#also they are both trans because i say so

[genderqueerdykes]

hi um. i’d like to ask you for some advice, since it seems like a lot of people come to you when they need it. i’m a trans girl who’s been taking estrogen for 2.5 years but. i’m just so disappointed and unhappy with what hrt has done for me. i feel like i’ve been completely taken over by doomerism from me constantly comparing myself to other transfems both online and irl, and from spending too much time on trans reddit (i’m sending you this ask instead of writing another vent post on r/mtf). through this i’ve convinced myself that i will never be happy with my body, or that i’ll never have real boobs or a feminine body at all. i really really don’t want to give up hope, but it just seems so far out of reach, and i’m stuck down here in this inky abyss. what do you do in dark times when you need to regain hope, but you can’t do it yourself?

first of all, i wanted to say i'm sorry that you're feeling this way. medical transition is a very finicky thing. there is no way to predict what will happen and when, so it's okay to feel just. completely bummed the hell out when you're not seeing the changes you hoped for yet. i definitely see how it can be crushing, especially when you know your body needs to look a different way for you to be happy. it's important to consider people look a lot different irl than they do in photos and videos. camera lenses can only capture so much. pictures and videos can be edited. it's hard to compare yourself to something like that

& i did want to say that you're definitely not alone! there are a lot of girls in your exact situation. with everyone responding to HRT differently, you'll see girls who get changes right away, and girls where it takes a long time. changes with HRT generally happen very slowly, way slower than the eye can perceive, so it's okay if you feel like nothing is happening. your body just may need more time to adjust

have you ever increased your dose? if not, that is totally an option! you may also want to look into progesterone if you find that you're not happy with your breast growth after some time. it's best to look into progesterone first to make sure it's right for you, as it will affect more than just breast growth, but i wanted to throw it out there as an option! if you're not on an androgen blocker, this could also potentially help you

for both estrogen and testosterone HRT, it can take a minimum of 5 years for people to begin seeing the effects they were desiring. 5 years, minimum! that's a very long time, comparatively, you are very early on in your journey. the effects you want to see may just come along further on down the road. i know it's easy to fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others. it's good to remind yourself that they are not you, they do not share your genetics. they look like them. you look like you. it's okay that you don't look like those people- they're not you.

it doesn't make you any less of a woman just because you haven't seen these changes yet. there are plenty of women who look just like you, cis, intersex, trans, genderqueer, and otherwise. there are many cis and intersex women who don't "pass", and it doesn't make them any less of a woman: the same applies to you, and every trans girl. dysphoria can be a real pain in the ass and make things harder than it needs to be. it's okay to not be content with where you're at now. it's okay to be frustrated that you're not seeing the changes you want to right now. many, many trans people feel just the same way you do.

you may feel awkward and uncomfortable right now because you're literally in a transitional phase. think about when teenagers go through puberty, about how awkward they look and feel. cracking voices, bodies that are "in the middle" and not fully developed. that's what you're going through at the moment, and its okay. it just takes time for things to fully settle in.

what i would suggest is trying to find ways to do some self care that affirm your gender that don't involve your appearance. validating yourself in other ways is extremely important. building yourself up takes time. if you feel insecure about how you look, it's okay. you can start building your confidence in your identity and gender in other areas of yourself, first, then move on to your appearance. try to spend time with people who respect you for who you are, no matter how you look. try to surround yourself with people and things that affirm you

i hope you start seeing those changes you want to see soon. if you need more advice, feel free to ask! if any other trans girls on E have any advice for the asker, or relate to the experience, please feel free to chip in with some feedback on this ask, or by sending an ask! due to being intersex, i was taking estrogen and progesterone despite not wanting to, so i was not cataloguing what was changing or anything like that, so i can't speak from personal experience there despite having been on E HRT in the past.

take care of yourself for now. try to go easy on yourself, you're still in your coocoon. the day where you emerge as a butterfly is on its way, it just takes a little time. please feel free to come back any time. i hope we can get some good insight for you

[velvetvexations]

since i know the other side, in both good and bad faith, looks at your blog, i do have a question for them; let's posit that men categorically and universally are not oppressed as the ideology states, with the "splash damage" hypothesis and all. sure. definitionally, how do you define a man/masc/whatever you want to specify here, in a way that does not define any other gender or presentation of gender? what is Man?

it's not the testosterone unless you're very cruel to pre-transition trans women, or women that use t cream for various reasons. it's not genitalia or boob growth for the same reason. certainly not skin texture or hair for the same reason. so lets rule out personal body choices; i feel we can agree those are an individuals choice.

is it just saying you're a guy or using he/him pronouns? what about trans girls before they even know it's an option for them to transition? do you think trans women cannot be butches and want to use he/him some or all of the time? how do you intend to stop the girls who do? what about the women who don't necessarily identify as always having been women? especially when you transition later in life, that lived experience isn't wrong to have. is a woman who says she was a man someone who was privileged and now is not, or is she also exempt forever? do you care if she feels differently?

how do you separate what someone internally feels, which you cannot know, from what they physically show you and tell you? i boymode at my job; i AM physically transitioning, but i just keep saying i am a man. would you respect what i tell you? would you treat me like a man on the days i shave my face because i asked you to, or would you treat me like a woman because you think you know what i want better than i do?

where is Man? what is Man? you cannot define genders out of each other, i don't think; there's more diversity within the individual groups than between them. they regress to the average. Woman is not what is leftover when you remove Man from a person.

