#and yeah I still identify in some part with womanhood because that’s how I was raised

[the-worms-in-your-bones]

Truly nothing in life has been more freeing than being weird about my gender and not giving a fuck about what other people say

[hauntingofhouses]

Thinking about the crazy love triangle situation in Blue Eye Samurai and debating heavily with myself on how I'd like to see it conclude. And yeah this discussion can be thought of purely as shipping, headcanons, and fandom fun. But when analysing the show and engaging with it in a more in-depth, almost-literary level, it's impossible to dismiss who Mizu's potential love interests are and how different endgame romances would affect her character arc and the overall story and themes.

So in this post I'd like to look at the love triangle a bit more closely, and speculate on where the story will take this.

DISCLAIMER: It is my personal interpretation of the text that Mizu is non-binary—I use this as an umbrella term denoting any gender that does not adhere to the binary restrictions, norms, and expectations of what it means to be either a man or woman in a particular society; it's not just an androgynous "third gender" that exclusively uses they/them pronouns. Thus, while I personally believe Mizu is not strictly a cis woman, she does still identify with womanhood, despite definitely feeling a level of detachment from it due to living as a man for so long. With that being said, I will be using she/her pronouns for Mizu in this post, but please note that this is purely personal preference. Everyone is free to interpret the text the way they like. That's the fun of fiction. Now, without further ado, let's proceed.

Okay so, thinking about the pairings on a purely surface level, and even before i got into the show, I was pinning my hopes on some lesbianism going on between Mizu and Akemi, and the show does hint at this; in Ep1, during their first encounter in Kyoto, there is the famous slow-mo shot of their eyes meeting, Mizu's lips slightly parted as she is unable to tear her gaze away from Akemi, while sweet string music plays in the background. This is clear romantic framing, and a marker of attraction. If Mizu was a cishet man, there would be no question that this is a potential love interest.

But then, in the same episode, we meet Taigen, who is introduced to us firstly from hearing Akemi's father describe him as "a fierce and undefeated young samurai", the "best swordsman in the best school" and "a fisherman's son from Kohama [...] whose rise reminds [him] of [his] own."

In the next scene, we meet him in person as Akemi's fiance, and he seems sweet enough. He even gives her sweets! In exchange, Akemi gives him gold, and he feels a bit ashamed that he doesn't have anything better to offer her. But Akemi accepts him and his gift wholeheartedly and flirts with him a little, which makes him smile kinda shyly.

When Akemi confirms their engagement, Taigen is in disbelief because he has no status or noble background, but Akemi reassures him.

So from these first few scenes, we're introduced to Taigen as an honourable and strong samurai, but also as a man who is sweet and gentle with the woman he is about to marry, as well as aware of his own inferiority when compared to Akemi's high station.

Our view of him then changes as his true self is revealed: he is an arrogant and smug bastard among his peers, but more importantly, he is the terrible bully from Mizu's childhood.

And it is this side of Taigen--pompous jerk and unrepentant xenophobic bully--that we continue to see as the show goes on, and it's safe to say that this is his real self, sans any pretense of humility and modesty. Around anyone who isn't an outright superior in terms of class and power (ie. Akemi's father, the shogun), Taigen never hesitates to assert his own authority and "greatness."

But as the show goes on, he gets caught by Heiji Shindo's men, and then tortured. And that's when we see, okay, turns out he's not that bad. He's honourable; "honour" is not just meaningless and superficial pedantry for him, but an internalised, guiding principle.

He was a cruel asshat throughout Mizu's childhood, but in a prejudiced and xenophobic society, he was just playing by the rules. As a child, he knew he was at the bottom of society, but when met with someone even lower ranked than him (Mizu), he can project all those prejudices and insecurities onto someone else. This way of thinking--"if you can't beat 'em, join em"--is what allowed him to climb up the ranks despite being some dirt poor kid from an abusive household*.

*Well, that combined with his cismale privilege of course, because this would not be an option for a woman in similar circumstances.

Thus, his upholding of honour also exemplifies how Taigen embodies the ideals and rules of his society. His insistence on duelling Mizu is another more blatant example of this. He doesn't want revenge like Mizu does. He wants to be accepted by society, within the bounds that society has placed, and that means that his only two options following his defeat at the Shindo dojo were to either chase Mizu down and get his damn duel, or kill himself for his humiliating defeat.

Now! Moving on from Taigen, let's go back to the other end of this little love triangle: Akemi.

Mizu and Akemi only properly meet in Ep4. During their first meeting, when Akemi tries to poison Mizu in Madame Kaji's brothel, she compliments Mizu's eyes, calling them "beautiful."

This seems to genuinely take mizu off-guard for a second before she coolly plays along. We know that Mizu recognises Akemi from the get-go, and thus sees through Akemi's ploy from a mile away. It's also safe to assume she'd expected false flattery, because Mizu understands full well that this tactic is how women get what they want: by using their 'feminine wiles' and playing up their naivety and innocence. But even so, it's interesting that Mizu actually seems surprised by Akemi's compliment.

Then, after Mizu subtly taunts Akemi by lying about Taigen's death, she and Akemi have a bit of a scuffle, and then we get to Mizu saying this:

"Women in our world don't have a single good option. Except you, like some magical forest creature. You could have anything you want, but then you beg to eat trash."

(no screenshot because it's quite a long line but you get it)

Here we see Mizu's opinions on the marginalisation of (mostly poor and under-privileged) women stated outright, and underlying her words is also resentment. Because even though she and Akemi have shared experiences of female oppression, Mizu, unlike Akemi, was also poor, from a rural village, and is a racial minority. Mizu is triply oppressed, while Akemi only faces one primary form of oppression, and to someone as embittered by the world as Mizu is, to see Akemi "beg to eat trash" is a slap in the face, practically tone-deaf to the other injustices around her--injustices which Akemi has not shown much, or any, acknowledgement for at this point.

Then, after this scene, Mizu kills Kinuyo, and this unsettles her to a degree we've never seen from her before. She is visibly distraught, and the entire sequence hammers the theme of this episode (and arguably, a large portion of the show) into our heads: women in this world suffer. And even though Mizu is well aware of this fact, to commit this act is so visceral that is shakes her to her core, and it's what ultimately leads to the ambush of the Thousand Fangs.

But before the ambush, Mizu and Akemi talk a little again, and during this time Akemi taunts Mizu some more.

Right now, Mizu is exhausted to the point where (I believe) she even downs some sake, despite not usually drinking. Thus, worn down, she cuts Akemi's ropes and tells her, "Just go." Akemi recovers from her initial fear of Mizu's blade and taunts her some more, accurately seeing through Mizu's facade of coldness, recognising the raw anger there, and says this:

"I thought you had to be something special. Your face isn't even so scary. You're just... angry."

At this, Mizu is amused and compares Akemi to Taigen ("I see why he likes you. You're just like Taigen when we were children. A fucking brat.")

The reveal that Mizu and Taigen knew each other in childhood surprises Akemi, but before either of them can say more, everything goes to shit.

That's when we get to Ep5. This episode focuses primarily on Mizu, the central piece of this love triangle, and does the most out of all the episodes to shed some light on her character and goals, fleshing her out to be more than just the vengeful, highly proficient samurai we've seen thus far (symbolised by The Ronin), but also a person who is capable of love, domesticity and gentleness (symbolised by The Bride). But in the end, Mizu rejects both these ideals, instead becoming an Onryo, who is neither guided by pride/honour, nor love.

By 'reincarnating' into an Onryo, Mizu is able to win the day and save the women in the brothel. However, as she has now fully embraced her status as an Onryo, and is exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally, she lets the Tokunobu clansmen take Akemi away while Akemi's screams echo in her ear.

Mizu says this choice is for Akemi's own good, that Akemi's better off; because Mizu is jaded and weary, and cannot afford the luxury of idealism, and thus must always be strictly practical and realistic. So of course that's why, in her view, yes, Akemi should not be wasting her time in a brothel where women are exploited and abused, nor should Akemi be so naive to think that her marriage with Taigen is even still possible. However, regardless of Mizu's views, it is not for her to decide, because though Akemi is privileged in some sense, she is still trapped and voiceless, and deserves the right to choose her own destiny.

