#and that the queer community is overly sexualized

[thebookishwallflower]

As an aspec person who doesn’t much like the concept of sexual stuff shipping gay ppl is starting to suck

[johnbrand]

Normal, SC

With @mrrharper

Officer Justin O’Shaughnessy reluctantly hopped into his patrol vehicle. He had been transferred out of South Carolina’s capital to the tiny town of Normal, population definitely under a thousand. When Justin had enlisted to the new town, he had not dreamt of it being so traditional. Less than 45 minutes away, Columbia had a thriving queer community that Justin and his boyfriend were well involved in. Even their police force was welcoming. But this new position in Normal felt anything but.

Before Officer O’Shaughnessy had even entered the building, he already received sideways glances. He appeared nothing like the other overly manly men there, his more androgynous appearance colliding with the two genders established by the town. But through his worry, Justin did feel a sense of pride by bringing a bit of diversity to the town, at least in terms of sexuality. And now here he was, on his first assignment with his new patrol route.

Unaccustomed to the height of his new vehicle–a literal truck rather than the typical sedan–Justin took a deep breath before grabbing the keys. His job was easy today. The Chief wanted him to get adjusted to town, harmonize himself with it. “Things work a little differently around ‘ere,” the Chief’s Southern twang sticking out a bit at the end. “The quicker you learn to fit in and be like all the other men, the better.”

It took Justin a moment to figure out how to get the truck started, after all he drove a Prius–wait, a foreign car? Heck no, he only drove American vehicles. Shaking his head, Justin started the engine and pulled out of the station. He was feeling confident, the Chief’s words flashing through his mind as he began his patrol.

Unsurprisingly, there were not that many streets in town to check out. The main road, the side roads, the business versus residential roads. It was not anything like Columbia, that beautiful, expansive, expensive, crowded, woke wasteland. Nah, Justin liked the speed of this town a lot better. It was quaint and slow, everything moved at its own pace. It was not influenced by those protests or silly parades.

After a while, Justin decided to pull over to stretch. His body was already aching, although he could not explain why. He had kept himself slim over the years through marathons and–running? Justin chuckled to himself. Yeah right! He worked out at the local gym everyday, pumping each of his muscle groups to their fullest capacity. He wanted to be big after all, just like all the other guys on the force. So he must have been sore from the nightmare of a workout Chief had dumped on him earlier to get a gauge of his abilities. Justin had perfectly met the average.

Justin peered at the time from his dashboard when he reentered the truck, noticing it was already time for his lunch break. Excited, he pulled out his bag and started grabbing items. Tomato sandwich, baked veggie chips, hummus…wait, was this his lunch? He went through the items again. Thick club sandwich with extra meat, two bags of potato chips, can of cheap beer. Yeah, that seemed a lot more appropriate. A real man needed to eat a real man’s lunch after all. Justin was relieved his wife had not packed him some vegetarian or vegan bull crap.

Justin paused for a moment, demolishing his meal before starting the truck up again. He had a wife? Well sure he did! Just about every man in town had one. He fiddled with his ring finger subconsciously as he daydreamt about his beautiful bride. Eventually, Justin began fiddling with the plumper, bloated “finger” in his pants too as he daydreamt about his beautiful bride. What was her name again? Marcus…Markie…Margie! Lovely, pregnant Margie.

Justin refocused on the job at hand, he was to become a father soon after all. All the other men in the small town were already dads, and he was slacking! He was about to turn 24 and had no kids to show for it. Luckily, he was spared with some mature masculine features. Justin had grown out a beard as soon as he could, and a fluffy mat of body hair only accentuated this fact. Of course, he was not mature all the time. He had no problem roughhousing and dutch-ovening the other officers–it was just men being men after all!

Justin laughed to himself, waving to a few men as he passed by them. It was funny how all the men in Normal looked pretty similar. Even Justin was fitting the mold. All a couple of inches over six feet; those packed, muscular builds sustained by home cooked Southern meals from the misses; dressed in either similar work clothes, home clothes, or church clothes. Their interests and morals were so well-aligned too. It was like the town had its own personal standard for everyone to follow.

Registering the time once more, Justin sighed…Jared sighed disappointedly as his shift had once again come to an end. Pulling back into his spot in the station’s parking lot, he was not surprised to see all the other almost identical officers fraternizing. 

“Hey O’Shaughnessy, you comin’ to the bar for some beer with us?” one of them shouted.

“You betch’I’m comin’!” Jared confirmed in the same deep, Southern twang. Hopefully the missus would not mind too dearly, he was just being normal after all!

[sapphiccooper]

I cannot express enough how much it hurts to see people complain about how “Heartstopper is unrealistic bc it lacks sex”.

Like, if that is/was your experience as a teenager, that’s fine! There are HUNDREDS of teen shows that display (usually overly so) sex and sexuality in that way. But, that is not everyone’s experience, nor is it the experience everyone wants, nor wanted.

As a queer person who was unable to live joyous teenage years for the most part, it is incredibly healing to see healthy and loving queer relationships on screen.

This show isn’t that realistic, and that’s TERRIFYING.

These teens are more mature than most people will ever be. This is because they are a community that values boundaries, communication, and consent. The relationships, romantic and platonic, in Heartstopper focus on the importance of community within queerness. How just being queer/queer allied can unify a group in a way that can’t be outwardly understood.

There shouldn’t be pressure or expectations when it comes to sex, affection, or any type of intimacy. I understand not everyone will relate to a story like this, but for those of us who do, people need to know that it is everything to be able to see. It is everything to see even a fictional reality where boundaries are respected, and people care enough to take the time to grow love.

