#Very gendered. Accusations

[rotzaprachim]

I think Ramiro 1899 being Jewish is something that I thought of as a joke before it swallowed me whole but Ramiro 1899 being trans is something that genuinely could have likely been canonical in later seasons

[prolibytherium]

Just in general I think trying to look to pre-late modern period history for validation of LGBT+ identities is an absolutely useless venture. Every single underlying human experience defined through the lens and framework of LGBT identity has always existed, but it's impossible to pin down Exactly who and what a figure might have been if they existed in this contemporary context and decided to self identify via these labels.

It's also a wildly reductive lens that flattens the complexity and variety of how sex and gender has been constructed across time in different cultures, how sexual norms have varied, etc. This is not a constructive approach to learn about history and you're never going to be able to fit historical figures neatly into little identity categories.

[spartalabouche]

sometimes its really obvious how much people dont actually believe presentation=/=gender when they see their nonbinary friend go from extremely masculine to relaxing back into femininity once theyre comfortable with their gender and every time they call it detransitioning with zero indication thats what their friend is calling it. i dont know how to tell you this but sometimes you present a certain way for social reasons and not because thats how you actually feel. sometimes you experience dysphoria about your body that is actually related to how people view you and not how you feel about your body. i really dont think its that uncommon for trans people to swing really hard in one direction for the affirmation and then relax back into a different presentation once they are more comfortable in their gender

[hellhoundlair]

ive been having girl!sammy thoughts recently btw

[unlimitedbutchworks]

i know it’s bitchy and kinda unfair but id be lying if i said it didnt irritate the hell out of me as a trans woman seeing tme lesbians treat the idea of lesbians being with trans men and still identifying as lesbians as some kind of forbidden lost knowledge of magical hybridities and perspectives, rather than the common standard female4female bioessentialist and transphobic set of norms they often are. like ive never seen lesbians get shit for this irl, meanwhile trans women and lesbians who stand with us are routinely excised and alienated from spaces for ‘enabling poor behavior’, ‘taking too much space’ and ‘dangerous proximity to maleness’, but now i gotta listen to you go on about how you’re reclaiming maleness femalely safely? something’s not adding up…

[genderqueercultureis]

Genderqueer culture is being pissed at terfs for stealing our colours (sorry if this is dour)

June 22, 2024.

[serpentface]

What's the Wardi cultural take on Akoshos sleeping with/partnering with/marrying other Akoshos?

It's not highly regulated to a degree that there are overwhelming cultural norms about it. There's a lot of societal focus on akoshos being theoretically suitable sexual partners for both men and women due to being dual-gendered, but not to an extent that relationships with One Another are stigmatized.

They also largely get to escape from the most severe concerns about penetrator/penetrated power dynamics because they're not regarded as Men (they're regarded as dual-gendered, and they're a female social class on every practical level), there's no status of manhood to Lose by receiving sexual penetration. The only real thing you see in that department is people assuming that one acts as 'the man' and one acts as 'the woman', but this is largely due to preoccupation with a notion of sex being Penetration With A Penis (and that Penetration With A Penis means that one person is in a Man's Role and one person is in a Woman's Role). But this will not be regarded as unnatural as in same-gender male relations, akoshos will Have to take up a position in this sexual dichotomy if they want to have Real Sex (Penetration With A Penis) with each other, and this is not unnatural and doesn't involve gaining or losing status since they are simultaneously male and female, not men.

So like you might see individual culture critics finding stuff to nitpick about it as their annoyance of the week or a singular Guy here or there who thinks it's weird, but this isn't a widespread norm. The vast majority of people don't give a shit about akoshos having sex with each other. The worst thing you're likely to experience Solely by virtue of being in an akoshos-akoshos relationship is someone asking you (probably with genuine curiosity) which one does the man stuff and which one does the woman stuff.

