#Who's gender non-conformity was threatening to the establishment

[transformationsproject]

Trans rights are still under attack in the United States. Please visit our website linked below to learn about your state and contact your reps. Here's a thread of today's updates:

Healthcare bills go against professional and scientific consensus that gender affirming care saves lives. Denying access will cause harm. Providers are faced with criminal charges, parents are threatened with child abuse charges, and intersex children are typically exempted. Kansas SB233 healthcare bill would allow civil action against and revoking of license to any medical physician that performs gender affirming surgery on a minor as well as if they prescribe any gender affirming medications. This bill also tries to define “biological sex” by using endogenous hormone profile, sex organs and chromosomes.

Drag bans restrict access for folks who are gender non-conforming in any way. They loosely define drag as any public performance with an “opposite gender expression”, as sexual in nature, and inappropriate for children. This also pushes trans individuals out of public spaces. Kentucky SB115 defines establishments that have any drag show as an adult entertainment establishment and requires them to be at least 1,000 feet from any establishment that has children. This would ban any drag reading time but also defines parks, and playgrounds as used by children. If found civilly in violation it is a $7,500 a day fine to the establishment.

Today’s bill updates:

Montana HB234, drag bill, has its 1st senate reading.

Idaho's health care bill H0071 has a floor vote scheduled.

Kentucky SB150, school bill, is on the floor with many amendments being filed.

Kentucky SB102, school bill, has been sent to the education committee.

North Dakota SB2260, parental rights bill, has passed a 2nd reading.

North Dakota SB2231, pronoun bill, has passed a 2nd reading.

Oklahoma HB408, sex designation bill, has yet to pass the senate (may do so today), but has a primary author in house already.

[female-malice]

Dave Zirin's article slandering Title IX lawyer Nancy Hogshead Makar:

Rightists have a genocidal perspective on trans kids. Now they want the federal government to use Title IX to further push trans young people from public life.

One Olympic gold medalist who supports a trans bans and has written upon it extensively has been the swimmer Nancy Hogshead-Makar and her organization Champion Women. As Dr. Johanna Mellis, cohost of the End of Sports Pod tweeted to me (and I reprint with permission): “Enraging how several cishet [cisgender, heterosexual] white women like NHM [Nancy Hogshead–Makar] who ostensibly vote Dem and believe in abortion rights are trans panic-ers and boosting their platform off such bigotry.”

I guarantee that these very forces will at some point call for Title IX to be thrown out. No one connected to women’s athletics should give them one droplet of credibility. They should be aghast to see Title IX, some of the most important legislation for gender equality ever produced by this country, used as a cudgel to keep trans kids off the playing field. They should call that what it is: an obscenity. Either Title IX is a shining example of inclusion or it is not. For it to be used months after its 50th anniversary as a tool for bigots is the true perversion in this story.

The anti-trans feminists of the sports world say that their support is only for this bill and that they aren’t part of the larger movement of exclusion backed by street violence being whipped up against trans people. This is a cheesecloth-thin cover for the reality of what this legislation represents. HR 734 is a not-subtle way of saying that trans people have no place in public life. Not surprisingly, the same GOP rallying in lockstep behind this bill is also pushing Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) “Protect Children’s Innocence Act,” which would make it a felony for doctors to provide gender-affirming health care to transgender minors. That is also going to be taken up this week. The GOP establishment is all in. The bills are strongly supported by the Conservative Political Action Conference and its leader, Matt Schlapp, who is accused of sexually assaulting a male staffer. At CPAC over the weekend, Michael Knowles, a GOP yipping head, called for the “eradication of transgenderism,” only to threaten lawsuits against people who accurately described his speech as violent and even genocidal. As a Jew, if someone at CPAC—perhaps next year—called for the “eradication of Judaism” and then explained it by saying, “We just meant Judaism, not Jews,” my mind would not be put at ease. And not surprisingly, there has been no condemnation of these statements either by CPAC or anyone who claims to be pro-trans in every area except for sports.

–

Nancy Hogshead-Makar's response to Dave Zirin's sorry excuse for journalism:

I. am. pissed. I know Dave Zirin. I've been on his podcast and he has my contact info, including being connected here on Twitter. Yet he uses me to make this ridiculous argument that pro-female bills that put up appropriate boundaries around our sport categories are "anti-trans" ... and that I'm part of an effort to eliminate Title IX. You have lost your mind.

Tell me Dave, how many times must I repeat that I want transgender people to have great lives, in employment, in classrooms, in living their best lives... but that there are a few places where biology matters. I've said it on CBS Sunday Morning, Dr. Phil, USA TODAY, Washington Post, Daily Mail ... just to name a few. So I missed Michael Knowles ... I am a liberal democrat and do not pay attention to CPAC. That's some shitty evidence of being "anti-trans". I've repeatedly said I am supportive of the Bostock Supreme Court decision, (businesses cannot discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity or gender non-conformity) of the Obama regulations that required schools to not discriminate against trans students, but did not allow males in female sports.

Tell me Dave, you know my story of being way out front addressing sexual abuse in Olympic sport, and what it cost me. Was I doing it to "boost my platform" then?

Tell me Dave, as survivor of a violent rape followed by horrific PTSD, should I have to get changed in front of a male, however they identify? If you think I should "be kind" – fuck you.

Should I teach my 17 year old daughters that they should suppress their inner-voice of danger when they see males in our changing rooms?

If so, you're a misogynist, a woman-hater... someone who isn't allowing women to have their own boundaries, to be safe, to have our own spaces, our own sports, our own ability to shine and be recognized for what we do. We say "NO."

Biology matters in very few places, and where it matters it is absolute. There is no other way to chop up a person to give females half the opportunities to win. Males do not have the right to compete in OUR sport categories.

And I'm beyond offended that you wouldn't contact me about it.

[saedatshan]

LGBTQ Life Dangerous in Middle East and North Africa

Many Middle Eastern and North African countries have laws restricting sexual behavior. Countries including Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates criminalize certain sexual acts between two people of the opposite sex, marital infidelity, and people of the same sex. Those who belong to the LGBTQ community face persecution, placing themselves in danger when they openly identify as LGBTQ or appear to promote alternative lifestyles.

According to a February 2021 article from the House of Commons Library, many of the laws used to address the LGBTQ community in North African and Middle Eastern countries originate from British and French colonial rule and from Sharia law. These forms of legislation address same-sex relationships by explicitly using gender-neutral language using phrases such as “unnatural sex” or “sexual intercourse contrary to the order of nature.” In Qatar, for example, legislators have written gender-specific language such as a man “enticing” or “instigating” another man into law.

In Sudan and Kuwait, legislators also criminalize sexual acts between two men. Lebanese and Syrian lawmakers criminalize any act falling into the “unnatural sex” category. In some instances, the authorities in these countries have used the term “unnatural sex” to criminalize sexual acts between two people of the same sex.

The laws in some of these countries also target expressions of gender identity. In the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, the law prohibits gender nonconformity. Kuwait, in particular, enacted laws in 2007 that criminalized imitating the opposite sex. Wearing gender-non-conforming clothing can culminate in charges of promoting debauchery and indecent behavior. These laws, if broken, lead to arbitrary arrests and degrading treatment. Alternatively, some laws contain vague language using words such as morality and indecency to refer to behaviors promoting homosexuality. If caught distributing such material in Algeria and Yemen, the authorities label this as a breach of modesty.

In Iraq, singing songs or participating in broadcasts deemed indecent brings the individual or group under the scrutiny of the authorities. Jordan authorities also punish people who appear to support LGBTQ, scrutinizing any behavior deemed immodest, and publication of materials that go against what is perceived as public morals and indecent is considered a crime.

These laws establish a framework for meting out punishment for people suspected of the above acts. A few cases illustrate the severity with which the authorities handle those who identify, promote, or engage in the above behaviors. For instance, Sarah Hegazy, who identified as an Egyptian queer feminist, held up a rainbow flag at a concert in Cairo to support the lead singer, an openly gay band member of the group Mashrou' Leila, in 2017. The photo was posted on Facebook, and Hegazy received thousands of hateful messages. The police arrested Hegazy for joining a group (the band) that interfered with the country’s constitution, and she later took her in life while in exile in Canada.

Security forces in Tunisia threatened to arrest, physically assault, and sexually assault LGBTQ activists in June 2021 as part of countrywide demonstrations. The authorities also outed and smeared individuals who identified as LGBTQ, exposing their personal information and identities without their consent.

Authorities are not the only groups that threaten the liberty and safety of LGBTQ individuals and their supporters. In Saudi Arabia, Yemeni blogger Mohamad al-Bokari stated on one of his blogs that he supported equal rights for all, including equal rights for the LGBTQ community. In response, armed groups threatened to kill him, and he fled on foot from Yemen to Saudi Arabia.

Because much of this legislation cracks down on promoting or supporting LGBTQ platforms, LGBTQ individuals under the authorities' scrutiny have little recourse in dealing with situations that make life very difficult. Denied even the right to express support for this group of people, activists such as al-Bokari, who was guilty of supporting equal rights for all, can find themselves in a maelstrom, one taking years to recover from. Ultimately, LGBTQ communities in this region fights for their dignity in the ways that make most sense for their individual contexts, and they are worthy of our solidarity.

[ironborealis]

So this post appeared on my feed because I was dumb and said I was interested in things tagged "Severus Snape" because I forget how things work sometimes.

I gave them a long response but I think it's a banger so I've cleaned it up to share.

To preface, I'll say that I was still in school when the books were starting to come out, and so I was in school during the period the books are set. I wasn't in the UK and can't speak to specifics there, but my own.

Your question feels really disingenuous when you tag it #james potter supremacy but I am a fool and going to answer you honestly anyway.

I liked Snape the moment it was revealed in the first book that he wasn't the villain -- because it showed him as someone who gave no fucks about how others saw him. I had been violently bullied for years at that point, but was told that I needed to stop letting it hurt me or to stop acting in ways to invite the abuse. All I internalized was that it was my fault and I needed to change myself so that they'd like me. So meeting a character who just stopped giving a fuck about other people's opinions was fascinating.

