#TMBD Fandom exorsexism

[rjalker]

People are really acting like whitewashing in live action just happens in a vacuum and doesn't contribute to or stem from white supremacy at all.

What do you think is happening to all the people of color whose roles are instead being given to white people? you think more jobs just appear out of thin air? you think those jobs won't also be stolen by white people? You think whitewashing is just a silly little thing that only people on the internet care about?

doubly fucking so when the character cannonically has dark skin. Colorism is absolutely a factor. And it gets even worse when the character is explicitly nonbinary and aroace.

Real actors exist who could fill this role, but instead of letting them have the job, it's getting tossed to rich cisallohet white men once again.

And everyone's fine with this because they refuse to grasp the concept that every job designed for Queer people of color that gets snatched up by a cisallohet white man is one more Queer person of color who's out of a fucking job.

[murderbotwritingprompts]

Yes, yes, you love Murderbot. You think Murderbot is so funny and relatable. You'd die for Murderbot. We know.

But do you actually use Murderbot's it/its pronouns? Do you actually respect the fact that it's an everything-repulsed aroace and is solitaremit touch-averse, and the fact that it represents real people who are these things?

Or do you just "love" the "relatable" version of Murderbot that exists in your head, where you've cut out and replaced everything that makes it who it is as a character with things you can personally relate to, even though the whole theme of the series is that you need to respect people even when you can't relate to them?

Do you think "representation matters" only when you're the one being represented?

Do you think it magically becomes okay to erase canon Queer identities and disabilities as long as you're not the one being represented?

Do you actually love the character of Murderbot, who is explicitly everything-repulsed aroace, nonbinary and uses it/its pronouns exclusively, and is soltaremit touch-averse?

Or do you just love the OC you've slapped its name onto that exists in your head?

[rjalker]

I fucking hate it when people go "oh Progressive™ art gets so much more scrutiny than things Blatantly Made By Conservatives™~! How come my favorite Queer movie gets criticized for being racist so much? How come my favorite author gets criticized for being transmisic so much? It's such a double standard!"

Are you sure it's a double standard? Are you sure it's not just that you think any criticism is too much criticism? Do you understand the purpose behind pointing out criticism and telling people they've done something hurtful? Do you think it would be even remotely constructive to explain to conservatives that they're being racist? Do you understand why people are more willing to educate self-styled Progressives™ about the ways they're being bigoted?

Are "progressive" stories and creators actually "held to a higher standard" or do you just think they should be immune to criticism because the author appeals to people like you in particular?

Someone taking the time to explain in detail why XYZ "progressive" author is racist but not bothering to explain why ABC bigoted authors is racist is not "holding progressive creators to higher standards".

It's assuming that people who call themselves progressive actually care about learning from their mistakes and genuinely want to do good in the world, including unlearning bigotry they didn't notice.

If you're supposed to a be a good person, the thing you do when someone points out bigotry is apologize and do better in the future. Not bemoan the fact that no one sits down and writes a five thousand word educational essay telling the MAGA Don't Tread On Me Republicans where they've gone wrong and how it could be fixed.

I think you people are just insecure bigots who don't like seeing your favorite creators called out for bigotry, so now you have to pretend that they're being uniquely oppressed because other oppressed people are taking the time to educate people about the ways they're being bigoted and hurting people.

And again. You people need to aknowledge the fact that criticizing bigotry from people who say they want to be good people is a hell of a lot more likely to be productive than criticizing the bigotry of people who've openly and happily dedicated their entire personality to being racist and bigoted "to own the libs".

It's not a double standard. It's literally just people trusting that people who call themselves progressive actually want to be progressive.

[rjalker]

things I realize while tying a ribbon to a shovel: Oh, the reason so many people misgender Murderbot and assign it a binary gender (almost always male, with he/him pronouns, because they're blatant and unapologetic misogynists ontop of the exorsexism), is because binary people view being nonbinary as a punishment.

Binary people view not being one of the binary genders as degrading.

They think that being one of the binary genders is a reward you get for being a person. They think it's something Murderbot should graduate to to overcome being treated like a mindless automaton.

That's why so many people insist that Murderbot is actually a man, or a woman.