Akoshos also don't experience Hard expectations for marriage (though there are societal pressures that make marriage an attractive safety net all the same, ESPECIALLY marriage to a man) so unofficial life-partnerships between akoshos are pretty much the Only same gender partnerships between unwed people that are going to go unquestioned. ((Sworn brotherhood is technically a same gender life partnership for men that is Functionally similar to marriage (in that it's a kin-making practice between unrelated adults), but the tradition is Built upon the assumption that both parties will be married to women and that a primary goal of this kinship is to provide security for both parties' wives and children)). Marriage obligations in general are more lax in the economically secure but not Wealthy lower mercantile classes (as obligations to support and perpetuate one's family are universal, but these obligations can be filled simply by having at least One son who can get hitched, and marriages in the lower classes have no political functions and therefore there's less reason to ensure All your children are wed (there's still incentives like dowry, but this is not desperately needed when a family is economically secure)). So akoshos in this class group tend to have a Lot more freedom in terms of their life arrangements and chosen partners (though still experience the limiting frameworks of structural misogyny in other capacities).

The only thing that is out of the picture is akoshos/akoshos marriage. Marriage in this society has a predominantly reproductive function, the concept of reproductively non-viable marriages is generally considered absurd. This is not JUST this culture's form of homophobia, as marriage is a very practical arrangement at its core - both in a reproductive capacity and as bedrock for the patriarchal blood-kinship family system that forms the core social unit. The idea of same gender marriage isn't just absurd because 'ewwww weird' it's like, that Cannot work within this system, it Cannot fill core functions of what a marriage intends to do here, the ways on which marriage and kinship are BUILT makes same gender marriage practically (rather than just socially) untenable.

The sole exception to the 'marriage = reproductively viable" rule is that akoshos can be married to men (which in practice is almost always as a remarriage after a man has secured At Least an heir). This has a Little bit of internal logic here in that they perform predominantly female social roles (thus are suited to being a wife, even if they can't bear children) (and also on practical levels of them having the same legal status as women) but it's really more of a 'this is just how it's always been' kind of thing. A lot of the older pre-Wardi identity dual-gender roles that got mashed together under the 'akoshos' name would have involved marriage to a man as a second wife/concubine, in addition to his primary wife who would bear his children. Men potentially having multiple spouses has not been retained as a cultural practice, but the notion that an akoshos Can be a wife to a man has survived into modern day legal and doctrinal practices around marriage.

So like this being said, marriage as it is legally defined is only between a man and a woman, a man and an akoshos, or a woman and an akoshos. In practice the latter two are comparatively VERY rare- a man/akoshos marriage cannot provide children (though an akoshos can practically fulfill all other obligations and duties of a wife), a woman/akoshos marriage Can provide children (and while akoshos cannot function as a male heir, these children Will take their akoshos-parent's family name (though the wife retains her father's family name)), but akoshos are legally grouped with women in terms of rights and privileges (including being permanently under legal domain of their father unless they have been legally handed off to a male husband) and Cannot provide hard power patriarchal support that this family system is built upon and therefore depends upon, which makes these marriages socio-economically insecure. They can obviously still be a good partner and parent, but this is not the same as having the Legal hard power of a patriarch.

Akoshos marrying each other would be reproductively and socially nonviable, and is treated as a similarly absurd concept to a man marrying a man or a woman marrying a woman. It's just not a part of the marriage and kinship framework, it's not a thing that you can Do.

[lost-technology]