The text doesn't, I think, intend for you to read Snape's behavior as incredibly abusive. A lot of his behavior to the students wouldn't have been seen as abnormal when I was in school. Unkind but within tolerance. He was a prick and the assumption with teachers like that was that A) don't take it personally B) If you can't do A then stay off their radar and count the minutes until class is over. I'm hoping that the sudden uproar about how abusive Snape is now is a sign that school culture has changed. Because you're right, it's awful, and shouldn't happen. But that's now, and not then. Then it was acceptable if not exactly encouraged behavior.

For me, Snape's teaching style would have been within normal limits and at least it wasn't false advertising. I saw popular "kind" teachers bully disabled students, throw coffee mugs, and choke slam 9 year olds. Those teachers were never punished. I preferred the hard asses who didn't pretend, but would restrain themselves to only demoralizing you with words. They never went half so far as those much beloved teachers. These were in schools that had long banned corporal punishment by teachers, by the way.

Plus, Snape's bullying is written in such a way that is so over the top and dramatic it's hard for me to believe that there's any real intent as he never follows through with most of his threats. He's amusing himself, which is fucked up, yes, but so is his situation being forced to teach children (a job he hates) by daylight and fighting a war as a spy by moonlight (a job he also hates).

When book 5 revealed his own history of being bullied the kinship I felt for him just kinda clicked. Game knew game, even if I didn't know it then.

What impressed me about Snape is that he made a terrible decision of joining the DE, he knows it, he regrets it, and most importantly he does something about it. He sabotages them and when he can't do that he tries to reduce harm as much as possible.

He joins a side lead by people who are responsible for his own traumas, who are unrepentant about their roles in it but still expect him to get over it. Snape isn't interested in pretending everything is fine with his allies when everything isn't fine and that's such a challenging and brave stance to take.

Because if I were in his shoes, my first instinct would be to swallow all my anger and stuff it in well inside me and pretend it doesn't exist so that I could be seen as agreeable and the bigger person. I know I'm not alone in that. However, that instinct has caused me so much damage that I will spend the rest of my life fighting that instinct tooth and nail.m, because what it means is that you are minimizing yourself and your safety in order to make other people comfortable.

Snape might have the right idea (but poor execution) when it comes to some people, but he falters when it comes to Lily. I was so disappointed with the reveal that Lily was his primary motivation, even if it's grown on me. He's so damned loyal to someone who wasn't even a great friend to him by the end. Lily smiles before she intercedes in SWM, which to me signaled that the whole scene was just a way for James to pull Lily's metaphorical pigtail (Snape) in their courtship and if I were the pigtail I'd be pissed too. It doesn't justify but it adds context for why he might want to hurt her then.

And Snape spends the rest of his life regretting his moments of weakness and giving his life to prevent Voldemort from winning, for a friend who failed him pretty spectacularly.

Most people don't do that -- they regret and then they try to get on with their lives. They don't want to talk about it. We're STILL finding guards from WWII concentration camps hiding out in suburbs after all. Snape doesn't choose that and that's brave as hell.

Snape's "redemption" is a hot debate, but I don't know that redemption is even his goal. He's just trying to do what's right. If he were really searching for redemption then certainly I think he'd have sought a more friendly relationship with Harry, if only on the side.

Which brings me back to how can you claim "James Potter Supremacy" when he's only seen in SWM, where he's a cruel bully to someone minding their own business (SWM takes place after the Shack per canon), and we only have the testimony of Sirius and Remus, a decade after his death, to say that he "got better" -- which meant not publicly tormenting Snape, but doing it in private. We never get to see this better version of James.

Sirius and Remus are highly motivated to put James in the best light possible to his orphaned son, which is natural, but it doesn't make it gospel truth. I think he may have become a better person with time, because that typically happens, and certainly he had the capacity for great kindness (befriending Remus) which makes his decisions to be so cruel even more painful. But he died and we never get to see any of him in canon except him being a complete asshole.

So why would you question how people can like Snape when there is so much more canonical evidence that Snape was a good person with serious faults than there is for James being anything other than a school bully who died young?

[gatheringbones]

["Working with queer and trans/gender-non-conforming youth in the Deep South, I hear stories of state and personal violence from a wide range of people. There was the 16-year-old, black self-identified “stud” in detention after her mom referred her to family court for bringing girls to the house. Then there was the incarcerated white 16-year-old trans youth from a rural town of 642, whose access to transgender healthcare resided in the hands of one juvenile judge. I was told of a black trans-feminine youth in New Orleans who was threatened with contempt for wearing feminine clothing to her court hearing. There was also the 12-year-old boy, perceived to be gay by his mother, who was brought into judge’s chambers without his attorney and questioned about being gay before he was sentenced for contempt after being found “ungovernable.” There was the public defender who refused to represent his gay client because the lawyer believed him to be “sick” and in need of the “services” offered by prison. And there was the black lesbian arrested over and over again for any crime where witnesses described the perpetrator as an African American “boyish-looking” girl.

Nowhere is the literal regulation and policing of gender and sexuality, particularly of low-income queer and trans youth of color, so apparent than in juvenile courts and in the juvenile justice system in the South. Understanding how the juvenile justice system operates and impacts queer and trans/gender-non-conforming youth requires a critical look at the history of youth rights and the inception of juvenile court. During the Industrial Revolution (1800–1840s), poor youth worked in factories, received no public education and were often arrested for the crime of poverty.[1] These youth, some as young as 7 years old, were incarcerated with adults and placed in prisons until they were 21. Inspired by the belief that young people who committed crimes could be rehabilitated and shocked by the horrific treatment of white children in adult prisons, the juvenile justice system was developed. This new system was based on parens patriae, the idea that the role of the system was to place youth in the state’s custody when their parents were unable to care for them. Later, in 1899, the first juvenile court was established, designed to “cure” children and provide treatments for them rather than sentences. Still rooted in a Puritan ideology, white young women were often sent to institutions “to protect them from sexual immorality.”

Black children, however, who were viewed as incapable of rehabilitation, continued to be sent to adult prisons or were sent to racially segregated institutions. In Louisiana, black youth were sent to work the fields at Angola State Penitentiary, a former slave plantation, until 1948 when the State Industrial School for Colored Youth opened. The facilities were not desegregated until the United States District Court ordered desegregation of juvenile facilities in 1969. More recently, the goal of juvenile justice reform has been to keep youth in their homes and in their communities whenever possible while providing appropriate treatment services to youth and their families. However, with the juvenile justice system’s intent to provide “treatment” to young people, many queer/trans youth inherit the ideology that they are “wrong” or in need of “curing,” as evidenced by their stories.

As sexual and gender transgressions have been deemed both illegal and pathological, queer and trans youth, who are some of the most vulnerable to “treatments,” are not only subjected to incarceration but also to harassment by staff, conversion therapy, and physical violence. Moreover, with the juvenile justice system often housed under the direct authority of state correctional systems and composed of youth referred directly from state police departments, it should not be surprising that young people locked up in the state juvenile system, 80 percent of whom are black in Louisiana, are often actually destroyed by the very system that was created to intervene. Worse than just providing damaging outcomes for youth once they are incarcerated, this rehabilitative system funnels queer and trans/gender-non-conforming youth into the front doors of the system. Non-accepting parents and guardians can refer their children to family court for arbitrary and subjective behaviors, such as being “ungovernable.” Police can bring youth in for status offenses, offenses for which adults cannot be charged, which often become contributing factors to the criminalization of youth. Charges can range from truancy to curfew violations to running away from home. Like in the adult criminal justice system, queer and trans youth can be profiled by the police and brought in for survival crimes like prostitution or theft. Youth may be referred for self-defense arising from conflict with hostile family members or public displays of affection in schools that selectively enforce policies only against queer and trans youth."]

Wesley Ware, from Rounding Up The Homosexuals: The Impact of Juvenile Court on Queer and Trans/Gender-Non-Conforming Youth, from Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex, edited by Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith, AK Press, 2011

[attemptsonherlifepdf]

transgression, the other, and the evolving shape of the gothic: a comparison of the bloody chamber and dracula

transgressive behaviours are at the forefront of gothic literature, a device used to impart messages surrounding temporally relevant cultural fascinations and anxieties. this theme runs throughout the reactionary genre’s timeline, including through bram stoker’s contribution to establishing the progression of gothic tropes in the victorian era, and angela carter’s 1970s prose. stoker’s fin de siecle novel explores the threats that transgressive behaviours pose to social norms and british values through binary oppositions, drawing upon victorian fears of reverse colonisation, sexual liberation and disease. conversely, carter’s modern subversion of the gothic explores these threats via stories of transformation and metamorphosis; both authors utilise the supernatural to personify these menaces to the norm, as is a vital characteristic of the genre. by having non-human characters commit explicit acts rather than humans, gothic authors can characterise the acts as monstrous and convey messages surrounding what these threatening acts mean for the characterisation of humanity. as put by kelley hurley, ‘through depicting the abhuman, the gothic reaffirms and reconstructs human identity.’

stoker’s traditional prose utilises the gothic concept of binary opposition in order to depict and villainise the threats posed upon his idealised christain characters by dracula. dracula himself, as an abhuman entity, is representative of sexual fluidity and the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, ideas which are consistent with vampirism but are at odds with victorian english values. lucy’s brutal punishment, however, is contrasted with the anticlimactic demise of dracula himself, where his ‘whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight.’ stoker could be using this opposition to suggest that those who give in to threats against typical societal conventions and fail to uphold british values are more deserving of punishment than those who actually pose the threat. the contrast provides an implication of moral inferiority: while villains are transgressive by nature, their victims who fail to resist their ideologies betray the moral code they originally conducted themselves upon. this initial betrayal is what allows the threatening character to infiltrate the population and continue to corrupt the ‘good’ characters. buzzwell supports this, suggesting that ‘lucy’s moral weakness allows dracula to repeatedly prey upon her.’ stoker arguably serves as an other himself, writing as an irish protestant in london. the opposition he constructs here between lucy and dracula’s respective manifestations of vampirism not only examines cultural variations but exemplifies and exaggerates the differences in the reactions of other characters towards them. given the author’s own ‘otheredness’, we could consider the novel a criticism of victorian xenophobia, where o’kelly argues that stoker ‘[pokes] fun at some of the victorian era’s most cherished beliefs.’ however, this view of the novel’s depiction of threats to the norm is highly disputed, with gibson highlighting stoker’s own russophobia as ‘a hatred that determines dracula’s negative portrayal as a condemnation of the orthodox eastern and slavic peoples historically allied to russia.’

