#LGBTropes

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On the trope page for Pistol Whipping, in the Real Life Examples, Matthew Sheppard is listed at the top and if you click his name, it leads to the Bury Your Gays page. Christ, yet another disgusting and delusional example of tropers troping a real person.

Blerg.

For those not in the know: Matthew Shepard was a gay teen who was murdered in Laramie, Wyoming in 1998. Shepard met Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson outside of a bar and the two offered him a ride. The men then tortured Shepard–including, yes, pistol whipping him–and left him for dead, tied to a fence by the side of the road.

The defense argued that McKinney and Henderson just wanted to rob him and only murdered him because Shepard made a pass at them, otherwise known as the “gay panic defense.” This defense is still used today, but mostly in relation to the murders of trans women. Both men were given two life sentences, because fuck them. Effort was made to turn gay bashing into a hate crime, but it was for naught for a very long time. Clinton put effort into it but failed, Bush actively fought against it, and Obama finally put it into law.

Matthew Shepard’s story is the reason I have trust issues and fear holding my boyfriend’s hand in public.

Regarding TVTropes: This is another reason why Real Life Examples should not be a thing. Burying real tragedies on the bottom of a page where fictional characters are given more tears than real people is crap, crap, crap and should not happen. If there is one thing that TVTropes does not have, it’s the tact it requires to tackle the real world.

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Am I the only one who thinks the trope name Discount Lesbians is pretty offensive?

Discount Lesbians refers to how, sometimes, the media has a lesbian couple that doesn’t “count.”

The best example I can think of is from the Runaways comic where Karolina (the alien who just came out as gay) gets proposed to by a seemingly male Skrull. Karolina says no, she can’t, she likes the V. The Skrull says that Skrulls can change sex whenever and then changes their appearance to a woman. In theory, this could be seen as genderfluidity, but in practice, the Skrull presented as male for most of the time.

PS, I don’t think Marvel ever really went too deep with Skrull gender before or after that, either, so this case was an anomaly.

There’s also that example from Mass Effect that everyone always references but I never played that game so I’m not an authority.

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Am I the only one who physically cringed at how overtly hostile the Trope page for Barefoot Contessa is? And that cooking shows count as something tropable in the first place? And that "Fag Hag" is still apparently a phrase being used in the year of our lord 2016?

Who can be mean to Ina Garten???

God, people these days can’t fully appreciate the fact that Ina Garten is the supreme Food Network queen and #TrueGayIcon.

I also take it personally because Ina looks just like my mom.

Anyway, yes, people still use the word Fag Hag. It’s archaic, it’s crappy, and it’s demeaning to both gay men and the women who love them, but alas, it’s still here. Fruit Fly is a cutesy way of saying it, but it’s less used. I’m not too indignant about it, since it’s mostly used by queer people anyway, but I’m guessing a lot of people who use it on TVTropes are straight, probably in the same way white people think they can use the n-word if they’re singing along to Kanye.

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(On the Man of a Thousand Voices page) "Maddie Blaustein was an incredibly versatile voice actress: being a male-to-female transgender, she had voiced countless characters of both genders. In Pokémon, alone, she voiced over thirty characters, human and Pokemon alike!" I'm sure that's not proper grammar, TV Tropes (also there's more than 2)!

Transgender is not a noun, it’s an adjective. It’s the equivalent of saying “being a purple.” The correct grammar would be “being male-to-female transgender” or “being a male-to-female transgender woman.” Alternative ways to say it would be “having been assigned male at birth” or simply “being a trans woman.”

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Okay so I'm in a fandom where one of the protagonists has been confirmed genderqueer by the author. What does it say on this character's entry on that series's character page? "Ambiguous Gender: No-one is sure what V's gender is. If anyone (including [the author] himself) says it, they should be assumed to be guessing." I HATE TV TROPES.

Author: “This character identifies as genderqueer. They do not belong within the gender binary. They either view themselves as both male and female, neither male nor female, or a combination of the two. Celebrities who identify as such include Gerard Way and Ruby Rose. Here’s a list of books you can pick up about the subject from your local library.”

Tropers:

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"LGBT people who are christian are like black people joining the KKK tbh" - Posted today in "A single unified LGBT conversation"

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This argument broke out today about the use of “gay” and “faggot” as insulting terms. This is one of about three different responses which came across as trying to sweep the negative side of the word - i.e. its primary modern usage - under the rug. And yes, someone made the “bundle of sticks” comment.

MOD: "But South Park said--"

Everyone needs to stop. Just fucking stop. Modern usage of the word by straight people doesn't downplay shit. When straight people say faggot, they are not downplaying it, they are normalizing it, because there's nothing for them to reclaim*. It's not a word used against them.

And no, if a straight person is called a faggot, he's being called gay, but when a gay person is called a faggot (or any LGBT person called any other LGBT slur) he's being called less than a straight person. Saying "Susie, you look as ugly as Doris today" is much more insulting to Doris than Susie, don't you think?

Also, you know, gay people get fucking murdered over shit like this. So I don't need straight people on the internet telling me not to get offended when they say faggot.