The answer they'd give is "someone who has male privilege." It's tautological as hell.

[twilighttrekkie]

How they would ACTUALLY interact

Don't get me wrong I am very much not a TTG fan and personally despise TTG vs TT for how it handled the original Titans, however TTG Robin is the exception. He is baby and deserves to be adopted by the 2003 Titans.

[dukeofankh]

I'm gonna try and be charitable here, which is not something you have done to me so far. Please read the first sentence again. Does your vision for deradicalizing right wing men "begin AND end with other men telling them that that is gross and to stop it"? This posts starts with an if/then statement. If the "if" does not apply to you. The "then" does not apply to you.

Like, this is a response to a very specific idea, one that was plastered all over every social media environment I consume after the US election. The idea was that clearly, since Trump had done better among men, and since misogynistic men don't listen to women, feminist men needed to do their damn jobs and fix men. If they had been doing their jobs already, Harris would have won. Women will (because this was largely coming from radical feminist voices) just haaaave to go full separatist and abandon the project until men had sorted themselves out.

The idea I am railing against here is that men are some monolithic group, wherein feminist men can...pull rank? Peer pressure Trump voters? The idea I am criticizing is one that thinks that "men" and "The patriarchy" are synonyms and if women are looking around in feminist spaces and seeing men who claim to be allies, then they are clearly lying because if they were really feminists they would have gotten their whole gender in line by now.

If you also think that those ideas are dumb, then we are already in agreement. I am not pointing out how difficult this is because I don't think that it's important to try anyway, I'm pointing this out because plenty of people are saying things about how to change men's minds that betray complete ignorance of how patriarchal social structures between men actually operate. Both because a lot of women trust women's read on how men think more than men telling them how men think, and because they are not interested in changing men's minds. They are radfems, pouncing on a very shocked, hurt, and scared population and trying to use the situation to push gender essentialism.

I do, absolutely, do everything I can to push men I know in a less hateful direction. It doesn't do much. But hey, maybe it's doing something. Maybe when I tell my coworker that believing "men and women are just good at different things" is totally incompatible with the clear respect he has for the two female carpenters he works with, it makes him think twice the next time he flips out about trans people after listening to a podcast. I do that sort of thing. I do not just smile and nod. What I am saying is that the current worldwide scourge of misogynistic fascism on the rise is not because your personal male friend is only pretending to be a feminist to hang out with you. He does not, actually, have the ability to mind control every misogynist in the country.

If your vision for the deradicalization of right-wing men begins and ends with "other men telling them that that's gross and to stop it" then I'm sorry, you do not understand how masculinity works.

"Men who hold patriarchal status" and "men who are feminists" are two groups who overlap less than you want them to. I'm sorry. That's not solely because men are so happy with patriarchal status that they don't want to risk it by policing misogyny/queerphobia/racism, It's because being misogynistic, queerphobic, and racist, end expressing other forms of toxic masculinity(and often abusively so) are part of how people establish and maintain patriarchal status. The men who have the ability to stop this via nothing but peer pressure are the very people who are doing it. That's by design. And engaging in feminist intervention is, in and of itself, usually the abrupt end of that status and its associated power to persuade misogynistic men.

Like, I have worked in blue collar jobs as a notably queer person. It was pretty much a constant deluge of verbal abuse. In my experience, most blue collar work environments are exploitative, abusive, and bigoted, and very gleefully so. On the occasions I have spoken up about someone saying something that was super fucking out of line (asking me which of the girls walking by was hottest. We were installing a portable classroom at a middle school), believe it or not, they completely failed to be shamed! Because nobody else on the crew gave a fuck. *I* was the weird one. They ghosted me. A full blown company ghosted me. I suddenly didn't have a job anymore because they just straightforwardly stopped telling me where the next job site was.

Like, this doesn't mean that it's your job to do it, but this vision you have of these big groups of men where everyone is on the fence and there is precisely one shit stirrer who can be shut down by a brave feminist man who can single handedly set the example for all these other guys...you are high. You are describing an "everybody clapped" level absurd scenario. Most of these truly virulent misogynistic guys either have zero friends, because, you know, our society is atomized to fuck, or they are in a group where the feminist guy is actually the weirdo who can be shut down and ostracized much, much easier than the misogynists, because there is no such thing as a man misogynists respect who stands up for women.

