#THe WoC the QueeR Men

[gutsinknots]

Girls, women,WOC, POC, afab, LGBTQIA+ adults and kids: start being meaner

And I’m not saying this to be funny, be meaner if it means protecting yourself. Be harsh and unwavering to those who actively voted against your rights

Don’t give them sympathy, empathy or the benefit of the doubt. They sure didn’t give us that

Protect yourself in any way you can.

Plan B has a shelf life of 4 years if stored properly

Be critical of men, doesn’t matter what they believe. Don’t let them have access to your bodies, hell keep them at an arms length

LGBTQIA+ do what you need to do to stay safe. I know most of us already know but; evaluate where you are and the people around you. We are a strong community, we can preserve. Both on love and spite. We deserve to exist and love

Those who voted Trump do not deserve a passive life

Those who voted third party did not heed our warnings, they shouldn’t feel good about themselves

Those who actively decided not to vote are cowards

They should not be forgiven

[textk4kira]

Happy Trans Day of Visibility!

A special shoutout to intersex trans people, multigender folks, and trans poc 💗 You do not get the love and attention you so rightfully deserve.

[tortoisewithoutashell]

What’s your favorite thing about being queer?

[oimoi-op]

About your tags on the Lucienne post: oh we usually aren't even half this nice LMAOOO I could be a lot meaner but like. Both our posting about her and also the anger and frustration comes from the same place of love for and fascination with her. There's so much to talk about it's insane

Literally tho like!!!!! she's such a compelling character on so many levels, yet a lot of the fandom reduces her to the "mom friend" or other similarly reductive if not misogynistic stereotypical roles so for me (someone not super involved in the fandom these days) it's so refreshing to see you and others discussing her on her own merits and not just an accessory/afterthought for someone's white slash ship lol

[officialcojabrown]

[theflashjaygarrick]

After thinking about the comic fandom's prioritisation of white male characters I feel like it's a self fulfilling cycle.

Mainstream discourse around superhero comics is all about how white male centric the genre is. The general consensus in fandom is that women don't like female characters because they are badly written and 2-dimensional in most nerd franchises.

And if you go in with that mindset you'll fairly assume that the characters who have the best runs and most interesting stories are the white men. And if you look at fandom spaces and people are waxing poetic about characters like Jason Todd and Tim Drake and acknowledging that characters like Babs, Steph and Cass exist this only will reinforce this perception. So the person getting into batfam go and ask for the best stories about the Batboys or read summaries about their arcs, only seeing these women as background characters in male characters stories.

But the thing is that isn't strictly. I mean I 100% agree that comics are sexist and racist but that doesn't mean that there aren't phenomenal and iconic runs starring and entering female characters (including queer women, disabled women, and WOC). Cassandra Cain and Kate Kane probably have two of the best character bibles out of the entire batfamily in the form of Batgirl 2000 and Batwoman: Elegy. Selina and Babs both have more well received story lines/runs than Jason Todd does.

Great stories with nuanced female characters exist but the assumption they don't means that people don't look for them. So instead they draw upon stories with the Batboys (minus Luke Fox, JPV and often Duke) in their fan art and fan fiction and discussions and accidentally obscure the stories of female characters in the batman mythos even more.

And the cycle continues.

[woman-respecter]

I think my respect for some leftist (white) men and (some) white queers online kinda dropped during the election because it really rubbed me the wrong way how willing they were to not only throw their fellow queers under the bus along but also then tell POC and Women in general that their rights, abortion rights among other things are just so frankly unimportant to what’s going on in Gaza like “how dare you care about your fellow women and queer Americans? You need to care more about THIS issue that we all started caring about now.” And then call them genocidal baby killers, Nazis, facist and every evil name under the sun (saw a guy call someone a fat Nazi pig which ew.)

As if we could really do anything other than protest and push for politicians to do something.