But as it happens, in the end, though Akemi did not choose who she gets to marry, she DOES get to choose her next move when Edo burns down.

"I want to be great."

This one line is the key to her entire arc, which is only just beginning. We see she quickly has acquired the affection and good graces of the shogun's son after their wedding night and consummation, and with Madame Kaji and the girls now serving her, Akemi will only grow to become a prominent political player.

NOW, only after analysing the characters as they are within this season, only can we speculate how their arcs will continue as the show progresses.

First and foremost, I will reassert the popular opinion that Mizu and Akemi are foils. The climax (pun intended) of Ep7 illustrates this as it parallels the turning points in both Mizu's and Akemi's arcs:

Mizu melts the steel of all her loves and shames, the people she's collected: the broken blade wielded by both Chiaki and Taigen, Akemi's knife, Ringo's bell, Master Eiji's tongs - this symbolises her beginning to accept herself, and in doing so, also accepting the help of others;

Akemi consummates her marriage with Takayoshi Itoh, gains his affection, and cements her position as a woman in the shogun's palace - this symbolises her taking charge of her situation, no longer playing the damsel, but using her position to her advantage, empowering both herself and the underprivileged women around her.

These are thus two directly contrasting, diverging journeys:

Mizu's arc moves inward (yin). It is an internal path of self-love and self-discovery, focused on finding peace and tranquility inside herself, and this involves allowing herself to let others into her life, opening herself up to friendship and empathy once more.

Akemi's arc moves outward (yang), it is an external path of growth, transforming from a naive, caged princess to a powerful woman and a force to be reckoned with.

Akemi is always dressed in red, even her eyes are a bit of a reddish-brown rather than brown-black like most other characters, and in her penultimate scene she stands against a backdrop of flames. She is fire: quick-tempered, passionate, full of energy. Red is powerful, authoritative, and in eastern cultures, it is associated with prosperity.

Mizu is blue: her eyes, her sword, her clothes. She is also named after water; it's where she goes to recover, reflect and meditate. Water is fluid like a brook weaving around a stone in its path, always changing and adapting, it is graceful, it is beautiful and ruthless, tranquil yet swift.

Thus, in the future, I expect we will see plenty of political manoeuvring and intrigue in Akemi's plotline, where she fully embraces control of her life, and begins to take action to help others as well, realising that her own oppression is just one piece in a much larger picture. Her main conflict is with society.

In direct contrast, Mizu's main conflict is with herself. She must realise that her desire for vengeance is a projection of her own deep-rooted self-hatred. Her arc must move towards unpacking her feelings and trauma so she can be at peace with herself and allow space for love in her heart. Because as we saw in Ep5, Mizu had come extremely close to achieving peace and joy, as she had not only loved Mikio, but also had briefly believed that Mikio had loved her (and accepted her for who she is) as well.

Thus, assuming the story is not planned as a tragedy, Mizu will likely end up getting her vengeance, but it will not satisfy her, because it is not what she needs. What she needs is to let go of the Onryo within her and to reconcile both The Ronin and The Bride within herself, as she is both a fighter and a lover, but not a monster.

(Edit: I recommend checking out this post by @stylographic-blue-rhapsody for a much clearer analysis about Mizu'a symbolism as Ronin, Bride and Onryo!)

And now that we've mostly covered each of the characters individually, we can finally get to the main point of this post: the love triangle.

--

Let's talk about Option A: Akemi.

As I covered extensively earlier, Mizu and Akemi are foils, a yin-yang pair. But while they play off each other very well in a thematic sense, I personally believe that a serious romance between them will be more complicated if they become endgame. This is because Akemi's natural resolution is to embrace a position of power and influence, where she has both freedom and control over herself and to make much-needed changes in a prejudiced society. Meanwhile, Mizu's natural resolution is the opposite; her happy ending would to find a peaceful life where she is safe and free from prying eyes, and able to be her true self.

Thus, it would make very little sense for Akemi to forfeit power and run away with Mizu and start a humble life together. Akemi wants to be great, and that is absolutely what she deserves. On the other end of the spectrum, it would also make little sense for Mizu to dedicate her life in service of Akemi, such as acting as a bodyguard or something similar, because a life in a palace full of court intrigue and conspiracies is far from what Mizu needs to be happy.

With that being said, if Mizu/Akemi is endgame, and assuming their overarching character arcs do not shift directions, their love story would likely be either tragic, doomed, or bittersweet. I do absolutely love this type of story because personally I'm a sucker for catharsis, so it would be very interesting if the writers do decide to take this route.

Also, as a note, please do not take this as me dunking on this pairing. This is just my personal opinion and analysis and I completely understand if you disagree!

--

Then, of course, we have Option B: Taigen.

Between Akemi and Mizu, Taigen is a bit of a free-floater here, because Season 1 leaves off at a point where his arc is very ambiguous as to where it's headed. While Akemi climbs for greatness and Mizu goes on a journey across the ocean to (presumably) discover more about her heritage, we have little clues about where Taigen is headed. And if I'm being honest, I'm sure he has no idea either! He still hasn't reclaimed his honour, so he would be unable to rejoin the Shindo Dojo; he's been rejected by Akemi; and while he showed loyalty to the shogun, the shogun is now dead, and all the shogun's men who had witnessed his "humiliating" death were left to die by Lady Itoh, who is now pulling the strings within the palace.

Therefore, Taigen has very few options here.

And when considering his role in the story is as Mizu's begrudging ally, his arc will undoubtedly be focused on unlearning his xenophobia and misogyny, the latter of which we have not seen yet, but is surely present. Now, whether he will do this in Mizu's presence or absence will be unknown until we see Season 2. Following the Season 1 finale, he might return to Kohama and wait for Mizu there as he learns humility and remorse over his past cruelty; or maybe he will follow Mizu to London, and the two of them will continue to butt heads until he finally admits to himself that he cares for Mizu more than he would like to admit. There is no room for doubt that his growing feelings for Mizu are more-than-platonic, because we all saw him get turned on by sparring with her in Ep7 lol. Thus, regardless of the exact choice he makes, I am sure that his overall arc will be focused on redeeming his character.

Now, when it comes go redeeming him, I know there are many who simply don't want him redeemed because he was such a jerk to Mizu, and while yes I agree he was awful, I do believe there is also nuance to his character.

Previously I've discussed in great detail the colour and elemental symbolism with Mizu and Akemi, but have yet to touch on how they relate to Taigen. So, let's talk about that for a second.

While Akemi is red and Mizu is blue, Taigen is green.

Green is a complementary colour to Akemi's red. Complementary colours are directly opposite each other in the colour wheel; when mixed, they neutralise each other, but when put side-by-side, they form a pleasing and impactful contrast that boosts the brightness and prominence of both colours. This mirrors Taigen and Akemi's relationship. They are an "ideal" pair because they complement each other very well, and bring out each other's most prominent traits. Mizu's comment about their similar "brattiness" comes to mind here.

Green is also an analogous colour with Mizu's blue. These colours are sitting right next to each other on the colour wheel; their natural similarity makes it easy for them to form a cohesive overall appearance, but using both in equal amounts will make a design overwhelming and too busy. Thus, the best way to use analogous colours is to make one the dominant colour, while the other will serve as an accent. I feel this also speaks to the dynamic in Taigen and Mizu's relationship. They came from the space place, both from nothing; they're both strong fighters who love the sport, and work well together when fighting side-by-side; however, they butt heads too easily, mirroring how analogous colours can be too overwhelming when used in equal amounts. Thus, to work together in harmony, one has to be the dominant colour, while the other serves as the accent. In this case, the dominant force would be Mizu, as she is the protagonist of the story, while the accent would be Taigen.