You might be saying "well, we're talking about longstanding personal relationships, actually. Like, they need to have to want to spend time with you and then, as a side effect, you can mind control them out of being a threat to us."

Problem with that being:

1: Many feminist men also have no friends, see the atomized society above.

2: Feminist men already stopped hanging out with men who make rape jokes because why the fuck would we want to spend time with them.

3: That isn't just because we respect women so hard. We are in many cases talking about men who are also deeply queerphobic, heirarchical, violent and abusive to other men. What initially drew me to feminism and women was a lack of heirarchical squabbling and constant bullying, and the ability to be openly queer. A lot of men who came to feminism did so because they knew that the patriarchy was not a place they would find success or acceptance. These are not the men who are gonna be able to change right wing minds.

4. Men do not view themselves as a monolith. There is no universal brotherhood of men. The actual meaning of the term "Fragile masculinity" is that men are constantly expected to prove that they are deserving of the status of being a member of their own gender. There are large swathes of men--including most of the men who you'd look to as examples of good, feminist men who you want to undertake this project--who are considered failed men, sissies, f****ts, soyboys, ect. They are. Not. Going. To. Convince. These. Men. Of. Jack. Shit. Much less successfully *shame* them. Jesus.

I know all of this sucks. I know it would be cool to be able to just point at a group and have them be responsible for the work. But nah. It's gonna have to be a societal project, one that will probably outlast all of us. Sorry. The thing you want these men to do is, absolutely, the morally correct thing to do. But presuming that it would be effective is, and once again I am so sorry about this, just ignorance of how these social groups function.

[theposhperyton]

All evidence suggests yes

[mars-ipan]

God I feel you on this. There are so many avenues for people to get sucked into bullshit infighting too.

I s2g every time I engage with trans content my for you feed starts serving me a ton of discourse about intercommunity transandrophobia or w/e and like... if people are being weird about trans men that's worth talking about sometimes, but I get the impression there are corners of the trans community that are doing nothing but scream at each other in some pointless transmasc vs transfem war. Meanwhile I'm sitting here on TERF island, transfem people right beside me, hoping our HRT and shaky legal rights don't get nuked in the next 5 years 💀

I feel like a general online discourse rule should be that if you're putting more energy into fighting your own community/policing language/etc than fighting people that materially affect our lives, something's gone wrong and you're at high risk of radicalisation into bigotry. Or might already be there.

ghhrgh LITERALLY….. like .

from what i’ve seen a lot of this transandrophobia debate came up in response to seeing trans women talk about transmisogyny. my theory is that a portion of tme folks saw that people have been discussing transmisogyny and felt that they were having their unique experiences erased. which, like, look . i get it. erasure is something i’ve experienced kinda my whole life. i understand that it feels Bad to have your struggles downplayed. i had that same worry at first. BUT. we GOTTA be able to examine how your own fears and anxieties and biases may be coloring your perceptions!!! bc yes being trans does not make you immune to transmisogyny!! we live in a transmisogynistic world implicit bias is Going To Happen.

like. transmisogyny is a real thing that happens and disproportionately affects transfems. transmisogyny is not something non-transfem people experience unless they are falsely perceived to be transfem. it is a uniquely transfeminine experience coming from the intersection of being trans and female (or female-adjacent). it is not just a unique kind of transphobia, but rather the intentional combination of transphobia and misogyny.

is this to say that transmascs don’t experience their own unique kind of oppression? no! but it’s not an intersectional oppression and it shouldn’t be treated as such. also, the name of “transandrophobia” just gives off. a really uncomfortable energy. you’re not being oppressed because you’re male. you’re being oppressed because you’re trans. i don’t feel like we need to give this type of transphobia a name because it is just transphobia. similar to how misogynoir is a word but we don’t have a word for the specific type of oppression black men face because that’s just racism. just because transphobia impacts you in a certain way doesn’t mean it’s a special type of transphobia, and really why are we playing oppression olympics in the first place? we’re ALL hurting. can we just like… help each other out? can we stop accusing transfems of like…. deliberately trying to overshadow transmasc issues or whatever? and for the love of god if we have to argue can we STOP misgendering and degendering each other mid-argument.

like. at the end of the day this is all trivial shit because In Real Life we’re being targeted by horribly cruel legislation and social movements. it’s like we’re in a burning house and i’m watching my brother and sister argue over black mold. like yes that’s a problem but i think !!!! we should focus on putting out the fire !!!! like i live in texas. lawmakers have been trying to pass anti-trans bills here for ages, and a couple of them have gone through! i remember being sat down in gsa in my freshman year of high school and having the club sponsors tell us that if a bill that was up for ratification mandating that teachers out their students to their parents was passed that they would do everything in their power to keep us safe. i have to be careful about how i dress when i go to certain places. and i’m not even someone who’s transitioning medically— lord knows what kind of bullshit hurdles people on hrt have to go through to get it. and we’re arguing over what we want to call our oppression? we’re all facing transphobia at the end of the day can we PLEASE fix that instead of dividing ourselves into little easy-to-eliminate factions please and thank you