contrastingly, carter’s presentation of characters succumbing to villains who jeopardise established values centres around ideas of solidarity, which she demonstrates through the ‘victims’ experience of metamorphosis. her techniques differ from stoker’s in that his use of binary oppositions is undoubtedly traditional of both the gothic and of the manichean mentality of victorian england. the usage of metamorphosis, on the other hand, allows carter to force audiences to grapple with liminality and she suggests to them that ‘othered’ groups or individuals are not entirely evil. this is a view which reflects carter’s modern, second-wave feminist perspective. jaques derrida’s ‘theory of the other’ posits that ‘otherness often provokes a paradoxical response in the viewer: fascination and repulsion.’ often the fascination is morbid, working in conjunction with repulsion: audiences are curious to understand what disgusts them. the tiger’s bride and the courtship of mr lyon, two stories within the bloody chamber collection, are subverted retellings of the traditional ‘beauty and the beast’ fairytale. while maintaining the general events of the original ending, where beauty stays with the beast of her own volition, carter offers up two dynamics between the human and abhuman that serve to recharacterise ‘othered’ creatures as less threatening and more sympathetic and innocent.

the courtship of mr lyon characterises mr lyon as a ‘leonine apparition’ and an ‘angry lion’ throughout, emphasising his predatory nature and resulting in negative connotations surrounding his ‘otherness.’ his initial threatening aura is quickly negated soon after beauty’s introduction to him, as they warm up to one another, and the story concludes with mr lyon’s transformation into a human man: ‘her tears fell on his face like snow and, under their soft transformation, the bones showed through the pelt, the flesh through the wide, tawny brow. and then it was no longer a lion in her arms but a man…’ carter’s use of metamorphosis here humanises a character that would otherwise be considered a threat to traditional norms, suggesting to readers that he may have been ‘just like us all along.’ his change in physical nature is triggered by beauty’s display of affection for him; implicit in this is the notion that we can undo our villainisation of marginalised people, and emphasises the significance of understanding between privileged and unprivileged groups. carter draws the line between what is a threat and what is simply unconventional, stripping marginalised identities of their ‘dangerous’ qualities that are attributed to them by those who abide by social norms. similarly, the tiger’s bride uses metamorphosis to suggest that those who challenge established identities are not inherently menacing, and that typical and atypical creatures can coexist. rather than have a character transform from beast to man as in the previous story, carter’s ending depicts a woman-to-beast transformation. this serves to suggest that people’s desire to understand what disgusts them can manifest as identifying with the ‘other’ and unlearning their own prejudices against them. beauty’s transformation is detailed in the closing sentences of the story: ‘and each stroke of his tongue ripped off skin after successive skin, all the skins of a life in the world, and left behind a nascent patina of shining hairs. my earrings turned back to water and trickled down my shoulders; i shrugged the drops off my beautiful fur.’ beauty’s metamorphosis can be read as a sign of solidarity towards the beast, or an understanding of his nature. roberts posits that ‘to be beast-like is virtuous. to be manly is vicious.’ carter takes this concept and uses it to criticise conventional reactions to unconventional behaviours. she deconstructs the binary that stoker relies upon, and uses a far more modern gothic convention to negate his black-and-white depiction that presents anything challenging the norm as a threat that can infiltrate civilised society, and instead presents these ‘threats’ as liberating.

perhaps an incredibly modern reading of carter’s metamorphosed characters is as an allegory for transgenderism. discussions around gender identity during the 1970s in britain, even in second-wave feminist circles, were more concerned with rejecting and redefining traditional gender roles than they were with the personal identity of individuals, so we can assume this was not carter’s intention when writing these stories. however, ideas of physical transformation, and how proximity to the ‘other’ can ‘radicalise’ one’s own identity are very fitting with treatment of transgender people both historically and presently. genres that stem from the late gothic, namely sci-fi, have been known for using metamorphosis as an allegory for marginalised identities, using physical transformation as an allegory for ideological or emotional transformation. a prime example of this is lana and lilly wachowski’s series the matrix. written as a trans allegory, the movie series criticises the social pressure for conformity the way carter does and attempts to explicitly recharacterise trans people as an innocent non-conforming identity rather than a threat. carter’s exploration and reproval of established values similarly tends to centre around ideas of gender, making this reading not entirely unreasonable. carter and stoker’s gothic texts are equally reflective of cultural anxieties in their respective temporal contexts, but where stoker reinforces racist ideologies that are at the heart of british imperialism and victorian politics, carter suggests that societal fears surrounding gender identity and liberation are unfounded.

both carter and stoker identify the victimisation of women as an established norm that is essential to the functioning of a patriarchal, capitalist society, but once again carter criticises this and stoker instead reinforces it. the notion of female vampirism is a vehicle for this discussion in both gothic texts, particularly in terms of how these supernatural women contain sexual traits that simultaneously fascinate and repel other characters. this duality is vital to what characterises them as a threat: jullian identifies ‘the gothic…’ as a genre ‘where danger is so near to pleasure’. the sexualised traits of vampire women is what allures other characters to them and allows them to infiltrate civilised society. stoker’s ‘hostility to female sexuality’ as described by roth, bookends the events of the novel with the early introduction and later reappearance of the eastern vampire women of dracula’s. their overt sexuality is repeatedly described as purposeful, with explicit juxtaposition between their attractiveness and the threat that they pose: 'there was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive.’ these women are an extension of dracula that serve to specifically explore the threat of sexual fluidity, and the crew of light’s destruction of dracula ultimately eliminates that threat. van helsing’s justification of killing these women, 'then the beautiful eyes of the fair woman open and look love ... and man is weak', demonstrates that it is men’s inability to resist sexualised creatures that will result in this threat infiltrating england, but the responsibility is placed upon the women. while this echoes stoker’s suggestion that those who succumb to villains are at fault, it inevitably criticises women regardless. kaplan argues that ‘the sexualisation and objectification of women is not simply for the purpose of eroticism; for a psychoanalytical point of view, it’s designed to annihilate the threat of women.’ the threat that kaplan refers to here is that of the new woman, an early feminist concept arising in the late 19th century. the new woman is entirely threatening to established victorian values as she ‘was often a professional woman who chose financial independence and personal fulfilment as alternatives to marriage and motherhood.’ (carol senf) by acting opposite to the ideal victorian wife, the new woman challenges normal behaviours and expectations. this is another example of stoker exploring threats to the norm via binary opposition: mina is contrasted with the vampire women, including lucy, a contrast pitting an ‘angel in the house’ character against new women. mina’s pious, devoted and submissive wifely characteristics fit the victorian ideal known as the ‘angel in the house’, a title that originates from coventry patmore’s poem in which he depicts his wife as a model for all women. this stark contrast illustrates how female sexuality threatens the value women are attributed as it prevents them from performing their expected duties for men. having a threatening or taboo act committed by a supernatural figure is a hallmark of the gothic and serves to convey to readers that the act or concept is monstrous. female sexuality is a common victim of this trope during the early and fin de siecle gothic periods, but has since been commonly subverted and empowered in more modern gothic literature.

for instance, the lady of the house of love is the most conventionally gothic text in the collection, using traditional purple prose and exaggerated, decadent settings to frame discussions about heredity, sex and death. it features a countess, whom carter depicts as simultaneously being a victim and a villain. the duality of her character is a result of carter’s signature liminality, wherein the lines between what is threatening and what is innocent are blurred to explore female sexuality as a complex trait rather than fitting the ‘good vs evil’ binary that stoker attempts to attribute it to. much of her characterisation mimics that of stoker’s vampire women, but is subverted to present the countess as a sympathetic villain: ‘her beauty is an abnormality, a deformity... a symptom of her disorder.’ the girl’s attractive traits are made synonymous with a deficiency or sickness, as is the fact that men are inevitably attracted to her. carter suggests here that the girl’s reliance on seducing men for her survival is a hereditary curse, implicitly commenting on the generational trauma women face as a result of having to rely on their relationships with sexually threatening men in order to live financially comfortable lives. this mimics the way in which society relies upon established values and social norms even though they restrict and stifle us. the countess weaponises her sexuality, and while her motivation is survival, this act is conventionally taboo and is therefore committed by a supernatural entity, to traditionally characterise it as monstrous. while carter does draw on this typical gothic trope, she uses sympathetic language to paint the countess as ‘helplessly perpetuating her ancestral crimes.’ the ending of the story, however, mentions the first world war and carter hints at the notion that humanity itself is more dangerous, more of a threat, than the threat of the perceived supernatural ‘beasts’ that people project their fears onto. once again, carter feeds into kelley hurley’s idea that ‘through depicting the abhuman, the gothic reaffirms and reconstructs human identity.’ liminal characters, such as vampires or characters like frankenstien’s monster in mary shelley’s ‘frankenstien’ that exist between life and death, exist as vehicles to discuss the complexities of human nature.

ultimately, carter paints various traits and identities that are widely considered ‘threatening’ to be multifaceted and liberating instead, as she views the established values that they ‘threaten’ to be restrictive and in need of changing. in the preface to the bloody chamber collection, helen simpson writes that 'human nature is not immutable, human beings are capable of change', arguing this point as the core of carter’s work. she suggests through her writing that what is perceived as a social threat is often based upon what is uncomfortable rather than what is actually dangerous. her work is partially ambivalent in that it does not instruct what is right or wrong the way stoker does, but instead depicts societal relationships and allows the audience to interpret it. stoker’s use of transformations that involve protagonists always has them revert back to their original state, a reinforcement of the status quo. those who do not revert to the norms are killed or punished, eradicating the threat and putting readers at ease. the exploration of threats is central to the gothic as a genre that depicts and discusses transgressive behaviours and the implications they have for wider society. as put by punter, ‘the gothic is associated with ‘the barbaric and uncivilised in order to define that which is other to the values of the civilised present.’

i.k.b

[transitioningforthebit]

Trans Woman Manifesto

by Julia Serano

This manifesto calls for the end of the scapegoating, deriding, and dehumanizing of trans women everywhere. For the purposes of this manifesto, trans woman is defined as any person who was assigned a male sex at birth, but who identifies as and/or lives as a woman. No qualifications should be placed on the term “trans woman” based on a person’s ability to “pass” as female, her hormone levels, or the state of her genitals - after all, it is downright sexist to reduce any woman (trans or otherwise) down to her mere body parts or to require her to live up to certain societally dictated ideals regarding her appearance.