[kitkatopinions]

I love when anti-rwde posters unintentionally say things that seem rwde lol. Here are my favorites so far:

The always good "Ironwood was always clearly an evil dictator" If this were true it would make the show worse than I already think it is, because not only did Team RWBY willingly work with him without any sort of recognition that it might be bad of them, but the writers have also talked about Ironwood's good intentions and the fall to villainy and how they wanted V7 to have no clear bad guy.

Whenever someone dismisses any early season as unimportant or something that no longer matters. Like, my guy, they're all supposed to matter and make up a good story together.

The people that say that the Blake and Yang ship is the exact same as Blake x Sun as a reason for why people who ship Blake with Sun but not Yang are wrong. Idk if they realize characters and dynamics are meant to be different and interesting.

The people who find redesigns of Yang where she's wearing clothing that's either the exact same level of 'modest' as the show or actually less sexualized and yell about how re-writers always overly sexualize Yang.

The people that defend every Jaune scene by saying he's just as much of a main character as Ruby. Like yes thank you for proving our point lol.

The people that constantly say important things just happen off screen. Things like main characters being friends, communicating important plot details to each other, showing grief at terrible deaths, unlearning racism... The more stuff people say happened off screen the more unintentionally insulting I think they're being because instead of saying "It was a mistake, they didn't have time, or they forgot" it's "they willfully didn't include it because they couldn't be bothered."

The people that say it's a good thing the entirety of Atlas was destroyed. Like personally I think the show could've done better at making Atlas and Mantle more varied but actually DID make it clear there were working class people and Faunus and good people just trying to make it that lived in Atlas and didn't deserve to lose everything. But apparently these people believe everyone in Atlas was some rich selfish asshole who deserved it and that would be very flimsy and bad writing.

The people who say that "drinking the tea" and "going to the tree" in V9 is actually just a metaphor for therapy. Like I know that Ruby essentially tried to commit suicide in V9. But I guess what they think what happened is that Neo was beating up Ruby while trying to make her get therapy, and everyone being a moment too late was them not arriving in time to stop Ruby from going to therapy, and when she fell down into the darkness that was symbolic of driving to her therapist's office, and when Yang was worried that Ruby wouldn't be herself anymore she actively was unhappy that Ruby was at therapy. Like how much worse written would V9 be if I actually believed what they did? XD

The people that insist that everything in RWBY was part of some super well thought out 'planned from the beginning' thing. Not only is that actually not a flex with a show that feels more disjointed, rushed, and ill-thought through with every season, but it's actively not what the writers say half the time when they do things like talk about how they 'wrote themselves into corners' and admit that at the beginning they were 'throwing things out and having to stick with it,' and having Blake's VA describe Blake as straight in official stuff and how they entirely reinvented Robin. Like either you think everything was not planned from the beginning or you think the writers are liars lol.

The people that actively just pretend or actually believe that the show is different than what it is, like the person who said RWBY was 'written by and for queer people' or the person who said Blake and Yang had been openly dating since V2 or the person who said Ruby was shown grieving Pyrrha way more than Jaune or the person who said that the RWBY villains were straight white men who weren't part of oppressed groups. What better way to prove that you actually don't like the show you're watching than to insist that it's a completely different show?

I'm sure there's more but those are the ones on my mind right now. XD Once again, I am certain that I have more love for RWBY than a lot of anti-rwde posters do.

[catboybiologist]

Damn being overly dramatic is kinda one of my things, so I guess I should say something…

I can honestly say, without exaggeration, that 2023 has probably been the best year of my life so far. An enormous amount of irl stuff lined up very well for me, between building an amazing queer community, really starting to hit my stride in my PhD, making plans to live out a lot of my backpacking dreams that I had left behind, lots of weirdass sexual and relationship drama that’s taken me on a roller coaster, and of course… starting my transition, which has been the best decision of my life.

And of course, as sappy as it is, the little online community I have hear has been ana amazing part of that. Starting on tumblr and seeing so many trans people be unapologetically proud of their bodies has been incredible for me and my confidence. Thank you all, and I hope you have a wonderful 2024 <3

[ms-cartoon]

So I saw some more fan art of something like this and people are still hating it, calling this person homophobic for erasing Vaggie's sexuality and shipping her with a boy version of Charlie. Alright look- I can understand why they wouldn't like it, there's nothing wrong with not liking it, but it's absolutely crazy to me when they call someone homophobic especially when they said they loved Chaggie despite their sexuality and gender. Like-- this is literally just a thought that they had and they wanted to draw it. That's all that is. They don't dislike Vaggie being a lesbian, they don't hate that she and Charlie are girls and together. This was just a "what-if" drawing. It doesn't hurt the canon whatsoever. Y'all are being overly dramatic about this honestly.

And it totally confuses me cuz . . . Y'all will ship a straight character with their same gender and NOBODY will bat an eye at that. Nobody will judge you for it. If anything, they'll agree. Like, say someone shipped Naruto and Sasuke (and a lot of people do) and drew romantic art of them. You don't see us going, "Umm Naruto and Sasuke are straight and they're boys. You can't draw them together. That's weird."

We definitely can't say things like that, cuz it'll come off as homophobic, wouldn't it?? Or if people draw something like this--

Changing Naruto's gender and making fanart of him and Sasuke together. Making fanfictions of a girl Naruto and shipping him with Sasuke. They ship these two boys (who aren't even a couple) but would prefer if one of the genders were switched. Didn't nobody make a big deal over this (as far as I know anyway) no matter if they were a part of the lgbt community or not. Nobody cares if they're straight, what gender they are, or if they were a couple or not. All they know is that they like the thought of them being a couple.