[sinistersuns]

i think we gotta be more careful about falling into the trap of placing heaps of blame on the most vulnerable groups around us because it’s easier, emotionally or otherwise, than going after those in power. like i mostly talk about transandrophobia right now and how transmascs get so much shit thrown at us because were easier to attack than cis people, and i’ve seen people do the same thing to transfems and NBs too. to me it’s extra disappointing when it’s someone who is vocally supportive of transmascs doing it (like generalizing all transfems as being hostile to transmascs/being transandrophobic). it’s of course important to talk about inter community issues and point out harmful behaviors and ideologies when we see them, and talk about how someone’s life experience might lead them to be that way, but singling out one type of trans person as The Culprit is not helpful and just feels like it further drives a wedge into our community. we may be able to perpetuate aspects of the transphobic systems cis people put in place, but none of us are responsible for them and we don’t benefit from them, past surface level “acceptance” from people who’d be more comfortable if one type of trans person or all of us didn’t exist at all

[stump-not-found]

we're getting into the cover compositions that start falling apart ! i really adore stan and mabel being outside the frame, bringing in the purple from step V, and the green from step IV . playing with visuals is neat ! drawing those pictures was less neat !

this was the hardest chapter to wrte and sat unfinished for WEEKS . chapter seven wasn't even going to exist, but six got so long i had to split it up . it was wild . for a long time i had no idea what they were even gonna be doing on this planet . there used to be a, like, fortress they needed to break into ?

the family splitting up was always part of the plan, but originally it was because there was a large gate they needed to get through, and ford was gonna go alone until dipper volunteered to go with him . that was back when i was gonna try and have ford persuade dipper into being his apprentice, like he did in the show, because it was weird in the show too . but that sucked and slowed the whole pace down . i much prefer the rift getting escalated for emotional reasons .

was a challenge re enforcing a lot of fords abilities, along with introducing the journal, and trying to find a way to make it entertaining . i really love the response to ford, and one of my favorite things writing him is the way he describes things in the stupidest terms . like the shampoo & conditioner comment . the 30 second audio clips bit makes me think of those shitty cheap plastic toys you'd buy at claire's, where you get like, one minute of an nsync song . i think mabel would have loved those honestly

originally ford was also way more of a dick about mabel, specifically, but i realized i hate that a bit and really tried to punch up how sweet he is on the kids . i'm glad i did that, because i think its a lot stronger narratively that the dude has no ill thoughts towards the kids - dipper's attitude is just him listening, absorbing, and projecting in a way that helps him regain some control over his home situation

lots to say about the kids and their deal, though that could be its own separate thing . i'll just say it went under a lot of revisions, and had a lot of conversations about it . my goal was to have some pushback on the idea that mabel is this emotionally enlightened bastion of truth . god i have a lot i could rant on this point, but i really want to get across it's not a good thing when your 12 yr old niece tries to give you a therapy session . like . that's a bad thing, overall, to be quite honest .

dipper's whole thing is just aaaaaaaaaaaa it's hard to be trans in 2012 . well it's hard to be trans in general . dipper pines i love you i want you to know that you sweaty weirdo . you and your sister are gonna be just fine

it's fun that the kids become less of a background element once both adults in the room start to pay proper attention to them . as i write these chapters, i like to imagine that mabel and dipper are just having a regular ass gravity falls adventure, while the adults are having to walk down trauma lane lalalalal

oh fuck we also get the man in the hallway with his mystery pendant . did anyone see that guy the fuck was up with that . oh well i guess that's not important L O L

oh fuck this was also the professional working relationship chapter what the fuck ... i'm gonna be honest i laugh about that everytime .... the entire scene where bill starts counting his teeth almost got cut which would have been fucking stupid . yes i am referencing macdennis with them . yes ford does tell bill to smoke a cigarette to get rid of the toxins . that's how it SHOULD be . that's how a working relationship GOES

anyways ford and stanley's home life was fucked the fanfiction the movie . yay

bill is in everyone's hallway if you force the perspective enough:

favorite part:

“Dipper, there are… certain quirks of demon containment that are easier to let happen than argue about.” Ford says. Teeth counting is one of the top ones. Along with letting Bill clip his nails when they’ve grown out too long, or cut his hair when it gets too shaggy, or… actually, there’s a lot of things Bill will throw a fit about if Ford fights him over it. Though Ford supposes he has his own list as well, including forcing Bill to do regular blood checks, and have consistent meals with appropriate dietary restrictions. Dipper, clearly, doesn’t get it, and Ford acknowledges he is too young to understand a professional working relationship.

in case anyone was confused about there being anything romantic okay . please review the above paragraph it is VERY clear about the nature of their relationship, thank you

The family gets separated by some stupid metaphors, the kids have some normal and healthy conversations, and both Pines brothers handle the situation very, very well.

