#Queering Fat Embodiment

[rosemariecawkwell]

TBR Pile: Queering Fat Embodiment, edited by Cat Pause, Jackie Wykes and Samantha Murray

172 pages, PaperbackFirst published January 1, 2014This editionFormat: 172 pages, PaperbackPublished: June 30, 2020 by RoutledgeISBN: 9780367600778 (ISBN10: 0367600773)Language: English Blurb Cultural anxieties about fatness and the attendant stigmatisation of fat bodies, have lent a medical authority and cultural legitimacy to what can be described as ‘fat-phobia’. Against the backdrop of the…

[zan0tix]

Hi tumblr user Zan0tix, I have to say that I love that you draw Jake as big and hairy AND fem. It's such a rare combination outside of mean-spirited caricatures, every time I see your Jake I get a big smile on my face. :)

Hi tumblr user HermitCyclop ^u^ here is a jake drawing for you 🫶

The transmisogynistic demonisation of these features is so maddening!!! I agree! Im glad that the intent (appreciating these features) of my jake design reaches you c:

GOING TO PUT IT UNDER THE CUT BECAUSE I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY. But jake english gender meta because i think about it Too Much and am taking this as an excuse to infodump abt it. 😁

The alpha kids and their specific defiance of both homestucks gendered narrative AND real life societal expectations are so fun to think about to me!! but since we are talking about jake, his specific defiance of both homestucks models of masculinity and femininity in the context of his queerness is like the reason he is my fav character.

He props himself up that he wants to be the adventure "hero" in the homestuck sense (the hardheaded blue femme fatale) and the western media sense (the hardheaded action man) yet whenever pressed to actually act on what he says he always refuses or obfuscates. Because really what he wants is to just be himself! I really love the alpha kids because they all just want to be Themselves, not be restricted and defined by what is expected of them, (all the characters have this but the alphas particularly really hammer this home for me)

The heavy emphasis on their beta selves, the heteronormative archetypes they embodied and what went wrong in their lives that manifest as fears in their alpha selves... im always thinking about it. How differently society affects queer ppls choices in life and then the fact that they all get a second chance and getting to watch them live out that second chance and realize their queerness and them all caring so much abt eachother and wanting to aspire to be better FOR the ones they love!!!!!! it always tugs at my heart strings to ponder😢😢

IM SO GOOD AT GOING ON TANGENTS MY BAD but basically. The alpha kids explicit queerness and how despite the comic itself protesting, they are all shown to be deserving of love (of all kinds) And as a person who super heavily relates to jake, his experience with his own identity (and dirks unending adoration and love for him and likewise jakes belief and admiration of dirk) serves to me as a reminder that yknow! We are all worthy of love!! Even if we dont think ourselves to be (this is just the message of shrek.) and there is always hope to be found in things improving!!!!

But in a text thats explicitly queer and not shy about letting its queer characters do wrong in realistic ways i think this message is incredibly powerful and certainly one of the best things about the comic in my eyes. And i love embracing that in my art of the characters! Drawing queer (but here specifically trans) characters all getting to be proud of themselves and their appearances makes me feel proud of myself alongside them and I think its wonderful to be able appreciate other trans peoples experiences and looks through it too!!

I specifically in homestuck fandom dont really see anybody but twinks (usually dirk or eridan LMFAO) portrayed to be fem in any manner 😢 when jake is the most explicitly feminine man in the comic. (I think the transmisogyny thats kind of rampant in this fandom means people dont want to consider those outside conventional attractiveness being feminine or transfem identities outside binary transwomen if even that😭😭) I am being the change i wana see in the world 🙏 The amount of transfem fat gay bear jake in the world increases by one every time i post

[televised-uhhh-nerdistry]

Cartoon rec of the week:

Craig of the Creek

I haven't seen enough people talking about the show, so I'm mentioning it here. Absolute 10/10 cartoon. Just three kids, running 'round, making friends, running their own semi-sustainable community in the forest (there are some concerns about how much trash they leave there but ultimately they're better than most adults). Literally such a dream. they encourage each other to be emotionally healthy and they protect each other from "danger". Like they'll help each other achieve their dreams as they come (and new dreams show up pretty often because they're young kids).

And they're so funny! Like genuinely these kids are so earnest and intelligent and incredibly humorous and full of heart! They have full lives and they live them to the fullest out in nature after school, on the weekends, and in the summer. It's one of the best representations of found family I have ever seen in a cartoon, and I absolutely love it.

Also several of the writers behind the show are POC and queer (I think the head writers are all Black but I could be wrong), so you know that it was written well and the representation is awesome like I know that it should absolutely go without saying, but representation is much more than just showing BIPOC people on screen, and in terms of cartoons I haven't seen that many shows understanding that fact except maybe the Proud Family, Fat Albert, and a few others whose names will return to me once I've taken my ADHD meds. But the point is that Craig of the Creek gets it right. Most of the characters throughout the show (from what I've seen) are BIPOC, and you can tell that there are caring nods to BIPOC communities (primarily Black American communities), and more than that, that the writers know what they're talking about and are deeply familiar with and are a part of those communities. Craig, the titular character, is a young Black boy, and his family are middle class and ultimately very successful Black people. Kelsey (one of the main characters) is Jewish and Polish, and written with more complexity than having a one and done Hanukah celebration. The Creek's main business, a trading post, is run by Kit, a young Black girl with a love for economy and business. And many other characters are racial or ethnic minorities as well, and it warms my heart to see these characters done justice time and time again.

There's great subtle queer rep too, and you can tell it wasn't written just for the sake of representation, like it was thought out and intentional, and it worked beautifully. There are queer witches, and there are no labels applied to them, they're just allowed to exist with no explanations, happily in love with one another. There's a non-binary character later in the series (I'm only like 10 episodes in so I haven't met them yet but I've read amazing things about them). Kelsey also apparently identifies as a lesbian later in the series (I say "apparently" because I haven't done much reading so as to avoid spoilers, not because I am discounting her identity). On top of that, JP (one of the main characters) has a sister who is dating another girl.

There's also a significant amount of body positivity in the show, at least far than I've seen elsewhere. Not only do they openly say "all bodies are beautiful" and follow up on that by defending one another, there's also very little need to defend one another, because there's a very unspoken and deep respect in the Creek for things like body type, skin colour, disabilities, and so on. The kids of the creek, and their grown ups, are all different body types, and given their penchant for community and uplifting one another, it's no wonder they all seem confident in their bodies.