So why is it when someone switches up a queer character's gender and sexuality to heterosexual, it's suddenly criminal???

Here's another example--

(Sorry to whoever drew this. I don't mean to repost your art. I just found it off google.)

Angel Dust is gay and Vaggie is a lesbian; PEOPLE SHIP THEM!!! There are a lot of fans who draw these two together despite their sexuality. You don't see nobody going, "Uhh Angel Dust is gay. He can't like Vaggie and Vaggie can't like him."

So shipping a gay character with a lesbian character is fine and shipping straight characters with the same gender is okay. So why is it wrong for the op to make fanart of something like that??

[philhoffman]

I just stumbled on an article by film professor Caetlin Benson-Allott called "The Queer Fat of Philip Seymour Hoffman," originally published in the book Millennial Masculinity: Men in Contemporary American Cinema and it is FASCINATING. Here's an excerpt that lays out her basic thesis:

In these films, the actor manipulates his physical breadth and weight as well as his gestural scale to draw the viewer’s attention to how compulsory heterosexuality marginalizes certain lives and bodies. These physical techniques help Hoffman visually exceed the fat male stereotypes of his early career, stereotypes that coded his body as immoderate, less than masculine, and thus most suited for minor roles, comedic turns, and pathetic losers. In such cases, fat male stereotypes rely on stock meanings attached to the actor’s stockier build. Hoffman transcends these roles with nuances of movement and deft exploitations of gesture and in so doing illuminates the process through which overweight male bodies are made unintelligible by a filmic culture that denigrates fat genders even among the gender and sexual alterities that it occasionally exploits.

Hoffman’s physical acting exemplifies the gendered as well as sexual potential of gesture and performance, for he uses his corpulence to visually refuse the traditional masculine-feminine gender binary and dramatize orientations and physical expressions of the body otherwise excluded from heteronormative American cinema... In each [film], he offers another version of what has remained a pale, overweight male body... As James Lipton notes, these relentlessly physical performances suggest that “Philip Seymour Hoffman may be the archetypal sex symbol of our time” in that he gestures toward new approaches to representation for marginalized sexualities and genders.

She goes into a deeper analysis of PSH's roles in Twister, Boogie Nights, and Mission: Impossible III, mentioning a few other performances throughout and focusing on how he used his body to challenge cinema's traditional ideas about fat male bodies and sexuality.

On his role as Dusty in Twister:

Hoffman must still perform the invisibility traditionally associated with fat bodies on-screen or risk violating Twister’s already tenuous verisimilitude. The genius of Hoffman’s performance is that he manages to do both by exploiting the cultural unintelligibility of obesity; he uses the spectator’s own tendency to dismiss fat men to camouflage Dusty’s narrative centrality. Because Hoffman is the only overweight actor in this film, his girth emphasizes Dusty’s position as the film’s fool, which helps disguise his formulaic responsibilities. Hoffman’s weight opens up a dramatic tradition through which he can exacerbate his character’s hedonistic qualities and conceal his intelligence and manipulative capacity. By making his body both overly visible and easily overlooked, Hoffman obscures Dusty’s generic necessity.

On Scotty J in Boogie Nights:

Hoffman orients Scotty’s physical expression of his sexuality around his belly. Because Scotty is written as inarticulate and suffering from unspeakable desires, Hoffman uses his body, specifically his largest and perhaps least mentionable feature, to communicate Scotty’s unmentionable orientation. Hoffman thus borrows a technique from gay male fat pornography and “displaces erotic pleasures [or their symbolic representation] from the genitals and disperses it to other parts of the body, thereby reconfiguring what can count as a pleasurable body.”

On Mission: Impossible III:

In contrast with Tom Cruise’s strong jaw and hard muscles, Hoffman’s relaxed flesh becomes a manifestation of his confidence; Hunt is tense, but Davian is at ease. This lack of visible affect exempts Davian from the tradition of fat villains whose bodies incarnate their overabundance of desire, appetite, or greed. His smooth contours and the reflection of light off the broad planes of his golden skin allow Davian to transcend associations of his body with appetite as he refuses to show interest in Hunt’s interrogation or subsequent threats to his mortality. Hoffman’s elimination of gesture thus helps Davian become a new kind of fat villain, one whose body suggests a lack of interest in the physical world rather than an excess thereof.

Pleaseee seek out this article if you have any interest in Phil's work and physicality—it's one of the most detailed and intriguing pieces I've ever read on him and I'd loveeee to talk about it, the good and the bad. You can download the PDF for free on academia.edu but if anyone has a problem getting it... just DM me lol. Wrapping this up with one excerpt from the conclusion bc I know Phil has taught ME a lot about "being in one's body," as the author says, so I love seeing that in print:

Hoffman’s body offers a new vision of male embodiment outside compulsory heterosexuality, an alternative use of the flesh we might even consider queer. Kathleen LeBesco has observed that the queer and fat liberation movements share many similar projects, but watching Philip Seymour Hoffman suggests that in some cases fat is queer... [Hoffman's] movements propose a new way of being in one’s body, for even within the highly structured heterosexual order of Hollywood cinema, Hoffman helps us envision the body outside normalizing gender strictures.

[krirebr]

So, I've been going back and forth about sharing this here but it's really been dominating my thoughts for the last two days, and while I've talked about it a lot with friends, I'm hoping that writing everything down will help me process things. And maybe other people, especially aspec people might be able to relate.

