#I'm bisexual which is why I know anything about the LGBT community at all

[dukeofdelirium]

I will never believe Zu/tara shippers when they say they hate Kata/aang because it's "heteronormative" since one of the main complaints Kata/aang gets from them is that "no 14 year old girl would wanna date a bald boy who's younger and shorter then her" or how Aang gets called a bald lesbian as an insult. Idk man I think Katara ending up with the bad boy with anger issues who is most stereotypically masculine of all the Gaang boys and who she spends most of the story hating for hurting her and her friends (who also personally betrayed her trust when she tried to help him). Idk man I think if these two got together that'd be a lot more heteronormative, especially since they only became friends an ep before the finale started. I think Katara and Aang's relationship has writing issues too (I have a lot of gripes I'm not coming at this as a shipper) but it takes a particular kind of ship brainrot to argue Zuta/ra end game would have made more sense or been a better end game with the canon we are given. And arguing it's somehow less heteronormative to make Zuko get together with Katara. I can't with this fandom.

if either of these two ships fit the definition of heteronormativity, it’s zvtara, not kataang. Aang does not fit the western male character type. He is short, shaves his head, is pacifistic, and quite feminine compared to the other male characters. He gets insulted for doing things that characters deem as “feminine”, like weaving jewelry for one.

the show doesn’t actually support this idea that femininity is bad, but characters like Sokka who have narrow viewpoints early in the story try to ridicule him. toph also makes jabs at Aang’s femininity.

Zvtara shippers argument has never been about heteronormativity. It’s always been “misogyny”. The only reason they’re adopting heteronormativity in their list of vocab words they still don’t know the definitions of is bc most of us kataang shippers on here (tumblr) are gay, bisexual, etc. And because we, as majority lgbt ppl have stated that their ship is heteronormative, they just want to flip that to use against us even when it doesn’t apply.

Kataang simply doesn’t follow a typical m/f ship in terms of writing, characters or how they interact with one another. Which is by and large why it has been so hated by these idiots. They wanna say “muhhh heteronormativity” but in the same breath ridicule Aang’s femininity, say he isn’t masculine enough for her, call him a lesbian etc to undermine the ship. Just as they say “muhhh male gaze” when most kataang shippers are actually women, because most ppl involved in shipping communities and fandoms in general are women.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I only know of a couple of male kataang shippers on here, myself being one of them. Ships and fandoms are very much and have always been a female dominated community. That’s for any fandom or any ship I’ve seen.

Their arguments are ridiculous and make no sense. It’s just like when some zvtara idiot was in my inbox harassing me for being a man and was saying that I’m an incel and that I hate women and want to rape women….. when I’m fucking GAY! Nothing they say makes sense or is canonical, so I’ve long since stopped taking anything they say seriously. It’s just free entertainment at this point.

Full offense but I don’t need a bunch of straight girls to tell me what heteronormativity means 😂

[demonslayedher]

What were gay and lesbian relationships like in the Taisho era? How frowned upon was it to see them flirting or public kissing (nothing explicit, just casual kissing or "how beautiful you are my love" flirtation)?

Yyyyeah… short answer is that Taisho was a bad time to be anything but cis and straight. And male, for that matter, as the Meiji Civil Code of 1898 made women entirely subordinate to men (like described in this post about Uzui & having multiple wives). While Taisho is known as a period of “free love,” this started to happen later in Taisho, and was more in reference to young couples meeting and deciding if they liked each other first so their opinions had more weight in their marriages instead of everything being decided by their families (described in more detail and used to analyze KnY characters here). As a major cultural shift, teenage girls became drivers of commercial culture, and they saw the world through romantic lenses, and they had standards for who they liked. Kiyo, Sumi, and Naho would likely get to enjoy this era at its height. However, that was the extent of “free love.” As a very, very brief history of Japan’s LGBT history…

...I'm going to say right now, and remind you later on, that this is not a scholarly article and my blog is not a scholarly resource. Also, as I'm writing this, my brain is half-dead from real life paperwork, so it's going to jump all over the place. However, please note that I wanted to focus on facts and history as told about as told by LGBT advocates, because diving straight into the history means you're going to get very different definitions. The modern LGBT community in Japan uses terminology essentially the same as other worldwide LGBT communities, so their angle makes this easier to highlight what's different and what's relevant. As a refresher, I found this article and this article especially helpful, but I do not know how useful Google translate will be on them.

So then to dive into history...

Yes, there absolutely were gay samurai warlords, famous ones, too! Men could be recognized for having straight or gay or bisexual orientation, as sexuality was closely associated with manhood. Women? Pfft. Women don’t have sexuality.* Or at least, that was so generally accepted that no one really even paid much attention to sexual relationships between women; there wasn’t even terminology for it because it was so overlooked. While literature about sexual relations between men (or not-quite-men, as was the case was in beautiful young amab persons) was rampant, literature about the sexual relations between women existed too, but it had more potential to be played off as a joke. After all, women don’t have sex drive, silly.*

*Please note, this is sarcasm.

Being transgender wasn’t really enough of a concept to have terminology for it, either. While there certainly were people who identified with a different gender than they were assigned at birth and convincingly lived like that, or were assigned the opposite gender than their parts implied and were raised that way, historically they were looked at as “men in women’s clothing” or “women in men’s clothing” instead of ever having transitioned from one gender to another, or having been a different one all along. There just wasn’t a sex .vs. gender set of vocabulary to work with, which is why applying labels like “trans” wouldn’t quite translate to the people who lived these experiences, even if they did relate to the core ideas.

OTHER HISTORY STUFF which doesn't translate well into modern ideas

While this is going to take us away from the Taisho topic, there are other points to note which make the historical homosexual culture different from modern LGBT culture, and I’m going to get it all out of my system right here, just so I have this all in one place (this is ONLY a general overview to frame thinking, not a historical resource, do not quote my blog as a scholarly source, I’ve forgotten which books and classes and articles I’ve picked these things up from over the years, and I'm not going to dig back up my 30 page undergrad paper about masculinity and idealized samurai, also, wow, is it midnight already?? Basically, I just have the unfortunate task describing how it wasn't all nice rainbows): --Homosexual relationships usually circled around the romance of power imbalance; one partner having significant social power over the other, and often being much older. This idea is practically inseparable from the Warring States and Edo period notions of sexual relationship between men (so not exactly what we’d call wholesome nowadays, sorry, this is the majority of what to expect if you have any interest in this topic)

--Marriage wasn’t considered a pact between people and gods until the Meiji period, when Japan was going through a strengthening of its own religious convictions as a means of national identity, so Shintoism and Buddhism didn’t exactly prohibit it, it was out of their bounds, kind of

--The Edo period did have anti-gay restrictions due to moral panic, but they were trying to curb all kinds of moral panics that caused societal disturbances, be it Christianity, women in theater, lovers’ suicides, overly enthusiastic displays of bravery through eager seppuku, wearing clothes too fancy for your social class, etc. Jealous lovers’ spats over those dang pretty boys had to be stopped!

--It’s generally accepted that Japan had “acceptance” of individuals of ambiguous gender or who married people who appeared to be the same gender, even if that person wore the clothes typical of a husband or wife role. However, this was not an active acceptance (of the “cool, what are your pronouns?” variety), but a passive acceptance (“that guy’s wearing lipstick… oh well, not gonna ruin my day” variety). It was not the norm at all, but it wasn’t seen as harmful or worthy of a fuss.

--While there’s a long history of literary characters living contrary to the sexual binary and crossing gender lines, the narrative tension of these stories often relied on the idea that no matter how convincing they might be, they can’t escape the gender associated with their physical parts (thereby not a total acceptance or recognition of the label of their choosing). It's not to say you can't find counter-examples, but again, the terminology I've most often seen used was "men in women's clothing" and "women in men's clothing."

--Marriage and family registry regulations did exist in Edo, sort of. People needed to be registered at their local temple for census-like reasons (and for reasons of stamping out the Hidden Christians). Per local regulations (which could be pretty lose), if you were taking a wife you might have had to report her name and what temple her family was registered under, and maybe a really fastidious monk would say, “hey, that name was registered as a son, what the hell,” but it was also kind of easy to fudge the report and find it unlikely if someone would check if that family temple existed or not. --Also, prior to the influence of Western mindsets, the Edo period saw its own resurgences of Confucian values which paved some of the way for societal changes which would come later.

KNOCK KNOCK... IT'S THE MEIJI RESTORATION

So then came Meiji, when Japan very, very quickly adopted Western culture so that they could be on an even playing field with other world powers. While this did mean strengthening their own national identity and army (which is part of what led to the strengthening of family regulations and civil codes, to raise a strong and united populace), it also meant taking in a lot of Western influence all at once, that was when Japan was awash with the concept that homosexuality was a sin. Next thing you know, gay couples (or couples in which one person had male parts but identified as female) were not officially recognized, and then homosexual relations become a criminal act in 1872, but this was later rescinded in 1880. The damage was done, society turned very harsh against homosexual relations. I know, I know. It's the truth you really don't want to hear if you're going for historical accuracy in fanwork. Tanjiro and his cohorts grew up in a time of widespread homophobia. This is your general reminder that fanfiction can be whatever you want and you can choose to ignore this. This homophobia didn’t really go away until the Americans came in in 1945 and restructured Japanese society around personal freedoms. It didn’t take long for gay bars to hit the scene in the 1950s.  

However, clearly sexuality is only a thing men have.* Those Taisho period girls, getting along really well? Clearly they have a sisterly relationship, they’re very close.*

*All sarcasm.

To back up a bit, even straight Taisho couples—proper married ones and everything!—wouldn’t be caught holding hands in public. Scandalous! The women is subordinate to the man, she always walks behind him. Flirting in public? Heavens, no!* While I did get another Ask about Taisho dating and will go into it more there, in general, Taisho couples were considered very shy when it came to dating and courtship. It was their chance to find partners of their choosing, after all, they couldn't afford to spoil this precious freedom. *Sarcasm. Couples found ways. Popular date spots were where they could avoid being seen.