By fulfilling this role as an "accent" to Mizu, Taigen's character would easily be slotted in as a the love interest. This is in contrast with a Mizu/Akemi relationship, whereby Akemi is Mizu's foil before she is Mizu's love interest. This is because, by being a love interest, a character usually takes a backseat in the story, serving the plot and the themes by playing a purely supportive role, and this is not possible in Akemi's case because her character exists to parallel and contrast Mizu (red and blue), and not to support her.

It is possible to serve as a supporting love interest in Taigen's case however. And this is because he, unlike the other characters, does not currently have a definitive place within the story. He initially served the plot as an antagonistic force, but now as he is slowly unlearning his prejudices and becoming a better person, he can no longer serve the story by acting purely as a rival.

Instead, he will serve the story by literally supporting Mizu. And this relates to Taigen being earth, which is steady, firm and reliable, unwavering in loyalty and principles, hardworking and rooted in stability, which is seen in Taigen's staunch and inflexible obedience to the traditions and rules of society. These traits are what make him a perfect samurai, but not a good man. However, unlike most people in their world, Taigen is still capable of change and redemption, which is why Mizu says that he has the potential to be great. Not great by way of power or glory, but great in character. Already, he is honourable to a fault, and does not betray Mizu even after she technically robbed him of everything he was striving towards. And when he was shot by an arrow in the chasm, he did not hesitate a second to tell Mizu to use him as a human shield and save herself.

The trigger for his redemption is Mizu. If she had never beat him in that duel, Taigen would live on to become a man like Akemi's father. Cruel, power-hungry, controlling, conservative. But through Mizu, Taigen's sharp edges are ground down, much like water that wears down the stones in a river.

Where Mizu and Akemi's possible love story would be a clash of wills, full of passion and even heartbreak, a possible love story between Mizu and Taigen would be the wearing down of souls. Mizu would make Taigen a better person, and in turn Taigen would dedicate his full respect and support to Mizu as his equal, thus getting her to slowly open up and love herself. Already, Taigen has grown enough to admit (begrudgingly, and in his own Taigen way) that Mizu is better than him; though, clearly, he still has a long way to go, as he still calls Mizu a demon shortly after that.

But basically, Taigen is a very simple man (his main goal now is "to be happy"), and Mizu has great depths that he cannot yet fathom. For this love story to work, it has to begin with Taigen changing for the better. If he succeeds in that, and is able to accept Mizu for all her complexities, I believe that they will make a formidable pair. And though he'd likely still throw a jab or snarky remark at Mizu every now and then, I think he'd come tl wholeheartedly admire Mizu as a brilliant swordsman and a kind soul. Thus, should things work out and this be endgame, Taigen would be able to provide Mizu with what Mikio could not: an idyllic life that is not built on a lie, but mutual trust, respect, admiration, and equality.

Or hey, maybe they could both make their own dojo together! I don't know.

(Edit: This post by @rinandsketches does a great job at delving into Taigen's character and a potential Mizu/Taigen relationship if you'd like to read more about this angle!)

--

Now, as I move on from Taigen, there are a couple more options on how to resolve this love triangle and that includes Option C: Ringo.

In this option, Mizu does not have an endgame romance with either Akemi or Taigen. In this route, she finds peace and love through friendship, solidarity, and a found family between herself, Ringo and Master Eiji—a bunch of outcasts in society who make a strong trifecta of sword-makers.

Also, as an aside while I'm talking about Ringo, I'd like to point out that I believe his element is air and his colour is a neutral grey; he is talkative, easy-going, wise, curious, light on his feet (stealthy) and free-spirited, which are all traits linked to air, and traits that complement Mizu nicely, as he is capable of getting Mizu to open up and trust others again, while Mizu helps him reach his true potential for greatness.

--

And finally, there's Option D: Polyamory.

This is basically an "all of the above" option, in which everyone wins and it's a super duper happy ending. It would also be awesome to get some polyamorous representation, and seeing the dynamic between Akemi/Mizu/Taigen play out would be very entertaining and refreshing. So, you never know, this just might be the true endgame!

--

AAAAND with that, I close my extremely long analysis of what is essentially Mizu's love life. Whatever the final outcome of this love triangle though, I just hope it will be well-written and satisfying to all the characters' respective arcs. (Also I just want Mizu to be HAPPY goddamn it because she deserves the world and her coochie eaten out)

Now, I highly doubt anyone will read any of this (especially not until the end!) but that's fine. I just have so many thoughts and feelings about this show and I just needed to get this out of my system lol! But if by some miracle you did read this far, I wholeheartedly welcome any sharing of thoughts and ideas because man am I obsessed with this show! But of course, if we have an opposing opinions, please be respectful when letting me know; I am very open to friendly discussions.

[butchpeace]

Hi I have a question! I agree with most of what you say on your page and it's such a relief to find someone else that thinks that way, and I'm sorry if you answered this before but I'm just really lost rn and I wanted to ask for advice. I'm a 18yo female and I usually identify as agender because I hate the concept of gender and the fact people judge me based on shit like my appearance, or when they assume I do stuff that are considered "traditionally feminine" because I'm a female. It makes me so annoyed and I feel like people don't understand how such a big part of the way we act and think and what we want is affected by phaucolooand socialization. I actually needed to explain to someone why girls don't naturally like pink.

I think the reasons people are trans are because they 1. Want to experience the world through a different gender (women want to escape misogyny and gender stereotypes ect) and 2. People associate personality traits and qualities with biological sexes bc of gender so if I feel more masculine I believe I'm a man because I'm my head being out society idea's of musculinity is being male. Perhaps some people would still feel like they belong in a different body if that wasn't the case but yeah.

I'm just rumbling rn, sorry, I did want to say though that I hate being seen as a women. I don't think it's internalized misogyny, I did consider it but I don't think there's anything wrong with being a female or doing traditionally feminine stuff, I don't think men are better, but I there's a part of me that wishes I was born a biological male to escape. I think that's how a lot of women feel. I hate calling myself a women because nowadays it feels like a personality type rather then something simply biological, and I don't care who people want to be but I'm just confused about myself and others and what I think.

For me, I'm simply me. I'm a human being, I happen to be female, it affects me when I go to the gym or when I go to see a doctor, and that's it. I have a personality and hobbies, I don't care if they're traditionally what or who I like what I like. I'm a person. But people seeing me as a women, putting me in that box of liking pink and being sweet and nice and all that traditionally feminine stuff, it makes me feel so fucking bad. I tried to convince myself I'm just trans but it didn't feel right, nothing is ever that simple imo. I don't know exactly what I'm asking for, but I'm just tired. I know everyone will always see me in a way I don't want to be seen and I wish gender didn't matter as much as it does. It's unrealistic to abolish gender rn, and we also shouldn't, the world isn't ready for that and people wouldn't actually change the way they look at people and just use it to their advantage. I think if we were to do it, we'll need to do it slowly. But idk I'm just about to start uni and I feel so lost, every time I talk to someone about this I feel like they hate me, no matter I'm which side they are. Every time I try to question why people are trans people get mad. I'm not saying you don't feel traditionally feminine, I'm saying you're rn biologically a male and the reason you want to be a female is not being your soul is, saying you feel like a women is saying being a women is one thing you can actually feel like you are, which is in a way, upholding gender rules. Fuck I hope I made sense, I just really need an advice and I read a lot of stuff in your page and I really need your opinion on this please. Have a good day!!

- 🎃 anon

I don’t think you’re as confused as you think you are!

Who you are doesn’t fit neatly into society’s box of “woman”. You hate how people stereotype you just based on your sex. You’re a whole unique person, not a caricature of womanhood.

You’re right that this is the way most women feel. And it’s the same reason why so many other women are identifying as something else now too.

You probably feel it to a greater extent and more often than other women do because you fit in with the stereotype less. But almost all women understand that feeling. Ask anyone you know, she’ll have a story about when she felt that way too. Even the most feminine ones.

