' Falin perform girl better. Basically, Marcille doubling down on his currently held beliefs of what gender is and how it functions instead of considering that it may not be that simple, and he and/or Falin may not be a girl. Falin I think would not bring up being trans for a few reasons but primarily that boy is just not big on conflict with people especially those he cares for.

But anyways. A perfect example of Marcille forcing his idea of correct gender performance being in a daydream hour page where Falin is drawn with short hair, and Marcille is visibly pretty upset by it. (I don't have the translated image but here it is)

I know that it seems like a small thing that doesn't hold much weight, and it's not technically canon but trans mens hair is often something that people feel that they need to control. A girl cutting her hair short is seen as this horrible, unacceptable thing. Now again, obviously Falin doesn't canonically cut his hair short, but the fact that Marcille would be upset and specifically wants it long again informs us about his view of these things. I think that hair being useful for magic would end up being a justification for both being upset by the concept of Falin with short hair, and a justification to himself on why he is not allowed to experiment with shorter hair. It's more practical for his line of work/study, so it's a perfect excuse to just never think about if he TRULY loves it long or if he is just doubling down on performing what's expected of him.

Marcille is a KING of appearing way more uptight than he is. He's very by the books, very strict seeming about doing magic right, but he also specifically primarily has interest in the most taboo magic. He's the loudest about complaining about eating monsters, but he's also the first one to outright say that if they have to eat demihumans then so be it. Marcille is full of contradicting feelings and actions and I think he's prone to trying to fit into what people expect but his heart isn't fully in it so he still ends up doing the unexpected as well.

Even after the manga, Marcille has lost his desire to take care of his hair but he honestly doesn't seem... that upset by it? He is upset, sure, but for something that appeared to be a pretty big thing for him he accepts it shockingly smoothly. Almost as if perhaps, it's a relief to have an excuse to try something different. To try shorter hair maybe? Because now he has an excuse other than doing gender 'wrong'. It would feel safer to explore.

Aand I have a TON of other thoughts but this is getting pretty long and I'm losing track of my thoughts SO I'm going to drop a small list of some other random half formed thoughts I think about in relation to Marcille being a gay trans man

marcille being half elf half tallman and the parallel between that and being trans and how when you're trans you're alienated and isolated. in society's eyes youre not fully a man, not fully a woman, you're both and neither and othered in a complicated way

everyone assuming marcilles wish is to become 'full elf' also is interesting to compare to the experience of people viewing being trans as 'wishing you were X gender' in a very binary way

marcille asking if his dad is pregnant in a flashback just feels like something a trans egg kid would say

marcilles overall attachment to his father tbh.

marcille being super into romance novels and specifically his succubus presenting as a pretty boy from his novels. Obviously this can be read romantic or whatever but I know personally a lot of characters I was obsessed with as a child that I thought was romantic attraction turned out to be a combination of attraction and wanting their gender expression. I think it's interesting to read into marcille's interest in romance novels as him finding a 'safe' way to explore his attraction to men and desire to be a man without actually acknowledging that directly. (a lot of irl gay trans men do similar before they realize theyre gay trans men!)

Aaand that's my thoughts for now lmao. Here's some pen doodles I did while figuring out how I wanted to draw post-canon marcille :> Still working on figuring him out but I like how these look! I like the idea of him having some facial hair (not very long as elves seem to not be able to grow much body hair) and probably cutting his hair so it's more shoulder length and a bit easier to manage!

[transguydeuce]

queer twst headcanons pt 7: diasomnia

OKAY HOLD ON TO YOUR PANTS THIS IS GONNA BE A LONG FUCKIN POST

first. we must establish fae genderisms.

(if you wanna just scroll to the headcanons for the lads tho feel free)

i think fae have around 3 “sexes”. i say “around 3” “sexes” bc science has proven repeatedly that sex is way more complicated than it seems lol. anyway i think fae have majority intersexed individuals with some female and some male. this definitely means that there’s not really a gender binary to trans around in, and fae don’t have the same concepts of trans and cisgender that we do. plus the fact that most fae, including both male and female (which here i’m referring purely to whether they produce egg or sperm) have a range of traits that are traditionally viewed by humans as gendered aka breasts, external/internal genitalia, etc. i would say body hair also but tbh i don’t think they have any, baul’s beard looks more like scales or horns to me and unless i’m wrong i don’t think we’ve ever seen a fae with body hair.

i would almost hesitate to say that fae are mammalian but they do have some hair as well as boobs (thank u meleanor for screwing w my fae biology headcanon /j) and it’s also known that they r capable of creating hybrid offspring w humans so they have to be closely related enough to humans to do that so they are mammals, my thought is just that they have adapted to live in environments with higher magic. that’s why they’re typically more magically gifted yet it’s more dangerous for them to be without it (cough cough glomas cough cough) ALSO. BECAUSE THEY LAY EGGS, FAE ARE BASICALLY MONOTREMES. HAVE FUN WITH THAT.

anyway it's impossible to tell what bits a fae has just from looking at them. so they don’t really get assigned a gender at birth and therefore they don’t really have the same concepts of cis and trans that we do. personally, i hc that "he" is the default gender-neutral pronoun most fae use. that is all thank you for your time now ON TO THE HEADCANONS

malleus: personally hc him as intersex :) doesn’t really understand human concepts of gender, but is curious about it since arriving at night raven. he doesn’t really know what an “all boys” school is especially because some of his classmates r definitely not all boy. (he thinks that’s neat though.) dressed masculine primarily for convenience and would have no complaints wearing a gown. he/him pronouns bc it's the default fae pronoun and that’s what he grew up with but after interacting more with humans he enjoys a she or they from time to time. gender is like a fascinating human custom to him. also i love the hc that he’s pan bc he’s attracted to player character regardless of gender so i’m sticking to that

sebek: [just insert the entire knuckles pronouns comic here]

ok all jokes aside he uses he/him as well, and thinks that that’s the default for everyone. the most important human in his young life was his dad who is also he/him so naturally sebek gets very confused when humans have more than one gender. most likely finds out more after asking about why epel doesn’t like being mistook for a girl (uh oh) he concludes he must be a guy cuz he’s big and strong (epel what have you done). i don’t really have a read on sebek’s sexuality and i don’t think he does either tbh.

