#and a lot of it is also transphobic

[cosmics-beings]

"i do sometimes have issues with tfp starscream portrayals esp when it comes to people assigning certain body parts to him because he is more 'feminine' , while other more 'masc' bots have other parts, but that isn't what this is about." I don't mean to prod but what do you mean by that? I think I have an idea but can you be a bit more descriptive if that's okay?

Long post and this is somewhat nsfw so Im gonna tw for like spike(penis) and valve (vagina) discussions.

I'll leave this convo under the cut. tons of nsfw discussions about my personal gripes and preferences. this is just MY take based off of my opinions

so...lemme be clear that if you've read my fics and my hcs, i see all cybertronians to have both a spike and valve, regardless of their gender. that's just something i like because these are fucking aliens. they don't have to follow human standards of genatalia or whatever, and when most of that is done i feel it tends to just reinforce a lot of misogynstic and heterenormative ideals. Do I think that some characters, regardless of their parts down their prefer to be like submissive, dominant or switches yes--but i also don't think that that means they have less or more parts.

my issue with tfp starscream is that during most nsfw art and fics, people just draw him or either describe him as having a valve - like he doesn't have a spike. and okay that's fine that is the right of the artist or writers.

the main issue for me comes when other characters, who are describes as more masc and dominant, only have spikes. tfp starscream being described or drawn as overly feminine and submissive and being an alien that just has a valve, whereas the very masculinine and sexually aggressive mechs he is with all have spikes...to me it just seems like spikes and valves are being equated to both sexual positions and cis-bio essentialism and a bit of sexual gender roles. it's also slightly transphobic. becuase why is an alien species still following the whole 'oh - he's a feminine guy, submissive and he just has a valve and is getting penetrated. he can't have a spike because that's not feminine. and we all know that only valves/vaginas are feminine whereas spikes/pensis are masculine.' while the 'big muscular sexually dominant guy has a spike and he doesn't have a valve at all because masc bots don't have valves because that's to feminine' it's just...idk...i don't like it.

if you've read any of my tfp stuff you know that i see starscream as a submissive person, and he is usually getting penetrated during sex BUT at the same time, he has a spike, and he has a valve and i don't see him as being this person who only has a valve because he is feminine. i also don't see him as being submissive because of how he looks. that is another issue to me that i see people tend to lean toward because people who see tfp star as submissive suddenly see g1 as like dominant or something because he's not slender and skinny like tfp star. god that's another issue.

even if he is being penetrated by someone--idk mostly megatron in my tfp fics, megatron uses his spike for starscream but he also has a valve. and if you've read my recent fics you know he certainly has been using that thing. like megatron being big, large and in some cases with certain partners sexually dominant an masculine does not mean he doesn't have nor use a valve. just because he looks a certain way and acts a certain way in some relationships doesn't mean he doesn't have one. but i see tons of people tend to like eqaute valves and spikes to how characters present themselves.

it's just - we've go these alien cultures and creatures and i hate seeing how a lot of gender roles, misogyny and cis-essentialism is still packaged in these ships. it's also transphobic and some of it can be dysphoric reading. i really do not interact with tfp starscream nsfw because i know what to expect. and a lot of the obsession with him just having a valve/vagina becuase of how he looks and presents himself, coupled with the idea that a spike/penis isn't feminine and solely masculine makes me feel disconnected from a lot of fans.

and i actually do hate the word heterenornative because i don't think anyone here knows how to actually use it. it has just become the dog whistle for 'portrayal of ship i don't like' but when it comes to assigning valves and spikes to certain body types i do hate it.

[sarasade]

One of the most generally useful things to come out of Hbomberguy's plagiarism video and Todd in the Shadows' similar video on misinformation is how they bring transparency to the internet phenomenon of "I made up a guy to get mad at".

Seriously, I've seen people make up a lot of stupid shit on the internet over the years and it's often just a manipulative attempt to paint a group of marginalized people in a bad light.

That's the TL;DR version of this post. 

ANYWAY here is the long version

Those videos are mostly about James Somerton's plagiarism of other queer people's work. However I'd like to talk about that 20-30% of Somerton's original writing- and oh boy. It's mostly about complaining about White Straight Women and misgendering well-known trans creators such as Rebecca Sugar and calling Becky Albertalli a straight woman while it's pretty common knowledge that she was forced to out herself as bi because she received so much harassment over "being a cishet woman who appropriates LGBT+ stories".