Not to mention the disability representation. There is a character later on in the series who is Black and deaf, and he not only speaks in Sign Language, but in Black American Sign Language. In addition, though unconfirmed, many of the kids in the creek embody aspects of various neurotypes. For example, the three main characters, Craig, Kelsey, and JP all come across as neurodivergent, with special interests, neurodivergent ways of thinking, and so on. Some have speculated that JP has Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, which is a disability often comorbid with ADHD. Not to mention that all the kids in the creek embody different special interests, most of which would be considered weird or frowned upon in everyday society, but that are given the opportunity to shine and flourish in the Creek's accepting culture.

Take the Horse Girls for example, a small clique of girls who roleplay as horses in a pasture near the Creek, and of course many of their behaviours are played as jokes, but ultimately they are accepted and involved in many adventures because of their unique interests and abilities which are ultimately how they aid the rest of the Creek. Every kid is a useful and accepted part of the Creek, with the exception of the ranger scout kids, who are essentially the same as cops, who are often exploitative, rude, and disruptive to the community as a whole.

Ultimately, the show is one of love, friendship, community, and acknowledging differences as a natural and helpful part of life. On top of that, it's not copaganda! What more could you want?

[taemcains]

What do you think about Alexandra, the HSR author? Any pros and cons? I've been seeing a lot of criticism about her on tumblr but it seems like people on reddit still love her work.

she's an incredible writer. it takes insane skill to put together a coherent, interesting plot from hs lore. i love her characterization (of lane, the lis, the side charas and the immortals especially), her ideas for the plot, the themes she tries to embody through them. how she writes dread and tension (ep5 , ep9), the way you can feel it up your spine. the tiny, almost insignificant details that add up later on (noah left handed).

lane isn't a generic 'weird girl' protagonist that's three tropes in a trenchcoat bc people wanna jump on this bandwagon. she's written with so much depth and attention and you can just tell aleksandra herself must've been through it to be writing inner monologues like this. she's already so close to my heart and i always feel seen by her thoughts. as for cain... even without bias he's a crazy, crazy character. she's balancing all the aspects of his personality without making him seem cartoonish like other books i won't name. and i truly hope she heals bc no way a sane person thought cainlane up.

getting to the lows, when it comes to writing she fumbled the finale. she tried to fit everything into one episode and had to sacrifice screentime and consequently emotional impact for significant developments. and ofc the diversity issue. all has already been said (borderline homophobia, sidelining the poc and woc, two drops of melanin in the whole world it seems) so i'll talk about something i've haven't seen mentioned much – the heteronormativity.

it's obvious that she sees poc/queer people/diff body types as a novelty, an oddity, a deviation from the standard (in her writing at least) and it shows plainly in hsr. cain's character profile mentioning that men grew envious of him while women went into a frenzy, lestor's 'i save them for the ladies' comment and the worst offender: lane wondering if she started seeing anna in a romantic light as there were no other suitable men around.

compare this with arina who weaves diversity in casually, like the vampire lady talking about her lover, the option to set up tallis and onyx, how jorge is shown to love yoga and fitness as a fat man.

readers aren't stupid and it's very easy to catch on to an author who's just trying to fill a quota vs one who really cares about who they're writing. tldr she's a great writer but it won't kill her to have a character that isn't paper white and gatorade blue eyed.

[equalperson]

"To me, Burns feels like the raw embodiment of narcissism. While I still maintain that he’s a bad person — unrelated to his psychological disabilities — I’d merely be effacing my psychology for persotypical tastes to say that he’s an unrealistic depiction of how narcissists oftentimes think. And that’s the main issue with the popular conceptualization of “good representation:” it appeals to the oppressor’s tastes. Do these books encourage autism acceptance? Do those movies challenge stereotypes about fat people? Does this game show persotypicals that narcissists can be good? Does that show help cis people understand transness more vividly? So often, representation is judged by whether or not it’d help our oppressors develop a “tolerance” for us, rather than by how we ourselves experience it. Notice that, when I highlighted Lisa as good representation, I only discussed the ways she defied stereotypes and went against the grain; that’s what the mainstream idea of “good representation” is all about. Ultimately, relatability and likeability to the oppressed comes second to conformity. As such, the representation of “unpalatable” minorities — nonspeaking autistic people, antagonistic narcissists, queer villians, you name it — are reduced to nothing but “negative rep,” with no regard for the people in real life who are really that disabled, that “unpleasant,” or who simply feel more represented by the socially unaccepted than anything else. In actuality, even the most “unacceptable” pieces of representation are rarely inaccurate. No community is a monolith, so there will always be someone like whatever character you’re thinking of. In this case, Lisa is as accurate a representation of narcissism as Mr. Burns, because there are many Lisas and many Burnses in our population."

[calamityquellerei]

contrabinary

a term for those who feel their gender identity is a political rejection of the gender binary.

contrabinary is adjacent to non-binary and some people may consider themselves contrabinary and non-binary, or contrabinary as a subset of non-binary. contrabinary differs from non-binary because it is expressly political.

Q: who can use contrabinary? A: anyone who considers themselves outside of the gender binary as a political rejection of white supremacy, colonialism, imperialism, fascism, capitalism, and bigotry. it was made with people who are forcibly pushed out of the gender binary in mind (e.g. BIPOC, intersex people, Fat people), but anyone who embodies the political aspect of contrabinary may use it. you do not have to identify as non-binary to be contrabinary.

Q: who can NOT use contrabinary? A: white supremacists, fascists, bigots, TERFs, and the likes. you are not contrabinary if you police queer labels, including the "weird" and "contradictory" ones. you are also not contrabinary if you believe one can transition between races/disabilities/etc., as you are a bigot if you believe this.

Q: can someone be a contrabinary woman or a contrabinary man? A: yes! contrabinary was actually made by a woman who feels the gender binary was not made with hxr womanhood in mind due to hxr being an intersex POC.

Q: what are the politics of contrabinary? A: contrabinary is antifascist, decolonial, anti white supremacy, anticapitalist, and anti imperialist. it is pro liberation and justice for all marginalized people.

Q: what else should i know about contrabinary before using it? A: you should know that the coiner is a Palestinian who stands with Palestine and rejects the state of "israel". you should know that contrabinary is NOT saying nobody is allowed to be a binary woman or a binary man. you should know that contrabinary refuses to be sanitized or watered down for aesthetics or palatability. you should know contrabinary was made by a plural system who supports endogenic plurals, although the term may be used by anti-endos.

contrabinary flag and stripe meanings:

yellow: being outside the gender binary green: love for marginalized people red: loudness, anger, and rejection

[campgender]

from “Soft Butch” by Nora E. Derrington, published in Fat & Queer: An Anthology (2022)

image description below the cut.