lilia: THEE genderqueer just look at him. she is genderfuck incarnate. he’s on that immortal vampire gender. he’s on that ftmtftmtftmtftmtf type shit. a different pronoun set each day. throw some neopronouns in and stir the pot. basically he’s genderfluid. gendergas even. she’s traveled all around the world, if you think he didn’t pick up all the different genders like a crow hoarding shiny objects you would be wrong. if you ask them directly they’d probably say their gender is gamer (to be hip with the kids). also a bisexual king and definitely had a thing for meleanor and her husband there is no doubt in my mind.

silver: well he was raised by lilia so….. afab doesn’t really apply to him. he grew up in briar valley and was never assigned a gender besides the default pronoun “he”. when he’s older lilia probably teaches him a bit about human culture and asks silver what he feels like doing and i think he’d most likely go on t, partially for gender feels and also partially to build muscle mass and be a better royal guard lmao. his gender is knight boyprincess. no i shall not explain. i think he’s sex-neutral grey ace that’s just the vibes i get from him

[vegantinatalist]

May i ask why youre anti furry/therian? Im not either of those things, just curious lol

Glad you asked, i have a lot to say about it, skip to the end for a tldr Viewing animals as concepts and visuals that you can make a persona out of contributes to the perception of animals (and others in general) being commodities. It derealizes animals and anthropomorphizes them, it is not a way to respect or portray animals, its the opposite.

I dislike therians for the same reasons and also because its a delusion like any other, and no different from religion, gender ideology, or trans race believers. Its furry taken even further into full blown delusion. They both also often buy leather and real fur and shit for their stupid costumes, especially if they go to ren fairs. i hate that theres more art of anthropomorphized endangered species than there are members of those endangered species. i hate that cows are sexually exploited while people are making "strawberry milk cowsonas uwu" with giant boobs and straw hats and shirts that say "milk!" Need i even mention all the zoophilia coded art. Ive worked as a freelance artist for over a decade, the massive number of furries that request zoophilia porn (art of getting penetrated by or raping animals), sometimes of their real pets which they would send me (normal) images of, made me no longer care that supposedly most furries "only like sfw furry art" (i call absolute bullshit and even if true idc) or "only like anthro furry porn" (thats still zoophilia in my eyes, no im not sorry, it literally is, especially if you cant get off without the animal imagery or you prefer it over human imagery). everytime someone requested a "sfw full body nude ref" they never gave their character human genitals. Always animal genitals. like bruh you literally want animal penis/vagina, you just (supposedly) wouldnt touch a real animal on principle. Buuuut youll also totally kill and eat animals daily, and youre fine with sticking instruments up their cervixes to force impregnate them and shocking their anuses to collect their semen? and you really think everyone is just like "yeah rape for profit is a-okay but raping them for pleasure is unthinkable"? you really think no people ever are like "yeah raping them for pleasure is fine too"? as an animal rescuer let me tell you- youre dead fucking wrong. animal prostitution and bestiality is a real issue, an estimate 2 percent of the population (and thats just whats reported, we all know animals cannot communicate their abuse) are offenders. from cases i myself have seen personally, the offenders were young men, autistic, and guess what else...ding ding ding. again this is of course not the majority of furries but my point is that i dont trust anybodies morals when it comes to the perception and treatment of others, especially those weaker and unable to speak. i have known a shocking amount of "normal" men who admitted to attempting or successfully raping an animal as a teen.

The sfw art often is extremely self indulgent and very objectifying of animals, drawing them like toys and little fairies that exist solely to bring them joy. i just never liked that kind of thing. i dont like that so many companies even get away with turning that shit into full on dopamine farm gambling addictions for kids. think like, webkins.

My parents used to give me animals like they were toys when i was young. They did not care what happened to them. All the media i was surrounded with as a kid reinforced this idea that animals are toys, toys that exist for self indulgent dopamine farming, even if i never would have said that, even if i would have gotten mad at anyone who outright said it. even if i thought this media made me an animal lover. it did not. and as a result, i saw many animals terribly die. yes, huge blame on my parents of course, but we dont live in a world that respects or cares about animals as it is and this type of content just doesnt help like people think it does. it doesnt teach you respect for animals. it teaches you to love animals the way you love candy. something you play with, and consume. its bad.

I want people to create sonas without using animal body parts as a way to convey tropes and archetypes that harmfully or just incorrectly skew peoples perception of real animals. i want to see animal characters that are neither anthro nor "feral" (toony animal body but anthro behaviors and thoughts) but are instead just written and portrayed like real animals and respected. i am not opposed to anime because while most of it is creepy, depicting toddler faced girls on childrens sexualized bodies, this disturbing objectification element isnt inherent to the style or subject matter and there are plenty of anime that depict people more normally. furry on the other hand is inherently objectifying and i wish drawing furry art was not so socially acceptable. its not like i think everyone should only draw animals exactly the way they look in reality, but you can stylize them in countless ways that arent anthropomorphizing.

i also hate fiction where theres a race of animal people and still a subclass of non anthro animals that are being exploited. it just furthers this idea that real animals dont matter, you can even pretend to be them while you kill and eat them if you want. i just really hate all of it. ive never seen any piece of furry media that doesnt disrespect animals and i think it inherently cannot be respectful to them.

mythical animal characters are a bit of a gray area. if they are depicted like real animals, just different (like a dragon that is clearly cat coded) that doesnt bother me really. the ones that are human coded with no animal parts based on real animals are usually fine too. its the grody and often sexualized blending of human and nonhuman animal that i dont like.

this is a very long and rambly rant but tldr:

-sexual furry art is zoophilia

-sfw furry art is still gratification based in objectification of others (and sfw art still can arouse people which is why its important to be mindful of subject matter no matter how youre drawing it)

-therians are the same + delusion (and i oppose all delusions)

-i want to see respectful art/stories that portrays nonhuman animals as the complicated individuals they are, not as a humans costume, sidekick/toy, or human allegory -im sick of artists having 0 accountability in general and im sick of their actually braindead apologist fans (looking at you made in abyss season 2 enjoyers) and i have 0 tolerance for iffy material anymore, we need to start opposing fictional content with more intensity, the world of art has become like 50 percent soft cp and soft zoophilia and i for one hate that

[ghelgheli]

Can I ask why you would dis-recommend Decolonising Trans/Gender 101? I had heard good things about it and it is on my shortlist to check out.