I mentioned on Wednesday that I'd had a really terrible evening that had really shaken and upset me. Below the cut, I want to share what happened.

TWs for references to depression, aphobia, exclusionism, and bad therapy (there's probably a better word for it but I'm not sure what it would be.)

So some of you know that I started this year with a pretty intense depressive episode. It was bad enough that I had to take a leave of absence from work and pretty much spent that whole time crying in bed. It's taken a lot of work over the last few months to get myself back to a more stable place. A big part of that work has been regularly going to therapy.

I went to therapy on and off as a kid and in college, but not at all since then. All of my previous therapeutic experience was long before I came out as aroace. There's a long, ongoing history of aspec identities being medicalized and pathologized and that's something I was very aware of while looking for a therapist this time around. But I was also really desperate for help. So I chose as wisely as I could and crossed my fingers.

I chose a queer therapist who specialized in LGBTQ issues. I told them I was aroace in my first session and while they didn't seem very familiar at all, they also didn't make me overly explain myself or want to focus on that rather than the very real and urgent issues I had come to them for, which is what I'd been most worried about.

As I continued to meet with them weekly, they would sometimes ask questions about it, and while it was pretty clear they didn't really get it, they were respectful about it and it wasn't interfering with the help I actually needed.

That brings me to my appointment this Wednesday. I didn't have anything really pressing to discuss so they asked about my plans for the week and I mentioned that I was getting my hair cut and I was excited because I've been feeling lately like my hair is really hetero (I use that word instead of straight because my hair is so, so curly 😂) and I was looking forward to having queer hair again. They stopped. "Wait," they said, "I'm confused. Why did you use that word to describe yourself?" It had never occurred to them that aspec identities would be considered part of the queer community. They, in fact, had an incredibly narrow definition of the word queer - gay, just gay. And they didn't consider asexuality or aromanticism to be orientations at all.

My memories of the following conversation are pretty jumbled, but some highlights included such chestnuts as "What if you meet the right person one day?", asserting that the A in LGBTQIA+ stands for ally, there has to be a sexual component to romantic relationships, and "everyone has to have attraction, humans are sexual beings." They also said that we should dig into my childhood going forward because they were sure there was something there that caused this. I had a pretty traumatic middle school experience (bullying and some psychosomatic stuff that stemmed from that) and they were pretty eager to blame all that for this.

I became increasingly defensive and combative as this conversation went on (which if you know me, isn't like me at all). It ended with us both feeling very bad and uncomfortable.

I think they kind of came around a little bit by the end. They seemed open to educating themselves and even sent me a link to an article they'd found after our session. And that's great, I guess? But the whole thing made me want to crawl out of my skin. I cried a lot when I got home.

I'm not exactly sure what to do from here. My initial plan was to go next week, talk through what happened, offer some context for why I had gotten so defensive, and discuss together whether this was going to be a good long-term fit. But that's feeling less and less likely the more I think about it (I haven't been able to stop thinking about it). This is just such a big part of who I am. And it's a part of myself that I like and am proud of! And I just can't imagine a situation where I would ever feel safe talking about this aspect of my life with them. And I don't really want therapy where I'm constantly having to censor myself. So do I even go to my next appointment? I really don't know.

I know there's a lot of hopelessness in the aspec community around getting mental health care and I really don't want to add to that. I don't want to believe that we can't get help for our actual issues without mental health professionals just wanting to fix things that don't actually need to be fixed. And I hope that's not the moral or ultimate outcome of this story. I've talked to my very lovely network of queer friends and several of them have already said that they'll reach out to their contacts to find some recommendations for me. I deserve to get the help that I need in a space that is actually safe. And my need isn't as urgent as I was. I can take my time now to find someone I'm fully comfortable with.

I'm not sure exactly why I shared this. I don't always get so personal on here. And some of you have already heard it (thank you for being such good friends, seriously). But it's just been festering inside of me for the past two days and I really needed to share it. Thank you for listening.

[genderstarbucks]

do you know a feminine male flag?

Femboy, also known as tomgirl, rosboy, janegirl, or calicogirl, is a term for gender non-conforming mingender and miaspec individuals who present femininely in some way. This often refers to clothing and external appearance, but can also sometimes refer to the way one acts, the way one communicates, what interests or hobbies on has, etc. This term has more to do with gender presentation than gender identity, but some femboys may be fingender. (link)

Femboy + Femman (link)

Femboygender is when one has a main masculine gender, however they feel as though feminine presentation and concepts best define one or all of their genders. They may consider this a xenogender, as they may use femboys as a metaphor to describe how their gender feels, rather than what their gender presentation is. (link)

Meriboy / Pomboy is a boy/man/etc who's feminine, androgynous, otherwise gender non-conforming and soft in some way, or who performs masculinity in a soft way. this includes gender identity, presentation, mannerisms, etc. (link)

Plutoboy is a broad term that describes a connection to femininity and/or being feminine, and a connection to boyhood/manhood and/or being a boy/man/guy. (link)

Lavenboy is a queerly feminine boy; someone who both considers themselves male and has some significant connection to queer femininity, either in their gender or expression; a boy aligned with queer femininity; an umbrella term for all identities that involve being both male and queerly feminine. (link)

Rosboy is a term for a feminine boy or man. Rosboys consider themself a boy or man, either from having a connection to boyhood/manhood or desiring to be outwardly perceived as boys/men, but also have a connection to femininity also can be feminine in some way, whether that be in gender or in presentation. (link)

Roseboy is a soft, overly feminine boy who typically dresses in soft, flowly skirts and dresses and things of the like. Roseboys can be cis, transmasc, transfem or nonbinary, as long as theres a connection to being a boy. They can also be gay, straight, bi or any other sexuality. (link)

Janegirl is a boy who behaves in a typically girlish way. (link)

[animehouse-moe]

Pride Month Week 4 Recommendations: Broader Horizons

I really wish there was more weeks in June so I could recommend more things, but we're nearing the end already, so I can't give every genre/aspect the attention they deserve. Though similarly, a lot of non BL/GL manga is missing from the NA industry, so sadly there's not a wealth of series to talk about. But! I hope that with the limited licenses we have, and the ones that I recommend, people will buy more of these titles and encourage publishers to bring more of them over! So, with only a little further ado, the recommendations for this week.