You’re right that it’s not internalized misogyny - It’s actual misogyny. You hate the effect that actual real life misogyny has on you. You hate the way misogyny has created this narrow definition of “woman”. You see it more clearly than lots of women do, so you feel it more.

Identifying out of womanhood isn’t the answer. That’s not really gonna do anything tangible. Even if you took hormones, you’ll still be a woman.

The answer is to be completely yourself. Don’t change or diminish yourself in any way. Don’t try to fit in. Show the world that women can be like you, and they just have to accept it.

[skrunksthatwunk]

you go to a lesbian blog and find it says women only!! no men allowed!!! and go oh! excuse me, um, what about other lesbians? plenty of lesbians are genderqueer... and they go well, okay, go fuck yourself tim chop off your sweaty dick and stop calling yourself a lesbian. you do not have a dick, actually. you think about that fact often, even though it does you no good. you do not tell this person that.

you go to another lesbian blog and it says women only and you try again, and this time they change it to wlw + nblw only (non-men who love non-men :D). and you'll say hey i appreciate that but gender's not really that cut and dry for a lot of people. someone could be both a man and nonbinary, for instance. i just worry that you're looking at nonbinary as a generic third gender, or an extension of womanhood. i mean yeah you include nblw in your tags but all your posts are about pussy-havers exclusively. what's with that? and they say go fuck yourself you pervy man pretending to be a lesbian. you tried to sneak in but i won't let you.

so you go to a lesbian blog with a dozen or so posts about queer people needing to be more weird about it and you sigh in relief. but you still see the men dni. that's odd. hoping for the best, you say hey! i know you mean well but please maybe don't put men dni at the end of the lovely posts on your lesbian blog bc some lesbians are men. and they'll be like ok!! well you're allowed ;) and you say no that's not. no. some men are lesbians not just me. you think about your own dicklessness and wonder if that's why you were given entry. and you add that even if male lesbians are allowed, there's no indication of that. how would anyone know without asking? and they're like ohh gotcha gotcha well men dni + this is for sapphics only!! and you'll be like ok well that treats the concepts of men and sapphics as mutually exclusive identities and i just told you that's not true and you agreed with me so.. i don't think that solves our problem. and they're like. ok. fine. men dni but genderfluid and multigender people are allowed! and you're like no see that's. that's still the same thing.. you're saying the same thing just with different words. if you don't want men to interact but you're fine with multigender/genderfluid/etc ppl interacting then you either don't see them as Real Men (because they don't reach a standard of Full Manhood) or Complete Men (because they're only Part-Time Men), both of which suggest that they are, in some way, not men or less-than men, which is invalidating and defeats the point of the exception in the first place (accommodation) OR that you don't really mean the dni which is confusing and inconsistent and makes guydykes feel weird and uncomfortable and excluded from the lesbian space you're trying to cultivate. and they're like um. ok. so. cishet men dni? and you're like well i think that makes more sense, but what if someone identifies as both a cishet man and a sapphic? again, if we're trying to accommodate the genderfucky populace then that has to be a possibility that is considered. and they say god you people are never happy. what do you want me to do? what am i supposed to say to keep the right men out? and you pause. you empathize with the need for a space free from dudes trying to fuck you straight and feminine. dudes who watch lesbian porn and joke about what they'd do if they were allowed into girls locker rooms. who look at you like a piece of meat, and like someone who looks at women like pieces of meat in the same way he does. you get it. you know. you want a space where you can be sapphic, too. that's why you came to these blogs in the first place. you brace yourself and you say well i don't know that there are "right men" to keep out. i don't know that there's any single label that would accomplish whatever it is you're trying to accomplish. you could go for "sapphics only" or "queers only" and i think that might be the closest thing to what you want, but it's never going to be perfect. creating any exclusive space is going to shut out people you didn't account for, and the broader the label, the more people will be shut out that you didn't want to shut out. and what about people who don't know if they're allowed? what of questioning transbians, where are they supposed to go? and, frankly, i think i might rather my dykey posts get read and appreciated by a gay guy who sees me as a man than a woman who only sees me as a sacred womb, pure from male perversions or violence or whatever. i think community might just be more complex than a dni can handle. and they look at you and say i don't want to not have a dni. i think you're too permissive. you can't just "what about" or microlabel your way into everything. go fuck yourself, i bet you're not even a lesbian anyway. go find a real problem to get mad about.

you go to a lesbian blog. you ignore the men dni because you know you probably don't even count to them. or maybe you do count and, out of respect for your manhood, they'd shun you accordingly. you try to feel okay about that. you scroll past dozens of posts about mediocre men and gagging at straight friends' boyfriends and how gross and undeserving men are of the beautiful women they couple up with and how all women should be gay so they can get treated right and and and and and. you finally find a post about curling into someone you love and feeling at peace and try to lose yourself in it. you know that feeling is what unites you, what makes you belong. you try to focus on it. you think about carding your hands through a butch's hair or lacing fingers with a femme and feeling warm and loved and more yourself than you ever have before. like this is who you're meant to be. you read about lesboys and butch boytoys and genderfucky dykes and big hairy deep-voiced wonderful women (like you want to be someday, like you wish you could make yourself) and you try to ignore the men dni underneath each and every post. and you daydream about meeting someone kind and earnest at a lesbian bar even though you don't think any such bars exist within three states of you and you can't drink and don't want to drink because you need to be in control of yourself at all times so you don't fuck up like you're always about to and here in the nonexistent lesbian bar you feel wanted and safe and in good company. you picture your ideal, happiest self. it is a mistake. ideal-you has a goatee. not the mascara one you smear on and call drag even though you know it's not drag, not really, the beard you call drag because you think everyone would look at you sadly if you told them it was just to pretend you had something out of your reach. a beard that's soft and that you grew and that cannot be smudged away if you get too comfortable with it. the dream shatters. your people pull away from you, their scoffs mixing with the mind-numbing gay girl bedroom pop you learned to settle for just to have something that almost resembled you, they all pull away and turn their backs and do not look at you. you're too close to being a man now, even though you're the same amount of man as before. and they know you're not supposed to interact with men, not as you would with dykes, at least. and it sours. it's all your imagination, all in your head, but it sours.

you sigh. you think about how small you are. how short, how narrow, how feeble. how your voice pitches up when you talk to strangers because it's easier to speak quietly when it carries more, and because you're nervous. because it's a chore to talk, like everything is. you think about testosterone. you think about how your family would look at you, the questions they would ask, your answers they would only pretend to accept. the uncomfortable glances and whispered questions they'd try to hide from you. you think about how small you are, and how small you will always be. how you don't know of a way to fix it, but even if there was one, no one would want you anymore. you'd be the only one thinking it made you a cooler dyke. you think about how you don't even want a T-voice all the time, how you'll never be able to switch it at will, because you don't know how and can't bring yourself to figure it out. you think about how your throat closes around every hint of your own attraction. how wanting is perverse, how wanting is invasive, how wanting is embarrassing and too vulnerable so it must stay anonymous, as an online witness, and how you can barely manage to form or maintain friendships because your brain makes you pull away, always spinning out and struggling to recover from the simplest of interactions. how they'll all leave you and you won't chase after them at all and how that will hurt them. how stuck you get. how it looks like nothing's holding you back, how that frustrates everyone who thought you were going to be more than you were. the people you love who understand except when it comes to being ghosted, being shut out. how you don't want to hurt them. how you can't tell them that because you're stuck. how you turn to stone when touched, how you never reach out, how you lose your speech and can't look at people, how your autism is fun and sexy until it becomes real and you never see them anymore, how much you longed for someone who knew everything without you having to explain, and who loved you anyway. how unreasonable you know that is to expect of anyone. you think about that not-even-real lesbian bar. you think about how you still can't drive. how you can't leave your home on your own, without dragging somebody into helping you. how you can't leave your body. how you can't leave your manhood behind.

you think about finding another lesbian blog and ignoring everything. about skimming it for the parts you can juice some meaning from. the parts men ignore and don't understand, and how typical of you it is to do so. or the parts where you're not welcome and you should accept that, because it's for lesbians only. how you are a lesbian anyway. how you're meant to choose lesbian or man, how each is a betrayal of some kind to yourself or your people, your family, your lovely strangers, your rare friendly acquaintances. about the parts that tell you you're not wanted, that you're ugly and lazy and gross and insert yourself everywhere without even asking. about the parts that tell you you are hated, and how lesbians are above it all by rejecting men. how lesbians are each blessed miracles. about the parts that say you should be ashamed of being whatever twisted confused freak you are, of everything, of looking and wanting or not looking or not wanting, of picking and choosing instead of taking it all in with a smile. after all, shouldn't you take it? or is your ego too fragile, as men's so often are? aren't you tired? good. we're not here for your consumption. and we sure as hell don't want your company or "community" or whatever. didn't you read the sign? no boys allowed. and if you want to come in you have to make up your mind. as if you haven't told them the only answer you have. you're both. you're both.

you know you broke the rule by interacting.

but it gets lonely sometimes. you wonder if they know.