I’m not kidding about that not-holding-hands stuff. It really wasn’t something you’d see couples do, unless they wanted everyone talking trash about them. Couples going on long walks and fancy dates together was totally a thing, but at least under public eye, you kept a chaste distance.

But then how would they express their maidenly passion...?

Love letters flourished in the late Meiji through early Showa period. There were even magazines dedicated to them, still in collections like the National Diet Library Japan. As I can only read modern Japanese these are difficult for me to read, but dang, for what I can make out, they sound like giddy teenage girls of today. They feel like Mitsuri, talking about all those flighty doki-dokis! And there was a particular genre of them, called “S” (pronounced in loanword katakana, “esu”). For “Sister,” clearly.

C-l-e-a-r-l-y.*

*Sarcasm.

So yeah.

Passionate, touchy-feeling relationships between girls, and the tension of being unable to confess love to one another or pining for one another… we’ve still got those letters, in the true Taisho style of flirting. Take that, Edo period Neo-Confucionists. Taisho Period Girl Power.

[calamitycontrolled]

The Story So Far...

hey there,

I want to write down everything that's contributed to my journey so far in the interest of memory and sharing. So here's my story from the start until now!

I was assigned male at birth, and currently identify as non-binary. I am 22 years old and have been questioning my gender for a long time. Thoughts about gender have been becoming more frequent and painful in the past 2-3 years.

(TW: Sexuality) This post will describe my very personal feelings and detail some parts of my journey that may be uncomfortable to read. I will discuss sexuality, masturbation, and dysphoria.

My earliest memory regarding gender dysphoria or feeling like something wasn't quite right was when I was very young, maybe 5-6? I remember feeling excitement or euphoria when I put on one of my sister's princess dresses. I tried a few on and felt amazing. I didn't understand it at the time, but I guess that was euphoria. It felt almost like I was aroused. That's a can of worms for the TERF/ autogynephilia crowd, but understand that there's no way I was sexually aroused at the age of five from wearing feminine clothing. I would try on my mom's and sister's heels and take their clothing also. I forgot about that stuff for the most part, but still felt like something was off. For as long as I can remember, I've been disinterested in traditional masculine activities and gender norms. I have always hated playing/watching sports, fishing, and stuff like that. I thought I was just a stick in the mud or anti-social, but I never really wanted to do any of those things. When I was younger, I showed a bit of interest in basketball and baseball but that was extremely short lived. I spent most of my time playing video games, playing star wars, and skating. One could argue that these are masculine activities, though. I really hate anything to do with physical strength and competition. I've always been sorta delicate I guess.

Although I desired to crossdress since an early age, I suppressed those feelings to the point where I didn't act on them anymore, but I still felt them. When I turned 12-13 and reached middle school, things took a big turn. I feel like I've been depressed ever since I hit puberty and I can't explain why. Self-esteem and insecurity issues hit me like a truck. I don't feel like a man, but what else is there? I didn't know I had a choice. I desired to be friends with girls. More so I desired to be one of the girls- but I didn't really understand it at the time. I've always been attracted to women, but I don't know if I want them or want to be them. Probably both. I am pansexual, and have always felt strange around the other boys. I never felt like I fit in with the majority of the masculine crowd. I went to a Catholic elementary and middle school, and my two best friends in middle school both turned out to be gay. I wonder if people perceived me as gay sometimes because I recently found a note in my yearbook from a friend calling me his first love? I've always fantasized about being with girls and boys, but didn't figure that out until high school. At that time, I remember desiring to be more feminine, but being extremely scared. It wasn't a choice I could make. I felt so ashamed and out of place. My confusion only made me more depressed and angry at myself. Why would I even think that I was trans? I guess deep down I always sorta knew, but again I suppressed that part of me out of guilt, sadness, and shame. I felt like I would be disappointing my family and causing problems. I still feel like that honestly. Internalized transphobia is real. It's just rage towards my identity that manifests and destroys my confidence and self esteem. Sometimes I feel like I'm going to be an ugly woman, which is often the only thing holding me back.

I've largely only dated lesbian or bisexual women. A few of them have turned out to be lesbians exclusively after we dated. Almost all of my partners have identified as part of the LGBT community. That's just one thing I find interesting.

I've been buying my own feminine clothes since I was 17, and recently have been buying a lot more. I love to wear skirts, crop tops, and high socks. Now I feel so dysphoric when I'm wearing men's clothing. I am in such a battle with my body right now. I am constantly fighting body hair, my penis, and my broad shoulders. I absolutely hate to see that I have male genitals in my pants, especially when other people can see it. I really only want to buy women's clothing now. My egg cracked on Christmas Eve 2021, when I was drunk texting my then-girlfriend and told her that I think I'm trans. I lurked on r/egg_irl for a while, and did a lot of research on being trans. I remember lying on the couch after everyone had gone to sleep crying. Again, I suppressed it. I keep trying to "go straight" and embrace masculinity, but I fail every time. I cannot for the life of me be the traditional man.

So, if you expect me to boymode because that's my AGAB then fuck you! I realized that I'm living MY LIFE, and other people need to mind their business or support me. Everything else doesn't matter. They're not me, and I'm not them. At the end of the day I have to live with myself, and I'm going to make sure I love who I am.

Let's talk about my friends and family. I am out to my friends and have made steps in dropping people who are homophobic, transphobic, or otherwise won't accept me for who I am. My friends are a tremendous source of love and support, and I am so grateful for them. My family, on the other hand, is a different story. I've only talked to my mom about gender dysphoria, and while she's supportive, she is definitely confused and almost taken aback by it. She says that I didn't show any signs in childhood, and that crossdressing is something all little kids do. I think she expected me to be gay. She told me she expected one of her kids to be gay because my Uncle is gay, but not one being transgender. She keeps asking me if I like boys. I want to tell my sister but she seems disinterested in the fact that we're even related. I just want the support of my family. I'm tired of being doubted, because I do enough of that to myself. My mom is willing to accept me as a woman, but she said it will take some time. She wants to mourn her son. I want to tell her that she has two daughters now, but it's too early for all that. I even have my new name picked out, but I'm scared to take that next step. It's Siobhan by the way (Shi-vawn). I wanted to choose another Irish name that starts with S.

Sexual Dysphoria: It feels odd to share this information but I think it's important to acknowledge. Ever since puberty, I've primarily tried to penetrate myself and feel pleasure that way. I don't know why I did it, it felt instinctual. But I've never really had romantic feelings for men (not until recently), so I can't be gay, right? I was, and still am, so confused. When I first had sex, I really didn't enjoy it. This feeling that something was wrong persisted, but I didn't know why. I love women, but why can't I enjoy the sex we have? I dread having to be the "man" or top. So I started thinking I was gay. When I had sex with men, I didn't really feel attracted to them, but enjoyed being the bottom much more. It felt better. But I can't see myself dating or being intimate with most men. So I would leave those encounters feeling like shit, confused, and degraded. Now I am in a great relationship with a beautiful woman and she understands how I'm feeling. Sex is an important part of a relationship, but I feel like I can't uphold my end. My libido has been destroyed from anti-depressants in addition to the distress that I feel when "on top." Sex is still pleasurable, but I can't reach an orgasm and sometimes have to almost dissociate to cope with the fact that I have a penis. When I wear feminine clothing, research transitioning, do my makeup, or shop for feminine things, I get the same arousal feeling that I described when I crossdressed for the first time. It's not sexual, but I feel excited. My research shows that this is normal and it will calm down once this part of me is no longer repressed. Sometimes I feel like I'm just a pervert that gets a thrill from dressing as a woman.

I desire to start HRT and begin my social transition, but there's a lack of doctors/endocrinologists in my area and I'm waiting to keep talking with my mom about it. She seems worried that I'm going to transition. I know that there's never going to be a more convenient or better time, so part of me wants to say fuck it and just do it. It's obvious to me that these feelings aren't going away, I'm not getting any younger, and every step I take I love. If you are reading this, I hope you can understand me a bit better now.

Lots of love,

Siobhan.

[cruelsister-moved2]

i'm talking to a beloved friend about how upsetting the whole "bi lesbian" business is to me as a lesbian, but he believes that labels aren't important, that it isn't really hurting anyone, that people should live and let live, that this stuff divides the community, etc., and i don't know what to say to that or how to convince him that it matters and i'm wondering if he's right. you're one of the most well-articulated blogs i know, so i wanted to ask what you think (unless it's too upsetting/controversial of a topic). what would you say?

sorry I took a while to answer this I just never feel like i have the head space to give a decent answer!

i mmean first of all assuming your friend isn't a lesbian that's pretty rich of him to assume its his place to decide. one thing I run into a lot is people who aren't lesbians and don't understand the relationship between lesbians and men is not comparable to the relationship between gay men and women. there's complex dynamics of oppression and misogyny here but to put it very bluntly, basically every lesbian either has, or knows another lesbian who has, been sexually assaulted by a man specifically because they are a lesbian. the politics of sexual availability are just utterly incomparable between lesbians and gay men and it's frankly extremely heartless not to care about WHY lesbians can be more protective of keeping men out than gay men are with women.

secondly, ironically, it's kind of just essentialising labels to use terms like this. the words lesbian and bisexual are both super clear about what they mean. when I hear the term bi lesbian im honestly just confused because some of them mean a bi girl who prefers women, some of them mean a bi girl who somehow identifies with lesbianism politically(?), or a perjorative against lesbians who are dating trans women, and more often than that it doesn't seem to mean anything in particular and is just a useless and confusing term stuck on in front of the word "bisexual" which was already explaining the situation fine on its own. I have literally seen people using the term who were gay trans men so I mean who the fuck knows 😭😭😭 there just isn't a question being asked to which "bi lesbian" is the answer.

thirdly, there's literally only one word to describe a woman who is never attracted to men. there are so many words for sexual fluidity or whatever that it's just capricious to decide you also need the ONE which applies to us. and people claiming words don't have meaning or whatever like yes and we apply meaning to them it's how we communicate. people calling themselves bi lesbians KNOW what the word colloquially means and that's exactly why they want to use it, it literally has that appeal to them because of us 😭😭😭 but you can't be a lesbian at your core based on vibe or something. it, like every other label, is something you pick to fit to what you're already doing. like you can call yourself a lesbian all you want but if you're not Doing Lesbianism then you're just essentialising some inherent meaning to the term that doesn't exist. any meaning it has is imparted by us, lesbians, doing lesbianism, regardless of how non-lesbians feel about that!!