One thing that irks me especially is how in his Killing Stalking and Gay Shipping videos Somerton brings up how straight women/ teen girl shippers exploit gay men for their personal sexual fantasies. This gets brought up several times in his videos.

Being all up and arms about Somerton being a "White Cis Gay Who Hates Women and Queer People tm" is not that useful because the kind of rhetoric he's using is extremely common in fandom and LGBT+ spaces on Tumblr, TikTok and Twitter. We really don't need to bring Somerton's identity to this since he is in no way an unique example.

It's hypocritical to make this about an individual person when I've seen A TON of posts, tweets and videos where queer people talk about these Sinister Straight Women who are supposedly out there fetishizing and exploiting queer men. It's pretty clear to me that this is just an excuse to shit on women and queer people for having any sexual interests. At worst these comments are spreading misinformation about BL, a form of media that has been excessively studied by both Asian feminists and Asian queer women.

This all sounds really familiar and I think it's good that people are calling it out as what it is: misogyny and transphobia. I'd also point out the potentially racist motives behind being this hypervigilant about Asian media.

People can absolutely be misogynist regardless of gender or orientation. I really don't know why we need to create some kind of made up enemy to get mad at. I actually think it's almost sinister how "anti-fujoshi" people call Slash shippers and fujoshi misogynists or claim that they have internalised misogyny while being dismissive about women's interests and creative pursuits under Japanese obscenity laws, China's censorship, book bans in American schools and various other disadvances that are part of being a queer and/or female creator.

I think we shouldn't be naive about the bad faith actors who want to turn queer people against each other. For example Fujoshi.info mentions anti-gender (TERF, GC etc) movement using this kind of rhetoric as well.

Anyway if you want to read more:

- about the false info around BL fandom fujoshi.info

-There is the scholar Thomas Baudinette who studies gay media in Japan. Here is a podcast with him and the scholar Khursten Santos

-James Welker is a BL scholar as well. Here is a podcast interview about the new international BL article collection he edited.

-I've already talked about this Youtube channel by KrisPNatz and his great Killing Stalking video that actually engages with the themes of the manhwa

- There is also HR Coleman's thesis DO NOT FEED THE FETISHIZERS: BOYS LOVE FANS RESISTANCE AND CHALLENGE OF PERCEIVED REPUTATION where she interviews 36 BL fans and actually breaks down why fetishization has become such a huge talking point in the fandom discourse. Spoilers, it's mostly about young queer people and women being worried that they will get judged and pathologized for their interest in anything sexual.

-Great podcast about Danmei and censorship with Liang Ge

[evilwizardval]

More t4t bosselot I am begging on my hands and knees

and you shall receive it IN ABUNDANCE. made this really quick hospital bosselot doodle but I'M ACTUALLY WORKING IN MORE FINISHED COOL BOSSELOT STUFF I CAN'T WAIT TO FINISH HEHE <3 OH AND ALSO every bosselot thing i've already posted is supposed to be t4t even if they're not "visibly" trans

[elftwink]

can i say something. about the way you people talk about dungeon meshi. i find it extremely... interesting how headcanons about laios being nonbinary are framed exclusively as a way to shoot down other people's headcanons about laios being transfem. like you are aware when you have a hc that a character is nonbinary you can just... say it... and you don't need to preface it with "well i don't think they're transfem BUT".

and also i think its interesting that i never actually uhm. see anyone discussing their nonbinary laios hc in literally any detail. obviously i can't read anyones mind but it comes across to an audience like you saw someone hc laios as a trans woman, got irrationally irritated about it, found a 'progressive' and 'trans friendly' way to shoot it down, and then proceeded to continue treating him like a cis man in every post, meta, fic, etc, only ever bringing up the fact that you think laios is nb when someone else thinks laios is a woman. almost like you don't actually think that at all, and keep the idea around exclusively because transfem hcs make you uncomfortable for reasons you refuse to interrogate.