Perhaps no sexual minority is more maligned or misunderstood than trans women. As a group, we have been systematically pathologized by the medical and psychological establishment, sensationalized and ridiculed by the media, marginalized by mainstream lesbian and gay organizations, and, in too many instances, been made the victims of violence at the hands of men who feel that we somehow threaten their masculinity and heterosexuality. Rather than being given the opportunity to speak for ourselves on the very issues that affect our own lives, trans women are instead treated more like research subjects: Others place is under their microscopes, dissect our lives, and assign motivations and desires to us that validate their own theories and agendas regarding gender and sexuality.

Trans women are so ridiculed and despised because we are uniquely positioned at the intersection of multiple binary gender-based forms of prejudice: transphobia, cissexism, and misogyny.

Transphobia is an irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against people whose gendered identities, appearances, or behaviors deviate from societal norms. In much the same way that homophobic people are often driven by their own repressed homosexual tendencies, transphobia is first and foremost an expression of one’s own insecurity about having to live up to cultural gender ideals. The fact that transphobia is so rampant in our society reflects the reality that we place an extraordinary amount of pressure on individuals to conform to all of the expectations, restrictions, assumptions, and privileges associated with the sex they were assigned at birth.

While all transgender people experience transphobia, transsexuals additionally experience a related (albeit distinct) form of prejudice: cissexism, which is the belief that transsexuals’ identified genders are inferior to, or less authentic than, those of cissexuals (i.e., people who are not transsexual and who have only ever experienced their subconscious and physical sexes as being aligned). The most common expression of cissexism occurs when people attempt to deny the transsexual the basic privileges that are associated with the trans person’s self-identified gender. Common examples include purposeful misuse of pronouns or insisting that the trans person use a different public restroom. The justification for this denial is generally founded on the assumption that the trans person’s gender is not authentic because it does not correlate with the sex they were assigned at birth. By insisting that the trans person’s gender us “fake,” they attempt to validate their own gender as “real” or “natural.” This sort of thinking is extraordinarily naive, as it denies a basic truth: We make assumptions every day about other people’s genders without ever seeing their birth certificates, their chromosomes, their genitals, their reproductive systems, their childhood socialization, or their legal sex. There is no such thing as a “real” gender - there is only the gender we experience ourselves as and the gender we perceive others to be.

while often different in practice, cissexism, transphobia, and homophobia are all rooted in oppositional sexism, which is the belief that female and male are rigid, mutually exclusive categories, each possessing a unique and non overlapping set of attributes, aptitudes, abilities, and desires. Oppositional sexists attempt to punish or dismiss those of us who fall outside of gender or sexual norms because our existence threatens the idea that women and men are “opposite” sexes. This explains why bisexuals, lesbians, gays, transsexuals, and other transgender people - who may experience their genders and sexualities in very different ways - are so often confused or lumped into the same category (i.e., queer) by society at large. Our natural inclinations to be attracted to the same sex, to identify as the other sex, and/or to express ourselves in ways typically associated with the other sex blur the boundaries required to maintain the male-centered gender hierarchy that exists in our culture today.

In addition to the rigid, mutually exclusive gender categories established by oppositional sexism, the other requirement for maintaining a male-centered gender hierarchy is to enforce traditional sexism - the belief that maleness and masculinity are superior femaleness and femininity. Traditional and oppositional sexism work hand in hand to ensure that those who are masculine have power over those who are feminine, and that only those born male will be seen as authentically masculine. For the purposes of this manifesto, misogyny will be used to describe this tendency to dismiss and deride femaleness and femininity.

Just as all transgender people experience transphobia and cissexism to differing extents (depending on how often, obvious, or out we are as transgender), we experience misogyny to differing extents too. This is most evident in the fact that, while there are many different types of transgender people, our society tends to single out trans women and others on the male-to-female (MTF) spectrum for attention and ridicule. This is not merely because we transgress binary gender norms per se, but because we, by necessity, embrace our own femaleness and femininity. Indeed, more often than not is our our expressions of feminist and our desire to be female that become sensationalized, sexualizes, and trivialized by others. While trans people on the female-to-male (FTM) spectrum face discrimination for breaking gender norms (i.e., oppositional sexism), their expressions of maleness or masculinity themselves are not targeted for ridicule - to do so would require one to question masculinity itself.

When a trans person is ridiculed or dismissed not merely for failing to live up to gender norms, but for their expressions of femaleness or femininity, they become the victims of a specific form of discrimination: trans-misogyny. When the majority of jokes made at the expense of trans people center on “men wearing dresses” or “men who want their penises cut off”, that is not transphobia - it is trans-misogyny. When the majority of violence and sexual assaults committed against trans people is directed at trans women, that is not transphobia - it is trans-misogyny. When it’s okay for women to wear “men’s” clothing, but when men who wear “women’s” clothing can be diagnosed with the psychological disorder transvestic fetishism, that is not transphobia - that is trans-misogyny. When women’s or lesbian organizations and events open their doors to trans men but not trans women, that is not transphobia - it is trans-misogyny.

In a male-centered gender hierarchy, where it is assumed men are better than women and that masculinity is superior to femininity, there is no greater perceived threat than the existence of trans women, who despite being born male and inheriting male privilege “choose” to be female instead. By embracing our own femaleness and feminist, we, in a sense, cast a shadow of doubt over the supposed supremacy of maleness and masculinity. In order to lessen the threat we pose to the male-centered gender hierarchy, our culture (primarily via the media) uses every tactics in its arsenal of traditional sexism to dismiss us:

The media hyperfeminizes us by accompanying stories about trans women with pictures of us putting on makeup, dresses, and high-heeled shoes in an attempt to highlight the supposed “frivolous” nature of our femaleness, or by portraying trans women as having derogatory feminine-associated character traits such as being weak, confused, passive, or mousy.

The media hypersexualizes us by creating the impression that most trans women are sex workers or sexual deceivers, and by asserting that we transition primarily for sexual reasons (e.g., to prey on innocent straight men or to fulfill some kind of bizarre sex fantasy). Such depictions not only belittle trans women’s motives for transitioning, but implicitly suggest that women as a whole have no worth beyond their ability to be sexualized.

The Media objectifies our bodies by sensationalizing sex reassignment surgery and openly discussing our “manmade vaginas” without any of the discretion that normally accompanied discussions about genitals. Further, those if us who have not had surgery are constantly being reduced to our body parts, whether by the creators of tranny porn who overemphasize our penises (this distorting trans women into “she-males” and “chicks with socks”) or by other people who have been so brainwashed by phallocentricism that they believe that he mere presence of a penis can trump the females ness of our identities, our personalities, and the rest of our bodies.

Because anti-trans discrimination is steeped in traditional sexism, it is not simply enough for trans activists to challenge binary gender norms (i.e., oppositional sexism) - we must also challenge the idea that femininity is inferior to masculinity and that femaleness is inferior to maleness. In other words, by necessity, trans activism must be at its core a feminist movement.

Some might consider this contention controversial. Over the years, many self-described feminists have gone out of their way to dismiss trans people and in particular trans women, often resorting to many of the same tactics (hyperfeminization, hypersexualization, and objectification of our bodies) that the mainstream media regularly uses against us. These pseudofeminists proclaim, “Women can do anything men can,” then ridicule trans women for any perceived masculine tendency we may have. They argue that women should be strong and unafraid of speaking our minds, then tell trans women that we act like men when we voice our opinions. They claim that it is misogynistic when men create standards and expectations for women to meet, then they dismiss us for not meeting their standard of “woman.” These pseudofeminists consistently preach feminism with one hand while practicing traditional sexism with the other.

It is time for us to take back the word “feminism” from these pseudofeminists. After all, as a concept, feminism is much like the ideas if “democracy” or “Christianity.” Each has a major tenant at its core, yet there are a seemingly infinite number of ways in which those beliefs are practiced. And just as some forms of democracy and Christianity are corrupt and hypocritical while others are more just and righteous, we trans women must join allie’s of all genders and sexualities to forge a new type of feminism, one that understands that the only way for us to achieve true gender equity is to abolish both oppositional sexism and traditional sexism.

It is no longer enough for feminism to fight solely for the rights of those born female. That the strategy has dithered the prospects of many women over the years, but now it bumps against a glass ceiling that is partly of its own making. Though the movement worked hard to encourage women to enter previously male-dominated areas of life, many feminists have been ambivalent at best, and resistant at worst, to the idea of men expressing or exhibiting feminine traits and moving into certain traditionally female realms. And while we credit previous feminist movements for helping to create a society where most sensible people would agree with the statement “women and men are equals,” we lament the fact that we remain light-years away from being able to say that most people believe that femininity is masculinity’s equal.

Instead of attempting to empower those born female by encouraging them to move further away from femininity, we should instead learn to empower femininity itself. We must stop dismissing it as “artificial” or as a “performance,” and instead recognize that certain aspects of femininity (and masculinity as well) transcend both socialization and biological sexuality - otherwise there would not be feminine boy and masculine girl children. We must challenge all who assume that feminine vulnerability is a sign of weakness. For when we do open ourselves up, whether it be by honestly communicating our thoughts and feelings or expressing our emotions, it is a daring act, one that takes more courage and inner strength than the alpha male facade of silence and stoicism.

We must challenge all those who insist that women who act or dress in a feminine manner take on a submissive or passive posture. For many of us, dressing or acting feminine is something we do for ourselves, not for others. It is our way of reclaiming our own bodies and fearlessly expressing our own personalities and sexualities. It is not us who are guilty of trying to reduce our bodies to mere playthings, but rather those who foolishly assume that our feminine style is a signal that we sexually subjugate ourselves to men.