finally, in an appeal to emotion, I don't think people who aren't lesbians realise how cruel this shit is. being a lesbian in this patriarchal society is so deeply exhausting and traumatic and isolating and I don't think people realise how much it seeps into every interaction. people don't recognise how vulnerable we are, how small a group of the lgbt community we are, and how little we are made to feel welcome when we really need a community that accepts us for who we are & lets us be us. the fact our boundaries are afforded less concern than like someone's right to feel edgy by cosplaying as us is a case in point!! lesbians deserve some fucking peace of mind!!!

final point but it's important to say that this isn't gatekeeping because no one is stopping you from BEING a lesbian. if you want to be a woman and only date women you can ;I find it kind of funny because if you want to be a lesbian that bad then be my guest <333 we are just asking for the word to be applied accurately. like if we're all in agreement that a word doesn't define who you are then you can't like change who you are by applying an inaccurate word to it

[artemisbarnowl]

Even if you, personally, have never had the term queer directly levelled at you in a harmful manner, if you are part of the LGBT+ community, it is inherently part of both your history and a present risk at any given moment. I live in the UK. Until I visited Dublin, Ireland, I'd never had someone call me queer in a negative light. But even so, at any given moment, someone could.

Tell that to black people, I dare you. Not least; yes. It is. Inherently. If you don't like the word that's your choice. Nobody can force you to accept it and nobody should force you to identify by the term. But trying to take it away from other people makes you no better than those using it as a slur.

You don't understand why its important to some people as their identity. That's fine. You don't get to tell them they're wrong, though.

If you could just point out the part where im taking it away from other people or that other people are wrong that would be great.

-----------------

In a post where i am talking about my personal feelings on something that pertains to me you've given me these counterpoints(?)

1. Someone could at any time call me queer.

Yes, I know. Increasingly it happens by woke leftist people who want to reclaim it and wont stop when I ask them not to call me that. Which really doesnt align with all that respecting identity philosophies yall are so keen on.

2. The idea of telling black people they shouldn't call themselves the n word is Very Bad. (For reasons you havent explained.)

I'm not. Im complaining about being called queer against my will. But, this is also a discussion the black community have. The idea that all black people refer to themselves, or other black people, by a slur is stupid and not true. So it the idea that they all IDENTIFY with the term. Where is the campaign to call it N***** History Month???

3. To be fair this is my fault for phrasing my second point as a y/n question but HOW is slur reclamation powerful? "It inherently is" doesnt explain anything. Whats inherent? Wheres the power? People not being annoyed or frightened to hear 'queer' leveled at them because they identify with it is not a power. How does calling yourself queer actually improve your standing in society? Are laws changed to be more equitable for you? Does this only work with queer or does calling myself a lezzo, or gaybo, a fucked up slut, or whatever else people call me without asking or caring if I also identify with those terms also give me power?

People are attempting to force me to identify with Queer every time they use it as an umbrella term. I am bisexual. I might experience attraction to someone of my own or different sex. Im not queer, im not part of the queer community. I dont know what it means to be queer. In my post i am complaining about other people calling me shit that i dont like. I am lamenting other slurs I used to be called and find it sorta funny that slurs have a trend cycle. Its true i dont understand why people want to use it as an identity. Making a post that says "heres what i dont get" isnt telling people their wrong. My second point is a question. This shows where i dont have the info others might.

Yesterday i was just complaining because i heard the world gaybo for the first time in 15 years and this highlighted to me that i see no difference betwern slurs. Today im gonna actually discuss things until i get bored.

[thestobingirlie]

(Same anon complaining about fruity four)

Oh my god, the casual homophobia in teens these days, especially from within the community. I'm older genZ, at 25. I have been openly queer for over a decade.

When I first came out all the homophobia I saw/ experienced was from outside the community, casual use of the f and d slurs, using gay as an insult/ synonym for bad, using fruit/ fruity in a derogatory way, and your typical hate crimes/ hate speech.

Now, most of what I see/ hear comes from LGBT+ teens. I have heard teens in a pretty conservative town asking other people (Including adults) if they're fruity. Loudly discussing how strangers are "obviously queer" without caring who is around. And the whole trend of "Is he y'know *limp wrists*?" And the push of micro labels onto almost everyone, who don't want or need to use them.

This links back to the whole "fruity four" thing, because all of these things are used in so many fics for them. Eddie will be limp wristing at everyone. They'll all be describing themselves as fruity. Steve will keep using the word queer to describe his sexuality. Yeah, sure creative liberties and whatever. But it feels unrealistic for a group of teens in the mid '80s. They wouldn't be using all these things that are common in kids now, because they were used in a very derogatory and dangerous way in the '80s. They're teens in a small town in the '80s, they probably wouldn't feel comfortable reclaiming the word queer, let alone half the other stuff they get written as doing when they're written as queer. And they wouldn't be well versed in queer culture of the time, let alone that of today.

i think the reason for this is that these teens are only experiencing queer culture online. the most they get in real life is a commercialised version of pride. all they really know are tiktok comments, where it’s encouraged to imply someone is gay, and loudly discuss what a celebrities sexual orientation might be. outing someone isn’t seen as bad because coming out is seen as a necessity now. i’ve even seen people say that it’s morally wrong and lying not the tell someone you’re gay, which is just insane.

i’ve even seen this post critiquing the word queer because it’s “too vague”… wtf. and yeah! there’s this weird thing where people expect you to totally analyse every aspect of your sexuality and gender and have the perfect word to describe it, and if you don’t totally fit what they think a sexuality is, you’re wrong. and it’s so tiring.

some fics just make it so obvious that they’re writing from a 21st century perspective. like, i’m not saying to write the teens being violently homophobic or anything, but you’ve just got so many st teens treating sexuality with a gentleness and understanding the complexity of it that they just wouldn’t have.

like, robin always knows what bisexual is in fics, she knows the word for it, and she knows exactly what steve is before he even knows. and eddie is flagging and knows exactly what every colour flag mean and he’s a sado dom in small town indiana. and it’s like, get a grip.

i think, when it comes to like robin and steve, it wouldn’t be until they left hawkins, and moved into a city and actually started interacting with queer culture that they would start to refer to themselves with labels. i think in a town like hawkins, where an identity is used to insult you and you really don’t have any other queer people around, it’s harder to just call yourself a dyke or queer. (which is why i love stobin in their 20s exploring queer culture and being able to feel comfortable in themselves and the way they present, because they just really couldn’t do that in the teens).

[aceofwhump]

A thought just occurred to me. I was looking through the Tumblr trending page today and saw "bisexual" was trending. I scrolled through and saw an interesting infographic on what % of LGBT adults identify as, like 58% bi, 1.3% ace or something, whatever.

I identify as asexual. Way back when, I thought I might be bi because I didn't know what asexual was and, as Jaiden Animations says: zero = zero. I guess I like both, but also neither at the same time?

Anyways, I kept scrolling down on "bisexual" and I start to see like sexy bunny drawings and half naked girls and blah blah. "Sex sells" is completely lost on me. The appeal of boobie pictures or muscular dudes is completely over my head, always has been. I think you, Ace, probably get what I'm talking about here. So, I keep scrolling past thinking "who cares about this shit, literally who would want to look at this? .... Well I guess according to that infographic, like 98.7% of people probably understand this sexy lady crap more than I do". Then I think "whatever, I'm going to go back and look at some whump. There are some LOTR gifs that Ace posted recently that come to mind as well as some super whumpy fanart in my likes. Good shit.

All of this to say: Is how I like to look at, read, watch whump kind of like how people like to look at sexy bunny art? Is "sex sells" kind of like how I watched all of Graceland because you posted a gif of Mike handcuffed on the bed going through withdrawal? I completely understand "whumperflies" I caught the whumperflies from a single gif enough to watch that entire show, which I had never even heard of until seeing that gif. I got completely sucked into the Sonic fandom because of a collection of screenshots of Sonic carrying Tails. It happened to me with Teen Wolf, Outlander, others? (Now that I think about it your blog got me to watch a bunch of shows I don't think I normally would, so thanks!)

Is this somewhat what allo folks experience? Is whumperflies akin to sexual attraction in a way? I do wonder and I never thought about it this way until today.... I'm curious of your thoughts on this, Ace?

I also know that a large chunk of the whump community also identifies under the asexual umbrella so if anyone else has opinion?

Hi nonny!

Lol yeah I too do not understand the sex sells thing in society. I look at commercials like that one Rally's burger one where it's just a half naked woman sitting on a car eating a burger and I'm like "how does this shit work on anyone? Why would this make anyone want to eat a burger??" It genuinely makes no sense to me. But this is actually a theory I've seen once before on here! That our interest in whump/whumperflies is our version of "sexual attraction" which is definitely very interesting. I can see the connection very easily and there definitely are a lot of similarities in the feelings. I do wonder if how we feel whumperflies is how allos feel when they experience sexual attraction but who knows lol. Personally in my brain the two things are separate and I like to keep them separate. I don't like thinking of my whumperflies or my interest in whump as a sort of replacement for sexual attraction. Just feels super weird to me to think of it that way. I don't feel sexual attraction so I don't know what that feels like but I do have a sex drive and feel arousal and it's never happened with anything related to whump and it feels physically different to me than my whumperflies so it's all been kept separate for me. Just my own feelings though!

The sex sells/whump gifs thing is SO INTERESTING! I never thought about that but yeah you're right! For us it's definitely "whump sells" and not "sex sells" lol. Nothing gets me to watch a show faster than a good whumpy gifset lol. Sex? Sexy poses? Absolutely nothing for me. Actually it's much more a turn off than anything. Whump? Hot damn sign me up. I'll watch the whole damn thing for whump. Sidenote I love that you watched all of Graceland because of my mass posting lol.

