#and it's relatable for some trans people to feel you failed masculinity (even if you never WANTED to succeed at it) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

monorayjak · 1 year

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I... it's getting hard to live like this. Hiding who I am to so many people. It hurts. I wrote a thing earlier today and I felt I summed up the feeling pretty well I think, reworded a bit to sound better:

"It feels like torturous self harm to be fully aware of who I am and yet imprison myself in a fortress of a false identity that's slowly caving in around me."

What I'm getting at here... I think... I think it might be time for me to come out to some people...and I really need some advice.

As of now, only four people IRL know about me, that's my therapist, my cousin (who was genuinely more like a sister to me), a friend at college (I knew they were extremely supportive and they had no connection to other people I know, so it seemed like a safe bet to tell her (I was right)), a friend I interacted with occasionally in high school who has since come out as trans herself (actually what got me to message her, saw her online and wanted to ask so I didn't misgender her or anything, and we got talking and I quickly realized she'd understand.)

At the moment, I'm still living with my mom, which is fine, I know she'll support me in her own way (she's queer herself, she has internalized issues, but she tries). I know my university I go to, despite having once been a "christian college," have opened up and been supportive of most of the students who do come out in one way or another. I know at least a few of the professors there who are absolutely trying to be supportive to everyone to the best of their abilities. My therapist knows, as mentioned before, but he is also... well, he ain't exactly a pro with gender and sexuality stuff (still a good guy, he just messes up what he's talking about here and there, like using masculine pronouns when he talks about a transwoman (largely I think its because he usually talks about them when they first started transitioning, and I don't think he thinks about gendering them correctly in reference to them coming out... if that makes any sense).

The issues... well, for one, I live in the bible belt. My extended family (who we are finally trying to cut ourselves off from now that the only think holding us together (my grandmother) is gone) lives all around me and the majority of them are.........well lets just say they really don't like my mom being gay, and one of them bullied a kid he was fostering because, in his words, "the kid's a fucking sissy!" Yeah... not a fan of that uncle. (In related news I am genuinely afraid of that man because he is very fucking clearly not mentally stable and has talked about killing himself and others before (while preaching at church!) and he is... really aggressive and has access to guns) I'm too poor to even consider leaving the state, and with... well frankly I'm a bit of a fuckup who really can't live on their own... yeah... fun times. Insurance may cover parts of things, but... honestly I don't even fucking know. Like I said, I know my mom will try to support me, but she is also... well, how do I say this? She tends to not know how to react to stuff. A large reason I don't talk about stuff with her is that she has a habit of turning it around into something about herself (not in a manipulative way, mind you. I just think she doesn't realize why it feels bad to tell her something like this and then have her break down a bit because I didn't tell her sooner or because she didn't work it out herself or anything like that). Basically, if I tell her, its either going to go one of two ways.

She reacts negatively and turns it around about herself and takes the moment to be hurt she didn't work things out or that I didn't tell her. (Literally once opened up to her when I was little (like 11?) about how much I hated myself... she said the next day she spent the entire night crying because she thought she failed... I understand what she was going for, but, honestly not something you should tell your kid who just opened up. Practically had it ingrained internally "If I feel bad, hide it. Because my mom will be devastated by it.")

She goes too supportive and expects me to be willing to open up immediately. Basically just forgetting she can't push me into being out and honest because it takes time to work up the courage.

Both of these options are... iffy. To say the least.

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genderqueerdykes · 2 years

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I'm afab but most of my life I felt less like "girl" and more "failing at being a girl" because whenever my being a girl was brought up it was always because my physical characteristics were too masculine and didn't match what a girl was supposed to look like. I wanted to be a girl but felt like I never really was. Then as a teenager I got diagnosed with PCOS due to elevated testosterone levels and put on hormonal birth control and it was both a relief at having an explanation but also upsetting because it was confirmation that in a sense I really wasn't exactly a girl, my body was betraying my attempts at being a girl. So in a way my experience has been transitioning from "not a girl" into "nonbinary femme/I don't want to be a girl of there's rules around it but I enjoy femininity" and like. I'm trans, I'm femme, I take estrogen and progesterone. But I'm afab so the assumption when people learn I'm trans is that I'm transitioning to look more masculine and that I want to take T, when that is literally the opposite of what I want and am doing. It's just really lonely having this experience not knowing if anyone else can relate to it/even understands what I'm talking about, so I guess I'm just reaching to see if anyone else has similar experiences

hey, that's actually really touching and honestly relatable to a degree

i also felt like i was "failing at being a girl" due to my PCOS and hyperandrogenism. i felt like it was my fault some how that i wasn't "being a girl right" or that i somehow was just. not trying hard enough to be a girl. like if i just tried hard enough my body would stop being so masculine, or something

i honestly understand what you're going through to a larger degree than most would think. i am both transmasc and transfem, and i definitely understand what you mean about wanting to be femme without wanting to be called a girl, and wanting to transition into your femininity. it's okay if you need to transition into femininity if you were denied it due to your intersex condition. many of us are robbed the chance to live as ANY gender as children, due to our parents being worried about how we'll be perceived, if we'll be bullied, if it'll bring the family a bad name, and so on

i am not on estrogen or anything like that due to the fact that i hate the way it makes me feel, but i think it's rad as fuck for you! i'm a transfem nonbinary intersex person in a coercively assigned female at birth body and i just. i don't know. i understand what you're going through. i realize that while i'm bigender and i am a guy, i was also denied my femininity as a child and teenager and holy shit am i not okay with that. i wasn't being a girl or being feminine wrong, this is just my way of being feminine. i like the way i'm feminine and i like pushing my femininity to its extremes

anyway i just wanted to say that you're definitely not alone in this experience. i think this is really cool and i think it's totally awesome for you to want to be femme and to want to reclaim your femininity, especially since it was taken away from you like that. if there's anyone else that relates to this anon, feel free to chime in. i think there's more folks like this out there than we both realize. take care, i hope you feel better soon, you are loved

#asks #answers #pcos #intersex #transition #estrogen #nonbinary #femme

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sylvaridreams · 7 months

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Sage said something regarding Alba's new in-game fit about that he's finally playing around with his gender which is unfortunately (?) Not the case! Alba's relationship to gender is that he has one. And it's one of the boring default ones and you don't need to look closely at it at all. So please don't look at him.

He is a cis man, and he genuinely is, and he knows this because he HAS examined "what do I want, what do I need?" And the answer to both has always been "be a man." The ideas of womanhood or of being nonbinary or agender or all both something else entirely are ideas that make him MISERABLE. He doesn't WANT to be anything other than a man.

The ISSUE is that Alba deep down (not very deep) is gnc (but hiding it from everyone, himself included.) He refuses to acknowledge this. He Knows there are countless ways to be a man; he has gnc people and feminine men and trans people in his life that he loves and respects and he has no disagreement with their lived experiences or identities or anything. It boils down to that Alba thinks it is his ONLY OPTION (for him, personally!) to squeeze himself into a miniscule box of "masculine man" and never move or breathe so the box doesn't collapse trying to hold him. This is a "rules for me, not for thee" thing.

People around him can clearly see SOMETHING is up with Alba in terms of gender or related stuff. Something is going on that he's burying deep. It's not hard to catch a glimpse of how miserable he seems over certain things. Yao tried cracking his egg and had no luck with it. Turned to Alba's companions once he was out of earshot, like you folks ARE seeing this right, there's SOMETHING there, and the response boiled down to "Yes we know, he just won't let anyone bring it up, he won't DO anything about it." And Yao was like .....🧍 I think I can fix him--

It's this huge dolyak in the room at times that's treated more like a skeleton in the closet. We just dont talk about it. He doesn't want to. He'll get there when he's ready, maybe. And it probably boils down to some deep seeded self hatred and belief that he hasn't earned happiness, but even he doesn't grasp that as the issue. He "has to" be masculine but he's so awful at it and it's not fun or enjoyable. He can't and shouldn't want to be any degree of feminine, he's not ALLOWED to approach that, so when he catches himself, eyes lingering on cute clothes that anyone else in the world would be allowed to wear, he feels like he deserves some sort of punishment for failing to not want it.

If Alba were able to actually rationally process his feelings about himself and approach this topic without melting down and hiding and piling more layers atop the answer and ask "what would make me Happy" and could stop from recoiling in fear and anger from the first genuine answer and then correcting himself with "no I wanna be masc" then MAYBE he could work out that he IS a gnc cis man with a really fucked up relationship to his own gender, his own body, and himself in general. Maybe he could admit that he IS feminine in a lot of ways, that he DOES want to wear certain things that he's disallowed himself, that he punishes and berates himself for looking at.

But he won't allow himself to approach the topic from an angle that isn't defensive and afraid and angry and hateful towards himself, for not meeting his own expectations of what is acceptable For Alba.

And I think maybe this comes to a sudden and unexpected head when he does something impulsive and stupid and wrong and he tries to stop himself and can't. He buys something (a skirt) out of a Canthan mail order company and then panics and stakes out the mail for a week waiting for it to arrive because he needs to destroy it when it gets there before anyone can see that he lost this battle of wills. And it gets delivered and he hides the box in a closet for days before bringing it back out to get rid of it.

But he makes the mistake of looking at it first. And it hurts to look at because it's something he wants, but it has to go. But uh. If he tries it on first. Maybe that will fix him and this impulse will go away forever and ever. But it doesn't. He puts the skirt on and it doesn't change things, it doesn't permanently satisfy him and now he will never care or want it again. It devastates him looking in the mirror knowing that he Wants to keep it.