In a world where masculinity is assumed to represent strength and power, those who are butch and boyish are able to contemplate their identities within the relative safety of those connotations. In contrast, those of us who are feminine are forced to define ourselves on our own terms and develop our own sense of self-worth. It takes guts, determination, and fearlessness for those of us who are feminine to lift ourselves up out of the inferior meanings that are constantly projected onto us. If you require any evidence that femininity can be more fierce and dangerous than masculinity, all you need to do is ask the average man to hold your handbag or a bouquet of flowers for a minute. and watch how far away he holds it from his body. Or tell him that you would like to put your lipstick on him and watch how fast he runs off in the other direction. In a world where masculinity is respected and femininity is regularly dismissed, it takes an enormous amount of strength and confidence for any person, whether female- or male-bodied, to embrace their feminine self.

But it is not enough for us to empower femaleness and femininity. We must also stop pretending that there are essential differences between women and men. This begins with the acknowledgment that there are exceptions to every gender rule and stereotype, and this simply stated fact disproves all gender theories that purport that female and male are mutually exclusive categories. We must move away from pretending that women and men are “opposite” sexes, because when we buy into that myth it establishes a dangerous precedent. For if men are big, then women must be small; and if men are strong then women must be weak. And if being bitch is to make yourself rock-solid, then being femme becomes allowing yourself to be malleable; and if being a man mean taking control of your own situation, then being a woman becomes living up to other people’s expectations. When we buy into the idea that female and male are “opposites,” it becomes impossible for us to empower women without either ridiculing men or pulling the rug out from under ourselves.

It is only when we move away from the idea that there are “opposite” sexes, and let go of culturally derived values that are assigned to expressions of femininity and masculinity, that we may finally approach gender equity. By challenging both oppositional and traditional sexism simultaneously, we can make the world safe for those of us who are queer, those of us who are feminine, and those of us who are female, thus empowering people of all sexualities and genders.

[heyninja]

One thing I'd like to say, since it's Pride, is that for years I marinated in the message that my gender and sexual expression was "bad representation." If "we" (which we?) wanted to be taken seriously, people like me--bi people who didn't fit into neat boxes of gender expression, who engaged in more than one relationship at a time--were ultimately harmful to the people who needed to see "us" as...what? As conforming to societal norms? As non-threatening to established norms of gender roles and family structures?

So now I just cut out all the crap that even remotely makes me think of all that bullshit. I'm queer. I'm non-binary. Sometimes I might say bi, sometimes I might say pan. It's all true. I still engage in relationships with multiple people at the same time (everyone is aware and consenting, I am not a jerk). I am not ashamed. It is not my responsibility to be "non-threatening" or try to fit into some bullshit cishet normative narrative to make other people feel better about my other-ness. I have a finite time on this earth and as long as I can try to make other people's lives better, I deserve to also make my own life better.

I don't owe you a sanitized version of my best self, even as it continues to evolve and change over time. I owe myself my best self, and my loved ones a commitment to furthering my happiness while trying to further their happiness as I can. That's it. My queerness is my own living, breathing contract with myself and my happiness.

I am authentic to my lived experience. I will not make myself smaller, less than, to live a lie to be palatable to people who have no intention of accepting me ever.

[washipink]

Yu-yu Kondo and Vanguard overDress’s Greatest Flaw

    I love Cardfight!! Vanguard. It means so much to me, more than I have time to articulate here. Which is why it disappoints me so much to have to have this discussion. Let’s take ourselves back to earlier in the year. Why don’t we? Cardfight!! Vanguard overDress is announced to be a real, actual seasonal anime. A seasonal anime with a real, renowned animation studio and character designers. On top of this, the actual card game is about to become the best it has ever been. We are shown new artwork of the story’s main characters week after week to hype us up even more. Then, WSlasher releases a video. “What Bushiroad isn’t Telling About Vanguard Overdress”. This was the beginning of the end.

    In WSlasher’s video, released 3 months before the airing of the first episode, he asserts that Yu-yu will wear girls’ clothes and a wig in Vanguard overDress. He also liberally uses the word Trap, doubling down when confronted about its modern transphobic usage. This alone would worry me as a trans card fighter. The worst possible outcome in my mind was WSlasher’s video being accurate. Despite my fears, I held out hope that Yu-yu would be handled with respect and care, rather than being used for transphobic comedy at his own expense. 

    The first episode of overDress came and went. People loved it. It saw rave reviews from Vanguard Fans and non-Vanguard Fans alike for its gorgeous animation and beautiful soundtrack. I was so happy to see Cardfight!! Vanguard winning and yet… Something bothered me. Yu-yu was forced into clothes, even forced into lacy underwear by his family. It was all very uncomfortable to watch. Add this to the show’s very reductive view of gender. Megumi comments on Yu-yu wearing “boys’ shoes” and a “boys’ backpack”. The show tells us this is a contradiction. The show threatens that the slightest nuance in gender presentation will out Yu-yu as not what he appears. The cherry on top was the fact that Yu-yu wasn’t even the one to tell the others he wasn’t a girl. That was Tomari. If you think about the situation in any realistic context, there was a high chance Tomari Seto outed a transgender teenager against their will while they were far away from home in the middle of the night. She did not know Yu-yu’s side of the story. Yu-yu did not give her permission to say what she said. Tomari seemed to be unaware of the potential consequences of her actions. It hurts to see and quickly establishes Tomari as someone I absolutely would not trust. overDress was off to a rough start for me. I was not allowed to enjoy it as much as my cisgender and/or heterosexual peers. That feeling only got worse as every other episode seemed to add in playful, joking, gay scenes between Yu-yu and the 7-years-older Danji. Before the first episode aired, we were told a core theme of the show would be diversity. Instead, the diversities held by very real people were used as quick jokes. 

    However, overDress was not quite hopeless in this regard. In episode 2, the topic of Yu-yu’s clothes is broached once more. Zakusa says some words to him that borrow from very common gender metaphors. As he sketches butterflies he asks Yu-yu, “Do you think butterflies know how to fly as soon as they leave their cocoons? Perhaps they know that they will one day soar from the moment they are born.” Butterflies change their form and learn to fly, much like a trans person coming into their true self and becoming stronger and happier for it. Lines like this being uttered so early in the show’s run gave me hope. I genuinely had faith that perhaps Yu-yu’s relationship to gender and even to his sisters would be explored. Perhaps Yu-yu would come to realize that the problem wasn’t that they were girls’ clothes. The problem was that they were not clothes he CHOSE. Yu-yu doesn’t even have to straight up be a trans girl to be an inspiration for gender non-conforming teens watching overDress every week. Is this a turn for the better? Is this a major struggle of Yu-yu’s that the show explores? No. No, it is not. Instead, Yu-yu and dresses are brought up together for the sake of throwaway gags. In episode 5, we see Yu-yu don the dress his sisters gave him again so that he can be a ring girl at Danji’s Cardfight Pro Wrestling match. This is complete with the audience fawning over him and Megumi being angry that he receives attention from men that she does not. In episode 7, a member of Team Blackout asks Yu-yu to wear a frilly, pink dress so that he can watch. Tomari buys Yu-yu a little girls’ pretend doctor outfit in the same episode, expecting him to wear it. Tomari is the one who makes the most jokes at Yu-yu’s expense. When combined with her outing Yu-yu, it’s not a good look. 

    Cardfight!! Vanguard overDress’s greatest flaw is not its pacing, its lack of conflict, or any animation errors. The greatest flaw this show has is that a significant portion of its viewerbase is treated as a joke. It is acceptable to make fun of the idea that Danji or Yu-yu could be gay. It is acceptable to call Yu-yu a trap and ridicule him for being “reduced” to wearing dresses. In turn, it is acceptable to turn that mockery on queer cardfighters who want something better. While doing so, the show sprinkles little hints that maybe it does care and maybe it does wish to be kind to us in hopes that we don’t stop watching. Cardfight!! Vanguard means so much to me. It means much more than I could ever articulate here and it’s a shame to see it turn its back on people like me. 

[aalt-ctrl-del]

I really hesitate to say that what vladmir putin is committing on the Ukraine people is hitler levels of evil, because we do not have a current real world measurement to what went on in Germany and why that happened.

Today’s people think, “How did that happen? How did Germans think this was the right course?”

But then you look at people like trump and the magas, who spread a disease that has lifelong and varied unknown affects on people who contract it, and the data through scientific study will not be complete for years to come. And still maga and trumps cult insist that it’s a rhino or a flu virus, while the death rate post 2 years is still going strong, and has nearly bypassed 1 Million.

hitler didn’t start up over night. That was decades in the making, a life in the works. Germany didn’t wake up one day and say, “This young rogue has spirit. My word, he has made a good point. We should build camps, and corral people. We will divide everyone with these badges, and we will militarize our state against the people who cause all our problems.”

This took decades. It took manipulation, deception, brainwashing, corruption, and assassination.

trumps followers will assault and kill non-white, non gender conforming people. In the name of ‘god’, evangelical mega-churches wish death and plague on the unworthy. And then the smile and say, “This is gods plan.”

This hate and malice doesn’t go away, because people that follow trumps cult want validation. They are threatened by change, they want control and power, and they want to feel like they are the main character of their story, with special privilege and rights - which the ‘inferior’ people, should not have. Certain people should stay in certain jobs, certain people cannot be in a position of power, no matter how qualified.

And we still make the comparison about trumps cult and the maga followers, as being hitler’s flok. Left unchecked, these people can spread their metaphorical poison, and divide people between them and those. “In the name of a god, we will do what is right.” “In the name of a god, we will take this land from those people.”

It’s the same mindset, but without the resources and power to do what they want to do. Erase people from existing.

vladmir and his armies are not liberating a country, or searching for mineral resources. The goal is money and human labor. They will erase any Ukraine they must, to achieve conquest of the Ukraine people. And culling people, civilians, hospitals, refugees - that can be described as hitler evil.

This is how it began in germany. American turned their eyes away, couldn’t - or didn’t - want to know what was happening to the Jewish people.

And then when hitler established himself, he decided to invade other countries. He sacrificed thousands of german soldiers in his lightening tactics - destroyed land, families, culture - and destroyed the history of German people, leaving soldiers traumatized, and left a smear in history.