It's fascinating and a very interesting theory for sure! Totally okay if others feel differently. Like you said there are a lot of aspec whumpers so I think there's definitely something to the theory. I don't know though! Very interesting idea!

[canonicam]

August 18th 2023, Day 4

Today I felt better, this weird sensation of waiting on something and this icky feeling I had with Nick hanging out the entire day with his ex is gone. I really don't want to talk about it, I kinda just push it away in order to cope with it.

But yes, my internet has finally returned and I'm so relieved! I was really worried that it wouldn't work and that I wouldn't have internet by the time uni begins.

After the technician left, I went for a run! I was kinda surprised how bad my stamina was. It is bad at all, just not as good as I had predicted. It felt nice to sweat and be active, I really hope I can keep having my routines when uni starts. I'm kinda worried about it, sure I'm only gone for 2 weeks, but it what? 12 days? I know, it's barely anything, but those are almost 2 weeks have classes, like what if I will be behind everyone forever! That's dramatic I know, but what if the pain from the my jaw will make it impossible for me to concentrate and focus on my work? I really just want to be done with this stupid surgery. I will be swollen for weeks and unable to eat. It will probably also affect my self esteem. Luckily I brought my face mask, so when I go to uni, no one has to look at my face.

I do want children, I do want to have kids young. However, when you get a child, you have a huge responsibility, where you ahve no excuses. You can't be "young and dumb" anymore. You can't do "whatever", you want to travel? Well either your child comes with you or stays at their grandparents'and honestly, idk if I trust my parents enough. What if my mom says stuff to my child, to change their mind on something. Me and my mom have been indifferent on a lot of stuff. That's for example why I haven't told her I'm bisexual yet. All of my partners have been men, so so far it hasn't mattered to tell her. But sometimes she says stuff about the LGBT-community that just makes me roll my eyes. She is so proud of my cousin Giovanna, and keeps saying how adorable her girlfriend is, but then at the same time thinks gay people shouldn't be treated as equals because "they make it difficult for themselves". She is what people call "biphobic", she doesn't really believe bisexuals exist, because you should just "choose" aside and that they just enjoy fucking.

I lie a lot to my parents, which I'm not proud of, but my god how far behind in life I would be if I didn't.

[lgbtqasks]

Hi!

Disclaimer: this is probably going to be a long ask and I'm sorry, I'm just sort of confused and don't know where else to ask. It might also be utterly ridiculous.

So, up until now, I was sure I'm straight (I'm a girl). Then, last year, I discovered LGBTQ+ literature, and became like 100% invested; I started searching for books and series with LGBT characters, gay ships and stuff, and I've noticed that almost all my OTPs are mlm or wlw, and like whenever someone mentions LGBTQ I feel excited and focus there etc. I also spend a lot of time searching and learning things about the community, and as I said I feel so invested even though I don't know whether I'm part of it.

Now to my personal experiences, all my crushes were boys -I've actually had a crush on a boy since last November- and I've never been attracted to a girl. But this year at school there is a certain girl, whom I'm pretty sure I don't have a crush on, but everyday I think about what it would be to be in a relationship with. The thing is, I don't feel I like her (and I'm sure I like that guy), but I think about it really often.

I searched a bit about bi-curiosity, and I thought that might be me for now, but since I can't really "experiment" I have no idea. Also, when I think about being in a relationship with a guy it feels really awkward, but I think that if I were to go out with a girl, I would feel better about it. Is it possible that I have been influenced by something, and all this is just in my head? I think I want to be bisexual, but I don't know if I actually am??

Omg I feel so ridiculous about this, I'm sorry for the big pile of nonsense in your ask box. You don't have to answer, of course, I'm just pretty confused and can't talk to anyone about it. Thanks 😔😔

hi there!

thank you for the ask. please don't feel like you have to apologize for it, i'm glad you sent it in. there is nothing ridiculous about what you're feeling.

i have to admit, when i read this, i had to laugh about it for a minute because my best friend is going through almost exactly what you are dealing with. it's interesting to hear that your situations are so similar.

while i can't tell you how to feel or what your sexuality is, i think that there is a very good chance that you might be feeling pulled towards questioning yourself for a reason. now, i know that a lot of people question their sexuality and sometimes it turns out that they are straight and them questioning doesn't turn into anything, but a lot of times, it can be a signal for yourself to lean into this confusing time. straight people don't spend a lot of time wondering what it would be like to be in a relationship with the same sex. they don't usually feel like a relationship with the same sex would feel better to them.

as for the LGBTQIA+ media, when you think about these relationships that you are into, ask yourself: what about these relationships do i like? is it because of the actual relationship; the way they work well together, or because they treat each other well, or you like how they act together? or is it because they are mlm or wlw? if it's the latter, then i would say that's a little bit telling on why you like these relationships so much. if it's the first question, you might just like these relationships because they show you who you'd like in a relationship.

learning more about the community and LGBTQIA+ issues and involving yourself in these topics may be allowing you to come to discover things about yourself. you said you felt invested in them, which is great, but it also might be pulling you in because a part of you might resonate with these topics. i know when i was discovering myself, i'd see a topic within this community and go "hey! that sounds like something i've experienced before".

being bi-curious is not a bad thing. i think a lot of people start out that way. even if you aren't bisexual, there's nothing wrong with questioning it to a certain degree. but when it's all consuming and it's what you think about a lot of the time, it's not for nothing.

i know for a lot of people, having experience or being able to experiment can really validate and confirm whether or not they are or are not a part of the community, but i don't think you need it to be curious about it and to explore it in your own way.

as for the girl, the first girl that i ever liked started out the same way you're describing in your experience. i didn't realize that i actually did like her until years later. i wondered what it would be like to date her and thought that i could be such a great partner to her if i was a boy. i didn't realize until later that it meant i liked her.

one of the things that i think sometimes stops people from thinking they like someone is the feelings they get when they are around them or when they think about them. we associate butterflies in our stomach as attraction and nervousness because we think we like someone. but sometimes, the people you feel the most calm around tend to be the people we actually like and would be good with.

if being in a relationship with a boy doesn't sound all that appealing to you, it might just be the certain boy you think you have a crush on isn't someone you would enjoy being in a relationship with or it could just mean that boys really aren't it for you. and that's ok. and even if you do find that you meet a guy that you really like and you can see yourself dating, you might still be bisexual. you might meet a girl the next day and be really feeling her energy and might be really interested in her too.

my advice is to lean into this curiosity that you have. it seems like you are going through a confusing time, and i feel for you. but you don't have to decide right now. and if you ever get a chance to explore your feelings for women, i think that's great. and if it doesn't develop like you thought it might, then that's ok too. experimenting is not an end all, be all. you might change your mind about everything.

give yourself the space and the grace to learn about yourself and to discover who you are. i hope this helped. feel free to message me if you need to talk more :)

[broken-everlark]

I feel so bad because I feel like I'm making you reply so much, but I've rarely found someone else who shares the same opinion.

I've gotten a lot of hate from this fandom because I spoke up about wyler shippers always making them bisexual or changing Tyler for the sake of a narrative. Which is fine changing or guessing their sexuality. But what confused me was they never thought of wyler as a straight ship. Which again is fine. But when I would do it, I'd get called homophobic. Saying I must be homophobic since all of my ships are straight. When in fact I see wyler & petroclair as straight, yes. But Bianca, I can see being bisexual. And I absolutely love yoko & divina even tho I don't know if they are a canon couple, but I'm hoping they are, I've just seen them in the background a few times. But apparently, liking Tyler and Wednesday together, even in the wyler fandom, is homophobic. Which I don't understand. And I get so confused when people get mad. Because it's your ship? Wouldn't you want them to be together? Like I don't care what sexuality they are, honestly. I just want them together and read fanfics without real-life bullshit in it. I don't want to read about politics or anything from real life in a fanfic. I just want to read a nice fanfic

I definitely think Tyler & Ajax get a lot of hate just because they are male. And just because Ajax & Tyler get in the way of their precious wenclair. When wenclairs will just scream homophobia or give you no evidence to back up their statements, whenever you prove them wrong. It's getting ridiculous. Because I've seen wenclairs literally say they want Tyler & Ajax to die so their "babies" can be together. It's ridiculous because again, if a wyler were to say it, they'd call them homophobic & victimize themselves.

Anyways that's getting too real for me🤣 I'm gonna reply to the other stuff.

I absolutely love that Tyler is the only one to mention even a smidge of the Addams family theme. I love it😍 it was so cute, and when I first watched it, I was like "aww that's adorable."

Exactly! I love that you see what I'm saying! Literally, if the roles were reversed, Tyler would still get hate! If Tyler was her roommate or friend or whatever, and he snapped at her like Enid did. He'd get flamed by the community. But when Enid does it, apparently, it's romantic tension? Like how? And if Enid was in Tyler's shoes, tricking her and being under control of an adult who tortured her, then she'd get babied, and people would love her. But since it was Tyler and he's a boy, they were furious that a man tricked her and a man "used" her. When it isn't true. Yes, Tyler did trick her, but under the command of Laurel. Tyler was manipulated emotionally/mentally, tortured with poisons, and obviously beat the absolute shit out of. And hinted at sexually abused. Like that shit is terrible for anyone especially a teenager with a fucked up life like Tyler. But since he's a boy. It doesn't matter apparently.

Lmao that video is hilarious 🤣🤣 "she's a clown? Why didn't I see it before?"🤣🤣 my honest reaction too buddy.

Honestly, this person saying "a straight person can ship a man and a woman no matter what" seems like a self reflection for this commenter 🤣 because if I said that about lgbt and wenclair I'd get hated, flamed and screamed at. Blocked by everyone that I once called friends. It's sad how some things can be said and some things can't. I don't hate anyone but the number of people who hate wyler, Tyler & Ajax, just for the mere fact that one's a straight ship and the two characters are men & gets in the way of the "one true ship" is insane.