So, both in the title ("101") and the introduction, binaohan is expressing a commitment to writing a text that can serve as an effective introductory reading for people looking to understand the relationships between transness and colonization. I would expect that with a commitment like this, the text is both cleanly argued and, you know, doesn't make very many false or misleading claims that could send the unfamiliar reader down a garden path. My experience was that this is not the case!

For example, binaohan asserts several times that 15th and 16th century colonialism marks the beginning of transmisogyny and the gender binary. As though there was no transmisogyny before this, in e.g. byzantine surgical practice or roman rhetoric! As though misogyny and its commitment to the opposition of men to women did not precede the use of misogyny as a technology of european colonialism. I just don't think this is a true or useful claim.

Or, take binaohan's defense of family structure against coming-out narratives—the criticism being that white trans culture presents coming out as an assertion of agency, but that this overlooks racialized experiences of commitment to the family over and above the notion that coming out is the only way to be true to oneself. Criticism of coming-out-as-responsibility is fair, but I don't think we should be doing "families are good as long as they're not nuclear" here.

There's a whole section on how "passing" and "stealth" language is essentially compromised because "trans women don't 'pass' as women, they just are women" (paraphrase). But this is just wordplay; nobody is using these terms with those connotations but to denote important material facts about moving thru the world as trans. And the section gives the impression that there's nothing important being done with these uses of language.

The book leans a bit too much on privilege-language, and combines it with gender-eternalism: that if you are a man, you were always a man, and if you are a woman, you were always a woman. This is a self-narrative that works for many trans people. It also doesn't work for many others, including e.g. trans lesbians I know who are comfortable narrativizing themselves as having been boys. I wouldn't want someone to read binaohan's prescription, delivered in the second person, and take it at face value.

I also didn't think I'd ever say this, but the book overcorrects against transandrophobia-truther arguments, denying that "transphobia" is a coherent concept. Now, I'm open to a particular line of reasoning: that perhaps all trans-antagonisms are reducible to mechanisms of transmisogyny. But that's not what's done here, and the possibility of something like anti-transmasculinity (not necessarily in those terms) is not even acknowledged.

I think binaohan writes effectively about the particulars of both contemporary and historical Tagalog gendered experience and embodiment. Those were the sections of the book I most enjoyed. I just thought they had been slot in between a great deal of arguments and claims I would not want to present to someone looking for a "101". I don't think the book succeeds at being the pedagogical text it wants to be.

[mushiver]

How can you be Bi/Trans and Christian?

Good question! Also a personal one, so it's hard to tell without a story. If you stick around to read, I appreciate it. I'm gonna be vulnerable on this dinky little tumblr page

I was raised a Christian and always believed. I'd say it "clicked" the most when I was 13, and that's when I committed. I've lost faith at times, but for the most part, it's always been the foundation of my life. I think about God before I make decisions, I rely on Him when I'm anxious, and I thank Him for everything. I'm very much summarizing it, but I have a good relationship with God. The more seeds I have planted in my faith, the better my life is, and the more loving I am to others

I heard about gay people when I was eight, and my first thought was "why didn't I think of that?" Like... of course people of the same gender can have romantic feelings. There's tons of variations in nature and humanity, and that made sense to me. I also thought it was ultra rare, so for the next several years, when I saw gay couples or lgbtq things online, I was looking from a distance, like I related so hard because of my isolating gender experience, but I thought no way it could be me out of millions. I was weirdly focused on the odds.

Similarly, when I found out about trans people at 12, I was like "of COURSE they exist" and I was blown away that people could transition. I related hard, even if I thought it would never be a possibility for me.

First, finding out I was bi. Even though I was blatantly attracted to guys and girls, I swept it under the rug with things like "but anyone would-" "but I wouldn't date-" "it's just admiration" until I was 14. I had a real crush then, and I fell super hard for one of my friends I met at church (he's now out as trans, but either way, we were the same gender at the time and are now), and that's when it hit me that it wasn't some fluke or me "wanting to be a part of the community" (even though the reason I did in the first place was because I felt ostracized because of the way I felt about gender)

I was down bad for this guy, and it was hard to tell what he thought of me because he was affectionate with everyone. But I thought I had a sliver of a chance, so I had a freakout and questioned my sexuality.

Throughout the years, I've heard Christians be homophobic, and I've heard people say it's a sin, but I never understood it. I never felt it in my heart. I didn't know gay people, but I wasn't kept out of that sphere, so I knew they had real, loving relationships, and it wasn't all about a party drugs and sex lifestyle. Can gay people live that way? Yes. Is it the majority? Not even close. Unhealthy behavior is what churches usually cling to, and they condemn the whole community by it. Similarly, people point at churches like Westbro and condemn all Christians. I'm sure you've all seen the vitriol back and forth, and queer Christians are in the line of fire on both sides. Community and support is beyond helpful because of that

Again, my faith comes first. I couldn't accept being bi if God couldn't, so I did a lot of research. On the anti-lgbtq side, I heard the Bible verses. They seemed to condemn it, but never spoke about love between two people. I'll come back to this. Mostly, the anti side used their own arguments, like "look at these people, they get aids" and "your identity should only be in christ."

