#The Murderbot Diaries exorsexism

[rjalker]

Tumblr said the first is illegal so here it is again because I saved the meme to my computer.

Finding out The Murderbot Diaries was inspired by The Imperial Radch series is the opposite of propaganda. I don't think I've ever heard worse news about a story I enjoy in my life.

Let's take the ideas this story did right -- but make it bad!!!!!

it's so fucking funny and just. proves even further Martha Well's inability to understand the concept of gender as separate from sex.

She can imagine dozens of nonhumanoid fantasy species, but couldn't once imagine a gender system that was no still locked into the white western gender binary, even when her prominant fantasy race has what ammounts to six different genders if she'd actually given it a single moment of thought.

Martha Wells literally looked at what Ann Leckie did and then went "Oh that's so cool. Let me just not follow any of the examples you set in regards to gender tho"

[ID: A two panel meme.

The first panel shows cupcakes based on the Cookie Monster from Seaseme Street, with expertly decorated icing, a cookie, and eyes.

It reads, "The Imperial Radch series talking about pronouns before the first scene is even over and then consistantly bringing them up and having them play an important role throughought the course of the story".

The second panel says "Nailed it!!!" in large comic sans font, and shows a failed attempt to replicate the cupcakes from the first image, with the icing flat and melting, with the eyes falling off.

It reads, "The Murderbot Diaries literally not even having the word "pronouns" i nit even one single time, never discussing them or having characters share theirs, even though the protagonist uses neopronous."

End ID.]

do you think the word "pronouns" will appear even once in book 7, which is coming out November 2023?

I guess we'll find out, won't we?

If a single character tells anyone else their pronouns, Martha Wells can have this sticker:

[ID: A gold star against a transparent background, surrounded by smaller golden sparkles. Black comic sans text on the star reads, “You did the absolute bare minimum required to respect trans people”. End ID.]

I'm serious I'll never be able to get over the knowledge that she really really really read The Imperial Radch series, which has more understanding and representation of gender in its first two pages than the entirety of The Murderbot Diaries series has in its entirety, and then decided, yeah, I'm not going to do any of the things that actually made that radical and interestng actually. This robot is nonbinary and aroace because it doesn't have genitals teehee that's how gender and sexuality works :))))))

Like. how did you manage to fail that badly when Ancillary Justice is already talking about pronouns in the very first scene.

this is the opposite of propaganda and it's fucking hysterical.

Especially because it is a perfect mirror to everything this fandom does with the things Martha Wells actually does right. She says "Don't ship slaves with their owners and don't demand peopel conform to your idea of normal" and they're all screaming and crying that if they can't ship this touch averse aroace slave with its owner they'll just die.

LOL

[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

[hoarder-of-stories-27]

Blogkeeping (post version for Android phones)

(Most recently updated: March 2022)

We try to find image descriptions for accessibility as often as possible, because that’s important, and sometimes write them ourselves for undescribed posts.

We get into discourse (link goes to our opinions page) sometimes (rarely more than an occasional reblog, recently).

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Warnings we currently tag, with a “/[word/phrase]”/“/[word/phrase] mention” system (so, for example, "/abuse" or "/antis mention"):

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Please let us know if you need or want something tagged that isn't on this list! We might actually already tag it - I keep finding more tags that I forgot to put on here. But please ask.

[rjalker]

Here’s how to make The Murderbot Diaries 80 percent less casually transmisic, for each book and short story published so far as of January 25th, 2023. (Main books 1-6, and 2 short stories)

This post will be updated to include any future books once I've read them.

(If this is the first post of mine you're seeing and you're thinking, aghast or maybe offended, "What??? The Murderbot Diaries is transmisic????? What are you talking about????" Here's a link to my tag for reading these books. It contains all my posts I've made about the series except for a few random unimportant ones. Skim through them until you come to the ones talking about the transmisia in the series. I'll add links to this post with the important ones tomorrow.)

This post is literally just me picking out a section from each book and adding in things to explicitly establish Murderbot’s pronouns, normalize the characters asking eachother what their pronouns are/listing them in their fucking brainchip social media profiles, and maybe even more importantly, making it so that sex is not equated with gender.

I'm trying not to make this post any longer than it already is, so here's the tiny version: Murderbot and all the other bots and constructs so far being agender because they're all robots (shut up if you're going to argue semantics) who don't have genitals is transmisic. There only being one explicitly nonbinary human so far is transmisic. Go search my blog for a more in-depth explanation or wait until I've added links to this.

Dialogue that was spoken though the feed is marked with :: as quotation marks, rather than being italicized, to make it easier to read.

Anyways as a reminder, even if it's not intentional, malicious transmisia, it's still transmisia. I like Martha Well's style of writing. But it has a lot of problems that I'm hoping she'll fix.

She especially has a problem with biological essentialism and gender essentialism, which is exemplified in her The Books of The Raksura.

So to demonstrate how Literally Easy it would be to fix most of the transmisia in The Murderbot Diaries, here's some sections from each book/short story where I've added in and changed things so that it's not transmisic and actually represents the way trans people (and their allies) live and interact.

also, when the characters ask what pronouns Murderbot would prefer rather than asking what its pronouns are, that is 100% intentional to fit the theme of this post. Which is that even people who have the best intentions can be unintentionally transmisic and that everyone always has room to learn more.