And then the door opens and he and Canach are staring at each other in shock like. A: oh I have to die actually it's the only way, and C: by the tree he's DOING something about it. Canach shuts the door behind him and they're both dead silent and Alba just has this feeling of hollow, miserable shame.

And Alba starts crying the minute Canach starts talking, the second he mentions the outfit. "You look nice in that. What's wrong?" And it's SUCH a non-conversation. Canach can't work out how to approach this because he's supportive of whatever Alba is doing, he loves him regardless of who or what he is, but Alba doesn't want love and compliments and acceptance because he's the one person in the world who doesn't deserve it. He deserves to be punished for this in some grand cosmic way.

Canach asks if he'd be happier as a woman or something else, and Alba just melts down. No, I don't want that, I'm a man and I want to be one, I shouldn't have done this I'm sorry. And he's not calming down or taking any rational position on this, his feelings about himself and "what Alba is allowed to do vs everyone else" DON'T make sense to anyone but him, and eventually Canach has to be like Alba I shouldn't have to sneak around our house to try to CATCH YOU in moments of genuine happiness. How do you think it feels knowing you're refusing yourself joy out of some twisted view of what you're "supposed" to be. Don't you think that hurts me? Why are you required to operate under different standards than anyone else? You're not that important, get over yourself.

(Canach actually has figured this out that he has to word things this way A Lot, "your behavior matters not only because it hurts you but because it hurts OTHERS, it hurts ME." Only way to get him to start caring.)

I don't think they're able to make any significant progress but Canach does convince him not to get rid of or destroy the skirt, it's not hurting you, you can wear it at home, in our room if it makes you happy. Then says something crass and unrepeatable. And Alba halfheartedly resists and then relents. Like, fine.... whatever YOU want...

Anyway someday Alba will manage to deal with one of his ten million problems! But for now he is sad and wet forever. :)

#alba #loreposting #love to make things be issues for him.

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theasexual-jackson · 6 months

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The terf pipeline that assigned female at birth trans folks are just “little girls with internalised misogyny and want to be males to escape misogyny” is bullshit! Feat. My experience as an afab transneutral person.

Hi, everyone! For those who don't know me, my name is Angel and I go by all pronouns (neos & xenos included), and welcome to this simple, but big, post.

I think everyone knows the radfems, also known as terfs. You know, these women whose feminism is just transphobia, racism, ableism, generalisation of womanhood and plain exclusion of anyone who isn't a cishet, white, middle to high class women. Maybe, a little bit of queer women, but only in their criteria.

And I think everyone here knows on their infantilization of trans men and assigned female at birth trans people in general. They always say: “Oh, poor little girl, consumed by outside and internalised misogyny, so she tries to be male so she can try to live happily!! =((”

And I say, bullshit, bullshit, FUCKING BULLSHIT! Talking from experience, even!

You see, even though I was raised and socialized as a girl... I didn't experience that much of misogyny. Hell, probably not at all.

“Omg, that's impossible, how would you do that?” Rapunzel. That's the secret, I lived and live to this day like Rapunzel.

I don't go out to stores that often, I only have one way on my daily basis: Home → School → Home. That's it, that's all it. This is how my life goes since forever.

And when I go out somewhere, I'm 9/10 times around one of my parents or my brother. So, my chances of getting catcalled, s/a'd or something are quite low.

I am a hyper protected kid, that's why I am a pussy. And while my mom was mean and a bigot in general in many points of my adolescence, she had enough sense to not be misogynistic throughout my childhood (things started to go wrong in my life, between me and her, when I started to show signs of non-cisgenderness and gender non conformity, to summarize).

And that gave me time to discover my identity without women hating structure of patriarchal society on the way (gender imposition on max.). In fact, I was reluctant to accept that I identified in a masculine way sometimes, because cis femininity (and probably some internalised transphobia) was too impregnated on my brain, at that point. So when I started to feel side effects of an misogynist society, my identity was already constructed, I already knew who I was, so misogyny couldn't really play a role in it.

To give y'all an idea, the first time I've ever been a victim of misogyny was in 2023, when I was 15, close to turning 16 years old, and I was getting romantically harassed by a boy (he changed schools, so I won't see that nigga's face ever again, THANK YOU LORD 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽) and that same muthafucka went on to say, in the middle of class, that women bad and they be the reason why we fail (based off that fucking Adam and Eve story, btw), directed at everyone who was read as a girl in that class, aka all the girls of my class and me. And, since I'm closeted, I had no choice but only be disgusted at that remark of his.

But, key word, disgusted. Not guilty, not deeply affected like any normal woman would; But disgusted. Because misogyny is disgusting to everyone who's not a misogynistic.

See where I'm getting into? My first contacts with what is misogyny in practice came too late to be experienced from a girl's perspective. Maybe from a fem presenting perspective, since I'm closeted, but I only can view it from a transgender perspective, now.

My transgender identity cannot be affected deeply by misogyny now, because misogyny came too late.

And that's not a case only for me, but for many other trans minors. Many trans kids understand that they diverge from the gender they were assigned at birth, even before getting a grasp of misogyny and/or gender related violence, even when they don't even know the existence of the word trans.

So, in conclusion, transness is not a result of internalised misogyny, but being a nasty girl who dismiss other girls just to get male appreciation is (and not only that, tho, patriarchy has many faces other than just sexual violence).

Bye!!! =3

#trans #transgender #lgbtq #lgbtqia #queer #nonbinary #transmasc #transfem #transneu #trans positivity #anti terf #anti radfem #transmisandry #transmisogyny #transphobia

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growingfeedeeinfrance · 2 years

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Bonjour Porcelet!🐷 As the feedee gainer community tends to be most prominent in the Anglosphere it's always delightful to encounter those from other cultures & countries discovering the delights of feedism & making it their own! It just shows our innate desire to get fat is such a truly universal impulse for aǁ of us! But I'm curious to ask how you as a French gainer girl view your experience striving to grow fatter with all of France's differing cultural attitudes to diet body-image & cuisine?

Ouch tough question😅 [TW: fatphobia, ED, suicide] I think my story is similar to those in the anglosphere but I can still share x)

The first thing I have to talk about is fatphobia. I was put on a diet at FIVE years old. I wasn't even allowed to go to Bday parties because of the sweets.

So I came to discover feedism at the same time as I began to struggle with eating disorders. I was 10/11 years old, anorexic and already fascinated by fat girls stuffing themselves online. I used to actually have a journal were I would write every synonyms, idioms etc related to being fat, repeating them all in my head to myself before falling asleep.

My teens years were hard because I tried so hard to suppress this kink, I was so ashamed of it, and of my body. Even though I was super fit and skinny. I basically tried for 10 years to get rid of this desire, a form of self-made "therapy conversation" rooted in the shame my mother's fatphobia (and society's) had ingrained in me. I guess the fact that everything was in english online made it a bit more "distanced" and easy to deal with? But I did have the same feelings toward that one episode from the Totally Spies ;)

It was only when I was 20, that I finally opened up to my partner about my kink because I just felled so sad and lonely. I had tried making connections in the online feedism community but I always failed 😅 Along the way I realized that the french langage didn't carry as much attraction and seduction to me when it came to feedism. Like I'm sorry you all but talking to me in french about feedism stuff is just almost always "anti-sexy" 😅

It wasn't for them so I didn't start anything IRL. But after my 2nd attempt at suicide, and during the 1st pandemic lockdown, I started gaining weight (because of some medications + lockdown I guess). I just had to ask myself what I wanted in life and who I wanted to be.

So I realized I was trans (I'm enby!) and that I wanted to pursue this kink in real life as much as I could. So I slowly started to center pleasure in my food habits, and tried to let go of the shame and the guilt (still trying). I have a malformation that makes it impossible for me to stuff myself (I throw up really easily) but I still tried to gradually increase my capacity.

I still feel sad and lonely because I fear that I will never meet someone in real life to share this kink with me. In all the spheres of my life (education, friends, activism...), I'm the fat one now. Which kind of drives me crazy because I'm not even that fat?!? And I'm just like "where are the other fat people?!?"

Even in diverse, kinky and sex positive places, feedism is always new to people and most of those spaces centers thin people. (I'm not "masc" enough to go to bear places 😅). Fatphobia is really pervasive in every spaces, and it's really hard to live through. For instance, EVERY transmasc spaces will center "thin/fit" bodies as the GOAL for transition. Like I want a more masculine body but I don't want to be thin. I want to keep my boobs and have less hips to reduce the "hourglass" body I have. It's super hard (almost impossible) to find cute, masc clothes that fit me. All of the environmental groups I'm in put big importance in highly physical activities and put fitness forward all the time. There is no relaxing or enjoying our bodies. WE HAVE TO BE FIT and want it. Public transport is also hard because the seats are so tiny (same in education). And fatphobia is still intense in medical places (like I went to see a cardiologist because my mom has heart issues and she told me my heart was super healthy but I still had to lose weight. why? no idea), and in familial settings (it's just for your heath etc etc).

Gaining would be soooo much easier if society wasn't so fatphobic. I hate it so much because I still have those moments where I feel I should try to lose weight because I fear I'm becoming "too ugly" (especially as a transmasc person) and I'll end up alone. And I've decided to center the relationships I have in my life and I don't want my partners to be disgusted by my body. That's why I never share my videos/photos with them and I only post on Tumblr. Thank you all for the feedist community online, I don't know where I'll be without it.