*I don't think faggot is a word that's "ours" in the same way the n-word is for black people, though, because it's used as a way for gay people to bring more effeminate gay people down, but that's a story for another day.

[fucknotvtropes]

I have to ask. Do you find terms like "Straight Gay" inoffensive is simply used to describe a character as someone who you wouldn't know was gay unless you asked (how I would usually use the trope), or only when used to vent someone's homophobia (which I find as deplorable as yourself)? I think it's fairly harmless as a descriptor, but the latter is definitely wrong, would like to have your opinion on this.

When a character is described as Straight Gay, it’s like tropers saying “He’s not like other gays" and calls to mind the term "Straight acting" which is something a lot of self-loathing gay men use to describe themselves. I understand that some gay people are less open with their sexuality or simply more subtle, but at the same time the connotations behind both the name and the idea that it others more flamboyant or open gay people really rubs me the wrong way. Maybe I'd be okay with it if it had a different name along the lines of "Subtle Gay" or something.

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Since someone brought up Asexuality I might as well bring this up. There was this troper who was asexual, and maybe the two things aren't connected, but he would always claim any character that had the most R34 were only popular for sexual reasons. On the Smash Bros thread, before Rosalina was revealed, when someone brought her up and asked why people liked her, he said "It's mostly just for porn". (cont.)

(cont.) And when I called him out on this BS, not only did he not even respond, but the troper hugbox all huddled around him and dismissed me as "Just getting offended because he doesn't like a character you like".

I don't think I've ever in my life seen a cast of female video game characters less sexualized than the Mario crew. Just because people on DeviantART draw H-cups and cam-toes on the princesses doesn't mean everyone loves them for it. Where's the logic in that? I like Anne Hathaway, does that mean I only like her because some weirdos photoshop her head onto porn stars' naked bodies? No, it's because the Devil Wears Prada was fucking amazing.

Yes, there is reason to be pissed when someone looks at a female character you like and says "You only like her because you're a pervert" because it places much higher standards onto female characters than male characters and it makes it seem like rule 34 is something the entire fanbase participates in. I would hardly say that this has anything to do with the troper's asexuality and more towards his generally childish attitude towards other people's sexuality.

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MOD Note: This entire screenshot is a goddamn mess.

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Can I get a big 'fuck you' to the whole 'straight gay' trope?

That trope is the first trope I ever wrote about on this blog. If you go to the very last page you can see it. Ah, memories.

"Yeah, this gay character’s a great role model for the kids because he’s not a flamboyant flamer. He’s like totally straight acting. He doesn’t rub his sexuality into my the audience’s face. If it wasn’t for the fact that he fucks guys, he might be, you know, normal or something.”

Fuck straight people who are afraid of effeminate gay men, butch lesbians, and transsexuals, and fuck queer people who force heteronormativity onto themselves and others (“I may be on Grindr, but I’m straight and looking for a masc bottom.” Yeah how about you go masturbate instead.)

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whenever somebody asks me why I don't like TVTropes I remind them that one of the "tropes" on their website is "Transsexual"

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Check out the Unfortunate Implications section in the Sleepaway Camp YMMV.

Hoooooooo boy

hooooooooooooooo boy

"If anything this movie is transfriendly"

Let me tell you something: a movie isn't trans-friendly if a female serial killer's penis is used for a big shocker ending. That's like saying Silence of the Lambs is trans-friendly because it's a lovely story about a trans woman trying to make female clothing for herself.

[fucknotvtropes]

I have two questions. First, what do you think is worst about tv tropes? Second, do you think TVT is homophobic? Can you give any examples if yes?

1) Absolute worst is the attitude that they are so much better than everyone else because they are the chroniclers of fiction when really they just obsess over Batman.

2) TVTropes is fairly good in the aspect that you don’t see people calling each other the f-word all day, but a big problem is the attitude of gender conformity. From the prevalence of the Straight Gay trope and the attitude that Straight Gay is the best kind of gay to be, they are basically saying “I don’t care if you’re gay, just act like a man.” (Likewise, Lipstick Lesbian could be seen as a parallel trope for women.) That femmephobia is something I hate seeing inside the LGBT community, so the fact that some straight people on the internet are telling me I should take off my skinny jeans and grow a beard really pisses me off. As for other parts of the spectrum, bisexuality is viewed in the same way with the mentality that it’s a quirky gimmick and I don’t remember ever seeing any tropes dealing with trans identities other than Dropped a Bridget on Him.

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On the subject of better pages in your improved site, could we get a Bi character page that isn't so painfully lopsided? I swear, the thing looks like a paste-bin designed to help further some cheeto-stained fucker's masturbation ritual. Perish the thought of actually discussing how bisexuality is presented in modern media for good or ill, let's talk about shipping potential instead!

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Unsettling Gender Reveal

"HA! Get it? She's actually a dude. Sure, in real life, she'd probably be killed and the police wouldn't make any arrests because transsexuals are horrifyingly discriminated against, but look! It's Spongebob dressed as a woman! LOL!"