[henrysglock]

transfem henry fic... ive been saying estrogen would've fixed her

I have sooooo much to say re: Henry and femininity/womanhood...especially in the way that his story is a traditionally "female" one (i.e. him being stolen with the goal of exploiting him to produce children)/and how differently Henrietta Creel would have been received as opposed to Henry Creel in terms of the "evil" label vs the "traumatized" label and the difference in amount of sympathy/compassion that the two of them would have received (knowing that Henry received little to no sympathy or compassion from the fandom in large part because he's a man).

But also just to be clear, Henry in this fic is transfem as a result of his bad childhood. Having had it beaten into him that he has to be normal, and that not being normal is bad/wrong, we see him latch onto normalcy as a shield—especially in terms of romance.

Thus, with the premise of this fic, it becomes Henry going "What's more normal? What makes me a more 'normal' person?" and having to choose between "There's nothing wrong with me physically, I'm just gay/It's something 'wrong' with me as a person" or "There's nothing 'wrong' with me as a person, I'm just a 'normal' woman trapped in a man's body through no 'fault' of my own".

And a lot of that boils down to cognitive distortions, deeply internalized homophobia, the ingrained culture of "being gay is a choice you make/you're choosing to be a 'degenerate'", and the idea of using "I was just born wrong/It's not something I can control, thus I am not a 'bad' person" as a mental shield to avoid having to confront the fact that he's actually just a gay man who doesn't want to admit that he's gay.

He will confront it eventually. Trust. At which point, however, it becomes an argument of "I'm going on 40 years old, I've been living as a woman—stealth, no less—for half that time, and it's not something I'm uncomfortable with/I'm comfortable in how I look and how I'm addressed...so isn't it just easier to go on that way rather than potentially uprooting all of my relationships over a non-issue?" and how presentation doesn't necessarily = gender/the concept of non-dysphoric transness and how being perceived as a man or a woman is immaterial for some people, so while they may identify as one of the two, it doesn't particularly matter to them if their body and presentation match that identity.

Henry can go "...yeah, I think I was just afraid and confused about my homosexuality, and I think I really was a man all along, but at this point I'm comfortable in who I am and how I look, so there's really no need to detransition" and turn a fearful, regressive thought pattern into a decently progressive one via self-acceptance. He might not be a woman, but if presentation isn't a source of discomfort for him, then why fix what ain't broke? He knows what he needs to know about himself, and ease of existence takes precedence—especially in the Reagan era, when being openly queer was dangerous. (I say as if it isn't still dangerous...but I digress)

It's also a commentary on the detriments of forced conformity and how it can push people into the "wrong" labels/identities, and how putting those kinds of pressures and restrictions on children can lead to mental distortions that they'll be forced to deal with later—whether it be forcing themselves into lavender marriages or delaying their transition or becoming confused as to which "type" of queer they are based on what they can accept themselves as within the frame of mind that was imposed upon them...while also addressing the understanding that it may not always be an unhappy thing, even if it's not "correct" for them/queer people can find a way to be comfortable even if the labels they live with are "wrong", and that your happiness takes precedence over using the "right" words (staring at everyone who gets in a snit over Iesboys)/it's okay to be confused about yourself as long as you're happy/etc.

(and if anyone wants to start shit over me writing a fic like this, know that I'm pulling a lot of these cognitive distortions from my own personal experiences as a trans guy who definitely talked himself into thinking he was just a straight woman. i'm writing about real life and lived experience. so kindly screw off.)

Anyway :3 sorry to ramble slightly off topic but I love talking about the scaffolding behind my fics

[oreganosbaby]

I believe that Kendall would call Shiv a TERF in an argument as a gotcha and she would get very angry and defensive about how of course she considers herself to be an ally to trans people in some vague nebulous way, while Roman who does not know nor care what a TERF is keeps deliberately riling up both of them from the side for fun

Ok this is difficult because it really depends on the context that this gets brought up. Like, the way Shiv would respond depends on how the topic of trans people has made her think about her own gender. Shiv's relationship to womanhood is quite complicated and I do still think she doesn't not identify with it but, she also doesn't feel any strong connection to it either. She would see the social conditions of womanhood as imposed on her but, her womanhood proper as being unimportant; however, I think that she also thinks that womanhood isn't a choice you can make because the conditions imposed on her are misogynistic. There's no reason she'd choose that because it's obviously disadvantageous but, she also doesn't feel any desire or need to not be a woman. Really, I don't think she thinks very hard about this. If she thinks about it for more than like 10 minutes, the transphobia sets in, though.

Since I made that list, I've thought more about how transphobic each character would be and well, Kendall has more potential than I initially thought but, it really could go either way depending on the context. I'm mostly saying this because I remembered that weird comment he made about Roman jerking off in Rava's panties. It was pretty mean and he's lucky Roman didn't hear that but, it's obviously one of those things where Shiv and Kendall attempt to bond over not being "perverts" like Roman allegedly is. The interesting thing here is how Kendall frames Roman's perversion. Him saying that Roman gets off on feminising himself (not being forcefemmed by someone else) is... cutting it real fucking close. Kendall identifies Roman's perversion as being tied to his femininity but, he can't really understand what that means. So, it becomes that Roman fetishes his own femininity which obviously, isn't really true. Roman desires to be seen by others that way but he's not attracted to femininity itself.

I think Kendall doesn't understand the point of wanting to be wanted in that way despite subconsciously also wanting that to a significantly lesser degree. Like even outside of sexuality proper (though this is obviously tangentially related), Kendall sees himself more as being Daddy's Best Knight or whatever even though that's obviously still submissive. Kendall thinks this makes sense and if they didn't live in Logan's world, yeah it does. Roman, however, wants to be Daddy's Little Princess and that's a role that doesn't fucking exist so, it's kind of unthinkable to most of them. The Roys would probably all share the opinion that this hypothetical role is inherently degrading. Shiv is not that because in Logan's mind, she's basically an angel because to him, she's practically the metaphysical essence of purity (until she reminds him that she is a person with her own mind). Shiv doesn't have a body and her use isn't in her body either aside from some vague acknowledgement of her being a cis woman via being his Only Daughter. Roman's hypothetical use as Daddy's Little Princess would be (in a purely platonic aesthetic sense), at least in part. Logan, of course, would never ever subject any of his children to the horror of knowing your own body (even though conceiving them already did that). Logan would NOT call a child, let alone his OWN children, "cute" because he is NOT a sicko pervert nonce.

[lowresolutioncryptid]

About the replies on your post about womanhood not being defined by biology, I think I get why people are upset over you assigning specific traits to womanhood, because it’s also the same thing terfs do. I know you were just using examples as you explained and weren’t intending to generalize, like I get that wasn’t your intention at all. But if you just read it without knowing your intention it can come across that way, because womanhood shouldn’t and can’t be defined by any specific traits. Womanhood is what any individual who identifies as a woman makes it

Yeah I agree. A woman can be whatever she wants to be. That's the point of the post.