So.

Here you go:

___

Prequel: The Future of Work: Compulsory

Words added: 150.

(You can read this short story here. Archived version here. Just the text can be found on a tumblr post here. Be warned that the first two links have eye-straining neon art at the top that moves, which is why I made the tumblr post.) 

Asa took her arm gently. “They can’t talk,” he told her.

She shook her head as her friends steered her toward the access bridge. “No, it talked. I heard it.”

That still came as a pleasant surprise every time it happened. 

The Company had assigned me different pronouns when I was constructed, and I’d always hated them. And I hated the gender they’d assigned me, too. So the second thing I’d done after hacking my governer module (the first was downloading media) was hack into the Company’s systems to change my pronoun and gender assignments.

Now, my pronouns were listed as it/its/itself, and my gender was listed as “indeterminate”. None of the humans got paid enough to bother memorizing our assigned pronouns or genders, so none of them had noticed the change. And every time they rented me out, the humans doing the renting got a copy of my relevant info, including my assigned gender and pronouns.

Maybe someday the euphoria of being referred to the way I enjoyed would dissipate, but apparently that day was not today.

___

Book one: All Systems Red

Words added: 79

Then Mensah said quietly, “SecUnit, do you have a name? Pronouns you would prefer?”

 "My pronouns are what was listed on my contract when you rented me." I said, "It, its, itself."

I didn't explain how I'd gotten those pronouns. They didn't need to know that I'd hacked into the Company's system to overwrite the ones I'd originally been assigned. I'd changed my gender assignment at the same time. And they didn't need to know that either. I didn't want them to know that.

As for having a name, I wasn’t sure what she wanted. “No.”

___

Book two: Artificial Condition

Words added: 22

They had listed themselves as unaffiliated guest workers, but you could list yourself as anything, there was no identity check. Two had listed their gender as female, and they both used she/her/hers/herself pronouns. The other one had listed ter gender as tercera, which was a gender signifier used in the group of non-corporate political entities known as the Divarti Cluster. Ter pronouns were te/ter/ter/terself.

(To initiate the meeting, I’d had to make an entry on the social feed, too. The system was extremely vulnerable to hacking, so I had backdated my entry to look like I had come in on an earlier passenger transport, listed my job as “security consultant,” my pronouns as "it/its/itself", which was the format humans used, and listed my gender as "indeterminate". Posing as its own captain, ART gave me a prior employment reference.)

___

Book three: Rogue Protocol

Words added: 135

Her gaze went to Wilken’s back again, but on our private channel she said, ::I’ve never worked with a SecUnit before—I’ve never seen or interacted with a SecUnit before—so please tell me if you need any information or instruction from me. I know you already know my name, but I’m going to introduce myself properly anyways. My name is Don Abene, and my pronouns are she/her/hers/herself. You can call me Abene if you'd like. Do you have a name, or designation? What pronouns would you prefer?::

While I’d had several humans now ask me for my name and pronouns, I had never had a human ask me how to give me orders before. It was an interesting novelty. ::I have standing orders from Rin to assist you. I can do the rest.:: I said, answering the first part of her question, as for the second half... ::It is best if you refer to me as SecUnit, and my pronouns are it/its/itself.:: It wasn’t technically lying, since she’d asked ‘do you have a name’, not ‘what is your name’.

Not that it would matter if I was lying, anyways, considering all the other lies I was telling at the point, but still. Old habits die hard.

___

Book four: Exit Strategy

Words added: 36

I pulled a selection of video from the trip with Ayres and the others on the way to HaveRatton, mostly exchanges I’d tagged so I could critique my performance later. (A few times I’d broken up fights, been forced to give relationship advice, the infamous Cracker Wrapper in the Sink Incident, and the time near the start of the trip where I’d had to explain to a confused but enthusiastic group of depressingly young humans how to properly use it/its/itself pronouns when talking about me.) I cut it together, labeled it “Murderbot Impersonates an Augmented Human Security Consultant,” and sent it to Gurathin.

___

Book four and a half: Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

Words added: 347

(You can read this short story here. Archived version here. Don’t scroll down to the comments at the bottom unless you want to see people misgendering Murderbot.)

Instead Ephraim asks her, “Can you separate that person from the purpose they were created for?”

Anger flares automatically, despite her best efforts to stifle it. But this is not an insult she will let stand, she can’t.

Ephraim should know better. He does know better, and his motive is clear: Refer to it as ‘they’ rather than its actual pronouns, to make a show of being respectful, the way this whole thing is a show of him being respectful, while denying it the same rights that every other person, including bots, was given without question. It was a transparent farce, and that just made her all the madder.

“Its pronouns are it/its/itself.” She snapped, and the only reason she managed to stay seated instead of storming out of the room in a fury was because SecUnit was still pinging her with armament request forms, getting more absurd by the second. None of its anger leaked into the messages, even though she knew it had to be listening. She wasn’t the one being insulted, so that meant it was her responsibility to shut the idea that this was at all acceptable down forever.