For the cuisine, having spent some times in the US, I have to admit that France's diversity in food makes gaining all the more enjoyable. And while yes, a lot of the food is centered around thinness/healthyness, most traditional dishes are much more hearty and fattening!!! (and delicious!!) And my sweet tooth is just in looove with french pastries!!! But I admit I like my twice a week american fast food x)

I don't know if I've really answered your question, don't hesitate if you want more details about some specific aspects of my experience in France!

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discyours · 2 years

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[a different anon] you still can admit that its not universal - i agree - that all trans people fetishize but there are some that do it and it’s not in the chronology you mentioned (getting obsessed as a result of transition)

greetings!

Yeah I agree. Although I think a lot of people fail to understand that they're both pipelines. If you're not active in kink communities yourself (or sometimes even if you are) you may see the fetish as a starting point, but someone still ended up there somehow. People may be predisposed to certain kinks/fetishes but they aren't born with them (for the most part, I think there's exceptions like foot fetishes where there's some research that it's literally some neurological wires being switched).

In either case you have someone who has been influenced to direct their feelings (sometimes sexual, sometimes not) towards the concept of being a woman (taking that as an example because the flipside is much much rarer). And that can be anything from "I want to do something Sexual and Naughty and Taboo and society has taught me that women's underwear (very much unlike men's underwear) is all of those things", to "I've never related to the masculine expectations that are put on men, I feel like I relate a lot more to the women in my life and I think that's a sign I was meant to be born as one". One is obviously grosser to hear given the sexual nature of it, but both groups of people are being needlessly funnelled into connecting their (natural and understandable) feelings to womanhood.

Not that a crossdressing kink necessarily goes as far as fantasising about actually being a woman, but because of the pipeline(s) it's very common for it to end up there. I do have to say that while still inside kink communities, men with cross dressing/sissy kinks who are openly considering ""becoming a woman full time"" usually seem pretty self aware that it's a matter of living out a sexual fantasy, and they don't tend to bother with politically correct language (still misogynists tho). It's just that if they do ever make it into trans communities, they are very quickly "re-educated" that sexual crossdressing or sissy porn is a normal starting point for getting in touch with your (fully nonsexual and entirely innate) gender identity.

#anon

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merrysithmas · 2 years

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masculinity in star wars

you know, after some great posts by the brilliant @intermundia my mind has been going. something i've long thought, and something they recently put into very beautiful words, is how one of the central themes of star wars, and why so many nonbinary/queer/trans/masc people gravitate towards it, is masculinity.

i'd even argue it is THE central theme (even beyond the concepts of Spiritual Balance & Good vs Evil), which explains the phenomenon of cismen being so violently gatekeeping and protective of it.

we all know when sw was released in the 70s the emotional arc at its core revolved around the concept of Father and Son, the forgiveness, redemption, or blame therein.

it is easy to see why Luke Skywalker, noble, innocent, and nontoxically pursuing a masculine concept of "knightship" (while retaining feminine qualities himself which would prohibit him from fitting in with the imperials) would become a hero to many young cis boys who had overbearing, unrelatable, absent, or downright evil fathers. it is easy to see why obiwan, the wise and protective second-father figure would become their beloved guru.

it is also easy to see, of course, the reverse, wherein many men who feel they failed at fatherhood, partnership, and life, would relate to Vader and the salvaging love he had for his son. the possibility that they were not totally consumed and digested by the toxic masculinity that had conscripted them and of which they then became soldiers of - an Empire.

the question SW asks in almost every film to this date is - what is masculinity? where does it come from? how do we define it? what do we do with it? and how do we balance it?

we see this reflected over and over again - Din Djarin with Grogu, the Bad Batch with Omega, Palpatine/Qui gon with Anakin, Obi-wan with the Skywalker twins, Rey's unrelenting search for a father figure in Luke, Kylo Ren and his burning abandonment in front of the absent Han Solo, Yoda and his Order, Cassian Andor and the powerless castration he experiences via the Empire, the HyperMasculine Empire, the warsome Mandalore vs. the pacifist Satine Kryze, Cal Kestis & his success borne of his crew of resourceful women.

Characters who are presented as male are constantly being challenged by ideas of masculinity and by which route they will choose to express it.

what does it mean to be a "man"? a question queer, trans, and masc people often ask themselves in relation to our identities. and a question we see the SW characters face constantly. is it sacrifice (Anakin)? protectiveness (Din)? bravery (Luke)? resilience (Obi-wan)? taking up arms when you are wronged (Cassian)? vengeance and blazing your own way (Vader)? Kindness and vulnerability (Cal)?

of course, this concept of masculinity in SW as a central theme also extends to its female characters and what it means to have female masculinity of any kind especially within a patriarchy or a situation where masculinity can be translated into a threat (to anyone, including oneself). this is another reason, id argue, for uproar in the cismale sector of the fandom when they are faced with a topic (female & queer masculinity) that they neither experience nor understand and see therefore, as a threat.

characters like leia, rey, jyn, reva all display various components of outright female masculinity and/or display a picture of women grappling with the masculinity around them, which i would postulate is what makes them so iconically and instantly popular. they are allowed to be whole on screen. they are not merely a "feminine" archetype. they are whole - masculine, feminine, passive, and aggressive.

Leia with her commanding military presence is never once questioned. She then becomes a mother who grapples with the duties of traditional motherhood while following a path that is most meaningful for her (the Rebellion).

Jyn, the abandoned streetrat rebel who is allowed to be callous, doubtful, unpreened, and cynical. Whose strength of heart eventually pulls a motley crew together.

Rey, a sexless scrapper whose skills come from self-reliance, who is pushed face to face with someone who repulses her - Kylo Ren with his burning crucifix of a saber, who haughtily croons to her that he can take "whatever he wants" from her. She pushes him away, rejects him continually, until he renounces the toxicity of his confused perspective (brought on by his own torture). Only to in the end embrace Ben, the good man who'd die for her to live: as she embodied the principles that he failed.

Reva, a hardened and traumatized covert soldier who gives in and then climbs out of the charybdis of vengeance and spiritual suffering. who mistrusts and is disgusted by the men who were supposed to protect her family (Obi-wan and Anakin). we rarely get to see this rage and pain from a female character on screen.

as queer people of course we see ourselves in between those philosophical questions and identify with various characters and their struggles. we are always presented with these internal questions of what makes an identity and confronted with our own society's labels of "masculine" and "feminine" and how they relate to our place as queer people.

& of course, "canon" doesn't truly exist in the sense of a character's gender or sexuality - a character's orientation and identity is up to the viewer- and with complex questions of identity already at play in this universe it is easy to see oneself as a queer person within this story.

and then of course, we are now starting to see characters like Merrin, Obi-wan, and others' sexualities expanded upon further than the "assumed cishet" brand usually defaulted by the general audience.

so those are some futher, not-totally developed thoughts on the topic here haha

#just thoughts #star wars #sw meta #anakin skywalker #obi wan kenobi #luke skywalker #leia organa #din djarin #cassian andor #cal kestis #rey skywalker #reva sevander #jyn erso #han solo #kylo ren

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angelic-brutality · 2 years

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heyo ;) how are y'all doing?? really hope y'all are fine!

k so a friend asked me to do this and i just LOVED the idea, so coming out to some tr boys as trans ! this isn't something actually romantic, like, i didn't specify the relationships as romantic or friendly so you can read as both of them

characters: draken, hanma, mitsuya

warnings: i'm brazilian so almost 100% sure there's grammatical errors here. characters might be ooc.

» Draken

c’mon, look at this guy and try to think he is transphobic. you can’t, right?

you knew that it wasn’t a big deal coming out to him; if you were prepared, you were 100% he would support you

and you are completely right

he’s the type to support you doesn’t really minding that now you're another gender. if you’re a boy, he will treat you like a boy. if you’re a girl, he will treat you like a girl. if you’re neither of them, he would treat you like you want

he’s really open-minded so it wouldn’t be hard to call you by the right pronouns and name

if your parents don’t support you, he would take you to bike rides or walkings through the city just so you don’t have to deal with them

he would also go with you to a medical center (?) so you can get hormonal treatment

and this boy would do ANYTHING he can if you have dysphoria

helping you cut your hair in a way you look more masculine/feminine/androgynous, buying you new clothes and everything yk

he wouldn’t argue with people that misgender you because, according to him, these people will always exist, but he would definitely glare at them until they correct what they said

and if they don’t, he would say it out loud asking them to correct in a politely way, but with a bit of an aggressive tone

i just love him so so much *cries*

» Hanma

when you told him you’re trans he was like “oh, ok. well heading back to the subject…”

would make some questions about it but trying not to offend you

when he accidentally misgenders you he goes “OH FUCK” and correct it

and if you didn’t come out to everyone and he needed to purposely call you by your dead name he would apologize later with a gift related to you being trans, like a pin or something related to the trans flag

if you’re afab and use a binder, he would constantly remind you to take it off

“TAKE YOUR FUCKING BINDER OFF” “WHY” “I DON’T WANT YOU WITH A FUCKING RESPIRATORY PROBLEM” “YOU ALSO DON’T WANT ME WITH DYSPHORIA” and this would go on until you take it off

if you’re kinda feminine and your height is similar to his, don’t be surprised if one day you see him wearing a skirt/high heels of yours, using a bit of makeup and everything