I: Soft

There’s an onomatopoeia to the word. It begins with a sibilant, sinuous, sensual ess, then moves on to a gentle ah that caresses the palate. Then the quick succession of consonants hitting the lips and teeth like a playful kitten batting a toy mouse. The word is a delicacy, smooth and subtle.

As a descriptor, it can be tactile: pliable, cushioned, comfortable. Cotton sheets worn silky smooth. Downy puppy fur. Velvet rose petals drawn across bare skin. But of course, the negative associations slip in quickly: pliable becomes yielding, yielding becomes weak. A soft touch. Soft-hearted. A big softie. An antonym not just for hard but for strong.

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be strong, to be tough. I didn’t want to be soft. How could I be anything but soft, though, when PE was my worst subject and I was so sensitive that the slightest injustice—Nikki’s mom yelling at me for wearing shoes on Nikki’s waterbed, even though the tell-tale footprint clearly came from Nikki’s shoe—or most mundane tragedy—restless teens dismembering a cheap claw-machine teddy bear in my presence—never failed to make me cry?

II. Butch

More onomatopoeia here, too: a voiced plosive, a deep vowel, three consonants in a row. Similar in feel to “macho”—but subtly different in meaning. Stereotypically masculine. Nothing about me has ever been masculine, so how could I ever be butch?

Dickies pants became the rage when I was in high school. As an alternative-rock aficionado who obsessed over the sound and aesthetics of the movie Singles—it came out when I was 12 and changed my life—I knew I needed them. When I was 16 and had both a job and transportation, I made my way to the local Tillys to snag a pair. The black cotton twill was stiff under my fingers as I stepped into the pants and pulled them up.

The Dickies pulled against my hips, uncomfortably snug, and gaped so wide at my waist I could fit a fist between my skin and the cloth. I left the store disappointed. Why did I even bother? “Good, child-bearing hips,” people would tell me, even as an adolescent. I resigned myself to a presentation that never quite matched the ideal in my head.

VII. Soft butch

Despite my fitting comfortably under the queer umbrella, I’d never really given all that much thought to the specifics of my gender identity and expression. I met a trans man when I was 24 who used the same nickname I do, which made it easier to see our similarities, but I knew immediately that his path wasn’t mine. Later that year I met someone who epitomizes high femme, and, again, I could immediately see both how perfectly she embodied that expression, and how poorly it would suit me.

The person I thought of at the time as my boyfriend, then my husband, used to joke that I was the man in the relationship— despite my tender heart, my frequent tears, my undeniable softness—but I was more or less content in just knowing what I wasn’t. It seems possible I could have stayed in that liminal place forever, but then when we were in our mid-thirties, my wife came out as trans.

This is not a story of my adapting to my wife being trans. I’d always known we were both queer, and discovering I was married to a woman came more as a pleasant surprise than anything else.

What did happen, though, was that her coming out gave me permission to do more soul-searching, to try to pinpoint my gender identity and ideal gender expression. I first encountered the term “soft butch” in one of those joke “futch scale” charts—the ones that sort musical instruments or tropical fruits on a scale from high femme to stone butch—but it stuck with me. It didn’t seem to be something I was allowed to call myself, though: image searches on Google or Pinterest just led to rows of photos of beautiful slender white people with artful short haircuts and distressed jeans. Lots of Kristen Stewart and Elliot Page and occasionally Justin Bieber. I am definitely too old and too fat to try to emulate those folks! Eventually I lamented on Twitter that I was drawn to the soft butch aesthetic but didn’t know if I could pull it off, given that I’m not thin. I quickly received a slightly baffled but firm response from a genderqueer acquaintance that of course I could. In some ways I’m still a kid, seeking others’ permission to accept myself.

I realize as I write this that I’m wearing what might be my quintessential soft butch outfit—it fits me almost without my trying. Distressed jeans—a pair that I stole from my wife long before she transitioned. They fit my hips and thighs beautifully, which means I have to cinch a belt tight to make them stay up around my waist, but I know how to manage that now. A close-fitting t-shirt celebrating a punk band I’ve seen in concert a good dozen times. Hair pulled back into a messy bun. Fuzzy gray slippers with arch support, because I’m a middle-aged fat person, so of course I have plantar fasciitis. A gentle breath before a firm statement: the perfect mixture of soft and butch.

[t4tstarvingdog]

AND THEN I CONSIDER THE DELIGHTFUL ANDROGYNY OF THE RODEO — timothy l.l.s.h.

because transsexual desire exists in rural towns just the same as cities, and because we love our roots just as much as our queerness.

may be easier to read if you click on the image :)

my poetry tag list (ask to be added or removed<3): @gracekisses @callcenterkilljoy @icantleave @hauntedpearl @chaosnatural @raytoroinmybackpack @carveredlund @pinknatural @deanwinchestersfloralwallpaper @obsessionofspn @destielgaysex @faithdeans @heartshapedcas @howldean @redwinesupernova @cosmosinfinity23 @impala67-aka-baby @samsrowena @aturnoftheearth @themichaelvan @casbeeminestiel @notreallyaroad @littlebitofdiaz @frogstiel @magdaclaire @babyheller @hellergregoryhouse @saintedcastiel @mayfieldarc @how-the-feathers-have-fallen @cmonprovolone @punishercd @raspberryfemme @patchesofwork @wolfinmyribcage

image description underneath the keep reading

[Image Description: a poem that reads

Well, lookit those lovely chick-a-dees, a-meanderin’ and amblin’ and Ignorin’ the Sun shining mightily in their eyes when they’re unlucky, And soaking tan with a red-underbelly into Their neck and shoulders when Lady Luck loves them once more.

My! What a sight, what a thing to love! These young birds take their fistfuls of cash and wads of green  And scramble their way up dusty-side just to reach glory. Oh heavens, the glory of a soda fountain when you have a sweat-soaked Ten-dollar clutched in all ten fingers, the glory of pointin’ With dirt under your fingernails At the largest size they have displayed, and sayin’ your please and thank you ma’am’s In the softest voice you got ‘cause your mouth is already Waterin’ something awful at the anticipation of the cool, fizzy drink.

Don’t guzzle it now, sweet things! Wait for that blessed relief-giving condensation to Settle along the sides of your plastic cup, little pearls, little water-snails Racing down to plop themselves bodily to The boot-ground dust of the Earth. Let them swell their little round shells and then quick! Gather Them up in one swiping palm, one heaving hand,  And smear that dripping prize across your salt-flecked forehead; Let its rivulets tumble over your brow and into your eyes, and Squint against the salt-sting of foreign tears caught In your thick calf-lashes.