Because they think being a "he" or a "she" is the only way to have any value as a person. Their entire worldview is constructed so that men and women, boys and girls, hes and shes, are the only ones with any value.

So when you ask them to respect someone who is an it, someone who is nonbinary, someone who is genderless, they have no fucking framework available to do that without it being an insult. Because they see our existence as an existential insult.

Binary people hate nonbinary people so much that they view our entire existence as a punishment. As a hate crime. As degrading.`

They think they're doing Murderbot, and the real people it represents, a favor by "rewarding" it with a binary gender because in their worldview, that is the only way to have any value.

To these people, if you aren't one of the binary genders, then you're worth less than dirt.

Binary people insist Murderbot is actually a man or actually a woman because they think anything else is the world insult you can come up with.

They insist they're doing it/its users in specific, and nonbinary people in general a favor by misgendering this explicitly nonbinary character, by insisting that they're giving it back its autonomy and "de-dehumanizing" it.

Even though by insisting that to be nonbinary is to be worthless and insulting, they're literally the ones doing the dehumanizing. They are literally the ones degrading this character, and the real people it represents, by insisting that our literal existence is a hate crime against ourselves.

It's disgusting. If you're reading this post and you do this crap, this is your sign to stop. And learn how to respect nonbinary people. And learn how to respect people even if you don't understand or relate to their experiences.

Murderbot is not a man. It is not a woman. Its pronouns are not he/him or she/her or even they/them.

Murderbot is nonbinary, and genderless, and its pronouns are it/its.

If you can't bring yourself to correctly and respectfully gender the nonbinary, it/its using protagonist of a series whose theme is "respect people even when they're different from you" then there is something deeply broken about your morals and you need to fix that ASAP.

[rjalker]

It's because fandom just hates aroace people. And they're shipping it with Gurathin in particular because they think characters being genuine assholes to eachother means they've in love, and 99% of the shippers are pretending that Gurathin is a white man's name so they can whitewash him, because they're racist as well as aroacemisic.

It's the ghost of slash fandoms past. Fandom will latch onto the first two white men who don't like eachother that they see, and if there are no white men, well, they'll whitewash the people of color and misgender them until they fit into the mold.

And to the people in the notes saying we "have to let people be wrong", no, actually, it's your moral obligation to call out bigotry when you see it.

Erasing canonnically aroace and touch averse characters is literally bigotry. This is not a difficult concept. You all just don't see it as a problem because you don't actually care about aroace or touch averse people.

i will never understand the murderbot shipping community. like the entire point is that murderbot has no interest in anything beyond friendship. that includes queer platonic partnerships its just not interested. and that's ok and doesn't mean they aren't fully sentient. that's a major theme of the character.

so why is Tumblr insistent that its pining away for gurathin

[rjalker]

Fandoms will see a cannonically, explicitly Queer character who represents multiple of the most stigmatized groups within the Queer community and will go "okay, but what if I erase all of these traits I dislike to make ~them~ more palatable for me?"

And then act shocked when the minorities who are being purposefully erased are angry about this.

Fandom will see a characters who is canonically nonbinary, uses it/its pronouns, is aroace and viscerally disgusted by the thought of being in any kind of relationship, and hates being touched, and go

"Oooh! But ~they~ would be better if ~they~ didn't use those disgusting pronouns! Nonbinary people all use they/them! If you use it/its pronouns you're disgusting. This character uses they/them pronouns now because they're real pronouns!!!! "Ooh and don't you think ~they'd~ be so much better if ~they~ were horny for this brown man I am whitewashing for the sake of shipping with this aroace character, who I am also whitewashing for the sake of shipping.

"Oooooooooh but noo you know what'd be even better? O: if this character was a binary trans woman!!! Or a binary trans man!!!!! Because nonbinary people are gross and not real anyways :)

"Oh this blatantly autistic character explicitly says it hates being touched and only touches people in life or death situations when the literal only other option is letting them die?

"Well silly billy, don't you know that if you don't want to be touched there's something deeply, deeply wrong with you that you need to fix? I'm not being ableist by saying this, though! Really, when you think about it, you're the one who's ableist because you don't want this character's touch aversion to be healed by the power of friendship/sex/romance!!!!"