The pro-lgbtq side took a deep dive into scripture. I was used to hearing "it's on the page, the Bible is clear" when TONS of scripture cannot be taken at face value. That's why theologians study the true meaning AND its use in modern, post resurrection life. It's hermeneutics. And the fact is, the word "homosexual" was added in the Bible in the 40s, before our modern understanding of it. References to homosexuality were references to the "lover-beloved" relationships between slaves and slaveholders, or teacher and student. "Effeminates" were catamites. Homosexuality wasn't a concept in the first century, but pederasty was, and the Bible condemns it. There's a long, rich history of the 6 verses about homosexuality, and it's too short for a tumblr post, but there's the Reformation Project to check out, CenterPeace, Torn by Justin Lee, God and the Gay Christian by Matthew Vines, and Walking the Bridgeless Canyon by Kathy Baldock.

Not only is there a lot of evidence (made in faith by people who want to determine God's will), there's tons of queer Christians living happily. It's not a double life. It's not holding onto sin. It's not holding onto a toxic religion. If you hate being lgbtq, something inseparable from yourself, then you're going to hate yourself. So many lgbtq Christians live in shame because they think it's their only choice. Conversion therapy doesn't work. Straight people can be straight and have their identity rooted in christ, but gay people are told they can't do that

Because I prayed about it for so long and did the research, I believed that being bi and Christian were not at odds. If you're a Christian, you probably know the feeling of being spiritually guided. I came out to a few people, including my parents, and they didn't accept it, but they tolerated it and didn't forbid me from dating if I got the chance (I didn't lol. Still have never dated and I'm 19). But even though I struggled with shame from their judgement, I was grateful they didn't ostracize me

Gonna fast track this because it's getting long, but being trans was the back-of-my-mind thing I ignored. I ALWAYS felt it somewhere. Since I was three, I sometimes imagined growing up a man. Any chance to prove I was manly, I did. I also hid it out of fear, so I was often hyperfeminine in appearance while masculine in behavior. It's all subjective, I know, but the point is that being masculine grounded me. That's what made me feel like myself. But I also wanted to be seen. It's frustrating when you're so uncomfortable in your body and being feminized, and you can't even look the way you want to because your family is the cops you don't want to make suspicious and the church is prison. It shouldn't BE the prison. It wasn't always that way. It's still a haven for lots of queer people, but I didn't want to be condemned for something that I couldn't change and didn't cause. I felt like there was a boy brain inside me, but it was my job and duty to play a girl

Once again, at 14, it came into question. It was my most social year (being homeschooled) so dysphoria was the worst it had been. I wanted to be seen as a guy. It took months of questioning and debating, but I cut my hair. Everyone was surprisingly cool with it, so over the years, I phased out my clothes and accepted my masculinity.

Every once in a while, I'd privately question my gender, think about my name, and pray like my life was in danger (from the anxiety) but I ultimately stopped when a family member got suspicious. This went on repeat for a year. Before I tuned 16, I was absolutely sure. I couldn't keep doubting it, and I needed to come out so I wasn't dealing with it alone. But again, some Christians are so hostile towards trans people, and I went down a rabbit hole that pulled on my anxiety and despair. It wasn't wrong in my heart, I wasn't furthering myself from God spiritually, but shame took over my own convictions. I spent the next year in deep denial and punished myself every time I thought about being trans. I grew out my hair, bought new clothes, and forced myself to wear makeup. I almost lost my life, and my arms and legs were covered in scars

That was the furthest I'd been from my faith. I carried my own cross with a "I'm doing this for you" mentality when it was never something God asked me to do. In a way, it was cowardly. I listened to the world, my shame, and my parents, and threw away what I knew to be the truth because standing for it made me too anxious. I did that for a long time, and I lost some months of my life. I can't physically remember them. It was a traumatic experience, so they're blocked out

When I couldn't take it anymore, I prayed after my silence and said "guide me." I took it slow, and stopped denying and pushing away thoughts about my future and my identity. I grounded myself and came back to my faith and started researching deeper into theology.

When I was sure of myself, I came out to my parents at 17. At the time, they took it as well as they could. They didn't shun me, and they started using the name I chose. It's been hard throughout the years, and they're not on good terms with it still, but I trust God to take it where it needs to go. I deal with a lot of grief with my parents, but I can't cower and hide what I believe in anymore. It effects more than just me

Now I've done years of praying, theological research, writing a 45,000 word essay, meeting queer Christians, reading the whole Bible, and having a relationship with God, and I'm at peace with myself. It took my whole life to get there, but I fight the shame that's placed on me with my faith. I rely on God. It's important that I distinguish myself as both a Christian and queer because there's still millions of people who are scared and suicidal because they've been told they have to get rid of it to love Him. When they can't get rid of it, they assume they're not enough, so they either lose faith or hate themselves

It's just a little detail in my bio, but that's how I'm both. I want queer Christians, or anyone really, to see me and know that I am this way, and my life is still whole. That's the long story short. If you're reading this and you're also a queer Christian, you're not alone and there's tons of people of faith fighting for us :)

I don't know anything about anon, but hopefully this answered your question

[nothorses]

same anon coming back to the degendering conversation.

i see your point about degendering as defensible, and misgendering as openly hateful. but i think the bigot can escalate further, switching back to degendering as part of dehumanization. "it", "that thing", and so on. i did make an oversimplification, but it was because your posts made me understand what the difference in feeling between types of transphobia i have experienced was, and i got very eager to share!

i am genderqueer, androgynous, and visibly varsex. i have gotten deliberately misgendered both as my original legal gender and its opposite. i have also been aggressively degendered. and actually the underlying insults were the opposite than in my example. the misgendering tried to cast me as delusional, and the degendering as an abject other, a monster.

but i do think what you described shows traces of these two angles of attack. "slipping", because they haven't actually unlearned as much as they like to think.

but i think it isn't useful to sort this kind of more 'abstract' or high concept transphobia based on target identities. these are frameworks and weapons picked by the wielders, often without consistent logic, and can be used against anyone. the unique experiences are in my opinion more practical and specific, like in most parts of the world nonbinary people having no right legal gender marker to pick. so that's how exorsexism is a thing and imo your discussion doesn't threaten to invalidate it.

thank you for the good conversation. hopefully i managed to express my thoughts somewhat coherently...