Trigun Maximum - What the Gender???!!! Okay, so I'm sitting here doing a re-read of Trigun Maximum Vol. 5 and I get to the last chapter. I am reading the print edition from Dark Horse - Japanese publication in 2001, English language translation publication in 2005 according to the back of the book. Anyway, I got a little confused by something I hadn't remembered that is apparently there: The page where Elendira is dumped out onto the ground from the Ark (and wants to gut the helmsman) Meryl says: "A transvestite?! (He has a nicer figure than I do...)" I had forgotten that because I believe that most people tend to refer to the Trigun Manga Overhaul fan-translation for that, which is here for that chapter: https://www.trigunoverhaul.com/TVol5Ch06.html and has Meryl saying: "A trans-woman?! (But she has a better figure than I do...)" One is official (comic-licensed), one is fan-translated (but is said to be very accurate, done as dedicated fans rather than people just paid for a task). I am wondering which is more accurate? Specifically, I am wondering if the latter one "cleaned things up" for the sake of modern sensitivities or if it really does carry more of the gist of the original. I mean, I found myself with a bit of confusion at that chapter when skimming Overhall and seeing Legato say "She saved me," when my Dark Horse book has "He saved me" which had led me to believe that Legato had been referring to Knives (Knives chose to spare him, by order) - while "She saved me" (referring to Elendira) completely changes the meaning. Legato *does* have one of his "fanatical" facial expressions there, thus leaving me confused as to whether he is surprised that Elendira the ("he" in DH or "she" in Overhaul) saved him or if it might have been "he" referring to Knives ordering him spared? I am not asking for people to cancel Nightow... (ugh, please don't). I don't even know if pronouns work the same in Japanese as they do in English (I heard that they do not). Having been alive in 2005 and having read the volume back around then (either that or I got it in 2006 or so, anyway, I was alive back then AND old enough to read a very bloody, adult-oriented manga), well, I seem to remember "transvestite" being a more common term then / the basic common before "transgender" "transwoman" and "transman" came into common usage. Not being a part of the trans community, I do not know if it was more "the accepted common term" then or if it was always a slur and I thought it used to be the common term before new terms were created? If my recall is accurate, "transgender" / trans - man/woman was coming into play then and "transvestite" was fading out as it was more often used in a derogatory fashion than as a descriptor. (I honestly do not know very much about the culture of the words, so forgive me if I am getting things wrong).* *There was a similar process that I saw in real time regarding what is now known as the R-word for certain disabilities. I was alive (a child) back in the 1980s when the word was actually a medical descriptor but was ALSO a slur and by about the 1990s other medical terms were used and "R" had become exclusively insulting. - It is one of those things that one must be mindful of when encountering old media. (I watched a Twilight Zone 1985 episode I hunted up having vaguely remembered it from my childhood on Youtube some time ago that treated the condition and a character that had it with sensitivity, but had his parents and medical staff using the term and it felt like a shock / I had to remind myself "that was the term back then"). I'm just left wondering about the bias DH translators might have had back in the day having been jumpscared by that when most of today's manga-readers are obviously reading Overhaul.

[naivety]

okay i need feedback from the autism mentall illness website um. this is going to read like an AITA post. brother vs half-sister (who are currently my dependents do to their own individual disabilities + ptsd/depression) spat i will skim the details on but i'm worried my sister will discount my take since i'm not autistic myself so. am i crazy to call it ableist to look at an autistic person (23) who is clearly going through it dealing w long term depression, a world that doesn't give a shit abt him, unemployment, very self-isolated and burnt out barely leaving his room because the world is an ableist dumpster fire with zero opportunities for him, and then bring up childhood abuse he's suffered and his diagnosis as reasonable factors on top of this to worry he'll [checks notes] abuse my cat just to hurt me or even worse have a breakdown and kill me and his other sibling in a violent episode, a train of thought i probably wouldn't even be having were he not [checks notes] mad at me for the first time in my life?

like i don't have any other read on this kind of fear-based characterization other than ableism. like those are very real things in his life but she never points out any current violent behavior, of which there are none, only the one (1) instance of him lashing out when he was like 14 and Officially Diagnosed Low Empathy she thinks is a concern and Hateful Looks toward her since he stopped getting along with her, that's it. i tried explaining to her why i, someone who's lived w him his entire life, can vouch for how unlikely he is to do anything like that, especially when it's again not based on anything he's actually currently doing except for isolating in a way that is much more indicative of him potentially being a danger to himself than anyone else, and being cold towards her specifically, and i thought she had let it go, but when i brought it up off-hand in a conversation tangentially related, she continued to defend and justify her Concern about the potential directions his behavior could lead to because [checks notes] other people in similar situations have lashed out and killed their entire families according to. true crime books or videos she's watched on youtube as far as i'm aware. ignoring the fact that her and i have had the same or Worse childhood abuse and have acted similarly isolated in the past, or for her literally just as currently as him, and she's not expressed any worry past or present about either of us doing anything like that, in my opinion obviously because i haven't cut her off due to our differences like he decided to. like am i big sibling biased because this is pissing me off so bad.

[immortalarizona]

for pride month I am haviiiiing. an itty bitty gender crisis

[stardustedknuckles]

You guys know that sometimes lesbians exist and they're not butch or femme right. Like it's important to me that you understand that it's of no interest to many of us to subscribe to a sub-gender any more than it is for a regular one. Sometimes we just live here. Very often, lesbian itself is the gender. There are a lot more of us than you think.