Yeah that was said multiple times by terfs who regularly assign Biological traits to All women and they were upset about Personality traits being assigned to womanhood, and every time I explained clearly that the point of the post is to take that hyperfocus off of women's bodies. if I made a completely exhaustive list of femme qualities it would be too long of a post, so I used a few examples to highlight the original point: that women are worth more than only their bodies, and that regardless of how their bodies look they are still women. I said this publicly dozens of times, so the context and intention is there for anyone to see that looks past the surface level, and those that don't are already looking for something to be upset about so fuck em anyway.

if I'm being honest I can't write off them being upset as only confusion, because each time there was a deliberate attempt to distract and deflect away from how those (admittedly very subjective and personal) examples relate to the original point, and a clear effort on their part to reinforce biological traits as the defining qualities for women After they opposed personality traits being highlighted instead in my post. So Im not going to take responsibility for their hypocrisy and excuse it as confusion, I already explained myself. some people just choose not to listen.

[goosemixtapes]

ok i’ve elected to just Make The Damn Post My Damn Self because i need something to link back to when i inevitably get into arguments about this because i have run-my-mouth disorder. so. slightly-more-generally-applicable companion piece to this post:

“but how can lesbians use he/him pronouns???!?1???”

1: pronouns =/= gender.

one of the arguments i see a lot with this topic is “pronouns = gender, & saying otherwise is transphobic.” i GET this, because pronouns are important & often correlate with gender, but saying pronouns = gender is oversimplified. pronouns are a method of gender presentation - same as clothing, name, & so on & so forth. society genders all of these things, but names & clothing do not prescribe gender. a man, cis or trans, who decides to wear a dress does not become a woman because of the dress; a woman, cis or trans, with a traditionally “masculine” name (ex. bailey, taylor, cameron), does not become a man because of the name. closeted trans people, if they must use names and wear clothing correlated with their agab, are still trans & are still the gender they are.

yes, most binary-gendered people choose clothing & names that “match” their gender, but some might not! think of butch lesbians -- they are women, just deliberately gendernonconforming women. pronouns are the same way -- the majority of men use “masculine” pronouns, & the majority of women use “feminine” pronouns, but this is because pronouns are a form of gender expression/presentation.

“pronouns =/= gender” does not equate to “i can misgender whoever i want.” pronouns should always be respected.

2: nonbinary people can use whatever pronouns they want.

this follows from #1. yeah, i’d say the majority of nonbinary people use they/them pronouns. but not all nonbinary people dress totally androgynously; some present more feminine or more masculine. the same is true for pronouns. nonbinary people may use she/her or he/him pronouns as part of their presentation - think of jonathan van ness (uses primarily he/him) or rebecca sugar (uses she/her along with they/them). this isn’t even getting into neopronouns; that’s a whole different post. the point is that restricting nonbinary people to they/them pronouns really misses the point of identifying as nonbinary: it’s not a third slot in the gender binary; it’s the general state of existing outside or partially outside of it.

(note: cis people can also use whatever pronouns they want. some cis lesbians use he/him; i’ll get to he/him lesbians a few slots down, but i just want to make it clear that sometimes cis people also use pronouns to express gender nonconformity & that’s their business & the same idea!)

3: lesbians can be nonbinary.

nonbinary =/= totally genderless. sometimes, for some people, it does mean that! but not for everyone. see #2 again, on trying to make nonbinary a strictly defined third gender.

(note: this doesn’t only apply to lesbians. this honestly applies to anyone. i’m just talking about lesbians because that’s My Lane.)

lesbians in particular often have complex relationships with gender, & have for literal decades. as womanhood is to a large degree constructed in contrast to & in relation to manhood, lesbian gender has kind of taken on its own thing since we just... are never in relationships with men, ever, which muddles the whole thing up. (also, womanhood is often a generally uncomfortable and muddled thing because of, you know, misogyny, so there’s that.) thus, a lot of lesbians feel disconnected from “womanhood” as an idea.

a lot of people like to protest nonbinary lesbians by saying “but a lesbian is a GIRL who likes GIRLS!!!1!!” yes. we... we know. the thing is, though, that if any nonbinary person identifies as a lesbian, they are probably close enough to womanhood to count as a wlw! the term “lesbian” automatically brings “women who love women” to people’s minds. if a nonbinary person is uncomfortable associating with womanhood at all, literally why would they use that term. it stands to reason that the people who DO use that term feel at least a tangential connection there.

a lot of lesbians define their gender solely as “lesbian.” in my own experience, the ONLY connection i feel toward womanhood is liking girls in a gay way. the attraction i feel toward women is gay attraction - i am attracted to women who like women. i do not want to date a straight woman who sees me as a man. if i didn’t like women, i wouldn’t have this connection & would probably identify otherwise - but i do like women & as it is that’s pretty much... what my gender is. (this is why people may say their gender is “butch” or “femme” -- it’s the same idea of a gender defined by attraction & the way you relate to women!)

for some people, nonbinary does mean totally genderless. for others, it just means anything that isn’t strictly binary. hence why some lesbians may consider themselves nonbinary - not entirely woman, but woman enough to be a lesbian. an example in layman’s terms: you know how “berry” lacroix tastes like it maybe saw a berry, once, from a distance? my gender is lacroix and the flavor is woman.

4: lesbians can thus use whatever pronouns they want.

i think this one is like... a geometry proof. #2 (nonbinary people can use any pronouns) + #3 (lesbians can be nonbinary) makes this one pretty simple. while the rest of this post will be about he/him lesbians, because that’s what i see the most “discourse” about, lesbians can use she/her or they/them or he/him or it/its or xe/xem or Any Other Pronouns They Want. Any.

5: “but why would a lesbian ever want to use he/him pronouns?”

people who ask this are usually asking one of these more specific questions:

“but if you use he/him, aren’t you a man?” see #1.

“but why would lesbians want to use masculine pronouns when lesbianism is about women?” i don’t know. why do butch lesbians dress masculinely? why do they often use masculine names or nicknames? it’s about the deliberate gender nonconformity, something that has been central to lesbian communities for literal decades. pronouns are another form of presentation (see #1); using pronouns other than she/her is another form of nonconformity.

“masculine clothing and names i get -- but why pronouns? that feels a little much.” i do get this! i used to feel the same way! but the criteria for being a lesbian is like... 1) not a man 2) a woman or at least sort of connected to being a woman (see #3) (yes, this includes trans lesbians, who are not men) 3) attracted to women and not men. that’s the criteria. that’s all.

& i would like to think that some of you have the best intentions. but i would really, really caution you away from trying to disqualify people from iding as lesbians because of the pronouns they use. saying “well, clearly lesbians can wear masculine clothes and have masculine names, but the pronouns are a step too far” doesn’t make any sense -- where do you draw the line? at what point are you trying to define when someone is “too masculine to be a lesbian?” and why do you feel the need to do that?

this goes double for nonlesbians. i’ll repeat: really, honestly ask yourself why you feel the need to do that.

(note: butch lesbians aren’t the only lesbians who are gender nonconforming and they aren’t the only ones who use he/him pronouns! but i’ve found this is very common among butches, more so than other lesbians, + it’s another space where i can speak from personal experience.)

6: “wait but this feels kind of TERFy. are you saying trans men can be lesbians?”

oh no. oh god no. lesbians = not men. trans men = men. (& trans women = women, & TERFS can choke.)

i think there is a misconception among some trans men (especially transmedicalists) that he/him lesbians are trying to tell trans men they aren’t “real men” & thus undermining their identities. the idea is that we’re saying, “hey, look, lesbians can use whatever pronouns we want! thus, you don’t need to transition :) you can use he pronouns and still be a gay woman :)” to which the obvious response is “i’m not a woman and this is transphobic.”

but i... honestly truly have never seen a he/him lesbian say that. we aren’t the same! even if we use the same pronouns, even if we may take some of the same steps to feel gender euphoria (ex. wearing more masculine clothing, binding/going on T for afab lesbians), we are not the same! trans men = men. men cannot be lesbians. he/him lesbians = people who are not men, but have a complicated relationship to womanhood. thus:

he/him lesbians =/= trans men.

there is no correlation.