She continued angrily, “You know this, and I know you wouldn’t even think to use the wrong pronouns for anyone else, not a human, not a bot. So why should a construct be the exception? You say SecUnit is ‘a product of surveillance capitalism and authoritarian enforcement’, but how is that any different from any other refugees we take in from the Corporation Rim? Why should we not extend the same rights we grant bots to constructs? Why do you think it’s okay to use the wrong pronouns for a construct when I know for a fact that it wouldn’t even occur to you to do this to any other person? Use its correct pronouns or do not dare to speak about it at all: it/its/itself.”

Ephraim, for his part, looked suitably ashamed and guilty. “You’re right, I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.”

But not ashamed enough, apparently, because he simply repeated the question: “Can you separate that person from the purpose it was created for?”

___

Book five: Network Effect

Words added: 494

There was no planetary feed (stupid planet) but Stupid Boat had its own rudimentary feed that was heavy with games and pornography but light on anything that might be helpful for a security assessment, like who these people were and what they wanted. Even the individual humans’ feed signatures only contained info about their pronouns and sexual availability, which I didn’t give a damn about. 

...

She smiled. “Thank you.” Then she added, “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m being rude, interrogating you before I’ve even introduced myself. Forgive me. My name is Farai, my pronouns are she/her/her/hers. What about you?”

I said, “Call me SecUnit. My pronouns are it/its/itself.”

She smiled again. “It’s nice to meet you, SecUnit. Thank you again.”

...

She yawned. “Okay, third mom.” I froze, confused and annoyed, and almost lost all the data I'd just finished tagging. I put that on pause and said firmly, "I'm not your third mom. I'm not anyone's mom. I'm not any kind of gender that can be called a mom. Don't call me that." Amena jolted a little and blinked, looking startled, then frowned, shaking her head slowly, clearly confused. "Wait, what? Don't call you what? What did I say?" Okay, so, she hadn't been deep in thought, she was literally falling asleep standing up. That made it a little less annoying. But only a little. "You called me your third mom." I said, trying to actively remove some of the anger from my voice but probably failing miserably. My emotions were shot, okay? And so were hers. I got confirmation that she hadn't meant to call me that when, a few seconds after I spoke--yes, it was taking way longer than normal for her to process information. She really needed to go to sleep--her eye got wide and her face flushed red. I didn't need to be an expert on human body language to know that meant she was embarrassed. This was further confirmed when she stammered out, "I--I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to say that, I don't--I mean I don't really see you as my third mom, or a mom, or--" She waved one hand in a frantic gesture. "I don't see you as any gender that's normally a mom. I know your gender is indeterminate, I'm sorry, I think I just fell asleep and was half dreaming, so when you told me to go to bed I thought 'oh that's what my moms are always telling me', but your voice was different from both of theirs so my brain sort of just said 'oh yeah that's your third mom telling you to go to sleep'. But it's not because I see you as a mom! I think I would have called anyone who told me to go to bed right then my third mom. But I'm really sorry it happened, and I promise it won't happen again..." Her voice started trailing off at the end despite starting out strong, and I could tell she was starting to fall asleep again. "I forgive you." I said, since it was true and I really didn't want to hurt her feelings, "Just--go to sleep. It's harder to keep you alive if you're sleep deprived." Instead of making another gendered comment, she gave me two sleepy thumbs up, then turned and trudged away down the corridor. I followed her with two drones, just in case.

___

Book six: Fugitive Telemetry

Words added: 5

Senior Indah said, “The feed ID doesn’t need to say anything other than what everyone else’s says, just name, pronouns, and…” She trailed off. She was looking at me and I was looking at her.

...

I posted a feed ID with the name = SecUnit, pronouns = it/its/itself, gender = not applicable, and no other information.

Indah had blinked, then said, “Well, I suppose that will have to do.”

___

And there you go. 80% of the transmisia has now been removed.

[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]

[ID: The handshake meme, with one arm labeled:

"Murderbot is aroace and everything repulsed, and nonbinary and uses it/its pronouns, and it is important to respect this and respect the real people it represents by not erasing these parts of its identity to make it more palatable to allos and binary people. There is never a good reason to erase representation for nonbinary and aroace people."

The second arm labeled:

"Martha Wells has a serious problem with biological essentialism in her writings, and it is very clear that this is the only reason she chose to make Murderbot aroace and nonbinary, because she equates genitals with sex with gender with orientation. This needs to be aknowledged and addressed if others are going to learn from her mistakes rather than repeating them."

And the center hands labeled:

"Being true statements that do not cancel eachother out at all and do in fact strengthen and support eachother"

End ID.]

And if these concepts are just too difficult for you to grasp right now, then just be quiet until you figure it out.

Refusing to acknowledge bigotry in something does not make it go away, and if you can't even bring yourself to admit the basic fact that Murderbot is indeed the combination of multiple harmful stereotypes, then can you really claim you enjoy the series?