I just hate how things are now. Simple, sweet characters like Ajax get hated for just being a good match for Enid or being a man in general. More complex & broken characters like Tyler get hated and villianized because he's a man, and they want Wednesday to be gay. It's insane like why can't you just watch the show, enjoy what you like and not go onto other people's pages and hate on them but then have no evidence to back you up and then tell said person they are homophobic like wtf kind of bullshit logic is that.🤣

I don't understand anymore. I just like watching shows and shipping characters who actually have chemistry.

Fuck again sorry I keep getting too real. Sorry.

I absolutely loved the interaction between Fester and Tyler. It was so funny🤣 my girl Wednesday was definitely checking Tyler out 99% of the time at the weathervane. Hell, I remember when they first met her gaze, went up and down for a bit. Honestly, don't blame her. Tyler is sexy asf, that weathervane shirt is way too tight on his biceps because damn. I honestly want to rewatch the show just to see how many times Wednesday was checking him out🤣

I agree. IF they do have Joel in this series, I'd be surprised, but I don't think they will. And I swear if they do some weird bullshit where he's the stalker I'm going to scream because that's dumb🤣 I just have a feeling that's what they'd try to do.

Xavier is.. I hate him, but I get why you barely have feelings toward him. I absolutely love how he went nuts every time Tyler was with Wednesday. My favorite part has to be when she goes to the Weathervane to see Tyler and specifically tells Xavier that she's there for Tyler. Or at the Rave'n Xavier, being a whiny petty jerk gets upset that Wednesday chose Tyler. (With help from Thing ofc). Yeah, but it's a mural & Xavier has money. His powers are artistic related anyway? So why not buy a new canvas and start over? I get it he was bullied but grow a pair and move on🤣 like Xavier just seems like he puts himself above others, above Wednesday, like you said with the first few episodes when she tried to come to him about her visions and what was going on. And he brushed her off. He put himself above Bianca, and I'm sure he did it to Tyler as well.

Also, I didn't reply to this. But Thing & Enid are definitely the co-founders of Otp wyler. Thing helps Wednesday out by getting her the dress, getting Tyler's number, getting Tyler to go to the rave'n. He may just be a hand, but he sees chemistry and love when it's there. I absolutely love that he's like the main shipper to🤣 like the number of times he goes behind her back to get Tyler, for her is insane, but I love it. Enid is definitely a close second and has definitely posted on her gossip site about Wednesday & tyler.

Honestly, I don't blame you for not being too involved with the Fandom. It has gotten very toxic, especially with the ships.

I like that you put it that way. Donovan definitely seems like the type who thinks he's doing good for his son by keeping his emotions in check and not ever talking about his wife. But like you said, he doesn't see how much he's hurting Tyler by being this way. In his mind, he's helping Tyler. I hope in s2 we get Tyler and Donovan talking about Fran and how Donovan did truly love her. Because I feel like Donovan fell hard for Fran, loved her so much that he got mad at Nevermore for banning her species and not even trying to get her actual help. Loving her so much that her death was enough to wreck his entire being. She probably died in the same mental institution that was trying to help her. Again, we don't know much. One thing I do know is that I know a broken man when I see one. Donovan is one of them. Just like Tyler. Frans death wrecked them both. But I think it hit Donovan twice as hard. He's trying to be a good dad, protecting him but without realizing he's emotionally unavailable to his son. Fran was probably better with emotions as usually women are more in key with their emotions while men are not.

Donovan just looks so miserable. I feel like he either had to make the tough decision to kill her (like maybe she couldn't control her Hyde and was threatening people's lives) or she could've went insane from having no master and in Donovans eyes watching someone you love go though that he probably took her to the mental institution to try and get her help so she wouldn't lose herself. Since again Donovan isn't the best with emotions. He would have 0 idea how to help her & would be desperate to try and help his wife.

It's been a while since I watched the show, but I can't remember if they specifically tell us what age Tyler was when she died.

I'm praying the writers keep with what their doing. They have an amazing show with extremely complex and sad characters at their fingertips. I pray they don't fall to the bs nowadays where they cave in to the sound of "fans" when sometimes I question if wenclairs are fans or if they watched the trailer and immediately loved the bs opposite attract.

It's weird because Jenna used to like wyler, or at least I thought she said it. Hunter, on the other hand. Loves wyler. I don't know where people say he likes wenclair. His latest interview, he said that Wednesday & Tyler have a sexual tension which I absolutely SCREAMED when I listened to that podcast.

I feel like Emma is forced to like wenclair. Since her fans are just obsessed with her and Jenna (even to the point where they ship the real-life actors, which is terrible and I guarantee it's stressful on the actors) the lastest interview she said she liked all the ships. But I feel like her "fans" keep pushing her to wenclair. And they don't want to disappoint their fans. I wish more wylers would stick up and say something because wenclair is total make-believe.

I'm praying Jenna will just stick to no romance, I'd take that over Wenclair tbh. Wenclair would just ruin the show by it being so forced and toxic. I'm praying they keep a good show and plot and not give into money bullshit.

Can we talk about how Wednesday was in the most none triangle love triangle ever? Like, Wednesday and Tyler were doing their own thing meanwhile Xavier was just kind of there. Now if Wednesday liked Xavier too that would be a proper triangle, but that’s not what played out. She was always upfront with him that she was there for Tyler. He was just guy on the side who had a thing for a girl who’s into someone else. It was never a triangle. It almost confuses why anyone calls it a triangle at all.

[artemismatchalatte]

I honestly wonder how many young women are tempted to identify as any other gender but female as an attempt to escape the invasive straight male gaze? This being their main reason for not wanting to be female, nothing else. No gender dysphoria or anything else.

Look, I understand the fundamental concept of being trans and that’s not what I’m talking about here. Transmen are valid and deserve better representation overall. That’s not the main point of this post though. 

So many people are now talking about detransitioning or the regret of being pushed into identifying a certain way to fit in with peer groups as a teen or young adult (yes, this actually happens). I think people should be allowed to talk about their experiences without being called a TERF or whatever insult is being used to tell women to shut up now. 

Just because someone detransitioned does not mean they have anything personally against trans-people. It just means that personally, they made a choice to identify the way they need to, which frankly shouldn’t offend other people.

I was one of these young women who was at times gender curious (for lack of a better term), wondering why I have to deal with the obvious inconveniences of being born female. I still sometimes resent being born female because of having to deal with the creepiness of some straight men’s entitlement and my own being denied equal pay and possible body autonomy. 

But nowhere was I suffering from any form of gender dysphoria. I didn’t want to be a man but simply to have the respect and freedom that men have that women still don’t. Also men wouldn’t likely sexualize me if I was a man instead of a woman. Those were big reasons for me for wanting to be male. I didn’t want a penis or a flat-chest just the safety of male privilege. 

To loop back around, this issue is about internalized sexism (misogyny) and predatory/problematic male behavior that a large number of young women are seeking to escape by no longer IDing as women or female. 

AGAIN I’m not talking about transmen or transgender people or invalidating them. I’m talking about cis-gender women who feel the pressure to identify as anything but female in an attempt to escape being preyed upon. I feel like no one ever talks about this in all the arguments I’ve ever seen online about gender.

[whysojiminimnida]

I might have misunderstood and in that case I’m sorry but..how does jm or jk liking feminine stuff regarding their appearance or interests or else have anything to do with gender? I guess it’s probably me watching all those debates (I’ve seen this discussed on twitter multiples times) from a non-westerner and old-school lesbian perspective if I may say but this western genderqueer thing doesn’t make very much sense to me. You can be a guy and like so-called feminine stuff, or like to play with both masculinity and femininity. It doesn’t you any less of a guy, doesn’t make you a woman or an in-between, it just makes you an androgynous guy or a fem guy and there’s nothing wrong with that. Same goes the other way around. I’m quite masculine in my appearance, also always like more "guy stuff", it doesn’t make me any less of a women. I’m sorry I just don’t get this bigender label. Watching this from afar it seems like what it mean or look like to be a man or woman is becoming very restricted again and you have to fit this and this criteria or else you re queer something ( I know this is also very much debated in the lgbt community nowadays but I just hate that word, it was used as an insult and I personally don’t want to associate myself with it). Now I do think jm and jk gender nonconformity is an indication of them possibly being gay/pi (there’s a link between gender non-conformity and homosexuality/bisexuality) but that tattoo was probably more used an an indication of bisexuality in my humble opinion(I have a bi friend who actually have that sign tattooed, some ppl use it for bisexuality indeed). Sorry if I was a rude or anything (English not being my first language also) but I just see all those new labels in the western lgbt world and it just confuses the hell of me cause it seems sometimes pretty regressive, I just wanted to share my perspective.

Hi anon, Thank you for sharing your perspective with us. As a cis bi/pan woman of a certain age, I feel what you're saying - pretty keenly, actually. Because sometimes I just sit here like "I DO NOT GET WHAT THESE KIDS ARE TALKING ABOUT".

THIS IS GONNA GET LONG AND NOT HAVE PICTURES KIDS SO CLICK IF YOU WANNA.

Still here? Cool. It's not that we didn't HAVE a whole ass Kinsey scale but it only goes 1-6. Straight. Heteroflexible or Will Experiment At Parties. Bi. Homoflexible or Gay For Play. Gay. Supergay. That's ... what we had, in the day. I'm actually a 2.5 probably. And for years we did, we used numbers if we were smart enough to read the whole damn thing. And gender identity was like, you're cis or you're trans. That was it. And yes. "Queer" was a pejorative. A slur. A word we saw spray-painted on underpasses and sometimes school lockers. "Gay" implied pederasty, practically, but "queer" would get your ass beat in public and not an adult would stop it. And with the advent of the HIV Plague, to which I lost every damn one of the drag queens who raised me, we got even more hate. Girls less than guys, I think, but the history is not a pretty one. You know this. We of Gen X and older are all too aware. For those who have seen "Paris Is Burning" that was kinda my life for awhile, add intensive ballet. And most of those people are dead. What we have now, in the West particularly, is a smorgasbord of options. Literally if we can dream it up someone else already has and there's probably a flag. Like, it makes me feel old and out of touch. I don't even know how to call myself half the time. Am I bi? Pan? Sapiosexual? Demisexual because I don't put out on the first date? There are TOO MANY OPTIONS FOR MY SMALL ASS. I NEED A BETTER ASS TO HANDLE MY DECISIONS. And I see why too many options and too many classifications might almost feel regressive. Like, cis men are not always traditionally masculine beefy guys who like auto racing and American football. Many cis men like pretty things too. Most drag queens are cis men, actually. But femme guys are often seen, now, as other-gendered and not just other-oriented, because that's AN OPTION NOW. And the opposite is true. My cis lesbian BFF looks and acts like a guy. I have had people tell me she seems trans to them. SHE ISN'T. G-Money loves being a woman. She also loves auto racing and weightlifting and American football and her mohawk, let her live, right? Even I really waited for her to come out as trans or at least NB and IT AIN'T HAPPENED YET. She's 47.