Fandom will literally see a character whose traits are demonized by all of society and go "okay but hear me out what if I demonize these Queer and disabled traits and remove everything that makes this character who it is so that it's less repulsive to me as someone whose identities are more socially accepted?"

And then insist that they're totally progressive and Queer friendly and welcoming to minorities and such a fun, safe, great fandom to hang out in.

[rjalker]

The character:

[ID: A cropped section of official art for The Murderbot Diaries, showing Murderbot, a person with dark brown skin and black hair, vaulting over a table while a other characters, both with lighter skin, watch it. End ID.]

Murderbot is explicitly nonbinary.

The actor cast to play the role:

[ID: A photo of Alexander Skarsgård, a white man with shaved blonde hair, posing for a photo. End ID.]

Alexander Skarsgård is a cis white man. Being cast in the role designed for a nonbinary person of color.

And 99% of the fandom is completely overjoyed about this.

And if you point out how blatantly racist and exorsexist this is, they completely ignore the racist section, and accuse you of "demanding androgyny from nonbinary people".

Like he's not literally a cis man.

[rjalker]

people: The Murderbot Diaries is the most complex deepest most intricate thing ever it's so fun to analyze and obsess over the smallest details. Fiction is so important and amazing and important.

Me: *points out really blatant bigotry*

the exact same people: Ohh my god it's not that deep you're just triggered. It's just a silly book it doesn't mean anything it shouldn't be analyzed it's not that deep stop making up problems where there are none. Why are you so triggered over a book it doesn't mean anything fiction doesn't mean anything fiction has nothing to do with reality

[rjalker]

#fan wank /#normally i try not to care much for fanon stuff like this#fanon is inherently transformative and gender bending is fine#but theres a difference between gender bending#and clearly just disrespecting it/its pronouns as a valid choice at all#this is about murderbot mostly i read a fic that exclusively used 'they' and its like. youve missed a very large part of the book man#most of the fandom is pretty good about it. that just really bothered me

Playing with a character's gender is fine -- unless the character is literally already a gender minority.

Headcannoning cannonically nonbinary characters, especially those who use neopronouns, as being a binary gender or using different pronouns, is literally just exorsexism.

The same exact way it'd be pure transmisia for a canon trans woman to be headcannoned as a man or a canon trans man to be headcannoned as a woman.

Playing with the genders of cis characters is not at all comparable to erasing actual representation for trans and nonbinary people.

The Murderbot Diaries fandom is filled with people who hate nonbinary people and hate it/its users and think it's perfectly fine to misgender us as long as they don't like our pronouns, and think that erasing one Murderbot's nonbinary gender to make it binary trans instead is somehow progressive.

Because these people hate nonbinary people and hate seeing characters like us and think it/its users don't actually exist in real life so they're not hurting anyone by misgendering a characters that canononnically only uses it/its -.-

If people want to headcanon characters as binary trans, they can pick literally any character besides the ones who are canonnically nonbinary. "Gender bending" nonbinary characters isn't progressive or light hearted fun, it's literally just bigotry.

im not actually very good at using them myself irl, but i get my hackles up so fast when a fandom deliberately ignores a character's canonical it/its pronouns. calling someone "they" when you know it wants to be called "it" is still misgendering. stop it. I may not understand it myself, but i don't actually have to. i just need to respect what someone wants to be called.

[rjalker]

Allos in this year, 2023, still don't see aspec orientations as genuine orientations. they see it as an empty space where the orientation is inexplicably missing, so they see a character who is cannonically aroace and viscerally repulsed by all forms of relationships and touch, and think that, because this is a "lack of orientation" rather than an orientation directed at, explicitly, no one, they think it's perfectly fine and not bigoted at all for them to shove their orientations onto the explicitly Queer character, erasing the aroace representation in favor of turning it into another Cis Gay Man who uses he/him...even though the character is literally nonbinary, and uses it/its pronouns.

Because they also see being nonbinary as a "fill in the missing parts" puzzle. They think the character describing its gender as "not applicable" and "indeterminate" means that, really, it's a guy! it's a man! Because it's funny and relatable and only Men™ are relatable! Only Male Characters™ can be funny and well-written!