That makes sense! Yeah, I def didn't think about "it/its" degendering in that context, and I feel like that specific way of degendering trans folks has different (but overlapping) sort of intention - I don't get the same kind of dehumanization from "they/them", personally.

That said, I totally agree that the usefulness in differentiating these different types of transphobia is more in why people utilize them than it is the group of people they are attempting to target.

To use one example: I think "transphobia targeting transmasculinity" is probably a more accurate definition of "transandrophobia" than "transphobia targeting transmascs", in a lot of ways, because the people weaponizing transphobia against transmasculinity care less about hurting people who are transmasculine, and more about a fight against the concept of transmasculinity itself. They aren't trying to reveal everyone who is transmasculine in order to oppress them, they are trying to force transmasculine people to repress and hide that part of themselves in order to conform.

And I think that's true for transphobia generally, and queerphobia, and a lot of other forms of oppression. Which is also why bigotry itself tends to be fairly undiscerning; the people calling you a "faggot" on the street aren't going to correct themselves and apologize if you tell them you're straight, actually. They don't care whether you are a faggot, they're punishing the presence of faggotry as a concept.

Anyway, I'm kinda rambling here; I think we're on the same page, too, I'm just enjoying seeing & exploring new ideas and connections!

[jasper-the-menace]

Hey, since you're interested in scorpion biology, I thought you'd be interested in the idea of... intersex Chima scorpions! Well, sort of.

There's a specific character that's been bugging me a bit. Scutter is kind of the scorpion equivalent of a centaur; he has two torsos, one anthropomorphic, and another of the scorpion body. With scorpion anatomy in mind, it's easy to reach the conclusion that Scutter's reproductive organ would be heavily altered because of his body, making him intersex to a certain extent.

I hope this makes sense. I'm trying to look for possible trans rep in Chima characters (like in this example). What do you think of this idea?

Oh friend, you don't know the essay you just inspired.

You Opened This Can Of Worms, Now Lie In It

Some important bulletpoints before I get going, just to get all of my followers on the same page:

Disclaimer: I am a transgender nonbinary perisex individual. This means I am not intersexed (to my knowledge), I don't identify with the gender I was assigned at birth, and I don't identify as male or female. The closest thing to describing my gender is literally "no".

I am a strong advocate for making as many characters transgender as possible, regardless of "realism". That's why, in my own writing, half of the Scorpions are retroactively transgender (though they don't understand gender on the whole and most of them would probably be nonbinary if someone took fifteen minutes to explain gender, variable social constructs, and the concept of genitalia tying to gender roles) and also Razar is too on account of I said so.

Being intersexed does not inherently mean being transgender. There is a lot of discussion and individual choice between intersexed people about whether or not they're part of the queer community. It's a very individual thing, and I am not part of those discussions on account of not being intersex myself.

When it comes to humans and other beings with a level of sentience and sapience, the term "hermaphrodite" and its derivates are considered slurs. When talking about animals, hermaphrodite and its derivates are scientific terms. So in something like the Legends of Chima series and other humanoid-animal media, the proper term is "intersexed". (I noticed you used the term "intersex" in your ask, and I appreciate it!)

I know too much about scorpion mating and birth.

We're talking way too much about genitalia and gender tonight in regards to fictional characters.

I am genuinely delighted that you decided to drop in here to discuss this, because boy howdy do I have a lot of thoughts about transgender headcanons/representation and scorpions specifically! Scorpions are just. So damn cool.

Note for my fellow arachnophobes: There are no images attached to this post, but it's really easy to find videos of scorpions doing various things on YouTube, which is actually how I've been studying them.

Scorpion Sex, Mating, and Genitalia

Scorpions of both "genders" have genital opercula (singular: genital operculum), and their asses run up into their tails. In order to mate, they don't just do like horses. No no, buddy, they have a really weird, specific method!

In order to start wooing his potential mate, the male scorpion will lock chelae (pincers) with the female scorpion, and they will start to "dance". The male scorpion will drop a sperm packet onto the ground and lead the female scorpion over it. If the female scorpion is down, she'll basically squat and absorb the sperm packet into her body, which is then followed by a "mating plug" to keep it in while it does the fertilization thing.

(It's important to note that the courting process also contains "juddering", aka the male scorpion doing the dance that the stickbug meme did, and may also contain clerchical "kisses". Honestly, pretty romantic for an arachnid. And possibly tail-rubbing and sexual stinging. Scorpions are very kinky!)

(It's also important to note that some species of scorpions have been reported, though not reliably, to reproduce through parthogenesis.)

Post-coitus cannibalism has not been scientifically seen in scorpions, so the male scorpion is generally safe as long as he scadoodles.

Gestation in some scorpion species can last over a year, and different species can have anywhere from 2 to 100 little scorplings - the physical size of the scorpion is not necessarily tied to how many babies they'll have.

Also, scorpions give live birth!

The baby scorpion is essentially folded like a Fedex package and launched out of the womb. It will then unfold and climb on top of the mother to make way for its next sibling. These will hang onto the mother until their first molt, which happens as a group and launches them into the juvenile stage. After this, they will still stay with their mothers until their carapace finishes hardening and gaining color, at which point they hunt prey on their own and will wander off on their own terms.

Hey, Jasper, That's Pretty Fucked Up, But How Does This Tie Into Chima?

I'm getting there, hold your centaur scorpions!

This is where we get into the worldbuilding of the Legends of Chima series, the Character Encyclopedia, and our poor boy Scutter.

See, the Legends of Chima as a series is very much a product of its time. There is some rife ableism and questionable word choices in regards to the Crawlers (and Sir Fangar, but this isn't about him). According to the Character Encyclopedia, Scutter is "less evolved". There's a looong history of racism in using phrases like "evolution" in regards to other humans, so taking that and applying it to an animal world leaves us with some very strange dissonance, because it's used in Chima to mean animals turned into a more humanoid form by the Chi.