“hanma tf you’re doing with my things” “you just look so beautiful in them, i wanted to see if it is the clothes that make you look so good-looking” he would say that with the typical goofy smile

honestly i think he would try to help you if you don’t like your hair but fail miserably and then need to pay so you can go to an actually hair stilist

if you’re a transboy or a transgirl, if you were at a party and need to go to bathroom and he sees you heading to the one of your gender assigned at birth, he would just stop you by your arm and say “tf you doing you’re not even allowed to be there”

and if you’re non-binary he would happily listens to you talking about all the problems you and the people of your community have (like, not having bathrooms especially to enby people on public places, not learning that they/them can be used for non-binary people at school and etc)

» Mitsuya

i have the feeling he would help you with dysphoria even if you don’t talk a lot about it, he just knows it yk

if you have long hair but wished you had short hair and can’t cut it (your parents don’t let you, afraid of cutting it and don’t like it, etc) he would make you beanies for you so you can hide it

(a/n: if you don’t know what 'packer' is and don’t like seeing nsfw content, DO NOT search it, even if it’s not actually nsfw) if your transmasc (and wanted, ofc) he would make you a packer even if you’re embarrassed of buying it or even talking about it

if he sees you looking at too much time at the mirror like you don’t like what you see, he’d simply hug you

if you complain about not being masculine/feminine/androgynous enough, he would say “i loooove my trans boyfriend/girlfriend/partner and honestly i can’t understand why you don’t like yourself; for me, you’re the most perfect human”

tbh i’d start crying if i heard that

yk those crochet tiny animals that some people do with the pride flags? he would def do one of those for you in your birthday and say “sorry, i couldn’t do anything better :(“

WHAT DO Y'ALL THINK OF THIS?? tbh it was kinda hard to write it cause i didn't came out to a lot of people to know how most of them react (the only ones act like draken and hanma)

remember me saying i did this for a friend? i'm sure it will be hard to translate everything for him <(_ _)>

well, really hoped this is good ! coments and reblogs are apreciated !

taglist- @rome-alone @anti-shvji

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mmmmalo · 3 years

Text

For anyone still under the impression that June Egbert is just a product of the Toblerone wishes with no particular relevance to Homestuck proper, here's an argument to the contrary: that June (or whatever you like to call her) was already here, woven into John's relationship with the idea of Dad.

Act 1 has a certain preoccupation with the ideal forms of things, John having multiple instances of saying X isn't a REAL X unless it has this or that characteristic. "A fire BELONGS in a fireplace, categorically." One of those outbursts touches upon masculinity, with John saying a gentleman without a monocle is a piss-poor excuse for such. Along such a paradigm, you might gather that something like John saying the beaglepuss sucks as a disguise or trying (and failing) to integrate Dad's pipe into the façade communicates that John is kind of grasping at this ideal of masculinity exemplified by Dad and getting frustrated that he can't seem to measure up to it (or that masculinity feels "fake" on him).

This sort of dynamic is more blatant with Dave, who talks openly about how he isn't a "hero", not really, measuring himself against the impossible standards set by his Bro. But as much was already implicit in Act 1.

Later it gets established that John has some kind of fear of heights: the first ogres appear after John experiences vertigo from almost falling off the stairs, and again after getting launched by the pogo hammer. (Just as Karkat suspected he was given a planet covered in his own blood as a form of harassment, Sburb placed John's house on that needle plateau because of this fear of heights; the game generally manifests adversaries in response to fear). The phobia becomes relevant to Dad stuff after the ogre fight is over, when John is hesitating to jump down into Dad's room: it isn't just that John's nervous about entering the room for the first time, the descent itself makes John anxious. Furthermore, this juxtaposition serves to establish that the fear of heights and anxieties around Dad are related somehow, if not outright synonymous. The two are associated again at the beginning of Act 5 Act 2, when dream!John tries to jump over a canyon to reach Dad, but awakens mid-leap. The formal reason John awakens is Vriska of course, but if we ignore her we're left with John approaching Dad and immediately experiencing vertigo. (The name "June" comes from Vriska contacting John shortly after this dream, incidentally)

This comes up again when John finds Dad's wallet and gets overwhelmed by the prospect of Manhood and the responsibilities it entails -- next thing you know John is flying around in Dad's car, having fun... and after the scene is interrupted by Seek the Highblood, we return to find John crashing the car (another fall from the sky!) and talking with Vriska about dread surrounding societal expectations, and the possibility of rejecting them to pursue something different for yourself. John came into the scene worried (if quietly) about the expectations surrounding manhood, so the Vriska conversation serves to makes those kind of concerns more vivid.

The car crash is itself kind of a metaphor for that conversation's trajectory... in Act 6 we see something analogous play out among the Dersites who have gotten into dapper-wear: one Dersite sits on a hat, panics about ruining it, and then begins to wonder if perhaps a crumpled hat could have a value of its own, aesthetically. (Dirk expresses this sort of counter-assessment more bombastically: "...the next best thing. By which you mean, the vastly superior thing.") Dad Crocker swoops in to condemn the crumpled hat, but the Dersite's tentative revaluation of an apparent failure mode is something the scene shares with Vriska, who initially regards her ambivalence towards murder as a symptom of personal failure, unbefitting her caste. John enters that conversation with a crumpled car, and from context we can guess John's revaluation concerns "failing" to be a man in the way Dad is, and how maybe that doesn't need to be considered a failure.

As laid out so far, I guess none of this quite necessitates trans-Egbert, since people can come at "anxiety and reservations at the prospect of embodying masculine ideals" from a number of angles... but there are other considerations which make me think wrestling with self-deprecating thoughts like "I'm a failed man" are maybe comorbid with a budding sense of being a girl, in Egbert's case.

Foremost, I think it helps to recognize that Dad's car can function as a symbol of John's body. To sketch a case for that:

1a. Death often means transformation: the trolls die in questcocoons to reach the godtiers, suggesting that death stands between the caterpillar and the butterfly, their too solid flesh dissolved into a goo.

1b. A command in Act 1 implores John to "retrieve arms from MAGIC CHEST". John complies twofold: we see some fake arms retrieved from the toy chest, held up by John's real arms which have been "retrieved" from John's ostensibly armless torso.

2. This dual usage of chest is deployed in part 3 of Openbound, in service of building a dysphoria metaphor (among other things). The segment reintroduces us to Fiduspawn, a game in which one creature hatches from another, a host creature, killing the host in the process (fans of the Alien films may recognize this as derivative of the "chestburster", fans of Homestuck may recognize this as analogous to godtiering). Damara (who Rufioh refers to as "doll") becomes the host plush, who is accused of locking away Rufioh's "happy thought" (Tinkerbull) in her "chest". Rufioh's beef with Damara serves to illustrate an adversarial relationship with one's own body, the ways in which the body itself seems to function as a barrier to some happiness. The carnal imprisonment of euphoria (the "happy thought") represents dysphoria. The conversation between Kanaya and Porrim which follows has analogous content and offers a potential resolution to such a conflict, with Kanaya coming to distinguish her body from the reproductive duties assigned to her body by her caste's place in society, and knowing that she is not "bound" to the Matriorb by any will but her own...

3. But the paradigm of Fiduspawn reminds us that the act of actually ripping the happy thought out of your chest has suicidal overtones, when taken literally. And Aradiabot notwithstanding, the inner ghosts the kids give up are often green: Dirkbot tears out his uranium heart and explodes, Rose peels pink bricks off the green core of an island and wonders aloud if her existence is a mistake, and (returning to our main topic!) John tries to retrieve the green package from Dad's car. The retrieval of the box comes to represents the birth of the self from its shell, the now broken body, a gesture which overlaps with the pursuit of death.

So we can infer that Dad is akin to Damara here, having locked the desired object (the box, the "happy thought") within a container that we can identify with John's own body. Thus Vriska's talk of perhaps rejecting her assigned role in society proceeds naturally from the wreckage of Dad's car: insofar as the car functions as an emblem of the masculine expectations imposed upon John, the car's wreckage suggests the possibility of liberation from those expectations, liberation from your own body. John is "sick to death of cake" -- cake is a Life symbol imposed by Dad, in visceral excess, accumulating as every birthday marches John towards Manhood. The possibility of living as a girl does not seem to have occurred to John yet, life and masculinity seem inextricable and absolute. The first time John sees Dad's car totaled (after Rose drops it), the symbol of self-as-corpse is surrounded by yellow bands of caution tape. The Authority Regulator who placed the tape will later declare himself to be THE LAW, and we should take his word for it: the scene's function is to declare that the crumpled car, the "dead" and therefore feminized body, is forbidden to John. No surprise then that as John marches to her death, in defiance of the Law's prohibition, she-whose-name-does-not-yet-suit-her is met with impressions of several maps that actually align with their territories: troll movies whose titles are their contents in full, a rocket encoded by the sound PCHOOOOO. John wants that for herself, I think. And as @lscholar once pointed out, it’s worth noting that John's pursuit of this unity (this pursuit of "death") is interrupted by Dave, who in saving John's life repeatedly emphasizes their status as "bros" -- masculinity being, again, inextricable from life within John’s symbol system.

...and that's the short of it. A more detailed account might get into the association of Vriska and other blue girls with the feminized corpse, or read into Equius self-consciously roleplaying as a cat girl between John’s joyride and crash, or perhaps try to apply this car-body framework to the appearances of Dad's car in the Epilogues. And I haven’t even touched upon clowns...but I'll call it here for now.