[borom1r]

sorry look if sth isnt harming me i try to stay in my own lane but rapid-onset gender dysphoria on that MUD/"coined disorder" archive you know thats a transphobic invention right? you know that's just transphobia, right? that specific term. it's transphobic. and some of yall are using it LEGITIMATELY????? im going to lose it.

[toytulini]

i feel like the makeup standards are not necessarily going to get Worse, just. stay the Same. "raised by sephora and ulta" christ alive yall act like this shit is new. as if this hasnt been the standard to blast young girls with makeup ads and shit via magazine and tv and imposed beauty standards anyway. the only real difference is like, idk, accessibility of tutorials for how to apply it well

[mukuberry]

I rlly like Trickle's covers but him making 2 songs straight when they weren't originally makes me 🤨🤨🤨

[alchemiclee]

I think doing shipping through and aroace lens makes things complicated but also interesting. I think one reason I don't enjoy straight ships as much is because it's very rare for people write/talk about them with a queerplatonic dynamic. straight romance is so "normalized" in society, it's hard to get any other dynamic out of those ships from other people in conversation or writing. it's mostly always romantic. (especially when "guys and girls can't be *just* friends" is extremely common and has ruined mamy of my own friendships) but I enjoy a handful of a straight ship with that dynamic. it's just way more rare to see talked about than gay ones from my observation. anyway point is, more queerplatonic type ships and stuff please! those aren't explored enough!

[gayvampyr]

Do you support prison abolition /paying prisoners a living wage / making being able to vote more accessible to everyone?

I like your stances and opinions and your jokes but I'm genuinely curious on this one.

(This is inspired by some of the comments under one of your posts talking about how we should just make democracy more livable under capitalism, and while I disagree with that being the ONLY thing we need to do, it does kinda make me think about how many people think we need to get better without abolishing prisons or at least treating our prisoners better than we are treating them currently.)

hi! i'm not sure which post you're referring to but I'm actually anti-capitalist. I think we need to dismantle capitalism as a system because it is inherently inhumane, working exactly as intended and therefore cannot be "fixed" without restructuring it entirely from the ground up; the devaluation of human labor and environmental destruction for profit is not a bug, it's a feature. i could delve into the kind of economic system that i think should replace it after dismantling it, however it's more of a thought exercise and until it becomes a plausible reality, i would rather focus on how we can make capitalism livable for the time being because we have no other choice. for example we could start by lowering rent, instituting a 4-day work week, and establishing support networks for homeless people. i'm not an economist so it's not like i have all the answers but according to the results from other countries who have applied these practices, it improves quality of life and the economy significantly.

as for prisons, i'm pro-abolition. you can check out my prison abolition tag for more information, but essentially prisons exist in this day and age as an industry that profits off of slave labor. many of our laws and their enforcers unfairly target minorities and lower class people, and the denial of convicts the right to vote is just another way our government strips vulnerable communities of their political power, autonomy, and supposedly inalienable rights. aside from the conviction of innocent people and people who did commit a crime but ultimately did no harm, i don't think it's the right of any individual (or government, for that matter) to imprison others. i think people tend to forget that "criminals" are human beings and deserving of the same rights as everyone else, and it is human nature to make mistakes. the important thing is the opportunity to do better. militarist propaganda has done an incredible job of convincing us that convicts are amoral and undeserving of our sympathy, turning society in general against them and destroying any sort of safety net they might have had or needed otherwise. and people are too busy clinging to the notion that criminals are subhuman and deserving of whatever punishment is dealt that they can't see that this is a slide into fascism, and that they can just as easily become "other" should they find themselves on the receiving end of the system. we are very close to living in a surveillance state, which means any minor offense or slip-up has the potential to completely decimate your chances at getting a job, applying for college, getting a loan, receiving housing, and especially being able to have a say in elections. it also makes you more likely to be arrested again on account of "suspected illegal activity", so your record follows you around for the rest of your life.

sorry this got so long but yeah, essentially capitalism and the prison industry are inhumane and should be abolished.