Because really, what is the Chi? It's a magical substance that, depending on how you read it, could be the animist spirit of the land (I say, as an animist myself), or it could be drugs. Or it could be any number of other things! I know one person who writes Chi as the blood of dead gods, which is metal as fuck!

Ultimately, it depends on how one is writing the Chi that makes the usage of phrases like "less evolved" more or less questionable than it was intended. We're all dragging around the corpse of a Lego theme across our writing desks anyway. And the way I go about answering the question of "what is Chi" is definitely different from others. (Again, see the dead god blood part.)

The question of whether or not the Scorpion Tribe, namely Scutter, would count as intersexed relies on 1) defining intersexuality in regards to genitalia arrangement (scorpions don't have penises and vaginas by default; and the Wikipedia article on scorpions just uses "genital orfice" or "genital opercula"); 2) determining if the Chi has magically changed how genitalia works for Scorpions (admittedly, I do this because I didn't want to have to use the term "genital opercula" over and over); 3) determining the humanization extent of the Scorpion Tribe as you write them (I lean more towards human than you do, just from what I've seen of your work); and 4) deciding if such terminology even exists in Chima.

But looking at Scutter and going with the assumption that the back end is fully scorpion... No, I wouldn't count him as intersex by default. Intersex implies landing between the two human biological extremes (which, as we all know, is not as cut-and-dry as high school biology taught us), when really he's kind of a secret third thing (a Scorpion who probably doesn't have either a penis or a vagina).

(Of course, there's also what you said, paraphrased to my own wording: the Chi may have just decided to fuck up this poor man's genital situation and do a half-ass job.)

That's not to say he can't be trans. I mean, I made Scorm and about half of the Scorpion Tribe trans already. That's also not to say they're not all trans by default, considering scorpions without the ability to think wouldn't have the concepts of genders anyway.

Okay Jasper, So How Do You Write Him?

So, here's the thing. I'm aromantic-asexual, and I also write smut and, to a lesser extent, romance, which means I think about fictional character genitalia too much. But thinking about Scutter has left me utterly baffled.

On one hand, I usually write the Chi as a magical animist force of the land of Chima on the whole, and part of that is that the Chi tries to get everyone on the same playing field, physically speaking, which is how we get retroactive transgender man Scorm in my Tales of Chima series.

On the other hand, look at him. Look at him. He's a centaur arachnid. I know he can pass the Harkness Test, but I still feel weird thinking about his genitalia. If I go with my theory of the Chi giving everyone penises and vaginas at random, then I don't want to think about how much that would get in the way for the poor boy! On the other hand, his lower body is still mostly scorpion instead of, well, Scorpion, so who's to say he doesn't have a genital operculum?

Too Long, Don't Want Details About Scorpion Sex

Alright, spoilsport. Here's your TLDR:

It genuinely depends on what the Chi does in your version of the story and how bad it fucks up. It depends on how dedicated you are to scientific accuracy. It depends on how much you want to think about scorpion genitals.

And being intersex is not necessarily trans rep, unless it is, unless it isn't. I'm not intersexed, so I'm not going to say what that falls on myself. There is an intersex pride flag that was created by Morgan Carpenter in 2013.

Trans characters can exist outside of being intersexed, you don't have to conflate the two in order to have transgender representation. Just hit the characters with the Transgenderinator 5000 Beam. Fuck realism, this is a series about walking talking animal people. Who's going to stop you? The fun police? Transphobes? Eat them.

Further Reading

Start at Wikipedia and go from there through its sources for anything of particular interest:

Intersex flag (in case you're curious about it and its history, which can also launch you into further reading about humans being intersex)

Scorpion (morphology section)

Scorpion (mating subsection)

Scorpion (birth and development subsection)

So, uh, yeah! Thanks for coming to me with these questions, it's really touching that you value my thoughts this much, and I love talking about my boys and scorpions and the complicated web! I apologize for any errors or too-crass sections, because I wrote most of this in one sitting after playing wayyy too much Skyrim today.

~Jasper

[genderkoolaid]

(different person than last anon) can you give us like actual scientific papers that "nonhumans" are real and not just ppl that need a lot of psychological help? bc like while gender + sex can be very diverse and change w the individual, species is extremely specific and thats why shit like making crossbreeds is so insanely hard and they usually end up infertile bc the genes arent meant to be combined. n also the only example i can think of of any other species having "i am not the species i was born as" thoughts is that one female monkey that was raised so close w people she thought she was a person and she would refuse to breed w any of her primate species bc of it. you would call that mental illness in that monkey because she cannot be a person in a monkey body, just like someone can't be a dog or angel or horse in a human body, so why do you not consider being "nonhuman" also a mental illness?

can you please explain about alterhumanity? I don’t mean to be negative, I don’t understand… “there are only two sexes” is wrong because biology knowledge we have today actually doesn’t support that. did modern taxonomy find out something similar about humans? that’s very interesting, I don’t know a lot about it! but if you do I’d love to read that research!

So I think "there are only two sexes" isn't the best example; the comparison is more like "people can't change their gender because gender is whats in your pants"

Yes, we can look at chromosomes and hormones and sexual organs, and that stuff is related to gender. But to say "gender/sex is a construct" does not mean "chromosomes/hormones/sex organs don't exist." Its pointing out that our relationship to those things is culturally dependent (I wouldn't say "unnatural" because humans making social constructs is natural).

Similarly, we do divide up species based on reproduction and common ancestors. But "humanity" is also a construct. What it means to be human & who is defined as human can and does change depending on our culture. Not only can some people be excluded from humanity (for example, people of color and neurodivergents), but some people believe they are spiritually nonhuman (whatever that means for them). Some people who have been rejected from humanity identify as alterhuman as a way of saying "you don't want me, then I don't want you" (voidpunk is related to this although not inherently alterhuman). Some people are delusional and identify with alterhumanity as a way of coping with their delusions (and also, yes, you can be self-aware about your delusions). Some people believe in reincarnation or alternate universes or have some other spiritual belief related to being nonhuman. Some people just feel like dogs and enjoy being a dog and it doesn't matter why because they just like it.