Oh, pretty little darlings, have you tasted it? The sugar and dye, sweet-soft and fizzling in your stained mouths, Headaches already beginning to worm low and aching behind Your squinting eyes. Have you memorized the shuffle-step it takes you to alight on your stadium seat? Look away from the water truck soaking the ring, Tear your eyes from the rainbow rising with the dust,  With the water vapor,  With the murmur of your dozen, dozen voices. Playfight ball-caps versus cowboy hats and add a point for each fancy belt buckle, Count the church-worthy button-ups and remember that Everyone has different places  To worship.

And ah, what fat luck, arriving early enough to pick your seats when The stands are still so empty! Take the chance you have to feast yourselves on watching people stream in; Drink them down, the tired-eyed mothers, forehead-wrinkled fathers, Satiate yourselves on numbering the children wandering listless and over-excited around you, And carefully avoid looking too long at The young people with their soft-slender hands and hand-me-down boots,  Their pink-open mouths, flashing teeth as they talk, sweat, swallow down lemonade. As they speak in voices that don’t lend themselves To being masculine or feminine, too caught up in the fat enjoyment of Being young and  Alive.

You’re starving yourself, dear things, by choking down the desire while you Suck down the saccharine corn-syrup molecules just the same. Go ahead, grow into your own shoulders and make eye contact with warm brown and rosy red, Tilt the brim of your hat and let the actor in you embody it as full confidence and Not half-shame. When you shrug beneath the bleachers all too-long legs and too-hunched back,  Let yourself taste the tart lemonade on their lips and ask them to call you something softer  Than the name your daddy gave you. Let them place broad palm on the goose-flesh of the skin of your ribcage, Let yourself be taller than them and let them treat you porcelain-fragile anyways.

Say it with me now, The thunder above your heads is not Sodom and Gomorrah, it is a thousand feet, A thousand hands, A thousand writhing bodies stomping and hollering for  The best bareback bronco score so far tonight, and no one cares that you are missing. No one cares that you have found your existence In the arms of a sexless young thing just like yourself, surrounded by cigarette butts And a handful of discarded and crushed Bud Lite cans and Dust that just won’t die.

What’s the name of your soul, sweethearts? What do you hide away when you’re where the people can see you? The knees of your lightwash jeans are dirty when you crawl back into the world. The cheers of the crowd have gotten just a little less sharp in your ears. You share a drop of your soda with a puddle of gnats and scream for the Oklahoman rider, And no one looks twice At the shape of your hands and jaw.

When the Sun sets in your eyes tonight, you’re too busy putting Your two fingers to your lips and whistling louder than a trainhorn’s shriek To care that your drink has gone flat and Lukewarm.

—timothy l.l.s.h.

/end description.]

[hyperlexichypatia]

opinion on transabled ppl?

I confess I'm not super familiar with this issue, but this is my understanding of what transabledness is about (which roughly informs my opinion):

Some people have outwardly-appearing bodies that are classified, by medicine and society, as "normal" or "healthy" or "able-bodied," but have internal perceptions of their bodies and selves that align with ways of embodiment that are classified as disabilities (like being blind, or being an amputee). They may seek surgery or other body modifications to align their outward body to their inner sense of self.

Psychiatry classifies this way of being as a "mental disorder" called "body integrity identity disorder" or "body dysmorphic disorder." Doctors usually deny people the right to surgery or body modification, because they are considered "mentally ill."

Some people in this identity category have chosen to reject the pathologizing terminology of "BIID" or "dysmorphia" in favor of the more neutral, non-pathologizing term "transabled."

The term "transabled" is designed to invite parallels to "transgender" as a framework for people whose inner sense of self does not align with what society says their bodies should be.

So my opinion is that I am completely in favor of psychiatrically pathologized people reclaiming or reframing a pathologized identity in favor of a non-pathologized term or framework. Embracing the term "transabled" instead of "BIID" sounds great to me, just like embracing "autistic" instead of "suffers from autism spectrum disorder," or "Mad" or "neurodivergent" instead of "mentally ill," or "fat" instead of "obese," or "queer" instead of "sexual disorder." Rock on with your community-claimed radical depathologizing terminology!

Also, bodily autonomy is a basic human right. If anyone makes the free, informed, consenting choice to modify xyr own individual body, for whatever reason, they should absolutely be free to do so. Period.

I've encountered three basic arguments against transabled people's deserving acceptance and autonomy: that "it's a mental illness," that it's appropriation of disability, and that it's appropriation of transgenderness.

Obviously, anyone who's glimpsed my page knows how firmly I reject the first argument.

So is transabledness appropriation of disability? No. It is a disability. Society expects people to experience their bodies a certain way. Transabled people cannot do that. Because their abilities don't align with society's expectations of them, they are disabled. Even under the medical model of transabledness as a "disorder," that makes transabled people disabled.

So is transabledness appropriation of transgenderness? I'm not transabled or transgender, so that's not really for me to say. I can see the argument that it is. Maybe there should be a different term used, or a different framing that doesn't invite the comparison to transgenderness. But I also think we have to differentiate good-faith concerns about appropriation from bad-faith stigma shifting and respectability politics. Much of the queer liberation movement is centered on "Queer people deserve rights because they're neurotypical," which sacrifices the rights of neurodivergent people, including neurodivergent queer people. So if transgender people say that the "transabled" label is appropriation, we should listen to them, but if they say that transabled people "make them look bad" because "it's a mental illness," we should push back on that.

Short answer: I support acceptance and bodily autonomy for all people with all kinds of mental/physical differences, including transabledness.

[notmuchtoconceal]

Red Dragon was adapted to film three times. No cinematic portrayal has yet captured the particular majesty of its literary source, nor its subtle metaphysical quality, though each is interesting in its own right.

William Petersen remains my favorite Will Graham, and Manhunter the most sublime of the film versions, mainly for what it leaves unsaid. For how it draws you into a trance state through its hyper-modern design, full of minimalist white and chrome furnishings which emphasize empty space. It remains first and foremost a Michael Mann film, capturing the professionalism of being a G-man and Petersen's Will is allowed to return to domestic bliss upon its conclusion, cementing a kind of 80's optimism complete with cheesy synth music over the closing credits.

Ralph Fiennes remains my favorite on-screen Dolarhyde, mostly for he's the only actor who embodies the character's brutish physicality, though I don't particularly like the film he's in. The 2002 Red Dragon comes off like a cash-grab, capitalizing off the success of Silence of the Lambs, and its aesthetics -- while capturing more of the decaying contemporary gothic of its literary source -- are diminished by the film attempting to please too many masters. It reminds me of the similarly inferior late 90's film of The Talented Mr. Ripley, being both more loyal to what's on the page, as if to please legions of disappointed book readers, though also -- bloating the run-time with extraneous new subplots which flatter a general audience's pre-conceived biases. It frustrates you by giving you what you think you want, then doing its own thing anyway, though not very well, and you're left wishing it had just trimmed the fat and done something new instead of faffing about and having nothing new to say.