Everything's going just peachy, so long as you ignore all the problems.

[almalex24]

@inexplicably-spookified boo

[redheadedfailgirl]

From 'Dream of a woman' By Cacey Plett.

This sums up exactly how I feel about most transition timelines. As much as they reflect people's experiences, they are also a narrative. And the narratives that get shared the most tell a lot about what our values are. The timelines that get the most attention are the ones where people go from sad, loser, nothing boys into beautiful women.

But if you go to /r/transitiontimelines or a similar place, and sort by controversial or look at what has the least likes, its people who made timelines when they still don't 'pass' yet. Even if they're happy as can be, that's not what people are looking for.

I think it says a lot about what people expect from trans women, that they only want to see us be beautiful. In some cases, that they want to believe they can be beautiful. So there is no value in trans life if you're not beautiful.

[tinystepsforward]

algerian trans women arent able to compete in women sports at all, but yeah its makes no sense to call khelif tme. youre so fucking smart.

(this is a response to this post) i see you don't believe that i'm quoting one of the trans women in my life about that, which is your prerogative. it's also your right to miss my point entirely both about the ways this alienates intersex people and about the rigidity of a binary that comes down to the same shrinking circles terfs draw when they try to quantify what a woman is (speak up for women, the most organised nz group, have now submitted on the human rights act suggesting that all babies be karyotyped at birth and the results be public, bc they can't establish any other definition they agree on. absolutely fucking nobody, not even their christian or conspiracist allies, agrees with them on this one.)

but you don't have to take my word for it! when i was at that consultation with the nz law commission, i was in a room with many other intersex and trans people, including trans athletes and trans women like lexie matheson who consult on trans inclusion in sports at a high national level. i don't think there's a single person in that room who did not name what was happening to khelif as we spoke as transmisogyny, who did not speak of her as part of a group with whom we all shared something.

at the end of the day, prison abolition informs all of my politics. i believe that we must look clearly and carefully at harm and distinguish it from discomfort or disagreement, and identify its structural sources and true perpetrators. i believe that to build a better future we must be capable of imagining one. i believe that we can build a world where suffering is not the metric by which we determine value or punishment or righteousness. i believe that we can build a world where we centre and uplift those who are most hurt, in every arena — black and brown trans women, here; in some of my other work, it's incarcerated intellectually disabled people, or asian migrant sex workers affected by section 19, the list goes on — without then pitting them against other people who share some of the same story and will benefit from the same deconstruction of the systems that hold them down. i believe we can build a world in which asab doesn't affect so much of your life by beginning that work now.

there's a politics of scarcity — you have it better than me, so we have nothing in common. i saw it all the time in brothels, the idea that the new girl is taking money out of your kids' mouths. the viciousness with which people who are struggling are so ready to abandon solidarity. is it so hard to demand better for everyone? to think less about the ways we're alone and more about the ways we're together?

maybe it is. i know that well enough as a prison abolitionist. people get scared. they swing at shadows, they swing at anyone who seems to be suffering less, they — we, i should say, i am certainly not immune — get blindingly jealous of people who seem to have it easier. that's grief! that's grief for the easier life that we deserve. and we get to mourn, and take that time to feel it, and then we can choose if we want to keep working hand in hand with each other toward a world where that grief is dwarfed by the promise of the future.

[justsumtransdude2000]

Because you asked so nicely;

When we talk about twinkification we first have to establish what 'twink' as a concept is, and while I don't like playing semantics I do think the way we define this word is extremely important, mostly because twink, in the modern era has become one of two things. On one hand, it has become a term to use about any feminine man, sometimes even regardless of sexuality or even gender presentation. On the other, it has become another way for straight white women to call gay men slurs without actually saying said slurs. I don't think I should have to explain to you why both of these definitions are incorrect, harmful, and water down the way we see twink. Twink, according to Wikipedia (and before I hear any bullshit about it being wiki, if you will oh so kindly look at the long source list, there are many credible and also queer sources for the article) refers to a skinny, often young, hairless gay man. This definition has evolved from its (highly debated) original one of either 'twank' (a gay, male prostitute who is also a bottom) or twinkie, as a reference to the food because twinkies (I shit you not this is what the article says) lack nutritional value, sweet to the taste and creme filled. Now, the article says that twink is merely a physical marker. I, as a gender non conforming trans man who considers himself othered from the community of gay men (for reasons of both transness and bisexuality), cannot speak on this, or how the word is currently used in gay culture. I can, however, as a chronically online piece of shit, speak on how the word has developed in fandom culture, and how the twinkification of a character is not just physical, but also a stripping of said characters main attributes. But, to summarize, the word twink refers to an effeminate gay man who is (traditionally) young and a bottom. He is skinny, tall and sassy. Twink, in the real world is used only as a physical marker, but in fandom space is almost completely different to its real world usage.