I understand the issue of people feeling triggered by the Q word. I do. I get it. And I respect your choice not to use it or have it used at you - if I knew your user name I'd make a note :) And I get how just seeing it feels weird and wrong. I'm getting more used to it, it doesn't bother me as much as it did a few years ago. We used to call it genderfuck and honestly that makes as much sense. Now, to the guys (we're gonna go ahead and call them guys): my reasoning for thinking Jimin might be bigender is because he has all but told us that gender is a fluid construct for him. Yes, he identifies publicly as male, but even in interviews has openly said he feels more comfortable with the feminine parts of his personality in the last few years. That doesn't mean he isn't a man. And he may well be coding bisexuality - the issue there is that he so rarely has even appeared to show any interest in women, and he has openly coded for both sexes as gender (Illecebra and Arcanus). As to Jungkook, I think he's a gay cis male who also likes to feel pretty sometimes. Hell, he and Jimin both could easily fit that descriptor. And that's basically what they've said in public if you leave Filter out of it. But to be fair, these are men who have yet to come out. We forget that sometimes. THEY HAVE NOT COME OUT. Either of them. As far as we can prove they are cis straight men who like to sleep together and stay up all night and go on dates and give each other hickeys and kiss each other and hold hands and have inside jokes about "you are me I am you" and "we don't know what we do but we do stuff" and and and. I mean okay, we're not blind and my Korean source is telling me they are pretty damn open, just nobody talks about it, in Korea. But we have to remember that until they SAY something we can't PROVE anything. I mean until the sex tape leaks. ANYWAY I have blabbered on long enough, but thank you for your words and the transparency you had to share them with me.

[cat-sapphics]

the owl house, in my opinion, has gathered the wrong audience when it comes to lessons about behavior, as in the exact opposite of its target audience (excluding lgbt youth, of course) and once i explain it, i'm going to unapologetically make many teens who enjoy it in online fandom spaces very mad. c:

the whole premise of the show is that luz is a neurodivergent outcast who was rejected and made fun of back at home for enjoying and doing things deemed weird and unacceptable. she was isolated because her interests were disapproved of by her peers. she found another community of other rejected "weirdos" through the portal and felt like she could be herself again. luz, of all characters, understands what it is like to feel isolated because everything you do is presumably wrong in the eyes of others and you do not understand why that is, considering your intention was only ever to entertain yourself and curate your social experience to be more comfortable.

and yet, that memo seems to fly completely over the heads of toh stans who think they have the right to socially outcast people whom they deem as freaks just because of their interests, whether that be via "DNI" lists for accounts designed to be openly public safe/positivity spaces for various groups of people (such as one of those "cafe delivery" services for lesbians, a bot writing quotes and messages and creating nice flags for bisexuals, etc.), or by having the fucking audacity to call people out for revealing themselves to enjoy dsmp content and then mass qrt them with harassment because of the majority verdict against the dsmp being "problematic" and "bad." toh stans are the most vile bullies i know, especially on twitter, where they love to... gatekeep the show... from people they deem as freaks... while turning around and declaring how much they love luz, whose entire character revolves around... being deemed a freak... hmm. do you see the hypocrisy here??

luz is a greatly unique comfort character for me in such a way that i like to remind myself, "luz noceda wouldn't hate you for your hyperfixations and special interests the way everyone else would", which is ironically painful because i see shit all the time like, "luz noceda would hate dsmp fans, or [insert any given "problematic media" here]" and it's strange, because one of these statements is just so blatantly false due to how and why she was written in the first place. i'll never understand antis who use her as a scapegoat to not just be wrong about the point they're making, but to intentionally hurt others they dislike. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

in my case, i'm talking about the toh stans who threw temper tantrums back in august when they learned that tubbo (twitch streamer associated with dream & the like - not too closely, but definitely directly fyi) decided to just. watch the show (not bring the fandom into it or overrun it with "cishet/whitewashed" dsmp AUs, whatever that even means... just... watch it. and he said he liked it. that was it.). because they realistically couldn't figure out how to effectively gatekeep it from him and his "freak" socially unacceptable (/s) stans with the spread of the modern version of the cheese touch or something, lmfao. but really, it goes for just about anything. the point of this post is to call out a fandom that preaches having pride in what makes you different, while hating people they do not understand and have prejudiced assumptions and stereotypes against, therefore making them different. i'm sure many of them don't realize it, but it wouldn't surprise me if most do and just refuse to care because of the moral superiority complex they seem to get out of acting this way, lol.

and in the case of the dsmp receiving the verdict of being supposedly "problematic" and therefore making it okay to deem fans/supporters as unworthy and subhuman, that doesn't fucking matter, because you're missing the point. consumers of these livestreams and videos are not hurting minorities just by watching from home like you seem to think, whether directly or indirectly, but you are hurting autistic people and people with adhd when you dismiss these (coming in few numbers btw) clingy attachment sources that actually bring them seratonin, satisfaction, and stimulation when most other sources can't simply because of how selective our wired-this-way brains are, as choices - malicious choices, at that. i am not accepting any challenge to argue or debate about how "important" it is to let go of these hyperfixations and special interests to make some entitled social justice warriors online feel better, and if you attempt that with me you're going to get angrily blocked, i don't care. but i won't leave it at this; i did [write a post] last month that i suggest both agreers and especially dissenters read, going on a necessary rant about how this kind of ableism hurts neurodivergent youth and for... what effective cause, exactly? i probably explained it better there than i did here, but here i reworded it in a way that supports the specific point of this post.

[myonlypen]

I've not had an excuse to write this before but can I just saw how much I LOVE these flags, purely from a vexillological standpoint? I haven't done any research into the intended meaning of aspects of these flags, this is purely my interpretation: if my interpretations are anything close to the intended ones then that makes them great flags though!

The first one, the standard LGBT pride flag. Usually you want to keep the number of colours on a flag to a minimum to avoid business or eye-hurtiness. But on this one the use of lots of colours is deliberate. To me, it is very good at representing what it stands for: inclusivity. As far as I know, I could be wrong, the colours don't stand for specific things, and that's a good thing because they can stand for anyone who feels like it represents them. And the simple design means the multiple colours works, and each stripe being the same size helps reinforce the concept of equality. It's also easy to remember which order the colours come in, because it's just the rainbow. If you accidentally draw them in the wrong order, you can just turn it upside down and you've done it correctly now! Some people are taught that the rainbow has 7 colours and while there's no "correct" answer for that, 6 is definitely more sensible answer because indigo and violet are just purples. Newton only chose 7 when he was playing about with prisms for mystical reasons. I'm glad this flag is on my side in thinking that 6 is a better count.

I'm not a fan of the more recent pride flags with the triangle on the hoist. I understand why they were made: some groups want to exclude some people from the LGBT+ label so the flags that add colours for e.g. trans are made to explicitly say "yes, including them too!" but I feel like that's sort of ceding ground by allowing the claim that the original flag didn't represent them. From a design point of view they're not great because they compromise the simplistic design which makes my "too many colours" complaint more valid. Plus the stripes aren't all the same size any more due to the triangle so I can't argue the equality interpretation. That, and, they're harder to draw from memory which is important for flags. Once I get to the triangle I'll have to remember which other flags' colours were incorporated into it and in which order. And perhaps this last complaint is a little cynical but I also get a bit of a consumerist vibe; "there's a new pride flag this year, please buy our new thing with the updated design. gib money plz"

But the trans flag? That's my favourite of the lot! Blue and pink are colours associated with the gender binary, at least in the English speaking world. At first I felt a bit put off by this because it felt like somewhat reinforcing gender roles. What if you're a guy who likes pink or a girl that likes blue? But then I thought about it some more. The colours aren't very deep so it isn't putting those associations front and centre. In fact, the pastel colours make it really easy on the eyes too, I could look at this flag for hours! The horizontal like of symmetry is also effective; the fact that the blue and pink are reversed on top and bottom communicates that it's about both trans men and trans women and doesn't privilege one over the other, and the white in the middle represents non-binary people. Of course, that could be seen implying that gender is a one-dimensional spectrum with the the binary on either end which may not be the case but there's only so much you can represent on a flag. On a lot of flags, I find that white space doesn't look like a part of the design but just part of the canvass that wasn't filled in (like, Japan isn't a red circle on white, it's just a red circle and the rest is blank) - but with this flag the white actually looks like it's part of the design and it works.

The bisexual I don't have as much to say about because I don't see it as often as the other two. You'd think that a flag representing "bi" would be a bicolour flag. But it's not! Because it doesn't represent one or the other, it represents both or either! Whether the two things it represents are straight and gay relationships, or gay and lesbians, the thin line in the middle means it doesn't matter to those who this flag represents. Magenta is also a top-tier colour so that boosts its likability rating too.

Flag Wars Bonus Round

Happy Pride Month!

These flags were close on their results for second place in the previous pride flag poll, so I decided to make a poll with just these flags.

[femperials]

did dynasty elaborately use their last gay character standing being biphobic as an allegory for how demanding and ungrateful they believe their gay audience is? is this just another piece in a long-term pattern from dynasty to get back at their lgbt audience? am i giving them too much credit by thinking they’re smart enough to be that evil? let’s discuss. 