As I just said though, the further ado first. This week's charity is Outright Action International, a charity focused on LGBTQ human rights violations at a global scale

Doughnuts Under A Crescent Moon

An office romance with an incredibly fresh perspective? A series about a romance between two women that isn't overly sexualized? The check list keeps growing and growing with this story that explores the challenges in regards to romance for both the working women that lead this story. Hinako is all over makeup and the latest trends and trying to find a boyfriend, but can never convince herself that she's in love. On the other side, Sato is a woman who throws herself into work and taking care of her younger sister, never leaving another thought for the concept of love or attraction. But what happens when this pair that can't fit the normal definition of "love" cross paths?

It's a really beautiful story that keeps expectations low, and wonderfully explores the challenges of not just adult romance in society, but romance that exists outside the norms. Not just in regards to two women loving one another, but how they love each other. How they express it, how they struggle with it, what they feel is right or wrong with how they're with each other. It's an incredible story about exploring asexuality and attraction, and does so in a very heartwarming and positive manner.

Our Dreams At Dusk

Tasuku is a teenager that desperately wants to keep his sexuality under wraps, but struggles because of a crush he has on his classmate. Through his anxiety, and wandering through this new city he's moved to, he's discovered by "Somebody", who owns "The Lounge", a gathering area for LGBTQ+ people. Within this small community, Tasuku explores his own sexuality while learning about the experiences and challenges that others have faced.

I was recommended this story by a friend ages ago, and decided to pick it up without knowing anything. I read it all in one go, and then read it all again a week later. In just four volumes, this story explores so many different forms of gender identities and sexuality, and does so through incredibly beautiful metaphors, and endlessly important (though very realistic and potentially painful) interactions and conversations. If there's a single queer manga out there that people feel like they should pick up, it really should be this one.

Last Gender

Bar California is a space for people of all different genders, orientations, interests, and sexualities to gather and shed the forms that they carry through daily life in society. Whether it's to explore themselves, or enjoy a night free of inhibition, Bar California is frequented by many customers, and this manga details the stories of those patrons.

Similar to Our Dreams At Dusk, Last Gender explores a plethora of characters through uplifting, challenging, emotional, and unresolved stories. Repression and lashing out, working up the courage to tell your loved ones, finding the right person or experience for you, it's stories about the realities that LGBTQ+ people face in their lives, and the stress and emotions and challenges that stem from it. It's a very mature story, as it features nudity and sexual acts, but in doing so refuses to avoid the harsher reality of a lot of these stories. Because of that, if people want something that takes a deeper and more grounded look into LGBTQ+ people and communities, this is a great starting point.

Boys Run The Riot

Need I say more? This list wouldn't be complete without Boys Run The Riot. A harsh but incredibly powerful story about the journey of a high school student named Ryo, and their outlet through fashion to express themselves and their story.

It's poignant, it's very candid, it doesn't shy away from truth or issues within the LGBTQ+ community, and it brings the story into society. It doesn't separate Ryo's journey from what's around them, but rather allows their journey to build upon and grow alongside the other characters that form their friend group. It presents it as another story of this world, rather than something that's separated and isolated from what's considered "normal".

X-Gender

X-Gender is an autobiographical manga about the author's journey in exploring their sexuality and gender identity through their adult years, with a dash of comedy, and a healthy helping of adult content.

Relatively straightforward, it details their experiences in coming to understand themselves and who they feel the most comfortable as, and is really informative for both people that are in the process of questioning themselves, and those that lack understanding of these types of experiences. I think it's a really great look at a candid retelling of learning the ins and outs of sexuality and gender identities, and finding the labels and banners that someone is most comfortable associating themselves with, so I definitely think people should give it a shot.

And that's all I've got for this week. In the realm of manga that exists outside of BL/GL, there's a world of information to cover, and I'm super glad so many titles cover vast swathes of information. But at the same time, I feel like there's a very large vacuum in regards to these stories in "typical" settings. A lot are informative or autobiographical, and it's only outliers like Doughnuts Under The Crescent Moon, or the super outlier Boys Run The Riot, that the approach is fictional and more traditional. So I really, really hope that people will pick up these titles (and other similar ones not listed in this list) and show publishers that we want more of these types of stories!

[azuremist]

A long while ago, I saw a post by a transfem blogger criticizing those who post openly about how they hate “(animal)girl(body part)” tumblr URLs, saying that, “It starts off as jokes and light commentary. But eventually, it’ll spiral into transmisogyny, all because of transfems doing something harmless that makes them happy, even if it’s slightly annoying to you.”

I remember seeing that post and thinking, “Well, that’s a bit overdramatic, isn’t it? It’s just a few people saying they don’t like this thing that transfems do sometimes. That doesn’t have to evolve into bigotry.”