And then on top of that I won’t lie they came off as lowkey racists esp when they were calling Kamala hitler and shit but refusing to do the same to trump and republicans. Even now if you look at blogs that were heavily critical of her and Biden, they’re still ripping on them but they’re refusing to say anything critical about trump if anything they’re just cracking jokes about him. As a woc it was just really strange and honestly it hurts because it’s like ‘I thought we were allies? But i guess my life actually means nothing to you.’

leftists were so evil and counterproductive during the 2024 election and it was obv driven by a hatred for women poc and jews

[jesncin]

Your recent Lois post reminded me of an idiotically racist fandom I was a part of, where not only did people only ever focus on the brown Asian character to ship her with the boring white character, but literally always replaced all her character traits with “just the girlfriend” to depict said white character as more impressive or dominant in comparison. To this date, I have only seen 1 piece of fanart over 3 years that depicted the brown Asian character with the confidence she actually had in relation to the white character. Despite this, I still see everyone praise this fandom as being incredibly progressive and free of racism, and frame anyone who thinks otherwise as not being able to handle “valid alternate interpretations”. (The irony being these same people would lose their minds if the fandom treated the white character a fraction of the same way as they did the brown character) .

Oh absolutely I get you. I think fandom doesn't recognize that a racist dynamic or interpretation isn't solely like- racist caricatures/ slurs/ hate crimes or anything particularly heavy and blatant all the time. Sometimes it's our biases seeping into an interpretation, watering down a WOC to being "just the girlie" and using a ton of progressive language to cover it up ("she doesn't need a man!" "what's wrong with her being feminine" "free her from her relationship with a white man!" {<- performative way to say you don't like interracial couples} etc etc).

The Spiderverse fandom was a nightmare with this kind of stuff, especially with Hobie and Pavitr. Hobie is suddenly characterized as aggressive and dominant meanwhile Pavitr is feminine and uwu small boy when that's pretty much the opposite of their characterization in the movie. White queer fandom was too busy pushing "why can't men be feminine" without realizing they were infantilizing an Asian character and adultifying a Black character through blatant racist stereotypes.

"Fandom doesn't know how to be normal around characters of color" has just been my motto tbh. It's weird how I can list all my grievances with MAWS Lois explicitly as horrible regressive representation for an Asian character, and I still get push back from people who comfortably say "I see nothing wrong with all that. I think she has the right to be a xenophobe. This doesn't bother me."

[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.

[societyoflittletrees]

Hey hey, so it seems that unfortunately it is a lesser known fact that Hanya Yanagihara doesn’t identify as straight and has a rather complex relationship with gender.

She is often generalized as just another “straight woman” profiting off of queer men in literature, but if she’s going to be critiqued, I rather it be accurate to who she is rather than an assumption based off of a stereotype.

She is a queer woc which seems to be often ignored or simply unknown in discourse around A Little Life.

A Little Life is complex as is the author herself. There’s more nuance than “this is bad rep” or “this is good rep” as well as “this person is gay” or “this person is straight”.

Make sure your critiques, as well as praises, are accurate and based off of fact rather than assumption, especially when it comes to an artist/author’s real life character and values. Context and dramaturgical research is important!

Here’s a link to the New Yorker interview where she discusses these facets of herself:

[officialcojabrown]

[fruitbasketball]

i see your stand point of cc. and i’m not trying to defend her in any way, but as a woc myself, i don’t see how this is fair to her at all. im a personal believer that your actions and words reflect you, and other people’s actions and words reflect them. i believe it’s in the way you treat people as a human being that deems you a ‘good’ person. as far as i’ve seen, cc has given praise to legends and poc before her. i do think color has a major factor in the way her fans act, but i don’t believe her fans are a reflection of her at all. she’s spoken out about how there’s no room for racism or bigotry in her fanbase/the wnba. i genuinely believe she wants to play the game of basketball and get her money. i don’t think there should be anything wrong with that. i don’t think any other wnba player has been asked to ‘talk to’ their fan base about the way they act on social media, because i don’t think any other wnba player has had the amount of fans that cc has had. i just don’t really understand why it’s expected of her to say something to a group of people that support her, while also supporting things (out of their own delusion) that she clearly does not support. we saw it in the way tom brady fans reacted to people calling mahomes the greatest of all time. brady wasn’t asked to or expected to quiet his supporters (even with the amount of racist remarks that were unnecessarily brought into the conversation). i don’t mean to come across as trying to start an argument, but i just want to understand why you believe it’s her responsibility to try to control a mass of people that don’t reflect her beliefs (that she has made public) in the slightest?

i appreciate this discourse!!