#homestuck commentary #john #i might do a follow up going into life metaphysics and how jade ties into things

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flightlessnightingale · 3 years

Text

On Lesbianism

I’ll state it at the top here, because many have not understood my stance. The purpose of this essay is not to say that Lesbian cannot mean “Female homosexual.” Rather, my objective is to show that Lesbian means more than that single definition suggests. Female Homosexuals are lesbians, unless they personally do not want to use that label. Now, on with the show: Lesbianism is not about gatekeeping, and I don’t want to have to keep convincing people that the movement popularized by someone who wrote a book full of lies and hate speech then immediately worked with Ronald Reagan is a bad movement. In the early ’70s, groups of what would now be called “gender critical” feminists threatened violence against many trans women who dared exist in women’s and lesbian spaces. For example, trans woman Beth Elliott, who was at the 1973 West Coast Lesbian Feminist Conference to perform with her lesbian band, was ridiculed onstage and had her existence protested. In 1979, radical feminist Janice Raymond, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, wrote the defining work of the TERF movement, “Transsexual Empire: The Making of the Shemale,” in which she argued that “transsexualism” should be “morally mandating it out of existence”—mainly by restricting access to transition care (a political position shared by the Trump administration). Soon after she wrote another paper, published for the government-funded, National Center for Healthcare Technology — and the Reagan administration cut off Medicare and private health insurance coverage for transition-related care.

Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism is a fundamentally unsustainable ideology. Lesbianism is a fundamentally sustainable existence.

There used to be a lesbian bar or queer bar or gay bar in practically every small town — sometimes one of each. After surviving constant police raids, these queer spaces began closing even Before the AIDS epidemic. Because TERFs would take them over, kick out transfems and their friends. Suddenly, there weren’t enough local patrons to keep the bars open, because the majority had been kicked out. With America’s lack of public transportation, not enough people were coming from out of town either.

TERFs, even beyond that, were a fundamental part of the state apparatus that let AIDS kill millions.

For those who don’t know, Lesbian, from the time of Sappho of Lesbos to the about 1970′s, referred to someone who rejects the patriarchal hierarchy. It was not only a sexuality, but almost akin to a gender spectrum.

That changed in the 1970′s when TERFs co-opted 2nd Wave feminism, working with Ronald fucking Reagan to ban insurance for trans healthcare.

TERFs took over the narrative, the bars, the movement, and changed Lesbian from the most revolutionary and integral queer communal identity of 2 fucking THOUSAND years, from “Someone who rejects the patriarchal hierarchy” to “A woman with a vagina who’s sexually attracted to other women with vaginas”

How does this fit into the bi lesbian debate? As I said, Lesbian is more of a Gender Spectrum than anything else, it was used much in the same way that we use queer or genderqueer today.

And it’s intersectional too.

See, if you were to try to ascribe a rigid, biological, or localized model of an identity across multiple cultures, it will fail. It will exclude people who should not be excluded. ESPECIALLY Intersex people. That’s why “Two Spirit” isn’t something rigid- it is an umbrella term for the identities within over a dozen different cultures. In the next two sections, I have excerpts on Two-Spirit and Butch identity, to give a better idea of the linguistics of queer culture: This section on Two-Spirit comes from wikipedia, as it has the most links to further sources, I have linked all sources directly, though you can also access them from the Wikipedia page’s bibliography: Two-Spirit is a pan-Indian, umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people who fulfill a traditional ceremonial and social role that does not correlate to the western binary. [1] [2] [3] Created at the 1990 Indigenous lesbian and gay international gathering in Winnipeg, it was "specifically chosen to distinguish and distance Native American/First Nations people from non-Native peoples." [4] Criticism of Two-Spirit arises from 2 major points, 1. That it can exasperate the erasure of the traditional terms and identities of specific cultures. a. Notice how this parallels criticisms of Gay being used as the umbrella term for queer culture in general. 2. That it implies adherence to the Western binary; that Natives believe these individuals are "both male and female" [4] a. Again, you’ll notice that this parallels my criticisms of the TERF definition of Lesbian, that tying LGBT+ identities to a rigid western gender binary does a disservice to LGBT+ people,—especially across cultures. “Two Spirit" wasn’t intended to be interchangeable with "LGBT Native American" or "Gay Indian"; [2] nor was it meant to replace traditional terms in Indigenous languages. Rather, it was created to serve as a pan-Indian unifier. [1] [2] [4] —The term and identity of two-spirit "does not make sense" unless it is contextualized within a Native American or First Nations framework and traditional cultural understanding. [3] [10] [11] The ceremonial roles intended to be under the modern umbrella of two-spirit can vary widely, even among the Indigenous people who accept the English-language term. No one Native American/First Nations' culture's gender or sexuality categories apply to all, or even a majority of, these cultures. [4] [8] Butch: At the turn of the 20th century, the word “butch” meant “tough kid” or referred to a men’s haircut. It surfaced as a term used among women who identified as lesbians in the 1940s, but historians and scholars have struggled to identify exactly how or when it entered the queer lexicon. However it happened, "Butch” has come to mean a “lesbian of masculine appearance or behavior.” (I have heard that, though the words originate from French, Femme & Butch came into Lesbian culture from Latina lesbian culture, and if I find a good source for that I will share. If I had to guess, there may be some wonderful history to find of it in New Orleans—or somewhere similar.) Before “butch” became a term used by lesbians, there were other terms in the 1920s that described masculinity among queer women. According to the historian Lillian Faderman,“bull dagger” and “bull dyke” came out of the Black lesbian subculture of Harlem, where there were “mama” and “papa” relationships that looked like butch-femme partnerships. Performer Gladys Bentley epitomized this style with her men’s hats, ties and jackets. Women in same-sex relationships at this time didn’t yet use the word “lesbian” to describe themselves. Prison slang introduced the terms “daddy,” “husband,” and “top sargeant” into the working class lesbian subculture of the 1930s. This lesbian history happened alongside Trans history, and often intersected, just as the Harlem renaissance had music at the forefront of black and lesbian (and trans!) culture, so too can trans musicians, actresses, and more be found all across history, and all across the US. Some of the earliest known trans musicians are Billy Tipton and Willmer “Little Ax” Broadnax—Both transmasculine musicians who hold an important place in not just queer history, but music history.

Lesbian isn’t rigid & biological, it’s social and personal, built up of community and self-determination.

And it has been for millennia.

So when people say that nonbinary lesbians aren’t lesbian, or asexual lesboromantics aren’t lesbian, or bisexual lesbians aren’t lesbian, it’s not if those things are technically true within the framework — It’s that those statements are working off a fundamentally claustrophobic, regressive, reductionist, Incorrect definition You’ll notice that whilst I have been able to give citations for TERFs, for Butch, and especially for Two-Spirit, there is little to say for Lesbianism. The chief reason for this is that lesbian history has been quite effectively erased-but it is not forgotten, and the anthropological work to recover what was lost is still ongoing. One of the primary issues is that so many who know or remember the history have so much trauma connected to "Lesbian” that they feel unable to reclaim it. Despite this trauma, just like the anthropological work, reclamation is ongoing.

Since Sappho, lesbian was someone who rejects the patriarchal hierarchy. For centuries, esbian wasn’t just a sexuality, it was intersectional community, kin to a gender spectrum, like today’s “queer”. When TERFs co-opted 2nd Wave feminism, they redefined Lesbian to “woman w/ a vag attracted to other women w/ vags”. So when you say “bi lesbians aren’t lesbian” it’s not whether that’s true within the framework, it’s that you’re working off a claustrophobic, regressive, and reductionist definition.

I want Feminism, Queerness, Lesbianism, to be fucking sustainable.

I wanna see happy trans and lesbian and queer kids in a green and blue fucking world some day.

I want them to be able to grow old in a world we made good.

#Lesbian #Trans #Transgender #Queer #Queer positivity #Queer history #Police brutality #Gay #Linguistics #Sappho #History #Femme #Butch #R #TERF #Terf friendly haha jk fuck tERFS

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angrypedestrian · 3 years

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Please expand on mpreg!! Because it does feel transphobic and I'm not sure how to articulate that. Especially with Legends, why are people reacting so badly? Also the actor talking about the demasculinization of his character? Like a man can be pregnant and still masculine? I feel like Legends is doing this in the worst way with the aliens and shock factor so it feels like a trope but idk why people are reacting how they are. Are they disgusted by the transphobia or a pregnant man? Also any additional thoughts on mpreg in media is much appreciated! Has it ever been done well?

Man, where to even start, because there's just SO MUCH that needs to be unpacked with both the legends plotline and mpreg in general, so I will try to make this as short as I can. I will fail in this endeavor.

I guess easiest to deal with is Dominic Purcell's reaction to the whole thing. Like, we don't know for sure what cloud grandpa was yelling at specifically, but it likely was about this. And like, yes, to be serious about the whole thing, what he said was wrong and fucked up, and hopefully one of his kids tried to talk some sense into him, but who fucking knows. And to be jokey about it, if I were dominic purcell and was given an mpreg storyline I also would no longer want to work on the show, so I can't wholly blame him.