Now that the semantics are out of the way we can get to the meat and potatoes of this essay. Twinkification, as a process applied it fictional characters, is bad because it strips them of their core identity traits to make room for sass, their skinniness (which is turned into a personality trait, or, at the very least a main characteristic) and their bottomness (please see the previous set of parenthesis). As to be as precise as possible with how this can/does happen I will use characters from a fandom I am familiar with as an example; Regulus and Sirius Black, as characterized by the Marauders Fandom (which is, in fact leagues different from the Harry Potter Fandom). However, to be as precise as I personally want to be, I also have to explain the significance of both of their characters, and how them being changed fundamentally is not that out of place because of the fandom, so that I can (eventually) prove that the way they are often characterized not only does not resonate the sentiments of the fandom, but actively works against it.

Firstly, the Marauders Fandom does not abide by canon, unlike other fandoms that may work in a very dissimilar way. This fandom operates on the basis that, because the canon is written by a TERF who gets physically enraged when in proximity to a trans person, taking her original characters and making them as queer as possible actively works against her, and is therefore not only a way of protest, but also a way to enjoy some peoples favorite media, guilt free. (There are multiple different sides to this arguement, and while I have my opinions on what constitutes protest and how guilt free one can actually be while not actively doing something for the communities JKR often hurts, that is not what this essay is about). This is the viewpoint all the characters, and therefore my argument, hinges on. To truly understand the twinkification process we need to first examine how these characters are treated in canon versus in the fanon universe. Sirius, for example, is canonically very unefeminate. While he is sassy, often throwing quips and firing back at people when he has the chance, he is not sassy in the same way that twinks are. In fact, I would argue Remus is much more effeminate and twink adjacent, but I'll put a pin in that for now. Going back to Sirius, though, he is almost the antithesis of a twink when it comes to a real world perception of the concept. He has wild, long hair in his first appearance, and while he is also skinny that is because he is malnourished, not because it is his natural state. He also has thick facial hair that he keeps throughout his appearances in the movies and (if I'm not mistaken) the books. He is hairy, vulgar at times, sarcastic, and doesn't do anything I (personally) would deem as 'bottom behavior.' His fanon appearances are, however, quite different.

Throughout fanon Sirius is often depicted, physically, in the same way he is when he is severely malnourished and on the run from soul sucking demons, which is to say, the fanon is not based on him when he is at his best both mentally and physically. He is often written or drawn to have gaunt cheeks and skinny, bordering on malnourished, features. His hair is long, but kept very proper, his nails are trimmed short (sometimes) and often colored, he is very often depicted as a bottom in the very popular fanon ship between him and Remus Lupin, and dresses extremely differently depending on the depiction. It is here, however, I do have to admit I do not have a strong case for his twinkification, because of the fact that he is often written to be genderfluid or nonbinary, and its a very common headcanon to hold. That being said, he is still often robbed of his personality to be the traumatized, rich, twink who is alll the way down bad for one Remus Lupin. Even in his own fics he is often characterized as lazy, dumb, and only carrying the following personality traits; sarcastic, traumatized, skinny, and slutty waist (I am truly tired of hearing this phrase! I mean it! Stop sexualizing every part of a goddamn body you hornballs). This is all to say that; twinkification is not only about the body but also about the soul.

Moving on, however, to my much stronger evidence; Regulus Arcturus Black. Regulus has 0 canon appearances, on account of being dead, and has a few cameos of which only his memory is present. The only things we know are; he was a death eater because he was (as described by Sirius Black, his brother,) 'too soft' not to fall into the ideology his parents had picked out for him, he was a Slytherin, he was on the quidditch team and likely a seeker. There is a singular picture in the film adaptation that makes him appear, in my opinion, quite well built. However, when adapted into fandom many things are changed about him. He and his brother are implied to having been abused by their parents, causing Sirius to move out in the summer between 6th and 7th year (I could be wrong on this as the canon and fanon timelines have become muddled), something that canonically is often translated into physical abuse. Because of this Regulus is betrayed as the lesser willed sibling. While Sirius definetly has a fight response the the abuse in fanon, Regulus has a freeze or (more accurately) fawn reaction, which unfortunately leads people to portray him as weak (there is a lot to say about that and how this fandom in general views abuse victims, and as someone who is an abuse victim myself some of you guys really could benefit from, I dunno, logging off a while). He is often also portrayed as sarcastic, depressed and skinny which I must emphasize is more often than not a personality trait and not a descriptor. Because we don't know much about his canon personality there is no telling if this directly contradicts his canon self, but we do know that he was, for lack of better term, kinda evil. He was a death eater and only really stopped being one because Voldemort hurt his closest friend, a house elf named Kreature. Why do people do this though? The same reason people do anything in fandom - for the sake of a ship. A very popular fanon ship is Jegulus the ship between Regulus Black and James Potter. James in this instance is a jock, one of Sirius' friends and a (for lack of better term) Good Guy, TM. People like this dynamic because, you guessed it, poor gay sadboi gets rescued by Good Guy TM and the abusers die, or whatever, Regulus is stripped of his autonomy in his own choices because it's no fun if he actually chose anything because that would make him flawed and while fandom praises morally grey people they actually hate staring into the abyss and seeing anything relatively human staring back at them because then they are reminded that their black and white thinking will not help them brave the winter that is going outside and interacting with people. Moreover, Regulus is often stripped of an identity outside of Jegulus, his personhood being removed along with his autonomy so that he can be forever codependent on James, until death do them part. He is also often described as pretty in an almost feminine way, white, short and gay, with high cheekbones and gaunt cheeks and - fuck how many other ways can I say he's skinny? To get to my point, Regulus is twinkified by his autonomy and personhood being stripped away from him systemically to make room for fandom's favorite OTP. By taking away the bad things he's done, and then labeling him morally grey because he is mean but in a way that reminds people of their own high school bullies, we are stripping him of the things that make him him, and cutting him down to a borderline homophobic caricature of an 'evil twink.'