Edward Norton is by far my least favorite Will Graham, mostly for he comes across as a total charisma vacuum. Think the logic of casting him as Will was he was also a Hulk and the Narrator in Fight Club, so he's got cred struggling with latent psychopathy. Except in this he doesn't turn into a CGI monster or have Brad Pitt to play off him. Will is a complete entity in his own right and Edward Norton seems like a mask or shell.

NBC's Hannibal is the best adaptation of Red Dragon until it comes time to adapt Red Dragon, at which point it feels largely perfunctory.

As an adaptation, Hannibal is endlessly fascinating. Bryan Fuller compared himself to a remix artist, and that assessment is spot on.

When I watched the series for the first (and thus far only) time, I had just re-read the original trilogy, so I could see with fresh eyes and hear with open ears, the ways he turned bits of interior monologue into dialogue, fleshed-out the backstory, moved things around, changed the pace and flow through subtle re-framings. The closest point of comparison really is Mary Harron's excellent film of American Psycho (which distills to a sleek 102 minutes a work of four-dimensional Dostoevyskian tragedy masquerading as brand-name gore shlock), not only for how it juxtaposes primal violence with gourmet cooking, but narratively, structurally, in how it remixes and reinvents; turning Patrick Bateman's book-end revelation of his void state from a late-onset cry of despair to a stoic thesis statement simply part of his morning routine.

Bryan Fuller reinvents so much, draws out the queer subtext so totally, and ultimately has to -- the story he's telling is fundamentally about a man facing himself, being repulsed, but ultimately liking what he sees. The literary Will spurns Hannibal's one-side affections forever, which come across simply as sardonic taunts from a predator; yearning to take shelter in a woman's arms, but ending up deformed, for his primary opposite is the wounded Dolarhyde, not the Dark Prince Hannibal.

Hugh Dancy's Will is an entirely different beast. Every episode begins with based on Red Dragon, but the emphasis is right there in the title.

I suspect Bryan Fuller felt like he had to introduce Clarice at some point and kept putting it off because she had no place in the world he created. It's not only that his Will and his Hannibal are in love, and he'd be introducing a primordial tension into his own dark fantasy. The literary Will Graham may as well become Clarice. They share the same descent into the underworld to speak to the Devil Behind Bars. They speak to the same agent of unconscious revelation to get into the mind of a killer.

They are of the same mind, being both of Thomas Harris.

The Silence of the Lambs onward is a transgender narrative, not an androphilic one. The literary Clarice, prideful, self-assured, totally lacking in bullshit other than what's been trained into her, is an immediate delight. She's the one who ends up under Hannibal's control -- consent gradually surrendered -- as her true wants are revealed through drugs, hypnosis, childhood regression, the exhumation of her father's corpse. As Dolarhyde is the literary Will's shadow, so is Buffalo Bill Clarice's. She yearns to become a lawman like her father the sheriff, he yearns to become a beauty queen like the implied memory of his absent mother.

Will sees himself as a deformed monster. Clarice sees herself as a manufactured Other. Hannibal is inside both their heads.

The Devil Likes Him Some Cornpone Country Pussy.

The third book is titled Hannibal because Hannibal is its protagonist, even if for the bulk of it we follow Clarice. I had read an Amazon review back in 2008 or so, where someone accused it of being "clearly ghostwritten" because of its shift in narrative voice, yet this is wishful thinking. Its told from the detached, birds-eye view of a hyper-lucid Luciferian madman who is accounting for and manipulating all variables, luring all the extant players into his web of associations to claim his final prize.

I enjoy Ridley Scott's film version, for it's a Ridley Scott film. He has a well-studied classicism, but also a very down-to-earth ruggedness which fits the material perfectly. Most of his excisions are sensible, considering the running time. (Margot being even more politically volatile in the early 2000's when the backlash to Buffalo Bill seemed to be the trans representation issue... none, it would seem, being better than something easy to caricature by the heterosexual masses.) I recall a comment Scott made about thinking Hannibal was "turned-on" by Clarice's sense of Justice, and it being immediately clear this was his own fetish, not necessarily something implied by the text. (Picture now, Scott and James Cameron Bro-ing out about how he leveled up Ellen Ripley.)

Julianne Moore is a great replacement for Foster, being now an older, more jaded woman. The film is so deliberate, I appreciate how it inverts its literary counterpart's Satanic ending moreso than say -- the earlier un-alluded to Purple Noon, where Tom Ripley is brought to justice as if entangled in the umbilical thread of fate. Rather than Clarice being seduced by Hannibal, Hannibal is seduced by Clarice, chopping off his own hand much like a chastised young Tyr to a She-wolf Fenrir.

Bryan Fuller's treatment of the novelistic material here is close to about the only point in the series I'd call vacuous and self-indulgent.

It feels like he's subverting the pacing for the sake of being contrarian rather than giving his story room to breathe. Maybe it's because I like Scott's Hannibal so much, Fuller's treatment of the same scenes and characters feels like a pale imitation, of both its literary source and its filmic predecessor, yet I feel intuitively I may have been overwhelmed or alienated by the void of heartbreak, my rational faculties rebelling against what seems to be implications of a telepathic reality. I suspect those episodes will always be a mixed bag, being both too slow and too fast, largely for how behind-the-scenes tensions introduced conflicts into the pacing. Now understanding that his Will is replacing Clarice, and Clarice can only become the Bride of Satan by mutual recognition, I find Will's need to dive into Hannibal's past necessary, though by this point, the characters had largely outgrown whatever sources may have inspired them, and even if the second half of season 3 is more even, it feels constrained by the skeleton of its intended adaptation.

The Silence of the Lambs has been adapted to film precisely once, and it captures the essence of the novel almost well-enough to render it redundant. There's near nothing missing. What's cut is stitched back together with a surgical elegance befitting a master cosmetician.

The film is so sleek and streamlined, its makes corresponding sections of the novel seem clunky and bloated. When I remember the events of the story, I confess, I tend to remember the film better than the book, the way William Faulkner remembered his own evolving private daydreams of Candace Compson moreso than whatever it was he'd published in The Sound and the Fury -- "If you'll excuse me, I'm having an old friend for dinner." (Lecter's chemistry-based shit joke about Chilton is an absolute riot, though. Terrible it couldn't make it in.)