(note: i lied. there is one correlation. the correlation is friends and allies. trans men i’m on your team and i hope you’re having a good day. my right to exist is not mutually exclusive with yours; we’re fighting similar battles.)

7. “okay, i guess, but i still don’t really get it?”

that’s okay!! gender is confusing as shit (plus this was a long & slightly repetitive post, because i wanted to make sure i covered all my bases). here are some things you can do if you still don’t understand:

a) talk to more he/him lesbians! maybe my explanation doesn’t really do it for you, but someone else’s will! (if you’re interested in lesbian history, i can recommend stone butch blues, which can be downloaded as a PDF from leslie feinberg’s website. the main character’s relationship to gender isn’t quite the same as the one explained in this post -- jess has to use he/him & pass as male to stay safe -- but it’s still a good read that gets into the complexity of lesbian gender. the lesbian mc participates in butch/femme culture, gets top surgery, & later has a relationship with a trans woman -- so, basically, corroborating what i’ve said about how lesbians can do all of these things & still be lesbians.)

b) if you don’t have the time/energy/desire to talk to more he/him lesbians, that’s fine! just respect us. respect our pronouns. don’t misgender us; don’t call us men or say we aren’t lesbians. you don’t have to get it to accept us.

c) here’s a secret. if you still don’t understand, but you are no longer seeking help understanding & you’ve decided to just vibe and respect us without totally Getting It - that is totally fine. you don’t need to tell us this :) saying “hey, i don’t really get it, could you help?” is one thing. saying “hey, i still don’t get it. not asking for help, just letting you know” is uh. is like. um. okay thanks for informing me?? i guess ??

i understand that not everyone will Get It. but if you’re using my pronouns & respecting my identity, i do not need to hear that you don’t actually get it because my gender is super complicated. it is a little, er, how you say, impolite. (again - not the same as asking for help! i’m totally open to answer any questions anyone has.)

_______________________________________________________________________

source: i am a he/him lesbian.

you are allowed & politely encouraged to reblog this post.

if anyone would like to add to this post -- particularly other lesbians and/or trans women (as i’m tme and don’t want to overstep) -- feel free!

if anyone would like to ask me to elaborate on something, feel free to ask in the reblogs, replies, or in my inbox/dms!

if anyone would like to clown on this post and say some lesbophobic or transphobic bullshit without reading what i wrote, please block me, log off, & go trip over something <3

[olderthannetfic]

I wanted to ask you about radical feminism (TERF-ism & TIRF-ism). Radical feminism never seemed to be *necessarily* some of the really bad things that people on this blog say it is. For instance, everything roach-works says it is in an earlier post. There are at least some people I've read who are part of the movement of radical feminism (whether or not they would self-identify as that) and who really don't espouse any of the views in roach-works comments. (1/2) Thinking of the list of points

--

From nothorses - the people I’ve read (e.g. Iris Marion Young) *do* espouse many of these, but not so in a way that has to lead to these more extreme views that roach-works mentioned. One may not agree with them but they don’t seem so bad to me? Are they? Am I a terrible person? It disturbs me to hear something with the word 'feminism' in it denigrated so harshly, and it always seems to me like the views get mixed up with the worst half of the people who believe in them. (2/2)

(Appendix...) I feel there's a lot of truth in SOME of the views that nothorses correctly ascribes (i. m. o.) to radical feminists, in particular: "Women are all miserable with their bodies, cursed with the pressure to reproduce and have sex with men. ... miserable with their genders, forced as they are to ensure the overwhelming and constant suffering that is patriarchy." Is it just that the "all" makes the views too strong? Or is there, for critics, a more fundamental problem I'm missing?

I've seen some much nicer, saner people self-describe as radical feminists and object strenuously to how I see radfems... However, all of them still kept talking about porn in terms that only make sense if you're talking about the evils of the mainstream industry, and moreso the mainstream industry of the 1970s (which is when a lot of this rhetoric comes from). And yet this attitude gets over-applied to porn in general, regardless of medium, working conditions, or level of economic necessity involved in its creation.

The attitudes I think are pretty much universal in this ideology, and universally shitty, come out when they're confronted with fsub content by and for women.

Yeah, yeah, "mommy porn". I'm not saying Fifty Shades of Grey is well written or not kind of embarrassing, but when people start bleating about how confused womenfolk will get bad ideas from it, you should be suspicious, whether they're radfems or fundies.

"The hot billionaire falls in love with me for no reason and does all the work to make sex hot while I lie there like a dead fish" is a common fantasy. It really doesn't say anything about the woman in question, nor does it make the patriarchy stronger.

The big one to look for from nothorses list is #5:

Sex, in particular, is more often exploitative than not. Only some kinds of sex are not exploitative. Many kinds of sex that we think are consensual, or that people say are consensual, are either rape or proto-rape.

This is saying "BDSM is rape", which is something that most radfems do think once you scratch the surface. Rape roleplay is also rape and furthering the patriarchy.

Even if they make some small allowance for informed adults doing BDSM in some strict environment with specific rules, show them 50SoG and women's right to choose goes out the window. Sure, the relationship in the book looks pretty unhealthy, at least at the beginning, but the thing being criticized is readers' right to choose.

Even the radfems who support butchness and don't think butch women are gender traitors will usually be assholes over trashy wank material like 50SoG.

And once you open the door to "your libido is political", you've started down a very dark road that leads to a bunch of naturally kinky tumblr teens sitting in their bedrooms, staring at their computer screens, and wondering if they're a future rapist because they like a/b/o or sex pollen or something.

--

I get where you're coming from. Maybe you're in a context where most women are pretty miserable. But I'm not. I was raised by a mother who thought diets were stupid and telling your daughter what you think of her body is active child abuse.

Being a victim of abuse, including "you're too fat" type abuse, is neither inherent nor unique to women. Sure, women tend to be under the microscope, but so are lots of people.

As an upper middle class anglo white woman in the US and moreover as a woman who looks fairly conventionally femme even with my very hairy legs (much to my annoyance), I honestly don't experience that much policing. I already, through no fault and certainly no merit of my own, conform reasonably well to the "neutral" standard of white womanhood. My male equivalent would be the most unmarked in the US, but I'm only a little marked.

What this gender-obsessed analysis misses is that it's not about womanhood: it's about failing to be the "neutral" default. Poor people fail. Black people fail. Asian people fail. Disabled people fail. At least in the US. In Japan, third generation Korean-Japanese fail. Burakumin fail despite being ethnically Japanese due to having been a separate caste for centuries.

"Intersectionality" on social media tends to get used as miserypoker: the speaker with the most listed oppressions wins the argument and you should signal boost them or you're a bad person.

In actuality, what intersectionality means is recognizing that gender and sex may sometimes just not be very important in a given person's life if they experience enough privilege or if, conversely, they have such a profound lack of privilege elsewhere that this other identity overshadows gender in terms of their lived experience.

Radfem ideology says I must prioritize Woman out of my many identities. But, in reality, I feel more kinship with bisexual men than with lesbian women. I feel more kinship with kinky straight people than with bisexuals who want AO3 and pride parades to be nothing but g-rated hand holding.

--

I get that it's upsetting for people to be railing against something called "feminism", but that's like saying that disliking the Jews for Jesus makes you antisemitic. The whole point is that a lot of people feel that radical feminism is pretty anti-woman in many of its core values.

I don't think you're a bad person. I do think that some of the underpinnings of radfem ideology lead directly to sensitive people who are concerned about such things wondering if they are.

[brawltogethernow]

a while back you said that you don’t think mj is cis, and that you have specific scenes informing that idea abt her.... do u mind if I ask what are the scenes? and what’s the gender diagnosis? 👀

I don’t have a concrete conclusion, just a vague impression and a habit of getting out my phone at five a.m. and texting my brother stuff like, “I feel like MJ would try out the label he/him lesbian but like, primarily on a personal Twitter account profile.” But yeah, she has two recurring traits that inform the bulk of this for me.