(this post will contain un-tagged talk about biphobia within the lgbt community as well as community infighting in online queer spaces. it’s pride month! if talking about those topics is going to (reasonably) bum you out, please skip this post at least for now!) 

this is the most negative thing i have ever written about dynasty and will likely be the ONLY post of its kind that i ever write. it’s impossible not to talk about the writing, cast, crew, etc of this show and be 100% just about the plots because there will often be overlap in terms of the how and the why of it. this will be the only post that i put here that focuses on critiquing the overall running of dynasty’s production and patterns of poor decision making over the course of the past five years. as i say on all of my fandom social media, often, i have overwhelmingly positive feelings about dynasty and find heavy comfort in it. if i want to write 4.1k words about something about it that has always felt a little ‘off’, im gna do that. :)

back during the final stretch of season 4, i distinctly remember talking with some friends about our feelings towards the show (as we often do) and while i'm possibly the least jaded in both my circle of friends and my online circles of other dynasty viewers, i do have some lines that i would absolutely drop the show like a hot pan for. 

they're SUPER distinct and clear lines that are less personally-triggering and moreso things that would feel distinctly like the writers either a) were intentionally trying to hurt certain demographics of their audience or, possibly just as bad, b) were genuinely too out of touch to realize the ramifications of. dynasty features plenty content that i find triggering on a personal level but as a general rule, i know that there is a separation between things that upset me individually and things that are related to doing more serious damage. sometimes these things overlap (an example, which i'll obviously be talking about liberally in this post, being homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, etc). so, while i have certain things that i wince away from every time dynasty shoves at us - looking at you, the beaten-to-death horse known as 'people being drugged against their will as a comedy trope' - i put up with it.  

as a sidenote, i think that the twitter timeline during episode 5.15 was a really great example of what sorts of buttons people won't allow others to push. the biphobic comment in the episode was hurtful enough for bisexual people to have to hear at all, but on top of that, the who - what - where of it all was even more insidious than it may have seemed on a surface level to people who saw their mutuals talking about it without being part of the dynasty sphere.

in 4.15, we were introduced to eva. she was cute, she was fun, she was there to be fallon's new assistant (funnily enough, the replacement for allison - the only canonically wlw character at the time since amanda wouldn't appear until the following episode), and then of course, to be a foil for falliam. the concept of there being any credible foil to falliam was ALREADY laughable at this point. i'm not even going to bother touching on how deeply predictable and boring the very concept of the writers thinking any of us truly believe they would do anything interesting or dangerous with them. i was bopping along in season 4, minding my business, discussing my theories with my friends and other people online and hehe-ing about how boring the eva-likes-liam thing was when i woke up in a cold sweat one night with a horrifying thought: what if the writers shake things up for fucking once in terms of falliam? what if this won't be their 500th predictable stupid storyline? what if eva is going to try to break up falliam because she likes fallon and not liam?

it turns out i was giving them too much credit in that department, so i lived to keep watching the show another day. that had been my own paranoid theory that i immediately jumped into the groupchat with to say ‘ok i found it, i found what i would stop watching dynasty for’. they were already pushing the stalking angle with eva and fallon’s previous stalker had been the only east asian representation on dynasty ever. if they said ‘ok lets do that storyline again but with a creepy predatory GIRL KISSER’ i think i would have had to tap out. 

another sidenote - i love hearing about people’s ‘what i would stop watching dynasty for’ moments. everyone’s different thoughts are so different and every time someone has told me one of theirs its usually something i didn’t even consider, but realized their fear of it happening was definitely still rooted in logic based on the way certain storylines go in this show.

dynasty's relationship with its lgbt audience has always been shaky at best and borderline emotional terrorism at its worst. from the outright refusal for a wlw character (which even then, was still a bit of a 'gotcha' at the audience) until its final stretch despite long ago having shifted from a series about the scandals of business with social and emotional stories woven in to a nearly sitcom-esque y.a. romance, or the fact that sammy jo is literally the last gay standing, the lgbt viewers have long resigned to a state of refusing to expect anything and shitposting about it for fun to keep things light. it's a cw show. plenty of the audience for dynasty - cishet AND lgbt - have experienced them before. for the lgbt audience, we're all seasoned veterans when it comes to navigating passive-aggressive feedback from the production teams and sometimes even cast members, not to mention the blatant and aggressive homophobia from other fans who don't fit into the same minority groups that a lot of us do and have no lived experience to draw any empathy from.

i think a lot of writers for television - a lot of which are specific to the cw though if i were to start naming examples from their recent catalogue, i would be here all day - learned fairly early on that blatant homophobia causes outrage which obviously causes buzz. this makes for great television writing because it very much gives the straight audience something to be surprised by and interested in. often the best of the self-proclaimed straight allies often for some reason love to see an act of homophobia and yell "i am NOT like that, by the way!" without doing much else, but it makes them feel good at the end of the day nonetheless. they get to think about the hardships that lgbt people face for a few minutes, go "oh jeez, how awful" which obviously makes them incredible people and there you have it. this is great news for television writers, as being the writer puts you in a position to 'make up a guy and then get mad at him' (for the record, this is bad when people do it random political discourse, not in television for the most part. 'make up a guy and ___' is sort of the basis of writing, that isn't the issue here). the thing is, those scenes where lgbt people face discrimination are not 'feel good' moments for the lgbt audience, usually. just like in real life, the other shoe dropping where the writers add in a little "and then the homophobe gets his just desserts" doesn't really heal the shock or hurt for anyone except their straight audience. when i get yelled at or threatened in public and a well-meaning ally steps up and tells the person harassing me to go fuck themselves, i still just experienced being harassed. i may be thankful to the person who used their power to help me, but i still was, for a moment, in a position where i needed help. 

homophobia exists, obviously, and shows set in the real world will obviously have moments where it is appropriate to weave it into the story. no one is arguing this much. the issue is that certain shows, and dynasty is not the only show that deserves this critique, will not have any real intention to dedicate time or care to this issue. i've spoken a lot about how i prefer that the newer seasons of dynasty stop trying when it comes to touching on serious issues because their track record of trying to do things tactfully hasn't been good since season 1. 

the other side of this blade is that we've now experienced two instances of anti-lgbt rhetoric from within canon, and both times it has been from lgbt characters.

in season 2, we had beto - cristal's brother who is aggressively homophobic specifically towards sam but plot twist! it was because he was into sam and was just shamefully closeted all along. audiences pushed back HARD against that across social media and explained why the rhetoric that lgbt people are really our own worst enemies was so dangerous - the cast or crew obviously didn't comment, which they generally don't so that wasn't strange - but the cishet audience did make sure to put on their best meat-gargling britches and let the lgbt audience know that if we were so unhappy with what we got, we could go watch something else and leave them alone.

in season 5, we got the pride party episode. i call it the pride party episode because while the actual pride party took up maybe about 8 total minutes of screen time, it was what the cast and crew posted the majority of their behind the scenes content from and it was obviously meant to be the draw as it did air during pride month.  for those who haven't watched yet or have been scouring for spoilers after seeing the tweets and different social media posts talking about it, here's your context:

sam begins to feel like he's an irrelevant gay in atlanta so he enlists the help of kirby and culhane to throw the biggest pride party of the weekend and get his status back. kirby and culhane put together a big party but same is unhappy with it (in their defense, his 'theme' was call me by your name / twink / leather daddy realness. with a drag performance. i think that since THAT was such a word salad of gay terminology that make no cohesive sense together, they just assumed he didn't know what he was talking about and was going to be cool with rainbow streamers and edm). he blows up and refers to culhane as a 'bad ally' and calls kirby 'just gay whenever it's convenient' - both comments he later apologizes for in the same breath because they were OBVIOUSLY on the same level of offensive (he also, at one earlier point, refers to them as allies together and while i don't know if it was intentional or not, it kind of felt more like a writers flub moreso than a dig at kirby but i could be wrong. kirby was sam's token straight for so long that it might just be muscle memory). he gets a quick pep talk from angeria paris vanmichaels and admits that he was actually just insecure about his gayness.

i've already said that it's harmful for straight people (though gay people also parrot this rhetoric too sometimes) to either make jokes about or outright seriously claim that people who perpetuate the most homophobia are insecure or closeted gay people. add on top of that that dynasty has now TWICE ‘addressed’ homo/bi/transphobia and both times have been by lgbt characters. i’m also in the conspiracy-theory camp of believing that fanworks for dynasty have, in the past, influenced the direction of the show or inspired plots and tropes used, and while kirby anders was always an icon for the wlw audience since before she was even introduced, fanworks that featured fan-interpretations of her as a wlw character often weren’t shy about talking about the implications that that would have if it were to fit into the canon of the show. some headcanons and fan-created works became common use among the wlw fandom and while they had no basis in canon they were considered ‘canon’ in the fan-verse where kirby was wlw - all of this pre-wlw-canon kirby, of course. a personal favorite in a lot of wlw fanworks for dynasty was the concept that alexis carrington, historically not a homophobe, would be perfectly okay with her daughter (either or, depending on your persuasion) dating another woman - but NEVER if it were kirby, turning the homophobic character trope on its head.  

what distinctly stood out to me once the smoke cleared from hearing the most wattpad-villain-esque overused line of biphobia from, again, the ONLY remaining gay man on the show, was exactly why sam saying it was so much more unsettling than just your run of the mill ‘homophobes are just mean gays’ tropery. earlier when i mentioned that the lgbt audience of dynasty tend to approach things in a sort of resigned way, i probably should have clarified that ‘expects nothing good’ comes in a wide range of flavours, spanning from ‘cautious but refusing to be hopeful’ (shoutout to kamanda nation) all the way to ‘blatantly giggling at all of the cw’s attempts to garner interest’. my dynasty twitter timeline and groupchats leading up to ‘the pride party episode’ since it was announced were a constant stream of shitposting and sarcastic claims that it would be a trainwreck that everyone was deeply excited to watch happen (“the cw is kicking the air right now demanding to know why they still aren’t allowed to say the f slur after putting a rainbow border on their page”).