In 2023!

Fully grown adults are fucking pulling this shit in 2023 and think they're the perfect Queer Allies™

Because they don't see aroace or nonbinary people as actually existing, and actually having meaningful identities. They think we're walking fucking ad-libs and they can fill in the "blanks" with whatever's most palatable to their tastes.

And that means misgendering the canonnically nonbinary character who uses it/its pronouns, erasing literally every single aspect of its identity that gets in the way of shipping it (removing its aceness, its aroness, or just straight up pretending it's not aroace to begin with, and erasing its solitaremit touch averseion), and then pretending their actions are completely harmless when they're called out for it.

Because according to them, it's not bigotry if the canon Queer identities they're erasing are the ones they think don't exist in the first place. Being aroace isn't an orientation for them, it just means you're broken and need to be fixed. Being nonbinary and using it/its with them isn't a real gender identity and presentation, it means they're something wrong with you and you need to be fixed. Being touch averse isn't a real disability, it just means there's something wrong with you, and you need to be fixed.

They don't fucking see Murderbot as representation for real Queer disabled trans people. They see it as something broken that needs to be fixed, by taking away everything that makes it who it is, so that they can fill in all the now gaping wounds with their own much less stigmatized identities instead.

Even though the literal entire theme of The Murderbot Diaries is that you should treat people with respect even if you don't understand their experiences.

[rjalker]

anyways. here's a fucking thread pointing out the blatant racism. At least there's one other person besides me who has a problem with this shit.

actually since Reddit fucking sucks for archival purposes I'll just copy and paste the entire thing here:

April 3rd 2024 for posterity.

____

Title:

So you understand that AI voice acting steals jobs from real voice actors, now can you understand that giving roles designed for Queer people of color to cishet white men is also stealing jobs from real Queer people of color?

Post:

Whitewashing does not exist in a vacuum.

Cis people giving roles designed for trans characters does not exist in a vacuum.

For every cisallohet white man who gets a role that was designed for a nonbinary person of color, there is now one more nonbinary person of color who's out of a job.

Rich successful white men do not need any more roles in Hollywood, especially not roles that should be going to Queer people of color. In the official art, Murderbot has dark skin. It has the darkest skin out of everyone in the Preservation Aux team.

[ID: A black and white digital drawing, showing a scene from The Murderbot Diaries book series. Murderbot, an androgynoid with very dark skin, wearing a white shirt and light pants, is leaping sideways over the chairs the other characters are sitting on, using one arm on the armrest to swing itself over, with its face hidden, and only the back of its head visible. The other characters are staring up at it in shock, confusion, and amazement: Ratthi, who has dark skin that is slightly lighter than Murderbot’s, is below it, throwing one hand out in shock, sending his mug of a dark liquid flying. He is wearing a light, long sleeved shirt and skinny jeans. Pin-Lee, who has light brown skin, is standing at a short table in the background, wearing a long sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a short skirt. Bharadwaj, who has brown skin, leaning forward over the table to stare, with only her long sleeved shirt visible above the table. Overse, who is white, is sitting in a chair next to Ratthi on the left side of the screen, looking up, with Arada’s light brown, bare legs and feet in her lap, with a beaded ankle bracelet. Overse is wearing a long sleeved shirt and leggings, and her own shoes are kicked off on the floor in front of her. End ID.]

Colorism exists in the real world. People with darker skin face more systemic hatred and disenfranchisement than people with lighter skin. Racism is already a systemic inescapable problem. Colorism only makes it worse.

Murderbot in the official art is not just a person of color, it has dark skin, and is the darkest of all the "main characters" we see.

Real dark-skinned, Queer actors deserve the opportunity to shine in roles designed for them. It is blatantly racist for these roles to instead by stolen by white people of any kind, but especially heinous for the roles to go to cisallohet white men who are already incredibly successful.

Because Alexander Skarsgård and Apple TV have made the blatantly racist and exorsexist decision to cast him in the role for Murderbot, this means that real nonbinary people of color have just lost what could have been a breakout job opportunity.

If you understand that using AI for voice acting is depriving real people of jobs, then you also need to grasp that allowing white people to steal roles meant for people of color without any backlash or criticism is directly contributing to and upholding white supremacy.