i don't think this is necessarily intentional on anyone's part, but i do think considering the discussions we have been having about transmisogyny on this website its not unreasonable to ask (especially of fellow tme trans people) that you have a long hard look at the way you respond to things like transfem hcs. while obviously fandom is #notthatdeep, it does not bode well for your ability to make room for your trans sisters for things that actually matter if you can't even do it regarding gender headcanons for anime characters

[21stc3nturyd1gitalb0y]

turns out, i fit in pretty well with the riot grrrls because i, too, enjoyed angrily screaming about womanhood. the difference that went over my head at the time was that, generally, most of them hated being girls due to sexism, and i hated being a girl due to gender dysphoria.

ill never forget the angry punk girls who made me who i am, even as i outgrew a subculture that centered femininity. they helped me survive my teenage years, and ill always be grateful for the introduction to intersectional feminism

[carlyraejepsans]

saw your most recent post about really good fics that contain uncomfortable kinks and i immediately thought "ah, biscia must be reading the mpreg soriel fic" and almost left a reply talking about it but i stopped myself because i realized that would be an insane assumption to make. needless to say i felt so vindicated when i saw you link it in an earlier post.

like. HELLO?

HELLO???????

[littleeyesofpallas]

Bleach’s Issue with Queer characters (3/3)

So then there’s Giselle (and to a less canon extent Shutara) who I think Kubo erroneously categorizes as similar to both eachother and to the above gay men stereotypes.  And I think understanding Kubo’s approach to Giselle hinges on what he set up (but didn’t follow through on) with Shutara.

I’ve mentioned before, but I’m pretty certain think Shutara Senjumaru is meant to be a kabuki onnagata*.  Not in-world, mind you; I don’t think she is somehow employed as an actor in a literal kabuki theater. (i would hope that was obvious, but one can never be too sure...)  Just like Tier Harribel isn’t literally a light skinned, dark haired person doing gyaru/ganguro fashion, her presumably naturally tan skin and blonde hair is based on the general aesthetic.  Shutara likewise is channeling distinct look and feel that draws from a mix of oiran, geisha, and kabuki aesthetics. (granted all three are closely related in influencing one another’s aesthetics in the first place)

But while the look and even the demeanor tend to play all three ways, I think the particular fixation on clothes, costuming, and the somewhat adjacent theme of “disguise” that Kubo has shown to put emphasis on in this kinds of situations, as well as the fact that he gave her a distinctly masculine name, Senjuumaru, point to her being some form of queer, albeit something Kubo seems to pretty clearly lack the understanding to better articulate himself.  Is she a trans woman?  Gender fluid?  A male identifying transvestite?  There’s not enough real material for us to draw that particular line, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to conclude that she’s not a cis woman.

*Kabuki is traditionally an all-male theater form, and “onnagata” refers to actors who specialize in playing women roles.  Generally all actors train in the delineated masculine and feminine styles, but an actor’s career sticks to just one or the other...

...There is a whole big thing about how cultural institutions like kabuki and takarazuka theaters’ creation of socially acceptable and even celebrated, public and professional genderqueer spaces creates a myriad of gender dynamics that just don’t exist in the West, and it’s something that has made the attempt to adopt a globalized understanding of queer identity a little trickier in Japan:

In the West the gender binary was rigidly enforced such that to explore alternatives was basically uncharted territory (that’s an oversimplification, but you know what I mean; There’s a lack of contiguity with those who came before) but with japan there were already nonbinary spaces in place, and the lines around those don’t neatly line up with the ethnocentric western ideas some people try to pigeonhole those into.  In general, it gets dangerously close to just flat up colonizer rhetoric.

(forgive the outdated reference image, but honestly I don’t know what even counts as a recognizable example of a “““trap”” character these days.  And I use that term with GREAT reluctance, but I want to differentiate the exploitative cliche usage of a trans caricature from any actual representational trans character.)

Anyway...  That all just leaves Giselle.  And let’s be real, there’s no excuse for this one.  Maybe that seems like a weird anticlimactic place to take this series of posts... like, after all this, maybe it feels like I should’ve had some equally obtuse logic to explain this one away as a matter of escalation or as a Rule of Threes.  But no, not really.  I just think it’s a little unreasonable to treat the massive screwup that was Giselle’s portrayal as part of some sort of bigger ongoing trend, when it’s really more of an unrelated outlier in a bigger umbrella subject.