History will repeat itself, because it must. Humans are no different from other animals, and though we may have the capacity to document events and memorialize the past, cognitively and psychologically, we are not engineered to comprehend history. Some people do have that capacity, but it is not a general or taught capacity.

It is like a bird and a plain of glass. The bird is aware a surface is there, but cannot see it - they can see through it, hence, they should be able to go to where they can see. As it is, humans can see history, trace it through research, documentation, stories, make critical conclusions, analyze the culture of the period - but that means nothing. If the person cannot see the barrier, which prevents them from reaching the point they see.

To reach a metaphorical and philosophical point - it requires more than resources and knowledge. We can see what vladmir is doing, what the intent of his soldiers and their slaughter - but utilizing resources to stomp out an invasion is a difficult and complex matter. Because other countries are involved, agreements to prevent a war, and other political matters. Obtaining agreement, when a leader of one country cannot see the glass, is a different matter.

And possibly we want to run away from the truth, or what we are witnessing, because we promised ourselves another hitler would never exist. But the truth of our circumstances is this, hitler didn’t come into power over night. He tested what he could do, manipulated a population, and turned one group of people against another. And it did not happen quietly, it did not happen cleanly. The only consolation we have, is that there was not a hitler before there was a hitler.

But we did witness slaughter and genocide of a people, long before we stamped a face to the principle of the crime. But if we go into hibernation during the years and say, we have bypassed a threshold, everything is good now. We will see this crime committed again, and again. Because people will find a reason to hate, they will pick sides and call ‘the other people’ bad, because they are different. Because they exist, my purpose is to purge them from this world.

History does not sleep and it does not forget. But people will try hard to forget, because sleeping is easier than bearing witness.

[dangermousie]

1x15 aka Durka Returns is one of my fave s1 eps and not just because of Chiana, my fave character except for J&A.

I love the scene near the end with John throwing that bomb to blow Durka out of the ship and saying he doesn't care if Nebari pick Durka up or not. He is not yet at active murder level but his lack of care is in keeping with his greying, his getting darker. As he said in the previous ep, he's been hunted, shot, shanghaied, and had aliens in his body and mind (and oh boy, it's about to get spectacularly worse) and it's having an inevitable effect on him. He is getting harder, edgier. Witness his threatening Rygel, being fed up, and threatening to throw him off Moya. Or his exhausted, joyless laughter and telling Durka to get in line, when Durka tells him he will find him and kill him. Or the very beginning of the ep. Crichton is now prepared to automatically 'get the troops' to meet the strange ship. He is all for Aeryn toting the gun and everybody coming with the firepower. And he doesn't want the ship on board in the first place. How far he's come from the naive, wide-eyed innocent of Premiere, and how far he still has to travel. But he is still full of gentleness inside. I love his reaction to Chiana throughout. He is not taken in or foolish (he is guarded) but he cannot help but feel for her. I love his reaction to Chiana, it's a passionate compassion. Because of his nature, only heightened by his experience in the UT, he cannot bear to see her caged. Chiana always has had a good people sense. She hones in on Crichton for a reason: she can tell he is the most sympathetic audience she has. They establish a connection right away. It's not romantic but it's enveloping. The thing that strikes me the most about Crichton in scenes like this is how good he is at paying attention to one, how he concentrates. And how he cannot stand to see someone weak mistreated. It continues throughout no matter how dark and messed up he gets and how much he hates the person mistreated (his reaction to Scorpius on a leash in WWL is an almost physical revulsion) and that is a consistent factor throughout. Crichton is so protective in general. It's an odd thing to keep reiterating about the male lead of a scifi show, but he is just caring and protective and compassionate and gentle (without being macho or sexist or anything). I love the scene where he feeds Chiana. Somehow he automatically thought she'd be hungry, and the intimacy of the interaction is like WHOA. And when she freaks out about going back to Nebari Prime and being cleansed, and like a caged animal starts hurling herself against bars, he instinctively rushes in, and just soothes her and tries to calm her and hold her.  

Chiana knows that Crichton is someone who isn't capable of hurting her, with whom she feels utterly safe and also free from any potential sex complication or attraction (she never really is attracted to him.) Crichton really wants nothing from her, nothing she is conventionally used to giving. In a way, she has found another Nerri (Crichton even has Nerri's passion against injustice, but he won't leave her). And here is where this all starts. Chiana-Crichton little sister-big brother relationship is one of my very favorite on the show. It's tender and playful and sometimes frustrating to both parties. Like a real sibling relationship. I just love that Farscape allows its characters to have hugely significant, well-explored personal relationships between genders that aren't romantic in nature. I think it says volumes about Crichton that he can see Chiane needs rescue, even though she is clearly not a damsel in distress. And that he both knows she will try to clock him with that oar, and yet know she is scared and alone and her tough act is largely a front, a result of desperation. And yet he is nobody's fool and he can be tough with her and present her with choices she has to make. And I love both the fact that he still cares whether she killed Salis or not, and yet not enough to kick her off if she did. He can understand this lashing out. He went crazy with Crais in TOBM after all. Chiana has been tortured, and even if she killed Salis (I love how we never find out in the entire show run), is it any different than D'Argo's instinctive reaction to Macton, or Rygel's to Durka or Crichton or Stark's to Scorpius? Confronted with one's torturer, moralities shift. And speaking of Nebari. They freak me the hell out. Whoever killed Salis, did a good job. The sickening enjoyment, the conformity, the callousness to feeling? Ugh. I also loved the Rygel-Durka confrontation scene. I dare anyone to remember Rygel is a puppet. He isn't, not to me. And poor Aeryn, yet another PK illusion shattered. Her ties are being severed one by one. As to Chiana? I adore her. She is my favorite non-J/A character. Watching her here for the first time I am struck by her youth. Her lack of trust (understandable, and gradually it will change) is both understandable and heart-breaking. She is a street girl and had to live tough but there is an underlying innocence to her that hasn't been washed away, and a vulnerability, and a longing to belong. I think John subconsciously picks up on these, as they resonate with what he feels as well, quite strongly. She is prickly all over, with her 'I need no one, care for no one' attitude merely a protective shell. And Crichton is nothing if not someone who wants to take care of people. I am also amused, in light of future Chiana/D'Argo, that D'Argo's first words about her (when she's escaped) is that they should shoot her on sight. Glad you didn't do it, huh, big guy? Anyway, why so good, show?

[transformationsproject]

Trans rights are still under attack in the United States. Today Mississippi drops several bills on us. Please visit our website linked below to learn about your state and contact your reps. Here's a thread of today's updates

Drag bans: West Virginia intro's HB3176 and sent to education committee. This bill would prohibit "drag shows" from being performed in front of minors or in schools or libraries. Montana's HB359 is referred to judiciary committee.

Both of these bills define drag as simply dressing "other gender", performing in any way, and the wildly subjective "prurient" language.

Drag bans restrict access for folks who are gender non-conforming in any way. They loosely define drag as any public performance with an “opposite gender expression”, as sexual in nature, and inappropriate for children. This also pushes trans individuals out of public spaces.

Tennessee intro's another health care bill, HB1378. yet another bill titled the "Youth Health Protection Act" targeting under 18. Montana's own SB99 "Youth Health Protection Act" passed committee, and is on senate floor.

In Mississippi HB1125 "Regulate Experimental Adolescent Procedures (reap)" passed committee

Healthcare bills go against professional and scientific consensus that gender affirming care saves lives. Denying access will cause harm. Providers are faced with criminal charges, parents are threatened with child abuse charges, and intersex children are typically exempted.

Tennessee intro's 2 school bills. HB1269, a misgendering bill and HB1414, parent rights bill. Arkansas HB1156 has passed committee and is on the house floor. In Virginia HB1387 and HB2432 passed committee this morning with amendments and are on the house floor

Schooling bills force schools to misgender or deadname students, ban instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity, and make schools alert parents if they suspect a child is trans. They remove life-saving affirmation and support for trans youth.

2 sports bills introduced and 1 moved. Tennessee SB1237 "allows" a school to regulate sports based on biological sex. Kansas HB2238 is a one-sided "no trans girls" sports bill. Wyoming SF0133 passed first committee, onto second. This one also establishes an 'eligibility committee'

Most sports bills force schools to designate teams by sex assigned at birth. They are often one-sided and ban trans girls from playing on teams consistent with their gender identity. Some egregious bills even force invasive genital examinations on student athletes.

In other news, West Virginia HB3183 has been introduced that's both a healthcare and a school bills, prohibiting any treatment of trans youth and any school officials from talking about gender identity.

For some good news, 14 bills have died in committee, likely due to the end idling out at the end of the month. Wyoming HB187 sports bill as well as Mississippi's HB509, HB576, HB1074, HB1258, HB1127, HB1126, SB2076, SB2773, SB2764, SB2770, SB2820, SB2864 and SB2861

It's not too late to stop other hateful anti-trans bills from passing into law. YOU can go to http://transformationsproject.org/ to learn more and contact your representatives

[talvin-muircastle]

Am I Queer? It’s Controversial.

This is going to be long, and it’s going to cover a lot of ground, so please bear with me.  

Recently, this article came to my attention:

https://www.healthline.com/health/gender-nonconforming

I have spent a fair amount of time questioning my own sexuality/identity, and having it questioned by others.  Now approaching five full decades of life, I feel comfortable saying:

I identify as Male, and Straight.

I am Gender Non-Conforming by the standards of the culture I come from.

But I am not comfortable saying this qualifies me as “Queer” or otherwise under LGBTQIA+.   

That article (which is by no means the Last Word on the subject) identifies several areas where I do not conform to my AMAB status as culturally defined:

I have long hair.  But I also have a thick beard and moustache, and I like that combination.  Still, I grew up in a place where long hair on a guy meant you were A) Queer or B) into Heavy Metal.   Even though my teen years saw me sporting a military-style buzzcut more often than not, I tended to hang out with the Metalheads.  My long hair continues to be a point of contention with my conservative relatives and in-laws.   Some of them think I am a Hippie, which is funny because I am allergic to Cannabis.  Wanna watch me fight for breath and puke?  Blow weed smoke in my face.  