Honestly, the monkey does sound like a monkey-version of alterhuman, because (if I can get a little anthropomorphize-y on y'all), it sounds like she did not feel apart of "monkey culture." Obviously we can't know if monkeys have a concept of monkey-hood like we do with humanity, but if they did it would not be hard to imagine how a monkey raised with humans would feel more human than monkey. But regardless... we don't need other species to have alter-species-hood for the same reason we don't need snails to crossdress for trans people to exist. Other animals probably don't have the same complex. abstract social constructs we do.

Why can't someone be a horse in a human body? For the same reason someone can't be a man in a woman's body- because "science says"? Both trans-denial and alterhuman-denial emphasizes biology over sociological investigation, which leads people to just keep shouting "but science!!!!!!!!!!" at people who are more invested in questions of culture and constructs and what it means to be [man/woman/human] in society.

(Also, I'm kind of uncomfortable with how the first ask talks about mental illness. Specifically "person believes harmless weird thing, so they must need Psychological Help for their Wrong Thoughts")

[moongothic]

i would love trans crocodile but im very cynical that oda would write him in a respectful manner. thats not even thinking of how horrible that one portion of the one piece fandom would treat him

Yeah the fandom sucks and I'm going to strangle everyone (including the cishets who claim to be trans allies and then use "Crocomom")

But with Oda it's weird because like. The more I think about it, the more I'm like... 50/50 about Oda being able to actually deliver good, respectful trans masc rep.

Like I've posted about this before but One Piece does have this on-going theme of having characters "stuck in wrong bodies" or "having one's body changed" (sometimes reversably, sometimes irreversably; sometimes against their will, sometimes consentually). Which, in theory, in my mind, does kind of signal that on some level Oda understands the idea of being "the wrong sex" (whether or not that's a good way to explain The Trans Experience™ is a whole different subject but it's an old fashioned explanation that Oda would probably be/is familiar with) But at the same time, while the concept pops up again and again in One Piece, Oda doesn't really dwell too deep into the idea of what that's like. Like, emotionally. How it feels like to like, get turned into a toy or be a child who gets aged 20 years or to get turned into a cyborg or a giant child or have parts of your body permanently turned into animal parts (sometimes with a will of their own) etc

And like. Part of me understands why, Oda does tend to want to focus on writing a story he thinks teenaged boys would be interested in reading, and he has often stated he wants to have fun with his story too (like that's partially why Luffy's a Rubber Man, because Oda thought giving Luffy a ridiculous ability would make him more fun to write and draw long-term, which is valid as hell) This is why for example Oda has avoided doing any romances in OP, and while there are dark themes in the story, often he has done his best to avoid making them too blatant, as some things would be too mature for his youngest readers (like, for example until Kuma's backstory, it was never explicitly stated what would happen to the slave wives of the Tenryuubito, even saying it was "implied" would be pushing how that subject had been treated until now)

So like. Because of that, I understand why Oda hasn't dwelled into The Feelings™ part much/at all despite the "stuck in the wrong body" narrative appearing time and time again

Either Oda thinks it'd be too boring either for himself or his readers, or he hasn't dwelled into it because he doesn't really understand gender dysphoria and can't relate to the experience (despite how often it shows its face in OP). Or it could be both, even

The thing is though, as OP has gone on, while I wouldn't say Oda has "broken his writing rules", Kuma's backstory alone has pushed them to a new limit with the love-that-never-was story and the all-but-explicitly-stated storytelling.

So a part of me wonders, if Crocodile is trans, could Oda actually like... take a slightly deeper look into his feelings and explore his queer experience? ('Cause god knows, if Crocodad Real, then there really would be a literal coming out-story built into his backstory that would be extremely unavoidable, and as I've mentioned before, the fact that we haven't gotten to learn almost anything about his backstory yet is Kinda Fucking Sus)

Also I do want to mention how... like Oda gets a lot of bad rap when it comes to queer rep in One Piece, but the more I think about it, I think it's more an issue with the terminology and how translators have gone about either localizing it, or more often than not, leaving it unlocalized 'Cause like. Yes the "okama" would be horrible trans rep but... really... they're not trans representation. They're representation for draq queens. Piss poor draq rep, but still, they're draq queens. And just like our very real life drag performers; some of them are cishets. Some of them are gender non-conforming gay men. Some of them are nonbinary*. Some of them are trans women. Obviously lumping all of these people into one group is kinda offensive (which is why "okama" is (as far as I understand it) such an unpopular term even amongst queer people in Japan), and the way Oda often chooses to draw these characters looks no different to how gender criticals choose to present trans women in their propaganda.

*Like Bon-chan, who explicitly states they are both male and female. And Iva-chan, who switches between boy-mode and girl-mode from time to time, could arguably be called genderfluid (though any specific terminology is up to debate). Both are nonbinary draq queens.

And yet, despite all that. It can not be understated how if you put aside the nameless background gag-characters, Oda does treat the actual, proper queer characters with respect. Everyone would agree that Bon-chan is an absolute hero, we would all die for them. Iva-chan (and Inazuma too) is explicitly presented in a heroic light, seen as someone who helps people and fights for justice (with the Revs)

And then there's the first binary trans characters we've actually gotten, Okiku and Yamato. And I'm pretty sure we would all agree Okiku is 10/10 perfect trans fem representation (I am not entirely serious, I'm not trans fem so I can't speak for trans women here, it's just that I can't see anything Horrendously Wrong with how Okiku is presented within the story- not actually perfect but all things considdered, damn good). She is stunning, people around her (INCLUDING SANJI!!) don't just view her as a woman but would go out of their way to date her (as in, she is seen as "desirable", and not as some kind of a disgusting freak to avoid), she is heroic and sweet and kind and just. IDK I love her And while I'm sure many trans mascs would agree Yamato may not be how they want to be seen by the world (though having Yamato ID as a man while having the biggest moobs is surely validating for a lot of people, including anybody who might not want or be able to get top surgery and/or HRT), again, he is only presented as heroic within the narrative and respected by the characters around him, Luffy especially, which is by far the most important part; the protagonist going out of his way to be respectful of trans characters does represent the values of the story.