She is in fact a bad case of the long standing anime/manga fetishization of transwomen as a concept, as a spectacle to be gawked at and made the butt of jokes or to be included specifically as an anomaly.  And in Giselle’s case her specific depiction as a depraved, physically/sexually abusive villain on top of that is an explicitly toxic combination.

In spite of that, I still don’t think Kubo actually meant for it to reflect poorly (not that that matters or diminishes its harmfulness) I think he genuinely just has no real grasp of what that kind of characterization means.  I say that largely because of the way he treats a lot of her role in the plot.  Not that she’s integral to moving it forward, but that she occupies space and survives in the plot as long as she does, even when she could've been conveniently (and frankly more neatly) written out;

He seems to like drawing her and gives her a range of expressions and gestures (something he doesn't afford all his characters, even some of his major ones)

He likes to expand on her powers and gimmicks beyond what was necessary if he'd been aiming for minimum effort

He even paired her off against his personal favorite character, Mayuri.

Point being, Kubo seems to personally like Giselle as a character, but he took a horrible insensitive and ignorant path in writing her character.

But an undeniable fact is, she’s not alone as this kind of villain, she’s just the only one that happens to be trans.*  Mayuri himself, Aaroniero, Szayelaporro, Zomarri (just a little bit), Tousen (at the very end), Tsukishima, As Nodt, Gremmy (a little), and Askin all to some degree dip into this shtick Kubo does where his villains aren’t just sadistic but ecstatically so, to the point of intoxicated, gleeful derangement.  Yet in spite of that, those characters are all usually meant to be “cool,” not detestable.

Remember, Mayuri was initially written as, hands down, the most despicable characters in Bleach —he was abusive and sadistic, misogynistic, actually physically grotesque, predatory, dishonorable sneaky & underhanded, complicit in a genocide, just in general a clearly communicated mad scientist villain, and he was all of this in direct and deliberate contrast to Uryuu’s chivalrous personality type(already established in his defending Orihime from Jiroubou) as well as Nemu’s noble stoic subservient victimhood— and yet he’s also Kubo’s favorite character in the series.  Kubo doesn’t actually write Giselle any particularly worse than the others, BUT he also doesn’t disassociate her being trans from her being villainous, and again, even incidentally, that manages to perpetuate a harmful narrative in the overall.

*(Actually, I’ve kinda touched on it before but I sort of suspect Mayuri could be trans, in which case; OOPS, that makes two, and that doesn’t make it better....)

[1][2][3]

[germananon]

It's in German but here's more on the Berlin Dyke March situation. This one specifically also discusses the lies that some media, especially taz and Siegessäule, are spreading - including misquoting a sign that's very, very readable in a whole lot of pictures. If anyone needs help translating anything, let me know and I'll translate it for you.

[yuridovewing]

i understand the frustration with “i made this gay pairing cis x trans so they can still have biological babies” with no thought to other methods and how ppl assume thats the case when it comes to mothpool aus where mothwing is also the mother of the three, but also…. idk i kinda dont give a shit if someone wants to do that and i dont really think its inherently transphobic as long as its handled with care and respect.

what really concerns me about this debate is how some people are adamant that you cannot portray trans people having biological children in media or youre being disrespectful. and im gonna say as a nonbinary person who doesnt want children for themself- thats kinda fucking weird? like i understand that for some people, theyre trans themselves and theyre speaking from a place of dysphoria, and i absolutely get that, which is why i think the topic should be handled with nuance and diversity in trans characters, but like…. guys. pregnant trans men exist irl. trans women get people pregnant irl. trans ppl’s ability and right to parent and have biological children are being debated irl. we get denied the opportunity to adopt as well.

in a climate like this, are we SURE we want the stance on rewrites and headcanons in the silly cat books to be “if you portray trans characters having children, especially with a gay couple, youre a transphobic freak no matter what!” does it really matter? especially if its being done by a trans person handling the topic with nuance who has a lot of trans characters with varying perspectives?

obviously yes, remember that thats not the only way certain gay couples can have kids, remember that not every trans person is fully comfortable with it and keep that in mind, remember that surrogacy and adoption are also perfectly valid ways to give fan babies- but remember that there are OPTIONS. not that you need to condemn the idea of transgender parents in the first place unless they fit the very specific criteria of “proper transgender representation” and anything that dares deviate from that is proof the op is a transphobic monster (bonus points if theyre a trans creator bc i mostly see trans people getting shit for this and it kinda pisses me off. although idm if cis people do it either as long as theyre handling it with respect)