If you lie to people to get them to read these books by not telling them that all of the representation is literally just founded on stereotypes that show no fucking signs of being anything more than stereotypes any time soon (Which would require Martha Wells introducing multiple, reoccurring, important human characters who are nonbinary and aroace, and robot characters that are literally anything else, (and no!!! introducing fucking robots built to have sex who would then have sexual orientations does not fucking count! That's just more biological fucking essentialism!)), then all you're accomplishing by literally tricking people into reading these books is making people feel betrayed and resentful when they get to the series and find out,,wow, it's literally just the nonbinary and aroace robot stereotype again, but now we're pretending that's progressive and groundbreaking in 2023.

I've seen so many people who were lied to to get them to read these books and they're now rightfully pissd off about being lied to and having the representation in the series be completely overblown and hyped up beyond all reason.

Martha Wells, who has a history of biological essentialism in her writing, (including casually supporting eugenics in The Books of the Raksura!) making Murderbot aroace and nonbinary just beacuse it literally does not have genitals is not progressive. It's not groundbreaking.

It's literally just exorsexism, aroacemisia, and biological essentialism.

You have to fucking aknowledge this if you want to be less of a bigot towards aroace and nonbinary people. You cannot just keep telling people this series is awesome amazing representation that does nothing wrong when it's literally just stereotypes because Martha Wells thinks genitals = sex = gender = orientation.

It's 2023. Stop lying to people to get them to read books they're going to end up hating because they won't live up to the grand lies you've told them.

Start thinking critically about the media you consume, or at least stop fucking lying to people about the content of the media to get them to read it. Literally all you're doing is making people resentful.

and to repeat for the thousandth time: Yes you must aknowledge that it's exorsexist and aroacemisic stereotypes that the only characters in this series who are aroace and nonbinary are only so because they literally do not have genitals.

No, this does not mean you get a free pass to erase the fact that these characers are aroace and nonbinary!

This is also not telling you you have to feel bad about liking Murderbot or that Murderbot is now a bad charater forever.

The problem is NOT that Murderbot is aroace and nonbinary.

The problem IS that there are no humans who are, and no robots who arent'.

And if you fucking nitpick this post to go "well actually Murderbot's not a robot" just shut up. It literally is. Just because Martha Wells decided to use "construct" rather than "android" does not mean it's not literally a robot. She also calls people "Augmented humans" rather than "cyborgs" but that doesn't change the fact that they're cyborgs.

You cannot nitpick your way out of acknowledging and confronting harmful stereotypes and the biological essentialist biases that create them in the first place.

You want to help combat this?

Then create more diverse characters for your setting.

None of this would be a problem at all if Martha Wells had just decided to include human aroace and nonbinary characters in this series in any real way, and no, Rami does not count, because te was shoved offscreen literally as soon as possible, which honestly makes it seem like like Martha Wells was fucking embarrassed by ter. So no, Rami appearing for what ammounts two 2 minutes of screentime and then never being heard from again while also being the only confirmed nonbinary human character is not the rebuttle you think it is!

[rjalker]

The sad fact that for the most part, these fans are largely just moving from one white dude slash ship to another. Migratory Slash Fandom is, for all intents and purposes, only capable of migrating to fandoms where the dominant slash ship is a white one. 

Or, in the event of characters of color being prominent in a piece of media and serving as one or both parts of a popular slash ship, one of three things happen:

White prioritization: Fandom decides that actually, a minor crackship between two white characters with zero meaningful interactions or chemistry is more interesting and worth playing with than a ship involving even one character of color. (The overwhelming popularity of Kylo Ren/Hux over Finn/Poe in the supremely racist Star Wars fandom.) Racist Stereotypes: One or both members of the slash ship are written in stereotypically racist ways (Latino characters as Lusty Lotharios, Black male characters with giant genitals, Asian characters as submissive flowers) and meaningful characterization tends to take a backseat to any white or, in the case of an interracial pairing involving a Black character, non-Black character present (see any Black male character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that’s part of or adjacent to a white dude slash ship).  Whitewashing: Characters of color are culturally whitewashed across the content that becomes popular in the fandom (see BTS real person slash fic where the Korean members of the group are often stripped of their Korean-ness even in stories set in Korea). 

https://web.archive.org/web/20230118135018/https://stitchmediamix.com/2020/03/28/migratory-slash-fandoms-focus/

[rjalker]

"I feel ashamed for being aromantic in this fandom because you call out aroacemisia and I don't, so now everyone thinks I'm attacking them when I write aromantic things for this canonically aroace character :(((((((((( therefore the solution is you need to stop calling out aroacemisia. Not that I need to learn to fight back against aromisia."

wow that sounds like a personal problem. glad I'm not aro and still manage to be aromisic to people who actually stand up for aro rights lofl.

"I'm not nonbinary but you need to stop harassing people by politely correcting them when they misgender the nonbinary protagonist"

yeah that sounds exactly like the sort of thing a binary person would say.

[rjalker]

Hi, @ikebanaka I just wanted to address your tags here:

[ID: A Screenshot of tags by ikebanaka that read, "Murderbot, The Murderbot Diaries, pronouns, thanks for specifying that real people take precedence over fictional characters lol, so many people would jump on this to hate wank otherwise". End ID.]