i think firstly, the nfl is a bad comparison. the nfl has a really shitty history dealing with political statement, or even statements of dissent. you can look to colin kaepernick for this; the expectation of the nfl is to remain a largely apolitical league.

the same is not true of the wnba. a league full of queer, black women cannot afford to be apolitical. conversely, a league full of straight men can largely afford that. the wnba can’t, nor has it ever attempted to.

you’re talking about a league that rallied for black lives matter, who came together to bring bg home from russia, who has and will continue to speak about injustices as frequently as possible. cc either needs to get with the program or get the fuck out.

that’s the other issue with comparing her to tom brady. we’re not going to sit around and say that they had the same impact on both their sports. are new england sports fans just generally and largely racist? absolutely. is it tom brady who brought them into the sport? certainly not. they were there before.

so when caitlin clark is bringing her fans into this black, queer space, she has to be aware of her privilege as a straight, white woman. “she just wants to play basketball and get her money” doesn’t work here. she chose to declare for THIS league. if she wanted to play in an apolitical space, she could’ve gone and played overseas. but she chose the wnba. so she’s just gonna have to suck it up.

and i know we want to say “she spoke out about this this and this”. no the fuck she didn’t?? she answered a question asked of her in a presser that most people didn’t and will not see. a statement made AFTER her teammates girlfriend tweeted out saying: “damn, this mfker needa say smth”. what was she going to say “yes, i condone racism”?? there’s no statement made of her own will, no instagram post, no tweet, no nothing. her “speaking out” was lazy, it was forced, and it was ineffective. it’s just not enough.

i don’t expect her to control her mass of racist fans. i expect her to make any attempt to do so. i expect her to make an effort to distance herself from that narrative.

and it is immensely disappointing that she hasn’t even really tried.

[prodigal-explorer]

okay i hate it more than anything but i also find it so hilarious when white people try super hard to seem like they’re the most diverse creators of all time but they end up just being super racist/sexist/homophobic because all they know about oppressed groups are the stereotypes about them 😭

like in a “watching a dumpster fire” kind of way.

and the thing is as a disabled queer woc, it’s SO OBVIOUS to me whenever it happens like it’s so clear when somebody only makes inclusive headcanons or characters to get brownie points and not because they actually care about diversity.

“hey guys uhhhh see this black man? surprise! she’s actually a transfemme! i’ll bet you guys never expected that! aren’t i such a good person for acknowledging that transfemmes can be buff? or that woc can be queer? or that black people exist?”

“guys you’re never gonna believe this, that super mean girl bully character is actually a lesbian! she’s only mean because she’s terrified of getting close to a woman because she can’t control her predatory urges! aren’t i so inclusive and thoughtful?”

“omg look! it’s a lesbian couple! queer women deserve more of a spotlight in the media! okay now that that’s out of the way, back to the little gay white men, the lesbians had half a chapter, that’s enough to fill out the quota, right?”

“i have some good angst for this asian character…let’s make him a super academic perfectionist who has a really strict mom who makes him do hours of homework every day! oh oh and let’s give her a thick and exaggerated asian accent! just so i can show that i know that asian people have asian accents sometimes. aren’t i so culturally sensitive?”

“yes! genius! i made my super whitewashed hispanic character call his lover “mi amor” a few times. wow. i’m such a good and racially knowledgeable person. i can’t wait to get lots of attention for this!”

that’s just the energy i get when i read some of these fanfics LMAO and i wish i could call ppl out on it but i also don’t care and i know it’ll get me clowned on.

[pumpumdemsugah]

A while ago, I retired pointing out the left sometimes hides behind criticism of white women to be sexist because some white women saw that and used that to pretend they're not cartoonishly racist while saying white nationalist shit because they said cultural realitisim and moc still benefit from sexism and then refused to look in the mirror. These women are usually western chauvinist as well and love banging on about learning, but God forbid their lazy racist asses picks up a history book about the west

White women like this genuinely think men in our respective communities are the only thing standing in the way of female solidarity when the only type of solidarity they're capable of having with WOC is one of dominantation where they get to throw tantrums if they don't like the way a WOC is talking about race and sexism

Women like this think it's helpful to WOC to be racist about MOC because they're men like they're not talking about your race.