Every role meant for a person of color that goes to a white person instead is another person of color who's now out of a job.

Whitewashing characters for live action adaptations does not exist in a vacuum. It's not harmless. It's not "chronically online" to have a problem with it. It's a direct result of white supremacy, and literally allows white supremacy to continue being upheld.

AI steals jobs. So does whitewashing. If you care about one, then you need to also care about the other. White supremacy and whitewashing go hand in hand. Apple TV deciding to whitewash Murderbot is not harmless or simply "cringey". It's literally real life racism, colorism, and white supremacy, even before we get into the blatant exorsexism and transmisia of stealing roles from out trans nonbinary people.

____

and yes. If people comment I will also edit all of those comments into this post because Reddit fucking sucks and you can't save it to the Wayback Machine. So this post will keep getting edited and probably get even longer.

Edit: actually no I'm just blocking all these people.

[rjalker]

Anyways I've literally seen people in this fandom argue that once Murderbot learns to love itself more, it'll change its pronouns to something more healing. And that it will figure out that it needs to change its pronouns to something other than it/its so people will have less of an excuse to hatecrime it.

No, I'm not joking.

People in this fandom genuinely think that using it/its pronouns is just asking to be hatecrimed. Because victim blaming is fine and dandy as long as it's against someone who uses it/its pronouns, apparently.

[rjalker]

copying and pasting the tags from @loxare since I feel it's important to address and I am very clearly vested in this issue.

#why I love the Murderbot fandom actually #MB decided its pronouns were it/its and for the most part #for the most part because some people still use they #but for the most part the fans respect that#and also love it #you go Murderbot #you find your personhood unconventionally and for the most part completely unwillingly

Any time I say "you" I mean the general you, not aimed directly at the person who left these tags.

It's true that some people in The Murderbot Diaries fandom are 100% accepting of Murderbot's choice of pronouns, a lot more of them are either actively hostile about it, and insist upon misgendering it, or else just stand by not doing anything to correct someone when they do misgender it.

I've had to call out many people in the fandom who've been in the fandom longer than I have, who insist that it's okay for them to call Murderbot (and Miki, and ART and all the other bot characters) they/them because calling people an it is disprespectful and transphobic.

These people use all the same transphobic arguments for misgendering Murderbot that people do to me in real life, and like, I never see anyone else calling them out or criticizing them.

And I'm not talking about people who've only just started reading the first book and don't know what Murderbot's pronouns are yet, I'm talking about people who'd already read all the books when I was just reading the first one.

Yes, some people in this fandom are respectful of people who use it/its pronouns. But those who are just...passive about it. They don't actually put in the work or effort to call out the transphobes in the fandom or criticize people who misgender it or any other character.

I, an actual person who uses it/its pronouns, now have to be what seems like the only person in the fandom on tumblr who's willing to call out the transphobia in this fandom. I have to put in the personal effort to defend myself and people like me from the people who insist that it's perfectly fine for them to call Murderbot they/them, because "it/its pronouns are dehumanizing" (Murderbot isn't even human and doesn't want to be!) "it/its pronouns are insulting" "I'll never call someone an it, even if they ask me to".

I've even seen people say, and I literally cannot believe how transphobic these people are even as I am repeating this, I literally saw someone say that Murderbot should change its pronouns so that, "people won't have an excuse to say [it's] not a person"

People in this fandom literally believe that using it/its pronouns gives people an excuse to hate crime you. They literally think using it/its pronouns means you're not a person and don't deserve respect.

The Murderbot Diaries, as far as I've seen so far, has more problems than it has good points. Yes, some people in this fandom are okay with Murderbot using it/its pronouns.

But there's more to being an ally to nonbinary people than just saying "okay yeah, I won't misgender you".

In order to actually be an ally to nonbinary people, and in this case, specifically people who use it/its pronouns, you can't just say "yeah I'll use your pronouns". You have to actively correct people who don't.

That means when a new person starts reading All Systems Red and misgenders Murderbot because they don't know what pronouns it uses yet, you inform them, "Hey, just so you know, Murderbot's pronouns are it/its, not [whatever pronouns they used for it],". (You can literally copy and paste that if you need to!).