IDK how else to say this. Real people use it/its pronouns. Real people deserve to have their pronouns respected. People asking you to respect it/its pronouns is not "hate wank". This attitude is extremely transphobic and hurtful.

You should respect Murderbot's pronouns for the same reason you should respect my pronouns, or anyone else in real life who uses it/its pronouns. We exist. "People who use it/its pronouns" is not a theoretical category that only includes fictional characters like Murderbot or ART.

We exist. We are real people. We deserve to have our pronouns and identities respected. You either respect all trans and nonbinary people, or you respect none of us.

Any excuse used to misgender Murderbot or other characters who use it/its pronouns has been and is currently being used as an excuse to misgender me and other people who use these pronouns.

Murderbot is a fictional character.

But the transphobia and exorsexism of insisting that it/its pronouns are optional and can be changed to whatever you, the person misgendering someone, are more comfortable with, is very very real and damaging.

People who use it/its pronouns exist outside of fiction. We exist. We matter.

It is no more acceptable to call someone who uses it/its pronouns they/them than it would be to call anyone else who uses other pronouns they/them.

If you can't even respect a fictional character's pronouns, then you need to take a long hard look about how you treat real people, because this is not some hypothetical theoretical disucssion. It is real transphobia being discussed.

I am a real person. My pronouns are it/its. This is non negotiable. Your feelings on the matter do not matter, because they're my pronouns. If that makes you uncomfortable, then please take a look to your right at the cis transphobes who say that calling any trans people by their pronouns makes them uncomfortable. Because it's the same transphobia.

People asking you to respect their pronouns is not "hate wank" and you really need to listen to people who use it/its pronouns before you decide that it's okay to misgender us to spare your own feelings.

The original post has even been updated with this idea in mind.

murderbot uses it/its pronouns, and here’s why

im just sick of seeing people try to be all ‘but its up for interpretation’ ‘it’s ambiguous’ ‘we don’t know’ ‘who can never be sure’ and I saw one of those posts like ‘but an agender/gender-neutral protagonist means I can project whatever i want onto them’ and i have simply had it. essay under the cut. *spoilers* obviously for p much all the books, mostly network effect. there’s 1 quote from FT but it’s not plot-relevant

tl;dr mb refers to itself with it/its pronouns, on top of the quadrillion times it actively rejects human ideas of gender (which is an important theme in the series), on top of its Crew and ART using it/its, on top of Pin-Lee writing it detailed legal contracts using it/its pronouns, on top of that AMA where ART says it and mb use it/its.

disclaimer: i 100% get people who haven’t gone as deep in the paint on analysis/close reading as I have using they/them for mb as a ‘i’m not sure what to do’ thing or a ‘given no direction i use they/them until a person expresses a preference’ thing, or people using they/them for mb because they have personal trauma/bad memories relating to the use of it/its pronouns as irl dehumanization. that’s valid, and I understand where they’re coming from. most of what I’m talking about it is actually gendering mb (e.g. he or she gross). although using they/them for murderbot is still misgendering, since mb does demonstrate preference for it/its (see below), it acknowledges the ‘gender = not applicable’ spirit of it all and at the end of the day mb is a fictional character, and real people’s trauma matters more. things can be better or worse without being 100% good or 100% bad, and using they/them for mb is better than misgendering it w he/him or she/her or anything else but it’s still incorrect.

Keep reading

[rjalker]

I have been informed I have a "pattern of behavior" in The Murderbot Diaries fandom, of *checks notes* let's see...

Calling out exorsexism

Calling out racism

Calling out aroacemisia

Calling out ableism

Politely correcting misgendering

[ID: A screenshot from a video clip of a person frowning at the camera, saying, "Yeah, I sure hope it does!". End ID.]

[rjalker]

[ID: The "is this a pigeon" meme, edited so "The Murderbot Diaries fandom" is pointing at: "A character whose traits are stigmatized in our society, who is nevertheless treated with respect and dignity, offering the first postivie representation many people have ever seen of themselves", And asking, "Is this a blank slate for me to erase while I silence the very real people it represents?" End ID.]

So would you all be just as perfectly content to live and let live if I rewrote Mensah to be 100% straight and monogamous and whitewashed her? Would you all be perfectly fine if I changed all the female characters and characters of color to cis straight white men? Would you all be fine if I wrote a fic where Murderbot is sent to literal ABA and it's portrayed as a positive things?

Would you say those things are also innocently just "up to interpretation"?

[rjalker]

I guess I have to start hanging these out to people in the Murderbot Diaries fandom so they don't scream and cry and sob when they see me correct someone else who's misgendering Murderbot

apparently, if you only correct people who use the wrong pronouns, that means you're ignoring all the people who are using the right ones.

Because I guess they want a sticker for doing the absolute bare minimum required to respect trans people.

Like. Do I really need to explain to these people that, yes, the only people who need to be corrected are the ones using the wrong pronouns???? that's why it's called correcting??????????? You do not need to be corrected if you're doing it right?????????????