And like.

Think about how Oda has treated Crocodile so far.

Like, although we're all having a bit of a laugh over the whole Cross Guild thing, Oda is still treating him as a cool character whom he presents seriously and treats with respect. Like Oda wants the readers to see Crocodile as at least a little bit cool. So I can't imagine him pulling a full 180 with how Croc would be treated in the story if he was revealed to be trans, especially when the potential foreshadowing for that was laid out in the story years ago already.

All this to say; Oda is not perfect at all, but considdering the things he has gotten right so far, I think there is hope he could pull it off. Because Oda is for Queer Liberation.

Really, my only concerns would be whether or not there's a risk Crocodile could get somehow detrans'd during the story (I'm praying the Haki theory isn't an option, really Doc Q might be the only true risk here), if he's stealth and that got presented as "a wrong thing to do" (which I'd hope not, like our previous queer characters have been okay with being openly queer but that may have been more for the readers than anything else. At least, I hope, god knows if Crocodile is and wants to be stealth trans then that's his right and he shouldn't have to out if he doesn't want to, and yeah, I don't want him to be demonized within the narrative for being stealth (if he's stealth, for all we know he could be out)) and like, most importantly, what'd end up being Crocodile's "motivation" for transitioning in the first place

Like. God. I just. I don't want there to be a twist where Crocodile transitioned because "being a woman was weak" or because he "wanted to be acknowledged by Whitebeard" ('cause WB doesn't take women into his crew) or "the scar in his face made him so ugly he decided he should be a man instead" (seen unironic Redditors suggest that. Almost lost my mind) or something

Like I hope someone's at least tried to explain gender dysphoria to Oda. Like the man does have actual queer friends in real life (some of whom inspired characters in OP), so I'm hoping at least someone's tried to explain the feelings that come with The Trans Experience™ to him so that, if Crocodile's trans, then Oda can actually try to base his reasoning to transition on those feelings instead of any stupid "reasons" that no actual queer person would relate to

But it all just boils down to... Is Oda willing to actually dwell into those feelings and explore them in the story.

It... it really could go either way with Oda

So yeah. Anon, I'm with you, I'd be lying if I didn't admit I was at least A Little Worried. But also... I want to be hopeful. Because I do believe there is reason to be hopeful.

Only time will tell how it'll go

[contagious-watermelon]

It's interesting to me that understandings of transsexuality have been almost exclusively filtered through the lens of queerness and the social aspects of gender. In other words, that the "T" was added to "LGBT." I've thought for a while that in a lot of cases, transness — and specifically dysphoria — makes a lot more sense when analyzed through the lens of disability rather than through queerness. (Personally I see it as being at the intersection between those things.)

I think that a theory of transsexuality would be incomplete without taking into account the societal aspects of gender, yes, but it seems to be similarly incomplete in the popular understanding of it.

I've seen a lot of discussion in the stuff I've read by disabled people about the contention between being objectively harmed or, well, disabled, by your disability, but still wanting to be proud of it or finding identity in it regardless. A lot of autistic communities, I've noticed, talk a lot about the fact that being autistic is difficult; it's made worse by other people's reactions to it, but it still is hard on its own (e.g. auditory overstimulation); yet people still can say that they'd rather be autistic than not. Or they may say they wish they weren't, but that they've come to terms with it because it's not exactly changeable.

Point is, there's open discussion about the differences between inherent challenges to your disability regardless of society, the ways which ableism makes things more difficult, and the contention of finding identity and community in your disability despite that. (And I use autism as an example because I'm autistic; I don't want to speak for, say, a physically disabled community as I'm able-bodied. But I have seen similar discussions there as well.)

The trans community, as I've seen, doesn't really have that. We're polarized between the extremely self-hating people who think that being trans is a curse and that people who like being trans are just fakers co-opting transness, and the toxically positive contingent who refuse to engage with the fact that sometimes dysphoria really does just hurt. And also that transphobia exists.

There's also the fact that in many ways, dysphoria is actually disabling. It isn't for everyone, and part of the problem is that transness as a concept covers so many things that analyzing it through just one lens will always be incomplete, but for me at least it caused me a lot of depression and dissociation, and made it difficult-to-impossible to interact with other people or function at my classes. Back before I medically transitioned, I related a lot to some descriptions by disabled people about their chronic pain, because my dysphoria effectively was chronic psychological pain. I don't want to say it's the same thing, because obviously I've only experienced one of those things, and dysphoria has a treatment while many (all?) chronic illnesses don't, but nevertheless it was a comforting lens to think of my dysphoria through in the time before I got top surgery.

Also of note is the way both our communities are treated by the medical establishment. I've heard many horror stories by disabled people of how doctors simply refuse to diagnose them or give them issues with their meds. Trans people obviously also have to deal with the shit that doctors put out in order to get access to HRT and any necessary surgeries. People deride HRT, saying that we shouldn't take it because it'll "make you a medical patient for life." People act like mental pain isn't real — calling depression fake, acting like because things like fibromyalgia aren't "real pain" that it shouldn't bother you so much, etc. — and that extends too into the way they dismiss the pain of gender dysphoria.

So, I don't really understand why the trans community has taken so many pains to disavow themselves from being considered even remotely similar to disabled people. I know that the common refrain, "we're not mentally ill!" is meant to combat the idea that we're deluded into thinking that we're a "different gender" than we really are, but the effect is throwing actually mentally ill trans people under the bus. The insistence that there's no way that dysphoria should be considered a disorder because there's nothing wrong with us — I just think that we could take a hint or two from the way that disabled people theorize about this subject.