When it comes to mpreg in general I think the specific thing to keep in mind is that this trope and the reality of men who can get pregnant (which, in case it was not clear for anyone reading this, I am one of those, so I know somewhat of which I speak!) are two completely different things. The biggest issue with mpreg as a Thing is that, almost exclusively it is not about trans men. Trans men do not exist in the world of these fics. It is about cis male characters getting pregnant through whatever means that may be, whether that is weird magic or straight up anatomical unreality. Many of these writers do not wish to engage in the reality of men who can get pregnant, how they can get pregnant, and what that process and their bodies actually look like. They don't want to write trans male characters! They want to write cis male characters being pregnant, and that's why it feels bad and transphobic, because it is! But frankly, I wouldn't want anyone writing mpreg to touch writing trans male characters with a 30 foot pole.

And this is not directly related to, because these are vastly harmful in different ways, but it can tie in with other harmful tropes like g!p, which does not engage with the reality of how trans women exist and have sex, and is built on harmful stereotypes of women who have penises that is built on transphobic porn. And I am not a trans woman so it's really not my place to break that one down, and this is long enough already, but the long and short of it is it's transphobia all the way down baybeeeeee.

I cannot think of a time off the top of my head where mpreg has been done well. And imo that is because it is a bad trope, and shouldn't be happening! Especially at the very least from anyone who is cis. But again, this is is because mpreg and a trans man getting pregnant are two very different things! And the one, like, mainstream storyline of a trans man getting pregnant was Max on The L Word, and that is personally one of the worst things I've ever seen on television, so.

I cannot speak for anyone else's reaction to this particular legends plot point, but I don't like it because tbh I think it's stupid, and comes across as the writers doing it because they know it'll rile everyone up and get them a lot of attention, and it has! Like I said in my other post, like, they made the decision very deliberately to be like, these are eggs! Implanted in your ear! We know that mpreg is a Thing and that it is Not Great so we are very deliberately doing mpreg that is Less Bad! Which kinda almost makes it worse because they KNOW. THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING.

WHICH ONE OF YOU LITTLE FUCKERS IN THE WRITERS ROOM WROTE SUPERNATURAL MPREG FIC AS A TEEN I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE.

#legends of tomorrow #i could go on #but i think this makes the point clear enough maybe #anyways legends gave us a great episode and then ruined it by doing the trope i hate most in the world!!!!#so as always #thanks for fucking nothing phil #the time idiots

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a-clockwork-justice · 3 years

Text

Everything I Love About Loser Geek Whatever

So, not too long ago, it was the third birthday of Loser Geek Whatever. Yes, I know the single was released on November 30th 2018 and its considered the song’s official birthday, but the 26th July three years ago was the first showing of the 2018 Off-Broadway revival of Be More Chill and the first time Loser Geek Whatever was shown to the world in any capacity. Therefore, I consider that day to be the song’s unoffical birthday and I’ve been waiting to write down everything I love about it so here I am. (This was originally gonna be posted on the 26th July but I can’t make anything concise so it took longer than that).

I’ve gone on and on about what Loser Geek Whatever means to me personally, how a slew of random chance introduce me to it, got me deep into Be More Chill, introduced me to 90% of my current friends, and overall up-ended my whole life, but now it’s time to dissect the song itself and why it’s so great. As much as I adore Loser Geek Whatever, it could’ve easily been any other song that threw me down a rabbit hole and that I could’ve latched onto- no, wait, it couldn’t have been, because Loser Geek Whatever is unique in that way. I did about a year of music at A-Level so I’m gonna delve into some of the technical aspects here too. I’m chronicling this mostly for myself so I am going as deep as I see fit because this song is a treasure hiding yet more treasures. If you happen to love Loser Geek Whatever as much as I do, this’ll be your goldmine.

So, grab a snack my fellow fans, because here’s a comprehensive list of everything to love about Loser Geek Whatever in roughly chronological order. Long post incoming:

The song starts off strong from the first millisecond - I don’t know what instrument(s) they used but just listen to the single version again - that opening chord blares at you like a siren. It calls for your attention, screaming this is incredibly important, and indeed it is. That chord, an F chord, has no indication as to whether it’s major or minor - it’s just the tonic F with its dominant C and another tonic F above it. In other words, it’s unresolved, it hangs in the air. From a narrative standpoint, Jeremy is at a crossroads, torn between giving into the SQUIP or staying loyal to Michael, and the music paints this. It has the same effect on both the single and album versions - I always hold my breath as it holds, it’s the gap in this crucial transition for Jeremy between who he was and him becoming something he isn’t.

To continue the thread of musical painting, the melody line contains the accidental E-flat which doesn’t belong to the key of F major. This once again illustrates Jeremy’s uncertainty, but there’s more - the whole introduction is a slowed-down version of the Apocalypse of the Damned theme from Two Player Game, arguably the point in the show when Michael and Jeremy’s relationship was at its strongest. Jeremy’s recalling everything he had with Michael, but the slowing down of the melody shows hesitancy, along with highlighting the accidental E flat. These latter points of course aren’t unique to Loser Geek Whatever - they’re also in the section of Upgrade that twins with Loser Geek Whatever. I’m just laying out why they work so well.

I’m glad I waited until after I saw the show in London to finish writing this - I’m something of a Loser Geek Whatever purist, as made clear by my ire at them cutting it in half and tacking the end of Upgrade back on for the London version. I still enjoyed the show in London though and I’m glad I knew about this change ahead of time, because they did change something about the song that I think really worked - they added two notes in the bass to each bar, like heartbeats, which once again signifies Jeremy’s uncertancy and the importance of this major turning point.

It’s been firmly established by this point that Jeremy is a loser and he knows it. He doesn’t want to be a hero, he just wants to survive, but there’s a difference between that and feeling “inconsequential.” Jeremy is basically admitting that, in his eyes, it doesn’t matter to the world or anyone except Michael if he even survives or not. He’s not just a loser, or a geek - he’s a whatever, with no one caring who he is. And he’s felt this way for years - since middle school began. He’s now in his Junior year of high school - that’s five years of being in this state of being unnoticed at best and picked on at worst. He’s “the one who’s left out”. With just one little line, hell, one word, we’re given more layers as to why he so badly wants to change that.

Moving from the first verse to the chorus, we start to see Jeremy’s attitude shift, from being sad to being angry - he’s frustrated, resentful that he’s spent so long in this state (A lot of people have made similar comparisons about Will Roland’s Jeremy as a whole in relation to Will Connolly’s Jeremy and I think this song exemplifies that). He doesn’t deserve to feel this horrible - not now and certainly not for the next two years until he and Michael can be “cool in college.” When you think about it, what options does he really have? He could either give into the SQUIP or reject it and go back to where he was, still miserable and lonely. Yes, he has Michael and Michael is an amazing, kind, loyal best friend, but as many have pointed out, he’s also dismissive of Jeremy’s feelings of inadequacy whether he means to be or not, which only made Jeremy feel more lonely. Should Jeremy just expect to feel better about himself at some point before college? He’s waited for years, why would that happen at any other point?

More layers baby! Second verse, Jeremy rants on about his father’s advice about following his own instincts and how it’s gotten him nowhere he wants to be. Come to think of it, Michael’s advice about staying the same and waiting for their environment to change can be seen as similar - it’s arguably easier for Michael as he has two loving mothers who undoutably give him plenty of positive reinforcement. Meanwhile, Jeremy’s mother has left them, which likely instilled further feelings of not being good enough, and his father has fallen apart to the point where he can’t even put pants on, let alone step up to take care of his son, meaning that Jeremy likely isn’t going to take his advice very seriously, especially after it’s failed him so thoroughly. But to Jeremy, the problem isn’t necessarily the advice itself - it’s that it’s being followed by him. So now he’s going to turn around and put his life and every choice in something else’s hands, even if - no, especially if it goes against his own instincts. It still doesn’t feel quite right, it “feels bizarre”, but it’s getting him somewhere, so it has to be right in the most meaningful capacity, and to Jeremy, the “most meaningful capacity” is any capacity that isn’t his own.

Now the best line - the one about being a “normal, handsome guy”. Let’s get this on the table - Jeremy is trans. Will Roland himself said that he often thinks of the show’s young trans fans when he sings that line. Naturally, societal transphobia plus gender dysphoria would have a pretty catestrophic effect on the self-esteem of any growing teenager, even more so one in Jeremy’s situation for the reasons I’ve just laid out. He’s probably missed out on a lot of things that “normal” guys take for granted, with most girls barely looking in his direction, let alone in any positive manner. Jeremy’s own sexuality aside, it’s mostly society, and the SQUIP by extension, that considers scoring with girls to be a “manly” or masculine activity, and through Brooke treating him as dateable material, Jeremy feels better about fitting into society’s rules of how a man should be and act. This isn’t the only reason he feels good about Brooke finding him attractive, of course, but it’s just another layer that Jeremy sees more value in conforming to how society says he should be rather than in how he actually is.

I know I just said that the last point was about the best line, but honestly, there’s more than one best line in this song. The bridge is where we start to see Jeremy’s language becoming more technologically inclined - “prompt”, “command” and “bandwidth” are all terms used in computing and used to show how Jeremy is likening himself, or his intentions, to a computer, effectivly merging himself and his SQUIP into one entity and Jeremy willingly giving over his own individuality.