I am a Stay-At-Home Dad and Homemaker.  I have been the breadwinner for this family, but that is not part of my identity.  I am quite content to let my wife handle that part of things, and so is she.  I have been a Dad longer than I have been a father, in fact:  for most of my life I have been mentoring teenagers that find their way to me seeking advice, comfort, acceptance, and guidance.    I spent a lot of time worrying about what career should I follow, and it took me far too long to understand and accept that Dad was what I was after.  A woman seeking motherhood as a career is validated, a man seeking fatherhood in the same context is not conforming.  

When I was younger, I got hit with one hell of a double-standard: while wanting to be a Dad as a goal is not acceptable, I was supposed to go out there and sow my wild oats.  OK, I wasn’t really supposed to get girls pregnant, but I was supposed to try.  Wait, what? Try that again?  OK, if you were a teenaged boy in the 80s and 90s and I am pretty sure before that (not sure after, AIDS changed a lot of thinking all around), you were not supposed to get a girl pregnant, but you were supposed to make an attempt as often as possible, in fact you were supposed to score but fail.  If you are confused, don’t feel bad: I was living steeped in this paradox 24/7/365 and came out of it real confused.

Meanwhile, I was looking for a long-term, meaningful relationship with a woman who could be a partner in my life, and avoiding the one-night stands I was supposed to be after according to the standards of my culture, and so many of the people around me—parents, teachers, peers—decided that I must be Queer.  And that was Not A Good Classification To Find Yourself In in Rural Tennessee of the 80’s and 90’s.   Lacking real support, I entered adulthood like a trainwreck still skidding down the tracks, confused as hell and desperately trying to please people whose opinions mattered to me far more than they should.  I did finally find that relationship, and we celebrate 21 years of marriage this month.  Meanwhile I can’t keep track of who has gotten divorced and remarried from that crowd anymore.   

I am not a fan of American Football.  (I am not a fan of soccer, which is football to the rest of the world, but that’s not going to get you labeled Queer in the USA as yet.)   Even so, I got recruited to be the Football Manager for my high school football team, and then I spent several years studying to be an Athletic Trainer in college as an add-on to my English and Education degree.  The fact that I spent 7 years of my life on the sidelines of football games (and basketball, and baseball) and still do not really understand the rules of those sports should have been a clear sign to me that I was trying to conform and failing badly.  An American Male of my generation is supposed to like these things, he is supposed to scream at the television or scream from the stands when watching a game, he is supposed to have a Favorite Team and Wear Their Stuff.

Yeah, that’s not me.  I don’t like combative sports.  I like things that involve grace, beauty, and art.   Figure skating (either gender, singles, but especially pairs) is fun to watch.  The more artistic of gymnastics events are nice (uneven bars and vault are kinda boring, but I love watching floor exercise.)  Watching someone do tricks on a skateboard is more interesting to me than an MMA bout.  I enjoy the art of it.   I used to watch WWF Wrestling as a kid, but I found I enjoyed the “story” more than the violence.  Martial arts practice that is done like a dance is more interesting than watching two people try to kick each other in the face for real.   

I’m told I am supposed to like these things.  I am told that not liking them makes me less masculine.  

This extends into online gaming as well.  Oh, I like some combat games.  We aren’t going to talk about how many hours I have played the XCOM series.  But…I don’t like PVP or multiplayer. I like the story arc, and accomplishing things.  Minecraft?  I like building, and killing mobs is very secondary to that.  In single-player I usually just go peaceful mode and explore the world, build grand railways and tunnels, create comfortable houses or make a home under a lake with a glass roof under the water.  In World of Warcraft I spent more time exploring the world and getting cool screenshots than worrying about getting Phat Loot and XP.  I would take a whole afternoon just to escort a couple of new players through dangerous territory so they could find their friends.  

I have gotten a lot of grief over that.  I am supposed to go out and kill kill kill stab stab stab get the loot!  

And I am supposed to get more than the other person.  It’s competition.  Men are supposed to compete.  And if you can’t get more than the other guy you go dump buckets of lava on his house and laugh at the noob.  

I hate that.  

By the standards I was raised with, I am gender nonconforming.  I most definitely do not conform to the expectations that were laid upon me from my youth.

Does that make me Queer?   I am not comfortable claiming that.

The standards I was held to can also be considered Toxic Masculinity.  They hold that Queer==Less Of A Man.  “Queer” is not “Less.”  I was raised to think it is, but I have learned, and grown, and I know that it is not.  I also do not accept that I, myself, am Less.  The very premise of me being labeled Queer by those people is wrong on all counts.   I am different. I have always known that.  I believe that “Man” and “Male” can encompass more than violence, bullying, and competition.  I also know full well that many who identify as “Woman” and “Female” embrace those as ideals as well.  

I am no stranger to violence.  My life has often been violent.  I have fought off muggers who were armed with knives, I have stared down the barrel of a gun, I have been beaten because someone else wanted to establish himself as the dominant male in our school just after he moved there.  I am not a pacifist: the only reason I have not killed another human being in self-defense is because I was outnumbered.   I just don’t feel that defines my gender, and I have been told it should.  I fight to survive and to protect others, not to prove that I can.  

Others who look like me are guarding statues of Columbus with their Assault Rifles because they feel their masculinity is threatened.  This is another area where I do not conform to my expected gender roles.   Not only do I not feel my masculinity is threatened by BLM, or Pride, or the existence of Trans folks, I no longer feel my masculinity can be threatened.  I spent so many years under attack from “my” side, and gotten so much support from “their” side, that I now understand that my gender is not about what THEY think.  It is MY identity. I OWN it.  I am who I am regardless of their perception of me. Nothing someone else does can take that from me. 

And if anything about me is Queer, it is that: the understanding that my identity belongs to me and not to those who seek to mislabel me.  

I have been told by some in the Queer community that I am welcome among them, and I am grateful for that.  So, so many of my stories can be prefaced with, “There I was, the only Straight Guy in the room, when:”  I am proud to be an Ally.  

But calling myself Queer?  I’m not comfortable doing that.  I could, and I know some who would accept it.  But I feel it is more important to me to break the toxic definition of Masculinity and show that things like nurturing, caring, creating, dancing, loving, uplifting, and oh yes parenting, these ARE Male Qualities, always have been, and should always be.   No criticism of GNC folks who take the Queer label intended or implied: they are not Less, they own their own identity, they are valid.   They are themselves, and have a right to be. 

I am me.

I am a Man.

I will never be the Man they wanted me to be, and I am PROUD of that. 

Happy Pride Month.  

Don’t let the bastards get you down.

[thesierrabookblog]

#9 graphic novel The witch boy by Molly Knox Ostertag

Image

Justification

The Witch Boy by Molly Know Ostertag is a children’s graphic novel in the fantasy genre. I decided to pick this book because it deals with gender roles and gender non-conformity. Additionally, the premise of a family of witches and shapeshifters was very unique. Reading this was a wonderful experience and the lore of the novel was executed well. Children who like fantasy and supernatural stories will be instantly attracted to this book with its exciting cover and interesting title.

Evaluation of book

The Witch Boy is a fast-paced graphic novel is about a young boy named Aster who is trying to find his place in his family of female witches and male shapeshifters. Aster struggles with his desire to learn witchery like the girls in his family while his parents constantly wait for him to become able to shapeshift. He secretly learns witchery whenever he gets the chance and attempts to use it despite his family’s warnings. The plot of this story is unique and has an underlying theme of accepting diversity that breaks the accepted norms. The book also includes interesting reveals of unpredictable surprises that make the story much more interesting. It is a great story of the underdog rising to the top and getting recognized for their abilities. The plotline of this story also has a lot of parallels, both subtle and overt, to the trans experience of gender and the implications it has on life in a strictly binary world.

The cast of characters is diverse and represents many different ethnicities, races, and other identities. Most of the characters are shown as originally steadfast in their opinions, particularly that boys must be shapeshifters and girls must be witches. However, by the end of the book, the entire family comes to realize that there is danger in not accepting your loved ones for who they are. Aster begins as a shy but observant boy who does not have a real place among his family. Aster goes through a lot of development where he gains confidence in himself and even stands up to the villain who threatened his family. The author cleverly subverts tropes by having the oldest character, the grandmother in the story, be the most accepting and understanding of human difference instead of being adverse to it. The characters are mostly likable, especially Charlie, the non-magical human girl who befriends Aster and encourages him to embrace who he really is.

The illustrations are detailed and establish the setting effectively. The author creatively utilizes the empty spaces where there are no panels on the page by coloring it white or black depending on the mood of the scenes. Black is used to express suspenseful and stressful situations; on the other hand, white is used during more peaceful events such as when Aster hangs out with Charlie. The illustrations are done in a digital medium which results in bold and impactful drawings. The depictions of the monster and main villain of the story are startling and memorable. Particularly, the illustrations of the monster shifting into many forms and then returning to its horrific form with its big eyes that feign innocence. Also, the illustrator uses a different font of text when the monster speaks which makes it easier to imagine the lilting voice dripping with false promises. The pictures also use body language and a variety of different angles to portray the character’s emotions. One great instance of this is when Aster overhears his parents talking about how disappointing it is that he is interested in witchery and the panels show him looking betrayed and then clutching his notebook with his notes about witchery.

Conclusion

The Witch Boy is an intense story that will have readers wanting more. It teaches a powerful lesson about gender and gender roles. I would recommend this book to all children, especially those in late elementary school and middle school. Additionally, this book may interest children who have expressed feeling left out or very different from their peers.

Citation

Ostertag, M. (2017). The witch boy. Graphix.

[plannedparenthood]

This Pride Season: Black Trans Women are (Still) Dying

By Kai Breaux, Organizer, Planned Parenthood of New York City

Muhlaysia Booker, 23 (left) and Tamika Washington, 40 (right)

The Pride that we celebrate today originated from the infamous Stonewall Riots. The Stonewall Inn, still in New York City’s Greenwich Village, was home to groups of queer and transgender folks normally prohibited from any other establishment. Bars that served queer and gender non-conforming customers faced denial of liquor licenses, so police regularly raided bars that welcomed these communities.

On June 28, 1969, the NYPD raided the Stonewall Inn, asking customers for ID and arresting them if they could not provide adequate identification. For trans and gender non-conforming bar goers whose sex on their IDs seemed incompatible with their gendered presentation, police automatically condemned them for identity theft or sodomy. Officers then forced these folks to strip and reveal their sex assigned at birth, only to arrest them if their genitals seemed to contradict their gender presentation.