[ID: A gold star surrounded by smaller golden sparkles, with the star reading in comic sans, "You did the absolute bare minimum required to respect trans people". End ID.]

[rjalker]

Interacting with The Murderbot Diaries fandom moodboard

[Plain text: "Interacting with The Murderbot Diaries fandom moodboard". End plain text.]

[ID: Sixteen memes, described in order from left to right and top to bottom:

First: The Bugs Bunny in a tuxedo meme, now edited to say, " I wish people who misgender Murderbot a very shut the fuck up forever.

Second: A screenshot from the show Mako Mermaids, showing David grinning adoringly towards Nixie with his face propped up on his hands. David is labeled, "The Murderbot Diaries fandom", and Nixie is labeled "Exorsexism, transmisia, athiktomisia, ableism, racism, whitewashing, aroacemisia, abuse apologism,"

Third: A stick figure drawing of a werewolf with red eyes and sharp bloody teeth, sanding over a pool of blood labeled, "people who misgender Murderbot".

Fourth: A screenshot from the show iCarly, showing Gibby, labeled "Me", about to hit Spencer, labeled, "people who misgender Murderbot" over the head with a stop sigh.

Fifth: The "is this a pigeon?" meme, edited so the person is labeled, "The Murderbot Diaries fandom", saying, "Are we a safe and welcoming space for nonbinary people, touch averse people, nonpartnering aroace people, and people of color?" While pointing at, "The most oppressively exorsexist, ableist, amisic, and racist fandom I've ever had the misfortune of being in".

Sixth: The meme of an anime character saying, "oh so it was a joke", now edited so they are saying, "Oh, so you're purposefully and knowingly misgendering Murderbot because you think people who use it/its pronouns don't deserve to respect", followed by a closeup of their hand holding a rock, captioned, "Saying this, it aggressively picked up a large rock with killing intent written in its every movement."

Seventh: A Screenshot from the Beauty and the Beast show from 1987, showing someone holding a newspaper whose headline now reads, "Local nonbinary werewolf loses its shit, mauls five exorsexists", with smaller text beneath continuing, "Strange Mauling in the Park Puzzle Police".

Eighth: A digital drawing of Murderbot, edited so it is holding a gun pointed at the camera, now with glowing red eyes from under its helmet, and a filter of red noise and static, reading in all caps, "use it/its pronouns for me or stop pretending you care about me".

Ninth: Two screnshots from The Good Place, showing Shawn now saying, "I have heard no statements nor seen any evidence to suggets…oh misgenders Murderbot? Yeah, they all definitely belong in the Bad Place.".

Tenth: Three screenshots from The Good Place, showing Eleanor and Chidi talking. Eleanor says, "I'm proud to misgender Murderbot because I refuse to respect people's pronouns if they use it/its." Chidi responds, "Okay, but that's blatant exorsexism. Tell me you understand how exorsexist you are being."

Eleventh: A screenshot from the 1974 short film, "A Political Cartoon", showing Peter President standing at the podium, now edited so he is holding a baseball bat, captioned, "[violence against exorsexists commences]".

Twelfth: A screenshot from the show Farscape, showing John Crichton sitting on the floor, holding a blue mask in one hand, staring towards the camera, looking distressed. Text above and below reads, "When The Murderbot Diaries fandom promises they respect and love nonbinary people…while they're right in the middle of misgendering Murderbot and demanding that no one is allowed to be upset with them for this.".

Thirteenth: The meme of an uno card, then someone holding a massive handful of cards. The card now reads "Don't misgender Murderbor or draw 25". The person who has drawn 25 cards is labeled, "The Murderbot Diaries fandom".

Fourteenth: A screenshot from the Muppets, showing one of the characters speaking, edited to now say, "Insult of your choice, we all know that Murderbot is not a human. Your pathetic attempts to justify your transmisia and exorsexism in misgendering it by claiming it/its pronouns are 'dehumanizing' shows you do not actually give a single shit about Murderbot, or real people who use it/its pronouns, and furthermore that you have literally zero understanding of this character or the themes of this series even though it's not fucking subtle. Shut the fuck up or just admit you hate nonbinary people. Literally everyone can already tell.".

Fifteenth: A photo of a prop for a movie of a quadrupedal werewolf snarling with its mouth wide open, labeled, "Me @ people who misgender Murderbot".

Sixteenth: A digital drawing of Murderbot against a pale blue background, that reads, "Murderbot would hate every single one of you fucking bigots".

End ID.]

No, there is literally zero excuse for you to call Murderbot anything other than it/its pronouns. There are no excuses. There is no justification.

Any fucking argument you try to use to justify misgendering Murderbot is an argument that has been used to justify misgendering me.

If you think you're literally incapable of calling someone by it/its pronouns even when those are literally the person's pronouns, leave this fucking fandom and don't come back until you can treat nonbinary people with the bare minimum of respect.

If you are so distressed by people going by it/its pronouns, you have no fucking buisness being in a fandom for books where the protagonist and many other character use it/its pronouns.

There is no fucking excuse for misgender Murderbot or any other person who uses it/its pronouns. Murderbot is a fictional character, but you are perpetuating real bigotry when you misgender it.