And HERE, we get to the kicker. I’ve talked a lot about layers throughout this whole essay, about themes and motifs building on each other. Jeremy is essentially peeling back the layers of his own situation and only finding reason after deeper reason after deeper reason as to why he should follow the SQUIP and not be a loser anymore. Now, he hits the core, the seed, the crux of it all - “The problem has ALWAYS BEEN ME!!” Everything he is, everything that makes Jeremy Heere himself, is and has always been wrong. This line is a gut punch and EVERYONE knows it - the performer always takes a few seconds to let it sink in before continuing.

As an aside, I wanna mention the differences between the single and the album versions of the bridge. The album version starts of quieter after the vocalising of the last chorus, and builds up to the climactic final line, while the single version is loud all the way through but gets even louder and punchier at the end. Both are good, but I personally prefer the single version - the album sounds like Jeremy is broken and desperate and on the verge of tears as he reaches his inevitable but ugly realisation. The single is also desperate, but it’s pleading and all-consuming and a THOUSAND times more powerful, I get chills every time I hear it. (Side note, the London version starts of loud like the single and ends quieter like the album, almost as if Jeremy is reluctant to admit what he truly believes about himself, and it’s easy to see why, it’s a damn harsh condemnation).

“Take a breath and get prepared” - Jeremy sings to both himself and the audience. The first half has been heavy and we need a breather. Yet just before he goes over the brink, he has second thoughts. His conscience, his own voice in his head, breaks through, warning him that his choice will have consequences for other people than himself. People will get hurt - Michael most of all. Not just by Jeremy ditching him; here’s something else - when Jeremy is the “cool dude”, he might end up being a bully to those who are losers just like him, cutting them down just as Rich’s SQUIP made Rich do to him. Who would be the perfect target for Jeremy’s potential future bullying? His former best friend and fellow loser, Michael Mell. It’s pretty damn likely that if the SQUIP hadn’t optic nerve blocked Michael, it would’ve told Jeremy to pick on him, and even though Michael has ostensibly been pretty good at brushing these things off before, the takedowns would hurt a LOT more coming from his former best friend - and we know this because IT ACTUALLY HAPPENS, granted without the SQUIP influencing Jeremy directly (also let’s just clear up that just because the SQUIP wasn’t on doesn’t mean its influence on Jeremy hadn’t disappeared - that’s not how emotional abuse works).

Twelve years of loyal friendship, of borderline unhealthy codependency … can he throw all that away for Christine, a girl he’s thus admired from afar and is only just starting to get to know as a person? Moreover, even if Jeremy gets Christine, what about himself, who he wants to be? He just wants to be something other than himself because he thinks that anything is better but … what? The cool dude, the hero or … whatever. He’ll take anything because he’s that desperate, but what about when he gets it? Will he finally be satisfied? Will it be worth failing his one real friend, an act so scummy that the only way he could possibly stomach it would be to somehow pretend he hadn’t done it?

But none of those questions matter to Jeremy now - he’s fully gaslit into believing that every thought and inclination that comes from himself is wrong and shouldn’t be followed. He needs to sync up with the SQUIP and the rest of the world and mute his own defective inner voice. When you think about it, the relationship between Jeremy and the SQUIP is one of the most intense abusive relationships ever put to fiction - we’ve seen emotional abuse and brainwashing before, but here, Jeremy is literally preventing from THINKING the wrong way because the SQUIP can detect his every thought. See what I mean when I say that doesn’t go away when the SQUIP turns off for a few minutes?!

Throughout all of this is the undercurrent of Jeremy wanting to get better. He’s been trying so hard for so long to have a better life, but nothing has worked. Not listening to his dad, not trying to get closer to Christine through theatre, and certainly not listening to Michael’s advice to wait until college. Why should he resign himself to even more time being miserable with no end in sight? After all, being cool in college isn’t a guarantee. After all he’s been through, it’s his turn to finally be cool, after an eternity of being someone he doesn’t want to be.

Another best line in this song - “I’m Player One.” As mentioned a few times in the show before, like in the Broadway upgrade, Jeremy feels lower even in his friendship with Michael - he’s Player 2 as the more experienced Michael is Player 1. As previously established, Jeremy admits that he’s “not the one who the story’s about.” Now he’s ready to finally take control of his life, be the main character and have good things happen to him, and that means cutting out Michael, the old Player 1. The irony here is that Jeremy is less like Player 1 and more like a video game avatar. In reality, the SQUIP is Player 1, making Jeremy do whatever it demands of him.

More best lines! The slew of insults towards the end serves not just as yet more gut punches for the audience but as a major catharsis for Jeremy - It’s telling that the insults get harsher as his rant goes on, from the “weirdo” to the “weakling freak” to the “failure” to the climactic “please don’t speak”. He’s unloading everything that he’s been carrying over the years, ripping out the bullets that have been embedded in his skin and re-opening all the wounds in the process, but he’s done with the pain and he’ll never ever let himself be hurt like that again, if he follows the SQUIP.

I’ve made a whole post about the significance of the best line “Please Don’t Speak” before so I’ll mostly be repeating a lot of what I said there because it’s been a while since that post and because I want to. Who would’ve said that to Jeremy? Probably not Rich or Chloe, it’s not like them. It had to have come from an adult in a position of authority that could’ve commanded Jeremy not to speak like that - one that apparently did so enough times for him to internalise those words like he did the others. (Even worse if it was more than one adult ...). Out of all of the insults, it’s easy to see how that can easily be the most scarring out of all of them - how would an adult let a child know they’re inadequate? By silencing them. Making it clear that their expression of self not only means nothing, but should be forcibly avoided. Put like that, it makes it much easier to see how and why Jeremy fell under the SQUIP’s influence so easily - telling it was hardly different from authority figures he’s experienced before. In even more sad irony, as Jeremy claims that he’s breaking free and letting go of his past as the “please don’t speak”, he’s just walking right into another, similar trap that he can’t easily escape from. The SQUIP literally vocal cord blocks him during The Play - if that doesn’t say “Please don’t speak,” what does?!

The climax is growing! The music shifts into the relative minor as Jeremy fully gives in to the SQUIP’s evil influence. This is the point of no return, the point where he’s literally being surrounded and overtaken - if you’ve seen this on stage or even just a bootleg, you’ll know what I mean, when the lighting shifts and the circuitry start closing in around him, it’s wonderful. The bass ascends, Jeremy declares once and for all that HE IS NOT THE LOSER, THE GEEK, OR WHATEVER, and he never will be again! As some have pointed out, the sequence of notes on the final “again” is the same as at the end of Be More Chill Part 2, except the last note is different. In BMC part 2, it goes further down by a minor third, but in Loser Geek Whatever, it rises up to the same note it started with. This foreshadows Jeremy’s fate - that he will eventually overcome the SQUIP and that he still has it in him to do so. Man, let me just point out how amazing that last belt is - it lasts for a full 15 seconds in a really high range and takes a LOT of control to bring it back up to the high B without breaking. This song really was written for Will Roland - his voice can pull it off seamlessly, but other actors and understudies have had to find workarounds. No disrespect to them, it’s a damn hard song and it kicks ass all the way through. Scott Folan apparently had trouble with it too, but on the day I happened to see him, he pulled it off without breaking, so props to him!

Overall, Loser Geek Whatever is my favourite song in Be More Chill and not just for its sentimental value to myself. It’s a genuinely deep, complex piece that earned every second of its six minutes. Loser Geek Whatever is definitely the missing piece the show needed - not only is it Jeremy’s solo song, it’s also his “I Want” song and, in a way, his 11 o’clock number all in one, as he’s having a major epiphany after going on a journey, albeit only half of one. It’s easy to see why Joe Iconis dubbed this his anti-Defying Gravity, but it’s also easy to draw parallels to No Good Deed - how both Jeremy and Elphaba vow to become something that society is forcing upon them rather than what they are, even if that society’s will is objectively worse for them. Loser Geek Whatever deserves a thousand times the recognition it has and I still wonder to this day what the fandom reaction would’ve been if it had been in the original soundtrack.

So, that was it. I’m not sorry it was this long.

TL;DR: Loser Geek Whatever is wonderful and anyone who doesn’t think so is wrong.

#be more chill #loser geek whatever #joe iconis #will roland #be more chill meta #music theory #broadway be more chill #be more chill 2.0 #be more chill 3.0 #musical theatre theory #tw depression #jeremy heere #michael mell #be more chill analysis #tw emotional abuse #trans jeremy heere

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batsarebetterthanpeople · 2 years

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I want to start this off with that I support trans head cannons broadly they are a good thing and that Trans women are allowed to see themselves in any character and headcannon them as trans women and it’s none of my business when they do that This is a vent post. I just want to put my feelings out.

Any evidence I talk about in this post is stuff I have seen be used as evidence for this head canon. If it don’t apply let it fly. BUT I actually hate the Ed (our flag means death) is a trans woman head canon and I’m gonna talk about it. Part of the reason I hate it is personal. I really relate to him, He is in fact the most intensely relatable character I have ever seen on screen or in books or anywhere really, and I’m a trans man, so that’s part of it. But part of why I hate this head canon is because I feel like it rests on a very fundamental misunderstanding of the character and also of masculinity. Please stick with me when I say that.