But over Twitter the past few days, people have started REALLY ragging on transfem humor.

It started with a piece of art made by a transfem, which made that “having sex with a pumpkin” joke popular with transfems (especially on places like Reddit). That post got blasted with people saying that they found this joke annoying and overly-sexual. Which, like, okay, I guess.

But then, cis people began to promote their art in the replies, saying stuff like, “I make art that isn’t hypersexual / perverted!”

But then, people began to harass transfems in r/egg_irl (a huge gathering place for transfems to share their memes).

But then… God, the Twitter activists came on the scene, and it was over. Justifying everything happening, sparked by transfem in-jokes, by saying that actually, it’s problematic. Do you know how many Tweets there are saying that r/egg_irl (a community of transfems who are sort of unfunny sometimes) is the fucking AUTISM SPEAKS of trans activism? You know, the place that advocates for autistic eugenics!

Yeah, transfems making a few little jokey-jokes on Reddit is DEFINITELY comparable to literal eugenics, dude.

And eventually, another piece of art with a popular transfem in-joke got dogpiled. Except this time, it was a harmless piece of fanart of a transfem character baking, with the saying, “You need to crack a few eggs to make an omelette!” And people (including queer people!!!), who had gotten so used to attacking transfem humor at this point, began to blindly say that this was a “violent” turn of phrase. That the art “promoted forcing someone to admit that they’re trans”, and that ACTUALLY, “egg” (a term BY trans people, FOR trans people, used mostly by transfems, meant to describe an unrealized trans person) was a TRANSPHOBIC TERM.

So, after witnessing all of this go down in real time, you know what?

No. I was wrong.

It really IS that easy for a simple “I don’t like this mildly annoying, but harmless, thing that transfems do” to evolve into insane levels of unchecked transmisogyny.

So, yeah. If you see a trans woman being sort of “cringe”, or unfunny, or something… If they’re not harming anyone, then consider minding your damn business. Everything that transfems do is put under a microscope and criticized. Don’t be one of the people who adds onto that.

Just let them be.

[edgelordtozier]

I find the fics where Steve doesn’t know what bisexuality is and has to use Robin as a sort of mentor are so fucking annoying but I tend to put up with it because it’s such a common trope in steddie fics (unfortunately)

I have so many issues but one of my main issues is the fact that Robin is used as Steve’s gay mentor, which is a terrible trope of lesbian character coaching their queer male friend and oftentimes it just feels like they’re infantilizing the male character and making the female character be like overly invested in her male friend’s identity or personal issues, as if they don’t have lives or issues of their own. It feels like the lesbian friend only exists to be her queer male friend’s mentor and nothing else

What’s even more annoying is that in half the fics Steve doesn’t even reach out to Robin with is issue, she just goes out of her way to tell him this information and for what? Because she “suspected” something? She might be his best friend but she would know that you just don’t do that when it comes to someone’s sexuality because it’s literally a form of outing them and forcing them to talk about it when they’re clearly not ready, abd that’s only IF you’re correct

Another thing that’s annoying is the way that people act like Robin is this fountain of wisdom and knowledge for the queer community when she’s a teenage girl in a small midwestern town in the 80s, like if anything, she would be just as clueless as Steve is in some of these fics

idk it just feels kind of sexist to infantilize Steve in such a away and have Robin (who is literally younger than him) solve these issues for him especially when it’s a common trope in multiple mlm focused fandom spaces

Sorry for the rant

you are so right!!!!!!!!!!!

i especially agree with your point about robin in a lot of fics essentially telling steve that he's some form of queer rather than letting him come to this realization and work through it on his own. it's such a huge reoccurring thing and it really irritates me. her not even asking most times but telling him this and basically outing him is not only just like awful but also super out of character for robin.

"It feels like the lesbian friend only exists to be her queer male friend’s mentor and nothing else" is sooo real. robin's role in a lot of steddie fics is almost always only serving as a way to force the story along through pushing steve full throttle towards some sort of self-realization that she does not need to be solely responsible for at all. nor would she be! it's crazy to make her one purpose be making a guess about her best friend's sexuality that then sends him into a whirlwind lmfao.

and about robin being a genius on queer culture; it's something that has bugged me for so! long! the fics where robin is explaining hanky code or whatever to steve like she'd have any fucking clue what that means either is so incredibly funny to me. like not only is she a teenager in 80s indiana but she's also not at all in that scene??? why would she know anything about it????

it's such an annoying little thing that shows up in so many fics and it's been driving me crazy lately i'm so glad you agree LMFAO

your ask is way more nicely put together than my input lmaooo you're a genius!!!

[myriadeyed]

See the thing about all the misanthropy stuff is. I've always related to computers, monsters and aliens more than human characters in sci-fi stories. But specifically i've always related to computers, monsters and aliens who like and love humans. Who admire humans and who have hope for them and who take inspiration from them.

Sci-fi likes to do a certain trope a lot where they have the nonhuman robot/computer or alien or Etc. character hate humans, find them repulsive or pathetic or crude or etc. etc. I'm not even talking about stories where nonhuman characters lash out in response to mistreatment by humans. I won't lie and say i never relate to those characters too. Because i do, because i get it. But ones where they look down on humans for being human? Robots or AI who find humans laughable because they can't do things as quickly or because they bleed when they're hurt. Aliens, somehow always overly logical geniuses, who patronize human characters for not being an "advanced society" or for being prone to frivolous emotions. Werewolves who feel condescending disgust at humans simply because they aren't as physically strong; vampires or elves smugly laughing at the pitiful lifespan; dare I even start on tropes of angels and demons.