And if they go "oops, sorry, won't do that again!" but don't edit the post, that then means you gently urge them to edit the post so that they're no longer misgendering it, so that people like me don't have to find it and go "oh great, is this person just confused, or are they purposefully misgendering Murderbot?"

That means when you see people who know for a fact that Murderbot's pronouns are it/its, but they insist upon misgendering it by calling it they/them or he/him or she/her because "[it's] learned to respect [itself]" or "I feel too uncomfortable calling anyone an it" (If you're so traumatized you can't stand the thought of calling someone by their it/its pronouns, then why in the absolute fuck are you reading a book series where the protagonist and many other character's pronouns are it/its???), that means you correct them.

If they continue to insist that it's okay for them to misgender Murderbot for any reason, that means you not only call out whatever specific form of transphobia they're perpetuating assuming you can identify it (victim blaming like saying Murderbot should change its pronouns so people 'don't have an excuse' to hate crime it, pretending that nonbinary is a single third gender and therefore all nonbinary people have to be okay with they/them pronouns, ect).

If they still won't be convinced, then you block them. And you make your own post criticizing and calling out the forms of transphobia they were perpetuating.

The Murderbot Diaries fandom is filled with bigots, and it's not just limited to transphobes who refuse to respect people who use it/its pronouns, but I already have tons of posts about that.

The point of this reblog is that being an ally to nonbinary people takes more than using people's pronouns. If all you do is sit quietly by and let other people be transphobic without complaint or even any comments condemning it, then no, you're not an ally.

I've come across more posts in The Murderbot Diaries fandom being transphobic towards people who use it/its pronouns than I've seen people supporting and standing up for people who use it/its. I bet you 90% of the posts in the "Murderbot" or "The Murderbot Diaries" tags that are actually standing up against transphobia are mine.

Even when I did find a few criticizing people who misgendered Murderbot, they still came with the fine fucking print of "well if you misgender it using they/them, it's not as bad as calling it he/him or she/her", until I had to explain to the OP, no, that is, in fact, just as bad, if not actively worse.

I like the Murderbot Diaries. But the series has a lot of problems, and the fandom makes all of those problems worse. The fandom is filled with transphobes, and the people who claim to be allies don't actually do anything to help, they just sit by and ignore the transphobia, so that all the hard work of trying to make the fandom /actually safe for people like Murderbot/ falls onto the shoulders of the very victims of the bigotry the fandom is perpetuating.

I, someone who uses it/its pronouns, shouldn't have to be the only person on tumblr.com calling out the transphobia in the fandom here. But so far, since the first time I read the books a year ago, that's the reality.

The Murderbot Diaries fandom cannot claim to be safe for trans people, especially people who use it/its pronouns, if the fandom does nothing but tolerate the transphobia in it.

If you are aware that there are people in the Murderbot Diaries fandom that misgender Murderbot, well, tell me, what are you doing about that? Are you creating posts in support of people who use it/its pronouns? Are you correcting people who are confused? Are you calling out people who are doing it purposefully? Are you working to be an actual ally, or just looking away and rolling your eyes and leaving the problem for other people to solve, because you don't care enough to expend any energy in calling it out?

The Murderbot Diaries could be a great, welcoming place for people who use it/its pronouns. But it's not. It's the exact opposite. And it's going to stay that way unless people who are not affected by the bigotry start giving a shit about it too, isntead of leaving it to just people like me, who actually use it/its pronouns. (and all the other marginalized identities that I share with Murderbot that people want to pretend only exist in fiction or can and should be "fixed")

If you don't use it/its pronouns, but you think this fandom is welcoming for people who do, then you've either somehow managed to block all the transphobes before you joined, or you don't think the transphobia's important enough to notice.

If you want The Murderbot Diaries fandom to actually be welcoming and safe for people who are like Murderbot, in this instance, people who use it/its pronouns, then it's not enough for you to simply respect its pronouns, you need to actively work to make the fandom hostile to people who don't.