Finally, why do I think this happens? A lot of reasons. The shift in public perception from gay people being evil baby eating crossdressers to them being okay in most parts if America and Canada has also shifted how covertly homophobic people are allowed socially to talk about us. Because of this they have had to find sneakier ways to call us slurs, and have settled (or had settled, for a while) on twink. But, because straight people primarily control culture and therefore perception of us, the general reaction from gay and queer people was important. Hence the normalization of calling any gay man with a pulse a twink. But I think that has little to do with fandom and more to do with the general okay attitude towards it.

I also think it happens because of people's general want for that morally grey, but not in a too bad way, characters. They want that golden spot of getting someone who is mean and does kind of bad things like stealing and smoking cigarettes and calling them fags, but not someone whose actions they actually have to reckon with and actively try not to normalize. Basically it is really hard to defend racism, even if it's in a fictional setting.

Furthermore, I want to talk about peoples need for a sanitized type of queerness. A gay man who is feminine, but won't put on a dress because crossdressing is still generally weird and too gay right now and just not in. Someone who is sassy but not female because then it isn't gay. Someone who only breaks gender norms a little, because if they actually broke out of the box that is gender a lot of people would not be able to tuck themselves in at night knowing that characters in a fictionally setting are defying norms in a universe they are not a part of. Because, at the end of the day, it's cool to have 'deconstructed gender' until you have to confront how it has benefitted you, so to get around it? Strip characters that you want to be gay but not too gay into a caricature that you can see in any late 90's early aughts romcom/sitcom.

I am sorry that this took so long and also sorry for writing it. I am a yapper, and you asked, so really it's your fault (damn am I Regulus because the writer is stripping me from accountability with my own choices)

People who twinkify Regulus/Sirius and make James/Remus (respectively) big and strong haven't unpacked heteronormativity and still believe - maybe even subconsciously - that every relationship has a 'man' and a woman.' In this essay I will-

[arolesbianism]

I caved and made them real. Obverse me losing more and more motivation to draw as I made each of these back to back lol

[velvetvexations]

Just saw a hot take that boils down to "women generally do traditional female gender role stuff specifically because they are afraid of the men in their lives, this goes extra for trans women". Which like. I get where they're coming from, but it's a take that I feel circles back around into misogyny by refusing to acknowledge that some women do "traditional female gender role" stuff by choice and not by coercion. Like my mother and grandmother were staunch feminists who both take pride in their ability to cook and take care of a family and host people because those are skills that they have practiced and worked on. And those skills aren't even gender locked, my mother has been teaching my younger brothers to cook and now they also take pride in having that skill. Also I don't know about y'all but in my personal experience every time I have done something like clean or cook out of fear of negative consequences, that turned out to be an explicitly abusive situation, and while I know abuse is common I refuse to believe it is the only potential ending point for women, cis and trans alike. Idk it just seems like a very sad take on the world, and I don't really like it because like I said it refuses to leave room for choice and agency and pride in these skills, it refuses to leave space for the lived reality of me and my family

it also way downplays the extent to which women are brainwashed and abused by their mothers and the other women into being Good Women lol like hey it's a patriarchy but a lot of women are complicit in a very active way so a lot of times the patriarchy itself is a distant passive thing

This goes extra when you add the trans element. I'd have to see the actual post to fully comment on it but trans women should recognize that to whatever extent they consider "men" their enemy they should feel the exact same way about cis women. I'm not saying I personally think either cis men or cis women are The Enemy, but like, if you're going to make a big deal about how much trans women have to fear from Men, then yeah, you need to extend that to cis women, who may not directly hate crime us with their own two hands but are more often than not EXTREMELY ENTHUSIASTIC about fucking us up. There are cis women who fought for decades for things like abortion rights only to immediately toss lighter fluid all over everything they worked so hard for because conservatives who proudly admit to wanting The Handmaid's Tale IRL promised they'd keep trans children from playing volleyball with their friends. Cis men may physically assault us more often, but how often is it because a White woman screamed about there being a man in the women's bathroom?