And I'll see some WOC concede. You're not tired of acting like a fucking doormat? You switched from being a doormat for men in your community for white women who treat you like mentally inferior attack dogs. I hope you get bored. It's embarrassing.

People who confuse honesty with controversy are thick. I'll say X because racist white queers said Y. Baby brain behaviour

[woman-respecter]

My goal was to be off tumblr for a year but girl I just saw the most absolutely rancid take and needed to tell someone. I saw someone in a youtube comment section (I know, I know) genuinely argue that 4B is insufficiently intersectional because if men aren't having consensual sex, they'll go out and rape more, and since woc, queer women, disabled women, etc experience disproportionate rates of sexual violence, it'll be them getting raped probably, so going 4B is actually sentencing less privileged women to be raped. I genuinely think my brain is broken from that. "If you don't have sex with a man it's your fault if he rapes another woman" is one of the most insane things I've ever seen someone try to spin as leftist and that is fucking saying something. Like I could sit here and list all the reasons that's wrong but. Oh my god.

They started off their insane essay with this: "I heard a good point, and someone described this as taking a toy from a petulant child. (The toy being seggs, not women). If the child isn’t made to understand why the toy was taken away, they will continue to keep saying how unfair you’re being. And they might just steal a new toy from someone else if they don’t get their way." I LOVE how predatory men are children that have to be handled gently and delicately and have it explained to them with a little Blue's Clues song why they aren't getting laid, and if you don't do that you're responsible for their actions. Men are adults! Men CHOOSE to rape women! Why are we blaming women for men's actions! Why are we doing that and CALLING IT FEMINIST??? Like I thought we agreed that men don't rape due to a lack of consensual sex, they rape because they like having and exerting power over people? I thought that was like, one of the basic things we talked about in rape culture 101?

Jesus fucking Christ. I know that person sat back after writing their dissertation so satisfied with themselves for being One Of The Good Feminists, intersectional and socially aware and apologetic of their privilege, not one of those evil radfems who think men should be held responsible for their actions.

Anyways sorry for subjecting you to this but it actually broke my brain in half and I needed someone else to suffer with me.

omg first of all hey girl its been a while! good to hear from you even if it’s in this shitty scenario!

and yeah, what a rancid, yet not unexpected take. blaming women for men’s actions is like. classic misogyny. like i am a certified misandrist but even i don’t believe that the majority of men will go out and rape random women just because they’re constantly rejected. and even if they would it is NOT the duty of any woman to give a man sex that she doesn’t want to give, just to protect hypothetical other women. that’s such a shitty guilt trip. in that situation it would be a category 5 KAM moment, if giving in to sex was the only thing we could do to prevent rape.

[jesncin]

That Clayface fumble in CC is strange to me because honestly, there’s a very obvious narrative here about Clayface being a Scarlett Johansson type? A famous white guy actor who’s so convinced of his skills that he believes he can take roles that are clearly not meant for him, that he even gets the character better, and his transformation into Clayface is a part of that. One could make the satire hit harder by having the industry accept Clayface’s monstrous form for its cost-saving measures. Something something, Hollywood would sooner empathize with a grotesque monster than it would a WoC. Not that Clayface should be shunned for his form but you get the idea.

WHOA now that's what we call a subversion with purpose! I super love this idea for Clayface because it does a great job differentiating itself from BTAS' version, and it tells a compelling story with new critical social commentary. Like if they were going to have Miss Yvonne Francis be a WoC, then maybe tell a story where that identity is talked about because otherwise glazing over racism in Tinsel Town becomes a huge elephant in the room.

I love the twist on the monster becoming a more acceptable commodity over marginalized people- even if we were to include the BTAS version of Clayface being coded as a gay man, he would still hold privilege over WoC as a white gay man. This belief that some white gay men think they can appropriate other roles because of their proximity to a type of marginalization? That would be tasty commentary. Especially with a queer WoC like Renne Montoya being the one to uncover the plot.

Too bad that despite CC touting itself as a dark and edgy show, all it ended up saying with their version of Clayface is "actor who plays bad guys ends up liking be a bad guy irl"- and all the interesting concepts of a guy viewing people as movie roles in his life is sidelined. All we got out of that was Yvonne calling him a bad actor.