Please do not go around spreading the idea that The Murderbot Diaries is welcoming and respectful of people who use it/its pronouns, because ever since I joined it and started looking through the tags, it's been nothing but stress, because I have the be the only one calling out the transphobia, because it seems like only people who use it/its pronouns actually care enough to defend us. And unfortunately, the transphobia in the fandom's already driven out other people who use it/its pronouns :|

The last time I called out the bigotry in this fandom, the person who was defending it and downplaying it literally started victim blaming me and mocking me, and this was after pretending that they were totally welcoming and nice and friendly, and I should hang out with them instead of "making the fandom hostile" by calling out the bigotry in it.

TLDR: No, The Murderbot Diaries fandom is not a safe or welcoming place for nonbinary people or people who use it/its pronouns, because everyone who doesn't use it/its thinks their job as an ally is done as long as they call Murderbot "it", and don't actually do anything to make the fandom safe for people like me. If you want the fandom to actually be safe and welcoming for people who use it/its pronouns, then you need to call out bigotry when you see it, block the transphobes, and create your own posts supporting and standing up for it/its pronoun users.

a canonically nonbinary character will use he/him or she/her pronouns and people will refuse to accept that the character is nonbinary, acting as though using he/him makes him a man or using she/her makes her a woman

a character will canonically use they/them pronouns and people will insist that means their gender, and their pronouns, are actually up to the audience to decide

a canonically nonbinary character will use it/its pronouns and people will insist that’s insulting and instead misgender it with literally any other pronoun out of “respect”

like just own up to the fact that y’all don’t actually respect nonbinary people because we can already fucking tell lmao

[rjalker]

If you headcannon canonnonically, explicitly nonbinary characters as binary trans you are exorsexist and you fucking suck.

Yes, even if you are headcanoning them as being trans women. You can't GirlBoss™ your way out of being a fucking bigot.

[rjalker]

A lot of people in fandom clearly believe that the only kind of media analysis you should ever be doing is "interpret it solely in an endlessly praising, strictly homosexual sense, with emphasis on the sex part"

No other forms of analysis are welcome. You're not allowed to criticize the media for any of its flaws, or even point out the fact that it's flawed. You are not allowed to talk about the things in the work that are explicitly Queer and not in a strictly homosexual way, especially if the explicit Queer rep is aspec in any way, and especially not explicitly aroace. Because in fandom, everything has to come back to sex one way or another, no matter how many Queer and Disabled identities / traits the fandom has to erase to get there.

You can have an explicitly nonbinary character who's aroace and disgusted by the idea of being in *any* kind of relationship, including queerplatonic, who is touch averse and the narrative does nothing but respect this and show this character getting more comfortable with asserting its boundaries around being touched, and the fandom will still insist on misgendering it and shipping it with a guy they're whitewashing and pretending that it actually enjoys being touched, it's just too socially anxious / self-loathing to admit it.

Even when the author is going out of her way to show that the character hates being touched and as soon as it starts to realize that its boundaries will be respected instead of trampled over, it starts stating and enforcing its boundaries more and more firmly and easily. Until it becomes second nature for it to tell people not to touch it, instead of saying nothing because it's learned helplessness from never being able to say no before.

Even when the entire theme of the series is "respect people even if they're different from you", fandom cannot let any kind of Queer representation exist unless it's the white gay men having sex kind. Even if it means they have to misgender and whitewash the protagonist and whoever it's being shipped with, and erase literally everything that makes it who it is as a character, to do so.

There are literally endless white, gregariable, not explicitly sex repulsed characters people could be writing porn about instead, but fandom always has to whitewash and erase Queer identities they don't like so they can write porn without having to give a single shit about other people or think about the bigotry they're perpetuating by taking nonbinary, touch averse, aroace characters and turning them into misgendering porn fuel.

These people will literally even resort to shipping slaves with their legal fucking owners, despite the author repeating endlessly over and over again not to fucking do this. Literally. The author tells you not to ship slaves with their owners. But fandom will still do it because they are that fucking poisoned by amatanormativity and cannot fathom the idea of just treating aroace people like whole people who aren't missing anything.

They'll literally ship slaves with their owners and then act surprised when people think they're absolutely vile people.

[rjalker]

"I know this character is nonbinary but I headcanon them as binary trans ;)" cool, you're a bigot!