Now any reason is a good enough reason to head canon any character as trans, and I am not here to beef with trans women who see themselves in Ed. What I do beef with is the idea that because he likes Stede’s fancy lad clothes and he doesn’t want to be the monster that Izzy (The character with the most toxic masculinity) wants him to be, that those things make him less of a man. You get how that’s harmful, right? The idea that he can’t be a man because he rejects toxic masculinity is harmful and it implies that the only masculinity there is to be found is toxic and that anyone who rejects toxic masculinity is not a man. When really I think Ed has the most advanced masculinity of any character in the show. Because Ed is a man and his masculinity is never seen as in opposition to anyone. Izzy is the most obvious example of defining his masculinity in opposition to others on this show and Ed is failing to live up to his ridged definition masculinity and instead of being like oh Izzy’s a shitlord don’t worry about him a lot of yall have taken that as a way to emasculate ed. Then theres the thing with Stede’s clothes. I truely think some of yall heard as kids “Pirates are for boys, Princesses are for girls” And just internalized the fuck out of that. So when Ed takes interest in rich people shit (not gendered) and desires the finer things (Not gendered) and gets yelled at by Izzy for being a good enough Pirate for engaging in these things (Ching Shih/Zheng Yi Sao is literally rolling in her grave if you think piracy is gendered) you take that as evidence that he’s not a man? Like I just want you to analyze why these things add up to him not being a man for you, that’s all. Again if it don’t apply let it fly. Ed’s interest in frilly shit is because he as a poor indigenous man has been systemically excluded from comfort, and it feels weird when people gender that. Like men aren’t allowed to desire comfort.

There are of course ways in which Ed is feminine, he’s a complex character and no complex character is all one or all the other, but he presents a non toxic masculinity. He’s in touch with his emotions, he allows himself to be vulnerable, he doesn’t put anyone else down to prove he’s more of a man. and yet he’s still masculine. His beard is his whole brand, he cracks open a cold one with the boys, ect. (I know women can have beards but you understand my point)

I feel like this also fits into a larger problem this fandom has on taking Izzy’s word for things even when we know Izzy’s the worst. Like Ed is autistic and there’s oodles of evidence in the way he moves the things he says and does and stuff like that but I’ve seen yall bring up the way Izzy talks about him like he’s insane and cant take care of himself as evidence for it anyway when that’s not even true.

Now I feel like the most valid piece of evidence for the trans girl Ed headcanon is the scene that makes me headcanon him as a trans man. Which is the scene with Izzy at the end of the show where Ed “comes out” and asks him to use his “chosen name” Edward instead of Blackbeard, and then he “goes back into the closet” because Izzy threatens his safety. Fair enough. This is why I said at the beginning that I’m not here to beef with trans girls who see themselves in him, but I do kinda want to bring it up to point out that I can use this as evidence for him being a trans man. It’s not gendered, it’s just not cis.

And finally the underlying reason why I don’t just let it go and why I made a big long vent post about it. I relate to him. I find his brand of masculinity relatable, and when people dismiss this brand of masculinity I find that super invalidating. And I know that’s my own personal shit to deal with but you will note that this is my own personal blog, so, you know, that’s sort of what I’m doing by making a vent post. I just don’t like it when people see him stimming on Stede’s clothes (autistic and something I do) or being theatrical or crying or writing poetry or wearing a robe around the house and declaring that feminine. I hate it when you guys do that. I know I don’t control how other people interpret media and I don’t control what the vibe on this character is but the evidence I’ve seen pulled out for this particular head canon rubs me the wrong way. I don’t thing I would have as much of a problem with it if the evidence I often see get pulled out didn’t feel like it was reinforcing harmful ideas about what a man isn’t. There is also something to be said for Stede’s sexuality in relation to this head canon but that doesn’t rub me the wrong way quite as much.

#vent post #Our flag means death #ofmd

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purpleradfeminista · 3 years

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"Why is this kind of treatment never even CONSIDERED for a trans person?" cause dysphoria sufferers are considered non-responsive to talk therapy unlike BDD/anorexic patients who can enter remission. Maybe if you actually stepped out of the radfem bubble where y'all theorize out of your butts and did actual reading about older writings on transition you would know, duh. Read about John Money, Harry Benjamin, Magnus Hirshfield, Havelock Ellis, Virginia Prince, Lou Sullivan. If you truly care ofc

Ok sure I'll bite.

John Money: was a New Zealand psychologist, sexologist and author known for his research into sexual identity and biology of gender and his conduct towards vulnerable patients. [bolding mine] He was one of the first researchers to publish theories on the influence of societal constructs of gender on individual formation of gender identity. Money introduced the terms gender identity, gender role and sexual orientation and popularised the term paraphilia. He spent a considerable amount of his career in the USA.

Recent academic studies have criticized Money's work in many respects, particularly in regard to his involvement with the involuntary sex-reassignment of the child David Reimer, his forcing this child and his brother to simulate sex acts which Money photographed and the adult suicides of both brothers.

--I haven't read any of Money's work directly, but I have read the book that is about his patient victim David Reimer, who was surgically "turned into a girl" shortly after birth and used by Money to try and justify his opinions about gender reassignment. Reimer reports that "when living as Brenda, [he] did not identify as a girl. He was ostracized and bullied by peers (who dubbed him "cavewoman"), and neither frilly dresses nor female hormones made him feel female."

Harry Benjamin: seems to at least not have been a pedophile, and I suppose is best known for his treatment of Christine Jorgensen, but I find it significant that he only stepped in to help patients after other therapies had failed.

Magnus Hirshfield: I'm sort of puzzled as to why he's on your list, as his major body of work is about sex, and gay sex in particular, and his only contribution to what you're talking about appears to be some vague writing he did about "transvestitism".

Havelock Ellis: worth first noting that he was a eugenicist....but aside from that he appears to have been the first, or one of the first, to acknowledge that autogynephilia exists and is often a factor in the male desire to "transition".

"Aware of Hirschfeld's studies of transvestism, but disagreeing with his terminology, in 1913 Ellis proposed the term sexo-aesthetic inversion to describe the phenomenon. In 1920 he coined the term eonism, which he derived from the name of a historical figure, Chevalier d'Eon. Ellis explained:

On the psychic side, as I view it, the Eonist is embodying, in an extreme degree, the aesthetic attitude of imitation of, and identification with, the admired object. It is normal for a man to identify himself with the woman he loves. The Eonist carries that identification too far, stimulated by a sensitive and feminine element in himself which is associated with a rather defective virile sexuality on what may be a neurotic basis.

Ellis found eonism to be "a remarkably common anomaly", and "next in frequency to homosexuality among sexual deviations", and categorized it as "among the transitional or intermediate forms of sexuality". As in the Freudian tradition, Ellis postulated that a "too close attachment to the mother" may encourage eonism, but also considered that it "probably invokes some defective endocrine balance"."

Virginia Prince: I am honestly surprised that current TRAs even want to claim this person, as she seems to be like....completely saying the opposite of everything that TRAs claim to believe about their "gender identity".

"Prince helped popularize the term 'transgender', and erroneously asserted that she coined transgenderist and transgenderism, words which she meant to be understood as describing people who live as full-time women, but have no intention of having genital surgery. (bolding mine) Prince also consistently argued that transvestism is very firmly related to gender, as opposed to sex or sexuality.Her use of the term "femmiphile" related to the belief that the term "transvestite" had been corrupted, intending to underline the distinction between heterosexual crossdressers, who act because of their love of the feminine, and the homosexuals or transsexuals who may cross-dress. Although Prince identified with the concept of androgyny (stating in her autobiographical 100th issue that she could "…do [her] own thing whichever it is…"), she preferred to identify as Gynandrous. This, she explained, is because although 'Charles' still resides within her, "…the feminine is more important than the masculine." Prince's idea of a "true transvestite" was clearly distinguished from both the homosexual and the transsexual, claiming that true transvestites are "exclusively heterosexual... The transvestite values his male organs, enjoys using them and does not desire them removed." (bolding mine)

By the early 1970s, Prince and her approaches to crossdressing and transvestism were starting to gain criticism from transvestites and transsexuals, as well as sections of the gay and women's movements of the time. Controversy and criticism has arisen based on Prince's support for conventional societal norms such as marriage and the traditional family model, as well as the portrayal of traditional gender stereotypes. Her attempts to exclude transsexuals, homosexuals or fetishists from her normalization efforts of the practice of transvestism have also drawn much criticism.

Lou Sullivan: was an American author and activist known for his work on behalf of trans men. He was perhaps the first transgender man to publicly identify as gay, and is largely responsible for the modern understanding of sexual orientation and gender identity as distinct, unrelated concepts.

Sullivan was a pioneer of the grassroots female-to-male (FTM) movement and was instrumental in helping individuals obtain peer-support, counselling, endocrinological services and reconstructive surgery outside of gender dysphoria clinics. (bolding mine) He founded FTM International, one of the first organizations specifically for FTM individuals, and his activism and community work was a significant contributor to the rapid growth of the FTM community during the late 1980s.

From what I've read I don't know, it kind of sounds like Lou might have agreed with me that counselling should be a first step before handing out hormones like M&Ms. But unfortunately I can't ask him since he had the misfortune to decide to live as a gay man at the height of the AIDS epidemic.

---------------

Ok I spent some time researching all those folks you mentioned. None of them seem to say, or have the opinion, that counselling is useless for people with gender dysphoria. So my question remains......why is it not considered as an option? You are telling me that it "doesn't work", but not one piece of the "research" you told me to do bears that out, and there is actually quite a LOT of research showing the reverse, that many folks who identify as transgender, especially young children, will eventually desist if supported with counselling but not given a social or physical transition. So. My question is still hanging out there. Thanks for providing me some interesting reading, however!

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