[Plain text: "There is no fucking excuse for misgender Murderbot or any other person who uses it/its pronouns. Murderbot is a fictional character, but you are perpetuating real bigotry when you misgender it." End plain text.]

[rjalker]

Society if Martha Wells actually talks to nonbinary and other trans people and takes their words to heart and commits herself to doing better and works to make sure any new books she publishes are not only free of transmisia, but actively support nonbinary and other trans people.

Society if, if Martha Wells writes any more Murderbot books, she retroactively fixes a major source of the exorsexism in The Murderbot Diaries by revealing that Murderbot is literally trans and was assigned a different gender and pronouns upon construction, but literally hacked the system to overwrite its gender and pronoun assignments to be "indeterminate" and "it/its" and that, literally as a blatantly observable fact of capitalism that she can and should play off, any employees who did notice just literally did not get paid enough to care enough point it out to any superiors or give a single shit.

Society if Martha Wells introduces more bot and construct character who are binary trans or genderfluid or not literally /just/ agender.

Society if Martha Wells has one of the main reocurring humans characters come out as nonbinary to solidify the fact that literally anyone can be nonbinary and you can figure this out at literally any age or stage of your life, rather than just being something that only robots or aliens can be:

[ID: The meme of the futuristic utopian city, with the trans pride flag overlaid on top of it with stripes of blue, pink, white, pink, and blue. End ID.]

[rjalker]

Bringing this post from last year back for another round.

"Calling someone an it is dehumanizing!!!"

Some people aren't human, asshole, and they don't need to be human to deserve respect.

If your idea of "treating someone like a person" entails misgendering them, you don't actually have any idea how to respect someone.

[rjalker]

The Murderbot Diaries and Gender: Not nearly as progressive as you think it is.

Edit: No, people, this is not an excuse for you to misgender Murderbot. Why do I even need to say this -.-

here's a list of things Martha Wells needs to do before The Murderbot Diaries can in any way be considered trans representation at all, let alone good trans representation. Feel free to add on anything I missed.

And keep this in mind: I am not human, I am nonbinary, I use it/its pronouns, and I have read other, older books by Martha Wells, I have seen more examples on her views regarding gender/sex than appear in The Murderbot Diaries. (I'm not saying this to like, one-up anyone, I'm just saying I've had to read through her protagonist arbitrarily assigning genders and pronouns to other characters and it was agonizingly bad to read, okay)

And if for whatever reason someone decides to steal this post and put it on Twitter, since apparently people have done that with my posts about books and shows in the past, (like, what the hell, people, you could have at least asked) let me just say: Martha Wells, hire trans and nonbinary people to read over your books for you before you publish them. These are very basic problems with very simple solutions.

---

(Archived read-more link)

1) Have Murderbot explicitly state that it uses it/its pronouns. Have some asshole try to assign Murderbot different pronouns as a way of patronizing it while pretending they're being respectful and nice. Show how absolutely bigoted and wrong this is. State it explicitly that Murderbot's pronouns are it/its and it hates being called by other pronouns.

2) Have a construct or bot that has not been altered by a human be trans in that they have a very definitively binary gender, even though they have the same "lack of gender or sex related parts" as Murderbot or any other bot. Give us a trans woman bot or construct. Give us a trans man bot or construct.

Preferably one who hasn't or doesn't alter their configuration at all until well after their gender and transness has been established.

Because lets set one thing straight: Martha Well's grasp of gender so far is very blatantly that sex = gender, or lackthereof.

As far as Martha Wells is concerned, Murderbot is agender because it has no "gender or sex related parts". This is an established pattern in her writing.

She is still very much on the train of "sex = gender", and is now just applying that "no sex = no gender". as the logical conclusion.

Except it's still the same transmisic idea, now just assigning gender (specifically, its lack thereof, because they have no sex) to bots and constructs. She is pretty much pointing at a brick wall and going "That thing is genderless".

Just like her protagonist Moon in the Books of the Raksura sees a person with breasts and goes "oh that person I thought was a man because of their deep voice is actually a woman. Got it." without ever once stopping to ASK, or even considering asking, even though he's literally interacting with hundreds of species who interact with hundreds of other species on the daily. If Martha Wells had any understanding of gender, none of these characters would bat an eye at explaining their gender to different species, or having different sets of pronouns for each species and group. Especially because they're all already speaking multiple languages. The failing is in her nonexistent understanding of gender beyond "gender = sex".

Martha Wells has Moon go "Breasts = woman, deep voice = man" and we're just supposed to go along with this because this is as far as her grasp of gender went when she was writing The Books of the Raksura.

And the same exact thing is happening in The Murderbot Diaries, except now she's gotten slightly better, by having the characters be genderless, instead of having the protagonist literally go around arbitrarily assigning genders and pronouns to everyone he meets. (And by "he" I am of course referring to Moon, not Murderbot.)

Except it's not actually better, because it's still the exact same problem. It's still the exact same form of transmisia, even though she's trying to make it work. It does not.

Martha Wells needs to learn that gender does not equal sex. She needs to have characters whose genders do not match their sex (or lack thereof). She needs to stop assigning characters genders based on their sex.