Again, I'd have to actually see the post for myself to be sure, but when I read "women (...) afraid of men are their lives, this goes extra for trans women" it feels like the issue with people just wanting their oppression to be 1:1 with how it works for cis women lol. And if it's making a point about how trans women should fear trans men? Oh, golly, that would be fucking brainless and pathetic.

[bugbuoyx]

Other trans people are not your enemy.

This goes for both trans women & fems and trans men & mascs. There are popular trans women twitter accounts telling young trans women that trans men do not care about them and simultaneously denying trans men face any transphobia, there are popular trans men on tumblr telling young trans men that trans women do not care about our oppression, pointing to the lack of talk about murdered trans men as proof.

And some of these points are fair, we should listen to each other more about our struggles. But you are making that difficult. Do you think a trans woman wants to listen to someone who accuses all trans women of hating trans men and not caring about our struggles? Do you think trans men want to listen to someone who says tells people that trans men are future terfs and will never care about trans womens struggles?

Are we not all just sides of the same dice? Are we not all facing oppression from transphobes? Terfs write books about how trans men are mutilating themselves and articles about predatory trans women in bathrooms, republicans fund legislation targeting trans surgeries and hormones, which affects all of us.

And even if we did not face the same struggles, why are we divided? Again, are we not all the same, simply trying to be ourselves in our own bodies? We can each talk about our own struggles, the difficulties we face and the joys we experience without the opposite being true of the other, infact more often than not it's extremely similar and I think we'd benefit from listening to each other more.

[thewistlingbadger]

Wow guys thank you for all your additions it means a lot to have this conversation sksks. The idea that people would be more receptive to silco and Jinx's relationship if they were both women is so interesting to me, and I think it is true. People seem to be very receptive of the relationship between Mel and her mom even though their relationship is very similar to jinx's relationship with Silco. They're able to understand that Ambessa loved Mel even though she damaged her, but some people really struggle with understanding that Silco was the same way. Some people believe that Silco groomed Jinx to be a weapon but they fail to see how Ambessa canonically DID groom Mel to be a weapon. I definitely think people wouldn't see their (jinx and Silco's) relationship as sexual if they were mother and daughter because in our society it's like once you hit a certain age (or rather begin to look a different way) your relationship with your parents HAS to change because certain things are "no longer appropriate." People see Jinx crawl in Silco's lap and think there's something sexual to that. I see Jinx crawl in Silco's lap and see a daughter who still acts like a little girl with her dad, even though that time has passed. To me it's clear that Jinx's disregard for Silco's space is because their relationship lacks boundaries, and it lacks boundaries because everytime silco tries to show some restraint, jinx ignores him and he really doesn't put up a fight. He does get upset at her he does try to control her but she's so unbothered by it that it makes him just give up.

There's also something about the fact that Jinx is trans coded and Silco is her primary supporter. Silco is the one affirming her identity and helping her transition from "powder" to "jinx" (I'm not saying that Jinx is implied to be trans in the story I'm saying Jinx's story IS trans, if you know you know and if you don't you can ask about it and I'll explain). I think there's a lot of added value to the story when you consider Silco as trans. He's been fighting all his life to be seen a certain way, to be given respect he feels is commonly afforded to others but not to himself, and suddenly when he finally gets it he encounters a little girl. To me in the story it's clear that having Jinx in Silco's life is healing him, like how Isha healed Jinx's inner child Jinx did the same for Silco. It takes a whole new meaning behind "silco saw himself in jinx." Something about a story of a fully transitioned man deciding to raise a little girl because she reminds him of how he used to be...yeah. That hits. That resonates with me.

Also yeah the points about his makeup, his style, his voice being not too low and very soft, him having no sign of facial hair, his build, how the people he's closest with and surrounds himself with are women, etc, does seem very trans. At the bare minimum silco is comfortable with his gender and his expression and masculinity. I also tend to consider his relationship with Felicia. This is pure speculation and indulgence but I see them as brother and sister, the way Silco is brothers with Vander he's also Felicia's brother. I like the idea that he knew Felicia before Vander, that they grew up together and looked out for each other since childhood. That long ago they were sisters. That resonates with me too.

Extra note the way Silco uses makeup is symbolic he's using it to cover his scar, to cover his past because he wants to leave it behind. And he's doing do with a substance that society would consider reserved for women. Silco covers his scar not only for himself but for others. He doesn't want people to see it, to see who he used to be. He wants people to see who he is.

I'm so glad people are finally realizing silco is trans lol