Anthony Hopkin's Lecter would never have become as iconic as he is without Jodi Foster's Clarice. As an adaptation, it's a masterpiece precisely because its a collaboration. Everyone on-screen is embodying a particular flavor of unspoken obsession, and everyone behind the camera is capturing it with an almost documentary realism, the same way Harris's prose has a journalistic objectivity, even when he's touring the fetid landscapes of his own inner hell. It works so well because there's no sole author to be burdened by the weight of the material. Its dispersed throughout the entire cast and crew and everyone is there for each other.

Furthermore, the story is inherently cinematic in a way Red Dragon simply isn't. Clarice is a plucky young professional woman looking to make it in a man's world, while Will Graham is retreating into early retirement for the duress the work is inflicting upon his tattered mind.

Will's isolation is chosen. Clarice's is imposed from without. We see her running the obstacle course alone. We see how male law enforcement officers look at her on the job. We see how even her own superiors need to play mindgames and switcheroos and put her at a disadvantage.

She has to play quid-pro-quo with Hannibal. She has to open up. She has to share. Will knows what Hannibal is because he's like him in a way she isn't. He can't be seduced by him. His pain is too constant, the threat too real. The literary Will lacks a certain feminine charm, which Mads's Hannibal is well-acquainted with, already seeming to have found some part of Mischa again in his friend and protégé, the gender-swapped Alana Bloom, who is also surrogate sister to Will, making them brothers.

In contrast, the novel Red Dragon is about highly introspective men being alone with themselves and thinking intense thoughts. The portraits of Will and Dolarhyde's psyches are two interlocked soliloquies which brutally clash like gongs by the conclusion. The literary Will, Dolarhyde and Hannibal are all playing the same game of cat and mouse from a distance, each alone with themselves. Hugh Dancy's Will is not only made more cinematic, but also incidentally charmingly feminine by having his monologues cut up into dialogue, as he's forced to physically converse with Hannibal, who in this version he's meeting for the first time.

The visual emphasis is also why it's so easy to reduce the filmic Buffalo Bill to a gay monster. The ways in which they function as a dark mirror to Clarice are not as obvious when you lose their interiority. When you simply present their sensual butterfly dance while the fat girl (Hollywood fat, of course) screams for help in the pain well, they become a blank screen for the audience to project their own fears of seeing or being an Other, but in a public place -- surrounded by people similarly disgusted, each a participant in the ultimate pretension of normality.

What makes the novel of The Silence of the Lambs unique is how its unmistakably a sequel to Red Dragon. The film version of Silence of the Lambs exists in relation to nothing but itself. Thomas Harris is repeating his previous work's structure, now with different characters.

It's much easier to get Clarice's interiority on-screen when you have Jodi Foster's eyes and voice to work with, and in the book she retains Will's quality of brooding intensity, but with an awareness of how what she says aloud supports and contradicts her interior monologue, which is naturally contrasted with Bill's. You can see the Clarice/Bill entanglement as a logical repeat of the Will/Dolarhyde one, and with this absent, the filmic emphasis shifts to Clarice's darkly subdued romance with Hannibal, which similarly becomes the emphasis in Bryan Fuller's television version, but with the focus of his meet-cute being Will.

That Silence of the Lambs should be such a crowd-pleaser is no surprise. It's the only entry in the original trilogy which has a happy ending which falls within the dictates of the common tribal morality. The killer is caught. The woman is saved. Clarice is redeemed and graduates on-time. Her professional surrogate father is proud of her. Hannibal escapes. An element of danger remains. A sequel promised. It doesn't ask us to dramatically re-shift our focus or reconsider all we know.

A rare act two high note.

The Devil is in the Details, and details are the domain of long-term prose.

Reading is itself a solitary and introspective activity. That is, unless one is reading scripture. That a man should realize the degree to which he is like a Devil Himself, or how that same Devil He Is could be the sole True Want of just and upright professional woman, for the so-called "Good Men" who uphold the law fear and revile her, isn't the type of thing you'd want to share communally with loved ones, unless you're willing to take on the responsibility of hurting them in the way they need to be hurt.

[identitty-dickruption]

The flight from the nonconforming body translates into individual efforts to look normal, neutral, unmarked, to not look disabled, queer, ugly, fat, ethnic, or raced... Thus, our unmodified bodies are presented as unnatural and abnormal, whereas the surgically altered bodies are portrayed as normal and natural...

Take two related examples: first, the surgical separation of conjoined twins and, second, the surgical assignment of gender for the intersexed, people with ambiguous genitalia and gender characteristics. Both forms of embodiment are regularly— if infrequently— occurring, congenital bodily variations that spectacularly violate sacred ideologies of Western culture. Conjoined twins contradict our notion of the individual as discrete and autonomous quite similarly to the way pregnancy does. Intersexed infants challenge our insistence that biological gender is unequivocally binary. So threatening to the order of things is the natural embodiment of conjoined twins and intersexed people that they are almost always surgically normalised through amputation and mutilation immediately after birth

Garland-Thomson (2008), Integrating Disability, Transforming Disability Theory

[fatfemmefreaquency]

hey y’all. i’ve been innactive here for an age, it seems

there were a few reasons for my disappearing act, but mostly i was increasingly sick of tumblr cracking down on “nsft” / “community guideline limited” content and how bleak that makes a social media/ microblogging space for sex workers and trans & queer folks, especially trans women/ transfeminine people and trans BIPoC

but… reasonably safe and sustainable spaces to exist in on the internet are rapidly disappearing (and by “disappearing” i mostly mean being actively destroyed by asshole tech bros), so after a couple months of lurking on tumblr more than i have in the past two-ish years, i think i’m going to start posting here again (maybe)

i’m a lot less “extremely-online” than i used to be and spend most of my time away from social media these days—even when i’m on a computer

and i’m not sure if i’ll be here to stay

tumblr is still really cracking down on content that is restricted by community guidelines, and while i “get it,” this still fundamentally seems like a violation of freedom of expression to me—and it’s a policy that is disproportionately applied against trans and queer folks like myself at a time when creeping fascism already aggressively targets us for censorship, stigma, and other violent harm

i’m also not sure that social media/ microblogging in general still has the same place in my life that it used to

i came of age on the internet and on tumblr in particular. i’ve been posting on tumblr on one blog or another since 2010

but the internet (like most other spaces in the world) is increasingly oppressive, hierarchical, tightly controlled and surveilled by both major multi-national corporations and governments, anti-freedom, and in many spaces out-and-out fascist—and being a marginalized person (in my personal case: trans, queer, disabled, and more) in public spaces is a precarious position these days

so… all that to say: hi again! if you’re still following! i hope you’ve been well! (feel free to unfollow if you don’t want to still be following me—i know it’s been a while since i would have last crossed your dash)