Police systematically disregarded the fact that gender and genitals do not go hand in hand, and many people continue to disregard this fact.

The graphic below, the Gender Unicorn, can help us better understand the spectrum of masculinities and femininities in the western world.

via Trans Student Educational Resources

The exploitative physical, sexual and psychological assault of people who aren’t heterosexual cisgender men or cisgender women is rooted in the gender-sex binary. The gender-sex binary is the social construct that people born with penises must embrace hyper-masculinity and adopt the category ‘man’, while people born with vulvas must embrace hyper-femininity and adopt the category ‘woman.’ It is safe to say that the vast majority of people born in the West are marked with a binary gender identity before they are even born.

The gender-sex binary is oppressive to queer, trans and gender non-conforming people, and those who are not white are pushed even further to the margin.

From the beginning of colonialism, to the Stonewall Riots, to present day — transgender people and Black people face denial of their right to be recognized as fully human within this system.

When the NYPD raided the Stonewall Inn, queer folks stood their ground. In response to this violent exploitation of power rooted in the fear of non-normativity, they threw coins and broken bottles at officers and a riot quickly ensued. Marsha P. Johnson, a Black transfeminine drag queen, and Sylvia Rivera, a transfeminine Latina, have gone down in history as playing a primary role in these riots and in New York City’s gay liberation movement. In Rivera’s honor, Dean Spade founded the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, an organization that primarily provides legal services to marginalized LGBTQI+ folks of color.

If these women, and many more, were key in LGBTQI+ liberation, why do Pride campaigns and events today center privileged, white, gay cisgender men?

Why is the life expectancy of Black and brown trans women in the U.S. just 35 years old?

Why were five Black transgender women brutally murdered in the few short months of 2019?

On May 18th, a Black transgender woman named Muhlaysia Booker was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas at only 23 years old. According to her Facebook page, Muhalysia worked as an entertainer and was a student at Louisiana State University. In April of 2019, Muhlaysia was violently beaten on video by a cisgender Black man while others egged on the assault. This video went viral on social media. She attended a rally the week after her assault to highlight the trend of violence women like her consistently face.

Michelle “Tamika” Washington, 40, another Black transgender woman, was killed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania the day after Muhlaysia’s murder. According to her Facebook page, Tamika was a student who studied nursing at the Community College of Philadelphia.

The reality is that Black and brown trans people, especially transgender women, face the highest rates of murder in the United States today. The world watched while Muhlaysia’s life was threatened, and we failed to protect her. Due to misgendering in police reports and unreported murders, there are likely several others who were lynched this year at the hands of hatred and bigotry. And yet, they are rarely given the proper light during the month of June.

This Pride season, I ask you to honor those who led the queer liberation movement and uplift those without access to care and safety. Have conversations with your families and friends, humanize those at the margin, and donate directly to those asking for help. Help Black trans women survive. Pay for their transportation, donate to their education, and offer items that contribute to the means of survival. Much of this can be done by donating to and sharing their online fundraisers, directly buying art or clothes, and connecting them with childcare, health care and job opportunities.

As you celebrate Pride this month, revisit the reasons Pride began, honor those we have lost, and make a pledge to uplift the most marginalized.

[thejolteonmastertj]

The LOV Being Portrayed A Certain Way Started In Season 3

Relevant to the current My Hero Academia manga arc.

Discussion & manga spoilers past the keep reading link.

TR: Some discussion of trans/homophobia.

So some people have discussed how the League Of Villains (LOV, otherwise known as the Villain Alliance), are being written like the heroes of their own Shonen manga in the recent chapters, as discussed in this post by bloodycarnations, and by Khorale in this post.

I highly recommend that you read their posts first if you had not already.

But this didn't come from nowhere, in fact, the league has been gradually easing into this motif, to us as viewers, very particularly ever since AFO’s final stand. 

There were no hints at the league being portrayed this way while Shigaraki was still under the shadow of AFO as far as I can tell, which I find very interesting.

The first possible clue came right after AFO told Shiggy to leave and fly out of the nest.  It starts during AFO’s fight against All Might.

Its a really small detail, but it’s notable because the heroic motif continues to build over time.  After Deku, Kirishima, and Iida grabbed Bakugo, there is a moment where the league is at a loss for what to do.

But the way it was written is what I’m paying attention to here.  Usually, villains in anime aren’t portrayed as having a good teamwork environment.  In fact, these same villains, specifically Magne and Spinner were already shown having a squabble during the training camp arc over whether or not to kill Deku.  The squabble resulted in them being pinned down by the heroes while they were busy arguing.

But this time it's subtly different, they are genuinely and wholeheartedly cooperating on-screen for the first time (without threatening to kill each other like they were in the USJ arc, or merely hanging around and being annoyed by each other during the training camp arc).  While Deku & crew are getting away with Bakugo, Compress and Spinner have a brief panicked exchange: (Dub dialogue used)

This is bad, who can do distance?

Kurogiri and Dabi, but they’re down!

Then Magne steps in with a plan:

You two, come here.

And then the three of them creatively apply Magne’s quirk to throw Compress towards Bakugo... I just want to emphasize that Magne literally threw him, like, way up in the sky, and they did it willingly (it would have worked too if Mount Lady had not got in the way).  What they did requires a lot more trust and cooperation than anything else they had been shown doing before.

This level of cooperation continues to be highlighted in the Yukaza arc. 

First, Magne gets killed off, as we know, but this line and her whole speech is very notable.

This establishes something that will continue to be reaffirmed at different points in the manga.  This isn't a normal villain organization where the leader calls all the shots.  Notice how while Magne goes through her whole tirade Shiggy does nothing to object to or interject into anything she says.  This is a mostly democratic group where Shiggy grows to respect the wishes of his comrades as well as his own.  They are (slowly) becoming a team.

There are a few other villains in Anime I could think of who operate in a similar manner, but most of them arguably also fall into the villains-as-the-heroes motif, such as the villains in Nanoha A’s (Nanoha season 2).  Villains like those from the Nanoha series also, however, tend to have noble goals... but resort to villainy out of desperation.  Huh.

Then there is this contrast between the Yukaza and the LOV even Shiggy himself, as well as Overhaul eventually brings up.

Shiggy acknowledges the disposable nature of being a Yukaza underling.  Although whether he is referring to Magne’s value as a skilled fighter or a person or both is up for interpretation, he is using Magne’s name in contrast to “small-fry yukaza human shields.”

Whatever Shiggy’s intentions behind this particular line are, the contrast itself is clearly there.  The Yukaza members are disposable, and this is shown multiple times through the arc, especially when the heroes start fighting the villains.  The LOV on the other hand, clearly would not use each other as meat-shields in the same way, based on their emotional reaction to Magne’s death. 

Overhaul takes note of this when Shiggy attempts to make peace with and form an alliance of sorts with the Yukaza.

This is a similar contrast which drove Natsu from Fairy Tail episode 6 (the main character) into a righteous rage upon seeing a villain kill their fellow villain. 

Heroes/main-characters protect their friends, villains are backstabbers.

The Yukaza from this arc, the QLA from a later arc, and many other villains in manga/anime also differ from the LOV and other villains-as-heroes groups (like from the Nanoha series) in terms of affection.  Toga here is shown putting a handkerchief over Twice’s broken mask, accepting and assisting in correcting his panic caused by mental illness/trauma.

And then we have the elephant in the room.

The LOV members are progressive in terms of not just mental health issues, but with LGBT+ issues as well.  When Overhaul misgenders Magne, a Trans woman, Twice stands up for her.

We need to address something else first though.  It’s not uncommon for villains to be LGBTQ, and historically this cliche stems from homophobia because the association of gay and gender-non-conforming people with villainy backed up the idea that gay people are villainous/bad irl.  The uncensored Japanese version of Sailor Moon had several gay villains, even Pokemon used to dress up Jessie and James in gender-non-conforming outfits all the time.

But here’s what’s different.

1) Times are changing, LGBT+ people are becoming more accepted, particularly among young people in Japan (Sorry I can’t provide links, Tumblr keeps marking my posts as spam when I do that, but follow @JusticeKazzy_ on twitter for more info!  The Japan Times published an article titled: “More in Japan identify as LGBT as social awareness grows, study finds”.  A YouTuber known as ‘That Japanese Man Yuta’ also did an interview video on it back in 2015). 

Negative portrayals of LGBTQ+ people are becoming less common... it obviously hasn’t gone away, but things are improving in the uphill battle.  Horikoshi made it a point to also establish another canon Trans character, Tiger, a heroic character who would play a role in the battle vs AFO not long before Magne made her first appearance.

I think Horikoshi did that intentionally, not to soften the blow of Magne’s death (if he did have that intention in mind, it didn't work) but actually in order to establish that being an ally in this world is a positive attribute, a heroic attribute even, in contrast to Overhaul’s callous treatment of Magne’s identity.

2) In the past, when LGBT+ people were portrayed as villains, most writers did not bother researching the significance of misgendering or dysphoria... nor were these concepts attempted to be portrayed in a sympathetic manner.  (Horikoshi obviously neglected to do research on bad LGBT+ tropes in media, but that’s not the point of this post).

In any case, the League Of Villains aren’t just a team, the individual members are all established as progressive, and accepting of each other’s identity and who they are.  Spinner readily called Magne by her preferred feminized nickname, “Big Sis Magne,” even while they were arguing during the training camp arc. 

Nobody in the League ever misgenders Magne, only Overhaul did that.

Then the rest is history, this all led up to the League’s current manga arc where they beat up on Nazis, the QLA & crap.  Other villain groups in the manga are being used as key tools in order to emphasize the LOV’s heroic attributes by way of contrast.

Based on Khorale’s post linked above, it’s possible that Shiggy’s development as a compassionate leader actually started before AFO’s arrest, we just did not start to see the results until later. 

AFO had been encouraging Shiggy to act on his own for a long time...

... but will that turn out to bite AFO back eventually?  Where, exactly, is Horikoshi going with this set-up?

Who knows honestly, but I’m super excited to see!