[thedreadvampy]

unwarranted Cis Opinion but I'm getting really uncomfortable w people responding to bathroom bills by posting pictures of trans men like DO YOU WANT THEM IN WOMEN'S BATHROOMS

bc like. no they're men. they should be in men's bathrooms unless that feels unsafe. but. it really feels like it's not helpful to lean into the idea that seeing someone presenting masc or being read as a man in a women's bathroom means You're In Danger.

like I know several butch women and NB ppl who are really scared around being on T or getting top surgery bc they're not men and they don't want to be in the men's bathroom, and in that circumstance stuff like growing facial hair or reading more androgynously can be really fucking scary when people are being primed by propaganda to be on edge and hyperreactive to anyone who doesn't look like their idea of a Cis Woman.

and I'm not laying that at the feet of the people saying "hey uhhhh trans men are men and don't belong in women's bathrooms" bc it is not their fault. it's the fault of a concerted effort to make it difficult and dangerous to be trans or substantively gender nonconforming in public.

but at the same time idk I guess it just worries me cause sometimes it feels like "you fools! you are worried about this group of trans people bc you think they're the Lurking Danger of Men In Bathrooms? WRONG! the Men Making You Feel Afraid In Bathrooms are actually THESE trans people!" when in fact neither of those groups using the fucking bathroom is a problem. just piss and mind your business. people need to go where they need to go.

anyway this country is a hot fucking trash fire that somehow accelerates its descent into open fascism more every day so it's all super good and normal. so don't take this too seriously tbh cause it's somewhere near #2535654476457899009765 on the list of priorities for Queer Discourse right now when the fucking human rights commission is actively rescinding protections from trans people. Please ignore my gibberish.

[merlinmerlot]

is vimes also trans in your arts?

This is a Well timed ask lol I was just writing up a piece about Vimes' gender/sexuality.

My general thoughts: He's a 'cis' man in the sense that he's never Really given it any thought.

I constantly think about this line in Men at Arms:

It was just that he’d always been a man with a badge. He wasn’t sure he could be one without the other.

I think Vimes has a lot of issues with his masculinity especially as it relates to being a guard. He places a lot of his identity With his job (which is masculine), and as such he's more of a man Because he's a guardsman.

In a perfect world where Vimes isn't a repressed british man I think he's nonbinary.

In summary:

[creaturefeaster]

Hey Wire! Question about April,is there a cannon reason she got kicked out? Like is there family drama?

She was kicked out because she and her family have always had major disagreements with each other. It was a very "18 and out" kind of situation for her, but the final straw for her parents kicking her out was her slapping her mother during a very heated argument.

She stayed with Tanner for a short period of time after that, before they both moved down to Lystrike together with Leon.

[alagaisia]

Hey if you’re still enjoying and engaging with Harry Potter in any capacity you can unfollow me 😊 please and thank you

Like. I get it. I was super into it as a kid too. I did not have the social context to pick up on the antisemitism or transphobia or sexism or fatphobia or bioessentialism or racism or anything else. I also picked up on surface-level language of Fighting Back Against Evil and ascribed my own values onto what that meant and thought we were all on the same page. I remember when the original kids who grew up with the books started becoming adult fans and picking up on the (blatant!) antisemitism and everybody was still mostly willing to give JKR the benefit of the doubt on it. (“She was writing kids books!” They said. “She didn’t know she was penning a global phenomenon! She picked a common literary trend in European fairy tales (antisemitic caricature) and didn’t examine it closely. It’s a mistake anyone could make,” we said. “She would probably do things differently now. After all, she word-of-god confirmed the vaguest hints she dropped that Dumbledore might be gay,” we said.) There was actually a span of several years where biases inherent in the actual real content of the Harry Potter series were coming to light and even the people pointing them out still seemed mostly to think it was an unfortunate accident.

That time has passed. Years ago! We are long past the first months of “maybe she doesn’t realize this seemingly-feminist tweet she liked was made by a noted TERF” and then “how could she not realize that these many veiled TERF-y things she’s retweeted have implications for the many queer fans of her work” and finally “oh wow okay JKR just dropped an entire transphobic manifesto on twitter. I guess the transphobia was the point.”