i used to be “toadbutch” (once upon a time i was “neko-catsume” and before that even i was “passingprivilege” (cringy! i know! I was like… 17) and before even that i was “marigoldmay” and, way back when i started on here, “etaunknown”) but lately i’ve been on a journey and…

as i transition i’ve realized that i mostly wanted to be butch and embody that particular queer/ lesbian gender role because i wanted to be perceived as masculine/ androgynous and have my masculinity respected as a transmasc dyke

early on in my social transition i felt very insecure in both my masculinity and transness and felt that presenting femme, even though i wanted to embody a queer femininity and not a cishet femininity, would result in people—especially cis, straight, and non-queer people—misgendering me more

but the more comfy i get with my gender and my masculinity as i get further into my transition & grow into my adult self, the more i’ve settled into the realization that i’m very, very much femme—and a bit of a fruity femme at that. hence the URL change. i’m fat. i’m femme. and i’m not going to apologize for being bigender and riding the line between dykiness and faggotry

if you’re not here for that sort of queer complexity: here’s the door. you won’t be missed

tangentially related to my past desire to be butch/ identification with butchness and temporary embodiment of it:

i also love and admire butches and masc people—and particularly butch lesbians and women—very much. on some levels i wanted to be like them, to be like the people i admired so strongly. but it is possible to love people and feel a profound kinship with them and not choose or try to be like them—this is one of life’s profound joys and a lesson that i’m still learning

i have no idea if i’ll still be on tumblr in another day, a month, or a year

i definitely will still be my freaky boydyke, ladyfag self at all of those future moments though. so. count on that, i guess

i am never going to abandon my love for other lesbians and queer people. my support for people with complex identities and self-determination. and i will always love and admire queer masculinity and butch gender expression

i’m prepared to give tumblr another chance… even though i’m not sure i want to give any social media or any public expression of myself a chance in this current socio-political climate. and also in spite of the fact that the corporate entity behind tumblr seems plagued by the same flawed capitalist mindset that is damaging other social networks in this cultural moment

further: i’m just as wary of puritanical respectability-policing lgbtq+ people on here as i am of puritanical respectability-policing anti-queer and anti-trans conservatives

reactionaries exist in the lgbtq+ community every bit as much as they do amongst cishets. and i have no interest in engaging with anyone of either stripe

I’m profoundly disturbed by the level of radical feminist, sex negative, political lesbian, lesbian separatist, and trans-exclusionary, so-called “gender critical” ideology that has wormed its way into lgbtq+ spaces and into lesbian and sapphic communities as of late

too many young lgbtq people are aggressively exclusionary and most of their exclusionary ideas have their ideological roots in radical feminism and in separatist movements. these youth are often heavily puritanical, very detached from in-person queer community, unconnected to older generations of queer people (even to elder millennials or Gen X), and have no genuine understanding of queer history beyond misinformation and spin-doctored posturing posted by other respectability-seeking young people online

i fully support all good-faith queer self-determination. i fully support all consensual sexual activity between adults that is engaged in with healthy boundaries and with proper risk awareness

i support these things because i work to completely reject the respectability politics that are necessary to engage in any power-adjacent or privileged role within the white supremacist imperialist capitalist cis heteropatriarchy. you cannot dismantle any oppressive system while engaging in sex-negativity and policing the self-determination of queer and trans people

if actively posting on tumblr again brings me into contact with too many reactionaries, i might be here today and gone tomorrow

i guess we’ll just have to see

[musicalrecs]

Today's shamless promotion is one of my very favorite musicals, A Year With Frog and Toad.

Shockingly, not many people seem to be aware that the beloved children's book series is a delightful children's musical! The musical follows the "plot" of the books fairly closely, so if you've read the books you'll recognize the various vignettes, like "oh no we can't stop eating these delicious cookies" and "flying kites is hard actually" and "squirrels ruin an attempt at anonymous kindness."

What's the plot? Frog and Toad are friends (possibly queer "friends" if you like, there's more on this online if you want to get into it). They do things together and sing songs about it. It's very cute. Also, some other animals show up to sing songs, the best of which is Snail, who is doing his best to deliver a letter even though he is verrrrrrry slowwwwwww.

Who should watch? People who love nice things. Like, literally, the embodiment of nice, and also cozy. Frog and Toad is a great listen when you're feeling a little blue, or just need something cheerful on as you go about your day.

You definitely don't have to be a kid to enjoy it, but if a man earnestly singing about how he loves being a frog and being happy in the warm sunny summer doing nothing but chilling with his best friend makes you cringe, well, Frog and Toad is not for you.

Anything triggering? There's a song called "Getta Loada Toad" with the refrain "Toad looks funny in a bathing suit" which isn't explicitly fat shaming but sure isn't great for body positivity. Fortunately, it's easy to skip on the soundtrack.

Can I watch it online? Sort of! Frog and Toad is a pretty simple show to stage, with only five cast members and basic sets, so there are quite a few local/amateur productions filmed and on youtube. However, I recommend listening to the soundtrack first, as the songs are best when you can hear them properly.

What's the best number? My personal favorite is probably "Merry Almost Christmas," which is about how it's (surprise!) almost Christmas and Frog and Toad are together and is'n't that nice and lovely? Kids, however, are more into "Cookies" and "Down the Hill," which are more energetic and fun.

Links Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/3ro3pvqmDCqk324ZzfHwEJ

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFBsR4X5Xno32fE2BvwXUG91mcRUPvzDV

A nicely shot production:

Frog is played by a woman in this, which is a bit unusual fyi, but no reason that can't be the case.

[wanderinglotus7]

I appreciated reading this book. Another book about feminism, yet with a Black perspective. Not only a Black perspective, but from a voice of someone who identifies as a Fat Black Queer Woman. I don’t necessarily identify myself in that way, but I loved how this author spoke true on how she navigates in this world. Speaking the truth in acknowledging and embodying our intersectionality. Who knew there is such a thing called Trap feminism. If trap feminism means I can be me without giving 2 f**ks of what others think of me…sign me up!

I am a Christian Black Feminist Demisexual Woman who is intelligent, independent, compassionate, and adventurous who is also a counselor, a storyteller, an advocate, a prayer warrior, and a bookworm who loves her music and probably the realest person you’ll ever meet.

HERE ARE MY TAKEAWAYS:

“Generally speaking, Black people do have a higher tolerance for body fat on feminine bodies than other groups do. But thick and fat are not the same thing. White beauty norms will always find themselves a seat at the table, even ours, and that includes vicious fat phobia.”