there are plenty of common biphobic talking points. like every single group within the lgbt community, lack of understanding or empathy for one another who have different experiences than we do can cause ignorance and hurt. in my personal opinion, ‘queer discourse’, as its often all lumped together as, can do its part to help us educate one another on our own unique histories and experiences while it can also be a jumping-off point for hatred and circular, senseless arguing. also in my personal opinion, when it comes to queer discourse, or more often than not, community infighting, it should be entirely left up to those groups involved. i will listen to and value the opinion of someone that disagrees with me (to a reasonable extent, obviously) who i share a space with over the opinion of someone who agrees with me but has no idea what they’re talking about. for this reason, i obviously do not care about cishet opinions on queer issues. the internet evolves and expands incredibly quickly. online queer discourse used to be mainly reserved for deep tumblr: sideblogs and instant messages and google docs with links to talking points and sources in case one was ever backed into a corner in an argument. now, queer discourse has become such a massive part of the average twitter experience (not to mention tiktok) that its caught the attention of cishet people in a very strange way. not only have people with zero lived experience began to pay attention to what inter-community issues that the lgbt community are discussing, they’ve also pushed themselves into the discussions.  

it's not difficult at all, nowadays, for any straight television writer with a twitter account to not only a) find an lgbt issue to exploit clumsily for a quick plot or b) find an lgbt issue to exploit to have their audience do the fighting for them. a personal favorite example of mine is 7-season CW hatecrime The 100. their mistreatment of lesbian character lexa and wildly archaic use of the dead lesbian trope (which, while overlapping often, is not to be confused with the bury your gays trope) upset audiences on a catastrophic level. the interesting part, though, was that the bisexual female lead would go on to endgame with the male cishet lead in the wake of the death of her lesbian love interest. this was obviously upsetting to the lesbian audience for the obvious reasons that being brutally killed off (in a very specific way, too, which is worth looking up if you’re interested in queer fandom history) in order to make room for another m/f relationship. however, any lgbt person who has spent more than a few minutes in literally any queer discourse space online would be privy to the fact that lesbians and bisexual women can sometimes carry a certain tension when it comes to discussions about validity. this is not a queer discourse blog and i’m not going to delve into the talking points surrounding this, but it is important for me to point out that those talks DO take place in a lot of queer online spaces, and since online fandom is often a relatively queer space itself, the discussions do bleed together sometimes. that’s why it was so genius (in a sociopathic sort of way) for the cast, crew, and writer’s room of the 100 to listen to the lesbians crying about the representation being yanked out from under them and go “you hear that, bisexual audience? the lesbians are mad because YOU aren’t gay enough for them on this show.” 

i didn’t watch the 100. i was about to start it the week that they killed off lexa which i personally think was one of the top 10 bullets dodged in history. but EVERYONE in online fandom spaces, myself included, knows what happened and experienced it in some regard. the 100 became a piece of history for the resulting terrible pr that they got for the writing choice as well as their unprofessional and batshit insane handling of the aftermath. the cw to this day has never made a mistake so serious again but the lasting effects of pitting one’s lgbt audience against each other to avoid accountability has never left, and the cw specifically is famous for its use of audience infighting to avoid effort and quality when it comes to lgbt storylines. sam’s biphobic comment hit hard in that way, because the writers got to throw that in and step back and go “whoa now hey it wasn’t us! it was the gay guy. obviously!”

and his phrasing, “gay when its convenient” - while also not an uncommon biphobic soundbite - was hilariously something that dynasty’s lgbt audience have been saying for years. after steammy was wiped off the map as a couple and sam was written into a few forgettable guy of the month romances with minimal screentime to keep cashing in one being able to put SOMETHING in the ‘we promise we have diversity’ montages that the cw keeps getting fucking clowned for posting (seriously, why do they keep posting those ads? i have NEVER seen a healthy comment section under one of them) they finally seemed to find their footing to utilize rafael de la fuente’s talent in a meaningful way. his drama work is unreal. he manages to hit his comedy beats even when the writing is clearly below him and elevates it every time. this of course had to come at the cost of dropping a lot of the romance from his storyline which would be perfectly fine - perhaps even welcome especially in these later seasons - were he not the only opportunity for the mlm audience to have someone they can relate to.

dynasty’s cishet audience commenting about how the moment amanda was canonized as wlw that it was ‘too soon’ to start putting her into relationships was the usual level of tone-deaf and blatantly un-self-aware that lgbt audiences have been putting up with since the dawn of time. 

‘gay when its convenient’ has been something that the lgbt audiences have been accusing dynasty of since the first season came and went without a hint of fallon carrington looking twice at a girl, after liz gillies said that she could definitely see fallon as a bisexual woman. dynasty's answer to lgbt people asking for representation - PROPER representation - has always been met with either crumbs (rip allison!) or a sort of weird derisive 'here's what we have for you - YOU are actually VERY stupid for thinking we wouldn't give it to you and i think that says more about how miserable you all are than it does about us as a television show' vibe. fallon's offhanded comment about 'having always had a thing for princess frostine' in 2.12 was not a 'win' for bisexual representation, either. at the time, it almost felt like a smug little slap in the face to the people who were flooding online anonymous forums to scream and cry "STOP saying fallon likes girls" at the wlw audience. rewatching it even a day later felt like a slap in the face to the lgbt audience who claimed that the show didn't have enough queer characters. the line meant nothing and went no where - it was just a reminder that "she's right HERE you blind idiots, stop asking us for more gay women". 

pre-kamanda, dynasty consistently told us that we had all of the representation we needed. we have a gay guy who pops in to say random gay-isms (who was once a success story about an undocumented immigrant from an abusive household that struggled and cheated and did what he could to survive among billionaires) once or twice per episode, and we have fallon, who sometimes slaps women on the ass as they walk by, or whatever. the lgbt audience came up with our own ships and our own silly in-universe ideas to keep us busy while we sat through whatever new trope the writers wanted to half-ass with falliam for the majority of the episode. and, since we thought, only having historical patterns to base our expectations on, that we were never going to get anything, we let our own fan-canon and faux-theories get wilder and sillier despite the usual obstacles whether that was the writers making them moot with canon on accident or the literal cast of the show mocking us publicly based on their own misunderstanding of the concepts at hand (as an aside: cast and crew’s of shows and movies interacting with fanworks is not only their given right but also often very welcome. that being said, at the end of the day it was never for them, though that is a topic for another day).

kamanda was not only a breath of fresh air in terms of finally having something a little more lighthearted and fun without feeling like a waste of time to focus on, but it brought back audience that had long-since jumped ship (often around early to mid season 4).

even then, there was something sort of ‘off’ about the whole feeling. these aren’t my personal opinions because i didn’t see amanda’s introduction, kirby’s wlw canonization, or kamanda in general anything other than an (embarrassingly fucking late) agreement to finally give the wlw audience what we’ve been asking for for the last five years: real (fictional) women in a real (fictional) relationship, a privilege granted to literally everyone else on the show since the very beginning, in a show that had increasingly dropped most of its plotting to focus solely on romance and interpersonal relationships. i did however see static and enter discussions about the a) aggressive cancellation season last-ditch attempt to be relatable and b) a redirect of the wlw audience’s attention away from firby - arguably the most popular dynasty ship behind falliam, pre-kamanda. i’m literally still in the middle of a giant unhinged post about the history of firby fandom and its eventual replacement by kamanda so i’m not going to go into a lot of detail about it here. the main takeaway there is that the way in which dynasty hands us our representation often feels like we’re supposed to feel bad about it once we get it. not in the ‘here’s representation but they’re BAD’ way, but in a ‘how dare you have ever doubted us, why are you even here if you’re so angry with us’ sort of way. i would consider that my own paranoia and overthinking and just assuming that i’m feeling sorry for myself had i not realized across multiple platforms how widespread that weird ‘guilty’ feeling is when it comes to being lgbt in dynasty fandom. 

the biphobia is the core issue at hand - full stop. bisexual audiences did not need to hear something like that and especially not coming from a show that consistently backs out of touching on real-world issues by claiming that the show is meant to be an escape and therefore wouldn't be fair to the audience. the bisexual audience do not qualify for such escapism.

however what this obnoxiously long rant of a post is also poking at is that sam's biphobic comment not only shocked and hurt the bisexual audience but it added to an overarching message that the lgbt audience have been having yelled at us by dynasty for the past five years, usually RIGHT whenever we feel comfortable and safe, and that's that sure, this show is going to upset us sometimes but that's the real world, and symbolically, we really only have ourselves to blame.

[onetiredbi]

Oh no, Anon, I'm not insulted at all. I'm always down for a good chat about how Pansexuality is harming Bisexuals and the rest of the LGBT community. Even straight people to a degree. It's okay if we end up agreeing to disagree, but please consider all the points. Also I'm on mobile and having issues so I apologize for the screengrab reply.

One of the biggest and core issues I have is what you said yourself. They are the literal exact same thing. And since they are the same thing, why does there need to be a distinction? On this, I have yet to find an answer that doesn't have negative implications for bisexuality. I can go into it more but thats a tangent.

Another big issue I have with it is the othering of trans people, and the unfair treatment of other sexualities. Using a definition that says "attraction to men, women and trans" makes trans out to be its own gender, and not including trans men as men, or trans women as women, which they are. It comes off as saying a trans man ISNT a man because they're othered and that's... not good. As for others, it boils down to this: If a lesbian is still a lesbian for dating a trans woman, a gay man is still gay for dating a trans man, and a straight man is still straight dating a trans woman, why do they get to keep "lesbian", "gay", and "straight" while Bisexuality NEEDS a change to Pansexuality? Where's the push for a Sexuality for a woman attracted to women AND trans women? Why is it still okay for her to keep her lesbian label?

Actually looking into LGBT history, you will find HUNDREDS of bisexuals defining bisexuality as "attraction regardless of gender". I dont know if it's still running, but there was a Bisexual themed magazine out there called Anything That Moves. I like how it was a clever way to reclaim an insult. It wasn't until recently that all of that history has been shoved aside and redefined as "bi means two".

Before this gets too long, I hope that answered you well enough, Anon. And I'm happy to elaborate further about other issues I have with the label, and to hear more of your side. But I'll be honest, while I don't think I could ever agree in favor of pan, I can at least civilly hear you out.