At the point you feel superior for the sole reason that they are human and you aren't— why is this better, how is this radical? These tropes involve the same feelings that a lot of humans have toward other beings, projected ideas of how every sapient thing would probably feel if they were in some way physically or intellectually superior... feelings about the very idea of superiority and inferiority that have been used to hurt me, in actual real life, when my disabilities or ethnicity or sexuality designate me inferior. I am not going to feel "superior" to anybody after growing up as a queer autistic Jew—and the Jewish part of all this is essential here, I think, considering everybody reading this is probably queer and autistic—knowing that superior and inferior are not things that even exist, especially when applied to people. They can't be and shouldn't be.

IDK where i'm going with this. You can feel whichever way you want. I'd rather misanthropy be rampant in the community than for everybody to feel like they're required to have or voice some sort of saccharine optimist-approved hopepunk "faith in humanity." G-d knows i'm not an optimist, let alone faithful. This is all just stream of consciousness now but i guess i'm saying in a way not only do I relate to fictional nonhumans who care about humanity, that's just kind of what I literally am. I'm not human and i admire humans for what they are. Not just that. I recognize what they are; a completely neutral type of being without inherent moral or ontological significance, just like everything else. I don't think i would go as far as to wish I was human like narratives for these characters often do, but I just can't vibe with misanthropy. Humans started naming all the animals they saw. Humans came up with music and tea and made bananas really good. Humans wrote down all the things that happened to them so the future could know about it. Humans wrote stories where computers and animals and aliens are their friends just so they could feel less alone. How in the universe could you ever decline the offer?

[homosexualasstransbian]

im transfem/nonbinary and honestly the whole cutesy uwu anime girl puppy girl aesthetic is making me feel ill. i recently got harrassed by a cis woman chaser who saw the transflag in my bio and started talking to me in this really weird overly cutesy way and started flirting with me, i told her im taken and not interested and this is weird and she said something like "oki u silly transie, if u ever need a girly to do something for you im here, cuz nornal girls are boring" and then the next day she sent me some image of some anime girl w/ the caption "im not like other girls, i have a massive cock" and asked "this u?" and she was so weird and gross and overly cutesy. and like the fact im trans is part of me and im proud of it but i want to be seen as me, as a person, as smthn beyond arbitrary boxes. thats why im nonbinary, i dont wanna be forced into some made up vague perception of how i have to be and instead just be me and do my own thing. i dont label my sexuality either but im pretty sure im like pretty aromantic. greyromantic or whatever its called. and my sexuality i kinda tie together with my romantic attraction, so its often incredibly odd to me how prevalent sexual language and stuff is online and how weirdly its treated as smthn normal, especially in more queer communities. and when i feel terrible and get support online, ppl will say ooo ur pretty ooo ur cute dont be sad and downplay it when i need someone to talk to qnd need to be acknoledged beyond how i physically am, it makes me feel rlly objectified and like my only value is in the fact that i am trans and how i look, and its my only thing and the only way ppl refer to me and boil me down to. but i dont want to be some cutesy meme girl, i want ppl to acknowledge me and what i do and like and love and enjoy and hate and dislike and think and say, i want to be seen and understood regardless of and beyond my transness. because im a raw, living breathing human person thats infinitely complex, and i just wanna be me and do what i enjoy. i dont want my personality boiled down to superficial aspects of me that exists solely because outside society needed a label for it to ostrasize or fetishize it. im sorry for the long rant its just rlly frustrating, especially when you try to find communities and its just so weirdly sexual and condescending and objectifying 😭

hey unfortunately, i do not have the mental capacity to be able to read all of this and actually respond to it, i just lose 80% of the ask once I'm finished reading, so I'll just say: damn fuck that cis bitch.

While i get that after your experiences this "aesthetic" might make you feel ill, i really don't see why i should be told this.

I do not choose the way i present to other people because it's what i feel i should look or act like, i act however feels good to me. the reason my blog looks like this is because, put simply, i like it.

I may not be just a puppy, girl or gay, in fact the most accurate way to describe me would be "thing that should not be alive as far as anyone knows, but it persists, it's also a puppy that is a girl, a robot, a void and divine flesh"

but i go with my current aesthetic, username, and whatever else because they're the descriptions I'm most confident in, they make me feel nice, i love them.

I am quite literally a tranny girl faggot that acts like a puppy sometimes.

Sometimes i feel like I'm a shattered vessel built of divine flesh that's empty and yet so completely full.

Sometimes i wish my flesh melted away, permanently fusing me with the outer shell of a mech.

None of my identities are fully separate or stable, but they also feel distinct enough that i only choose one at a time (and even then sometimes they can split apart).

I don't act like this because i wanna be "haha silly cute trans girl that's an adorable puppy and is so so overly sexual", it's just what i act like, in general, if I don't worry about pretending to be someone else.

I guess put simply: if you don't like me: fucking leave, block me, get rid of me, i won't hold it against you, I'll continue to do what i like, the way i like doing it, because this is my blog.

i forgot where i was going with this post, y'all just get this really long one i guess.

[gingerrroot]

a (re)introduction

hiiii~

you can call me ginger.