“For those of us who are most marginalized, beauty actually becomes a tool that can be used to defend ourselves against racism, sexism, transphobia, classism, etc.”

“Multiple studies have concluded that Black women and girls have higher rates of self-esteem and confidence than other female groups. Confidence is waiting on the other side of choosing to keep it real with yourself, choosing to heal some shit, choosing to humble yourself.”

“Maintaining your standards means saying no to people, places, and things that don’t serve you.”

“Economic mobility is a bit of a myth in that it’s often dangled in front of Black folks as the key to a better life, but without context, nuance, or a blueprint.”

“Our bodies are heavily surveilled and our behaviors unfairly policed out of fear that we will misuse our sexuality. We’re expected to protect ourselves from abusers, and it’s us who are held accountable when we are abused. We’re denied the right to innocence before we’re old enough to know what it means.”

“Our own internalized anti-Blackness has led us to believe that Black excellence comes only in the form of heterosexual marriage, kids, and wealth building. Because our survival as Black folks in Westernized culture often depends on our ability and willingness to succeed under these moral codes, we’ve embraced those heteronormative, binary rules and incorrectly processed them as part of some natural order.”

“ The reasons and methods used to shame Black women for their choices in sex, dating, and relationships are endless. Black women can no longer afford to be martyrs, healers, parents, or scapegoats in our relationships. I’M NOT A THERAPIST, A BUSINESS MENTOR, A LIFE COACH, OR A CRISIS MANAGER. I AM NOT TAKING ON ANY OF THOSE ROLES TO DATE SOMEONE. I WANT A LOVER, NOT A JOB.”

“Friendship is how you get really good practice in empathy, healthy conflict resolution, and to build and be in community. It’s how you learn to appreciate community so that you’re not headed into your other relationships expecting one person to be your everything.”

[chlorophylliccoyote]

I should read Queering Fat Embodiment over the summer, from the chapter I've read for my research paper it seems to be a comprehensive and interesting read. Of course I'm reading a chapter from someone who isn't one of the main authors, but hey at least they link to a bunch of artists on Deviantart who draw hawt men.

[hardpacker]

i did an interview yday and i sort of touched on this but not all of it, so i'm sharing these notes

i draw and write what i do because i want my work to look like me and i want to see me in it.

i'm not good at letting gender be a "vibe" or a "moodboard", intangible like that. in fact "my gender is __ even though i don't look like it, yeah it's my ‘aesthetic’" is pretty distressing for me. lack of embodiment and living exclusively thru projection/formless reflection is distressing. the queerness and queer sex i was formatively exposed to and gravitated toward was... classic, hard, hairy, leathery and even difficult to pin down with titles but still highly physical, or elicited that response/impulse in me. a lot of memories are lost to me and i don't know how to recover them— and so much time spent without another soul to reflect on it. i remember the first internet porno spam i saw. leafing thru erotic coffee table erotica. European comics about bears and twinks hooking up on the Mediterranean. Blixa Bargeld's strap-on harness. wet messy yaoi. but little for me to Be, in a real way.

it's so fucked and also only a teeny tiny example of a far bigger thing but i'll always remember when i first posted a picture of myself on deviantart, i think i was like 15 or 16, and people were like "oh i expected someone skinnier." this clearly really stayed with me, and it isn't an outlier. although it didn't shift anything then, things like this built up over time and my relationship to/presence in my work very slowly evolved. socially and in school, from the top down or among peers, there was no incentive or encouragement to draw trans people, fat people, anyone outside of stock shit, at all. you could work and labour and be rewarded for breaking yourself in half, all the while it's happening in a viciously transphobic environment. 

over the years things have changed for better and worse as we pursue "representation" and "visibility," but i was really burnt by fluctuations in online culture that lead to trans men having to Be One Thing with either proper scars and muscle, or a textureless circle, and the sex they have is supposed to be smooth and tearful and deferential in service to the man or woman— or image of masculinity/femininity— they're with. and you still get fucking harasses for venturing outside of this, both in the work and as a real living person. i'd rather just be called a woman or a slur because at least that's an honest reaction, and not this cruelty, pity, disguised as care.

however, i also want to say that i was never given the benefit of the doubt that i was sweet and small and shy. there are the benefits of whiteness, certainly. but not transness. i've never been treated that way or protected by it. not with friends or family or police or the court. i don't think "sweetness" is neutral or that it's the most pressing issue that trans men face. being ill is its own strange degendering or forcibly gendered experience. being fat and ugly is its own degendering experience in which i have more in common with fat people of all genders. being seen as violent, visibility of transition only increasing this baseless expectation, that you can turn on a dime, that it's all harm or just plain difficulty waiting to happen and that's justification for being treated as an unreliable narrator of your own needs, your own life, that you need to rein it in or someone needs to control you to set you right. and that most of this is not seen, is a bigger problem than this strange idea of sweetness, this strange idea of being protected by your transness. protected by your assigned birth. do not remind me of my assigned birth. i'm trans because i'm not that. the people who DO benefit from protection in life, their visibility is like, completely disproportionate versus the reality.

if it is as big an issue as they say, then i think about like... if children are the most vulnerable people then being seen as a permanent and incapable child— especially at the intersection of things like fatness and neurodivergence, for example, where you're seen as untrustworthy, clearly can't take care of yourself— as property, but also as a womb, as a body for taking, facing domestic, sexual, medical abuse and neglect, homelessness and forced hospitalisation... death. revulsion, abuse and murder aren't the results of supposed smol beanification. it feels so mythological to me. so yeah i wasn't aware this was the way other people characterised us til mid-2010s tumblr— in which i learned in past tense that there was some pervasive way of handling us. i admit there are times i certainly would've liked to have been protected. but this idea of meek non-threatening sweetness (and, perhaps, wielding that like a threat when convenient) fell completely flat to me and many of my friends, especially ones working-class and nonwhite, or mentally ill in socially unacceptable ways, or with bodies seen as too sexual or built too big... so, aggressive, ha ha.

so i don't show this in my art either, not currently. it's alien. it is a concept i'm aware of only thru a game of telephone.

i show trans men being misgendered and deadnamed and pushed and pulled, the dressage, touched and beaten and abandoned. i've been told that portraying the real things we go through is tantamount to me committing those very same hate crimes and i've been told my work just has a “bad vibe” on sight. yes i do show trans men being punished from all sides despite every effort to ping pong between everyone's preferences. the exhaustion of trying over and over only to fail to please and suffer the consequences of abstaining, or giving themselves over to the performance forever until they burn out. art is play the way leather is play. and in my work trans men can be found both suffering from and playing with roles and expectations, the violence, reenacting these sources of trauma among each other.