She needs to actually talk to and interact with and learn from trans people, especially nonbinary people. So many things in The Murderbot Diaries could have easily been avoided by just having a trans person read and go "hey just fix this thing quick" and it'd be done. Like, these are short stories for crying out loud. It wouldn't be difficult to fix these problems at all.

We need bot and construct characters who are binary trans.

We need more main, reoccurring human characters who are confirmed nonbinary, and we need more main reoccurring characters who are confirmed nonbinary specifically in ways that are not already socially established and accepted.

We need a character who is nonbinary who is from a planetary system where only male and female are recognized, no free pass with tercera--which literally translates to "third"-- already being a socially accepted mainstream thing. Having a gender trinary is not better than having a gender binary. Shoving people into three boxes is not better than shoving them into two.

Tercera could be a great idea as part of the world building, if it were one of many countless examples of both established and new nonbinary genders across many planetary systems.

And hell, for the binary bot or construct I mentioned earlier? If she wanted to show a character transitioning....ART literally has a fully equipped medical suite. ART or its drones could literally perform whatever gender-affirming surgery this bot or construct wanted.

3) again it goes with the above. Having characters list their genders (or rather, knowing Martha Well's view of gender what with all the reoccurring characters to date being cis, their sexes) in the feed is not enough. Especially when Murderbot lists its gender as "indeterminate" or "not applicable". That does not tell anyone anything about what pronouns it uses.

If someone lists their gender as "nonbinary" that does not tell you anything about what pronouns they use. Even if someone listed their gender as "man" or "woman" or "male" or "female" that literally does not tell you anything about what pronouns they use!

The characters should not be listing their sex (because let's be honest, that's what they're doing, because unless Martha Wells starts talking to trans people and educating herself about these sorts of things she's not going to suddenly reveal that one of the reoccurring human characters has actually been trans this whole time), they should be listing their pronouns! This is their internet profile! People need to know what pronouns to use for them!

Have Murderbot add it/its to its feed profile! Kill multiple birds with one stone! Explicitly state Murderbot's pronouns! Fix the fact that the characters list their sex on their profile rather than their pronouns! Metaphysically punch the transmisic readers in the face!

Because there are people reading these books who purposefully fucking misgender Murderbot because they think calling it by it's actual fucking pronouns is insulting! And that is an idea Martha Wells needs to snuff out! Explicitly! These people will literally argue with you that it's good for them to misgender the main character of this series!

4) Have one of the main reoccurring human characters (Pin-Lee, Ratthi, Gurathin, Mensah, Overse, Arada, ect.) come out as nonbinary. They figured out they were nonbinary from hanging out with Murderbot so often. Look at that! We have a main reocurring nonbinary human character whose gender does not equal their sex! Killing several birds with one stone!

They can literally even change their name and pronouns and medically transition if they fucking want because it's not like they don't live on Planet Free Healthcare™ and more importantly it's literally never too late to question or explore your gender and you're never too old or too anything to realize you're nonbinary and that is a kind lesson many people need to hear!

So many people think they aren't "allowed" to be nonbinary because they're "too old" or "been married for too long" or "had kids" or any other number of things that have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you're nonbinary!

The only thing you have to do to be nonbinary is be nonbinary!

And again, we need constructs and bots that are binary trans as well! We need more explicitly trans human characters too, not just characters who we can literally only assume Murderbot is assigning they/them pronouns to since no one lists their pronouns in their feed profile, and Martha Wells has never bothered to say anything like "and their feed profile said they use they/them pronouns", so we literally just have to assume that Murderbot is assigning them pronouns but instead of being Moon and assigning everyone he or she, it's assigning people they/them like that's any better. Hint: it's not. It's the same problem but now with a slightly wider range.

Like. I love Martha Wells' writing. It's great. But she really needs to start talking to and listening to trans people because there are so many problems that have absurdly easy solutions.

She has improved since she wrote The Books of the Raksura, but it's not enough improvement for these books to be called trans representation at all, let alone good trans representation, not even considering great.

Murderbot isn't trans, it is the construct equivalent of being cis. It is a cis construct who agrees with the genderlessness it was assigned at construction. That is not trans representation. It's nonbinary representation, it's aroace representation, it's it/its pronoun user representation, but it's not trans representation, and the only reason it's aroace is, again, because it is a construct and has no sex. This is still literally sex = gender. Literally still that.

-

To summarize:

The Murderbot Diaries won't be representative of trans people until there are actually trans recurring characters, both human and nonhuman, binary and nonbinary. The Murderbot Diaries won't be representative of trans people until Martha Wells learns to stop equating sex with gender and the lack thereof with the lack thereof.

We need constructs and bots who are trans in binary male or female direction.

We need main reoccurring human characters who are nonbinary.

We need the characters to list their pronouns in their feed profile instead of their sex.

Martha Wells needs to talk to and listen to trans people if she wants her stories to actually be representative of trans people and our experiences.

She has improved since she wrote The Books of the Raksura, but considering they're atrocious when it comes to not being transmisic, that's not saying a lot, that's actually the bare minimum.