Yeah, there were a few months after that where people were still processing and still working through how they felt about Harry Potter and all of its flaws with the context of the now open transphobia of the creator. I was there for that. Remember how I was one of the kids who built it up into something noble and worthwhile based on my own beliefs about what messages it was probably trying to convey? Turns out it wasn’t trying to say any of those things, and when you take the time to examine all of the terrible shit that made its way into the text whether JKR intended it to be there or not, the whole series falls apart. It’s weird to discover that there’s a room in your house that’s rotten to the core, but eventually you figure out you can’t live like that, still going in there and holding your nose and pretending it’s still the same room you thought it was when the termites were only inside of the walls and hadn’t yet started chewing their way through the furniture. Because what’s going to happen is that they are going to infest the rest of your house. If you decide you can ignore transphobia and antisemitism and everything else just because you liked the color of the wallpaper, the rest of your principles are going to crumble too. You get rid of that fucking room. You put those books on a high shelf in the back of your closet behind other outgrown clothes and interests and you move the fuck on.

JKR uses the money made from her transphobic antisemitic children’s books to actively funding hate groups and to lobby for legislation that will and has actually affected the actual lives of trans people in an entire country. We are past the point of grieving something you were wrong about in childhood. Kids are wrong about a lot of stuff. You grow up and you learn new information and you change your behaviors based on it. You have to choose. It is transphobic to pretend there is not transphobia where there is. It is transphobic to support the work of someone who is using those funds to take rights from trans people with every fucking dollar. It is hateful to continue to engage positively with a story that at its very core is rooted in hate and bigotry and prejudice. You can choose to do all of those things but you cannot claim ignorance of them and you cannot choose those things and still pretend that choosing them upholds the values we convinced ourselves that Harry Potter stood for over a decade ago as uninformed children. You cannot choose to do those things and pretend to still support your trans and queer and Jewish neighbors. I do not want you in my neighborhood. Leave.

[mashkaroom]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/22/us/gender-identity-students-parents.html

SO many thoughts about this article, but ultimately it comes down to the fact that extreme parental control over children is so widely accepted even in liberal and leftist circles, and that’s intensely disheartening. A lot of what’s presented as neutral in this article is stuff like ‘parents should be involved in all major life decisions for their children’, which, frankly, is deranged. Parents should not be everything for their children -- it’s bad for both parties. Most parents are not perfect -- which is fine! you cannot expect them to be -- but a child with even the most perfect parent might not want to share everything about their private life with their parent. Oftentimes, you want to share things with someone less close to you because then, if you change your mind or realize you made a mistake, there’s basically no consequences. Also, god, is this really that hard to understand? Children are their own people. A lot of people in the comments are saying things like ‘well of course parents have the right to know information about their children, but in the case of gender identity, it’s a matter of safety’. Really? Do -- or rather should -- they have the right? Is safety where we want to draw the line? If your boss was revealing details about your behavior at work to your siblings or parents or spouse without your consent, would you be okay with that, even if it didn’t jeapordize your safety? This is not something we should be ceding any ground on. No privacy guarantees, fears of mandated reporting, and lack of clarity on where administrators and teachers drew that line is exactly what prevents many from disclosing things to adults in the school and why you, as a high schooler, were often the primary point of support for a number of your peers at any given time. This isn’t even particularly a secret, like this is a widespread and well-known phenomenon. I really struggle to give people the benefit of the doubt on this at this point, because, frankly, for most, it’s not that they just haven’t considered the potential harms, it’s that those harms are acceptable sacrifices if it means keeping children in a state of extreme societal control.

[au-not-alternate]

bro is basically a neopronoun at this point. "what did bro do" "what was bro thinking" "bro thinks he's cool" neopronoun. all instances of bro in those sentences can be replaced by a pronoun and it makes exactly the same amount of sense. thank you for coming to my TEDtalk.

[marcsalmonds]

I totally get that the majority of men are shitty and I've certainly had my experiences with them but seeing jokey posts about how it's Praxis to be mean to your boyfriend after I've just come out of an emotionally toxic relationship with a woman is like OOF