US-based, white, cis, disabled, queer, survivor in my 30's.

my expertise lies in trauma and sexual violence, and i studied to be a clinical mental health counselor, but that's not what i am actually doing for work. i work as a bartender at a community-focused nano-brewery, and as an assistant to a local construction/renovation company that focuses on historic buildings. i used to work at a pig boarding facility and foster home, with one of the leading experts in mini-pigs, so i also know a lot about them.

my interests include love, beauty, community, growing, learning, reading, creating, cultivating, nature, eating, sleeping, video games, tv, my pets, pickles, pigs (the animals), astrology, parapsychology, and my husband.

i do my best to tag things appropriately if you filter certain content, for whatever reason. for example, food will be tagged, bugs/insects/creepy crawlies will be tagged, any posts related to violence of any kind will be tagged. if they are my own posts, they will likely also contain a read more.

all newly uploaded media will contain captions or a description in the alt field, or in the body of the post.

my boundaries are below, TLDR: i can and will block you for any reason, don't get overly familiar, rude, or cross my boundaries.

you do not know me. we are not friends. (unless you do, and we are). i am not here to build a parasocial relationship with anyone. not every single aspect of my life, thoughts, emotions, or relationships are fully represented here for you to have a full and accurate view of my life. i am a human, please treat me like one, and approach in good faith, and i will do the same.

please do not message me with trauma dumping, oversharing, or asking for personal information.

if we are mutuals and/or interact regularly, these first two do not apply to you, but i do ask you to Ask before divulging trauma.

if we are mutuals, and/or interact regularly, you are free to ask for other forms of contact, just let me know your username and such bc i won't know who you are if it's not the same.

i am not interested romantically or sexually. do not sexualize me or get sexual with me. yes, i used to sell content. if you are trusted, you can have access to my stash for a price. if i decide to post more content, it'll likely be here for free.

i am no here to debate or argue, please do not follow me bc you want to keep tabs or talk shit. if you've got something to say, please say it, or just block me.

if i am incorrect, misinformed, or have reblogged or posted something that is a scam or bigoted: PLEASE tell me! please engage in good faith. i will happily remove the post and learn more, where applicable.

please do not repost any of my content without my permission! just ask, and credit me (link to the original post, or tag me). if you're not going to write *good* alt text/a *good* image description, you may not repost anything (feel free to copy/paste the original image description and edit it).

you DO NOT have permission to repost/upload any of my old camming content, should you have or gain access to it. please be respectful and keep it where it is.

[elatedandexasperated]

So RWRB was a movie with some discourse...

In all honesty, the discourse has bugged me more than any issues with the film itself. I get a film adaptation not living up to personal expectations set by a book is... a response that people have, but the fact some people have been trying to convince people it's not worth watching bothers me.

Don't get me wrong, I've seen all of the love for it too and I know the antis for the film are definitely in the minority. No one can control how anyone relates or who is allowed to enjoy a piece of media, but the sheer hatred I've seen from some of the people on here for the film hurts a bit to see. The arguments seem to be no deeper than "x character was removed" , "there's these plot holes" and "it's too formulaic" that last one of which I feel was kind of the point: it's a formulaic romcom so that queer people can have a fairy tale romance story like the straight ones that get shoved down our throats from a young age by companies like Disney. McQuiston, an NB writer, has gone on record stating that a huge reason why they write is to feature queer identities and make stories that people like them would have liked to read and feel represented by when they were younger.

If this was a straight Hallmark romcom (which tbf, it basically is in terms of story structure, and I low-key love it because of that) it wouldn't have made so much as a blip on most people's radars. But because it features queer characters the threshold for scrutiny seems to have been dropped to the floor (insert "Get Low" joke here). I can get having criticisms of the film, I have a few myself, but the attempt to convince people the film is bad and to disregard it as a whole because of them ignores the positive qualities, what the film means to people in the queer community, what its success can lead to in terms of representation for underrepresented people in the community (Ace, bi, NB, trans, etc.), and an understanding of intricacies that go into adaptation.

At the end of the day, this film was competently made (and in my opinion, well made) by a gay director with an inclusive team and a deep care for both the source material and an understanding of what the film would mean for millions of viewers. It featured experiences and themes that are common to many people in the community with several very poignant messages that actually have huge metatextual implications with the film (The "forced conformity of the closet" quote sticks out in particular to me: the number of op-eds speculating Nick and Taylor's sexualities and how they've been mum about them makes me think a lot of people missed that one; also looking at you, people that forced Kit Connor out of the closet 😒)

The film is a celebration of love featuring characters that people like me and others in the community can relate to. Is it formulaic? Yes. Did they remove some characters to try and create a tighter narrative focused on the main romantic pair? Yes. Is it overly cheesy and so unrealistically sweet that it will give me diabetes? Delightfully so.

So ending on a positive note, I just want to run down some things I've loved about it:

- An mlm story with an actual happy ending that features adult main leads! (Credit to youth stories, they're important, but as an adult it's hard to relate to teenage characters sometimes)

- The charisma both TZP and NG just radiate throughout the movie

- Sarah Shahi eating the absolute SHIT out of every scene she's in (Touch her and die)

- Same for Rachel Hilson

- Uma Thurman and Stephen Fry (enough said)

- The acting overall was fantastic

- The care and work put into intimate scenes and inclusion of an intimacy coordinator

- On a personal level, I loved seeing parallels between Alex and Henry's relationship and the relationship I have with my husband. For the first time in my 30 years I actually see a little of myself in an uplifting and happy piece of media and not portrayed as a dramatic tragedy, villain, or inconsequential background character.

Tl;Dr if you didn't like the movie, that's your opinion. I'm not here to try and convince you otherwise. But please stop trying to convince people it shouldn't be watched. Regardless of your opinion, this film means a lot to a lot of people, including the author of the original book! Just let us enjoy this imperfect, but tasty cheese with our w(h)ine ❤️