The first is her habit of inserting herself into traditionally masculine roles. I figure the writers were probably gunning for an exaggerated/comedic level of feminism. (It didn’t all age perfectly, but the other women of the cast were already written as feminist.) If you think speaking up for equal rights is cool, wait until you see...MJ try to singlehandedly destroy the gender binary? In practice you get this theme where MJ observes dubious male-coded behavior and then instead of going, “Stop doing that,” goes, “I am also going to do that.”

We see her take the reins of a date more than once on panel to literally go, “Wait, let’s do some very traditionally gendered date shit. And I am going to be the man.”

Physically taking Peter’s key to open his own door for him in ASM 136.

Playing out the ancient ritual of carrying his books for him in ASM 141. Both times she lampshades this as chauvinism and dramatizes the problematic subtext of how these are supposed to go down. In 1974 when these were published I’m pretty sure book carrying as a courting ritual was already considered a dated, cheesy trope living on only through media.

I wish guys pathologically trying to get the door had gone the same way, buuuut. Sigh. But personally, when dudes slow down our travel progress by stopping me and then making a big production of opening a door for me, I follow their lead by slowing us down even further and refusing to go through the door until after they’ve gone through, and when I’m with dudes who are not trying to do a gender at me I full stop don’t think about these behavioral habits unless a recent encounter has left me twitchy. But I don’t get a hit of gender euphoria from doing man shit, and MJ...might?

What other interpretation of this is there, really? Preemptively punishing Peter to get in ahead of it just in case he comes over weird and traditional on her, three in-universe years into their friendship? Nah, she’s literally just having fun with genderplay.

Also... Peter going along with it but very visibly not Getting it with a single bone in his body... RIP. Or not, because this read intensifies the ways MJ acts as a foil for Peter and Gwen by contrasting their traits.

Gwen’s way of addressing gender stereotypes, to have a point of contrast, were more along the lines of calling Peter a chauvinist when he tried to make decisions for her, and jabbingly cheerful reminders that she was a cute blonde girl and a science major.

The second trait is weaker evidence but still, like...noticeable? And less dismissable as a kink thing. That being MJ’s recurring tendency to parse emotionally complex situations happening to other people by zooming in on one of them and going, That one is the me of this situation and analyzing through that lens. Her pick is always a dude. If there are four women and one man, she’ll pick the man.

^literally recollecting her own sister’s divorce by her deadbeat husband, who if anything she should be comparing to their deadbeat father

SSM 96, ASM 259, ASM: Parallel Lives

This could just be the writers themselves overempathizing with men and discounting women! It’s definitely not deliberate. But also, there are lots of other women in this franchise, who don’t do this as far as I can think of. There are lots of women in these parts of MJ’s story who she is deliberately compared against, like, the Bechdel test is being passed.

And yet, most times I can recall where MJ compares herself to women are explicitly aversive, like how she’s terrified of ending up living a life like her mother’s.

Parallel Lives, incidentally, is wild, because it is simultaneously going “here’s how a man and woman met and got married👫” and dishing a condensed Mary Jane backstory that has every single “the one queer relative” marker. Young Mary Jane, inexplicably different from her family members in an ostracizing but decidedly stylish way, finds her mother and sister’s insistence she follow a normal path through life re: romance and relationships “suffocating” and generally existentially abhorrent. The only one willing to humor MJ is her unmarried aunt, though Anna's support is in the form of optimism about MJ’s potential within the expected romantic paradigm. Simultaneously MJ’s sister, whose trauma as a child of a bad marriage is identical to MJ’s, does hit all the life path checkmarks people expect to see from MJ. Okay. MJ’s main emotional conflict is literally: “A man: Is that my father, or is that me? (These are the only choices.)” ...Okay.

Bonus points granted for self-identifying by the gender-neutral nickname “MJ” over other nickname options that were available if she just wanted to ditch her uncool two-part first name. (Dubious for obvious reasons but we know her father calls her “Janey”, for example.)

Off in some other area of the great gender blob, MJ performs femininity with deliberate, studied exaggeration, and has clearly sampled what she likes from the chocolate box of womanhood and thrown out the rest. Citations: Literally every scene she is in from her introduction up until at least the 90′s Clone Saga.

What does any of this mean!? I dunno. Smells genderqueer tho.

[its-spelt-hermaeus-mora]

Re: he/him or male identifying lesbians (as someone who isn't any of those things, this is just what I've seen other say)

Also I just woke up & I dont mean any of this to be rude, I'm just not awake enough to think about tone of text-voice

1 pronouns don't equal gender and you're original wording implied it does so keep that in mind

2 its actually a pretty big thing in butch culture, especially among older butches, to take masculine terms for themselves. I haven't ever seen any reasoning for this outside of potentially just trying to make straight men mad, but I do know its a thing

3 i think "male identifying lesbians", assuming you mean people who identify with no part of womanhood but do still use the lesbian label, would be similar to nonbinary lesbians or anyone who, at some point, was part of the lesbian community before (or while) figuring out gender stuff & still feels a connection to the community and the culture around it. But otherwise the only times I personally have seen a lesbian use masculine terms was in the way in point 2, which is mostly just "this is how people explain things with the words available to them and their own experience with their gender and attraction"

I hope this helps and I'm glad you asked instead of just getting lost in discourse posts because honestly? Its so hard to try to learn anything from just people yelling at each other (and usually with increasingly incorrect information)

Thank you so much, this rly helped. Also, yeah, discourse it just......blegh.

(Also super sorry for implying the whole pronouns=gender thing, twasnt intended)

- Nori

[kontextmaschine]

Folk understandings of sexuality my experience of turning bi awkwardly accords with

So, this spring, as the apparent culmination of some personality changes I had noticed setting in after I heimliched myself the previous year crossed with what seemed to be an increasingly irregular bipolar cycle, I was mentally unstable for a few weeks and when I rebalanced afterwards it was with a slightly different set of basic drives – anxiety and inhibition were appreciably reduced, and though long straight I was now bisexual.

This was, basically, ridiculous, I had written off those "your sexuality may change over the course of life" lines as excuses for the shy to come out after long covering, but if it was happening I might at least harvest the insight of having seen things from different angles. And on reflection, a lot of it fits with a kind of folk mechanics of sexuality I had maybe been dismissing as too vulgar, but well let's think about that

Bisexuality as "Anything That Walks" low standards

I can't help but notice that the same personality change strongly limited my anxiety and muted my inhibition, making me more outgoing and chatty and simultaneously expanding the boundaries of women I'd consider as sexual/romantic partners, both body- and -personality-wise. Being open to more sex partners is, in fact, related to being open to more sex partners. Probably related to how everyone's bisexual on enough cocaine (the definition of "enough" cocaine)

Autogynephilia/MTF as extreme heterosexuality

I identified as female for part of adolescence. That's long stopped, I'm a boy, but part of what I'm struck by so much in coming to sexually appreciate men and male sexuality is that includes my own, which even aside from direct coming-to-orgasm matters just makes my maleness so much more satisfying to inhabit. And I do wonder how much womanhood being the only thing to appeal to me accounted for wanting to see myself in those terms as a way to recognize and enjoy myself as valid.

Homosexual desire as narcissistic

I guess this is the flip side of that "I can now appreciate things in my male self" thing above. One of the ways I've been putting it is I don't have to jerk off about anything anymore, because "a man's hand jacking me to orgasm", "a hard dick in my hand" and "the idea of a guy masturbating" are all hot to me in their own right.

And being into my own body means it's more rewarding to develop it so I can admire it. For one this makes Ancient Greece suddenly click much harder, for two gay gym culture, and I can see how that gets ridiculous if all your social circle is hot boys who do that, see each other, and then update their sense of normal accordingly. Hopefully the connection with women will keep me from such extreme vicious circles as those guys who were so into Tom of Finland they killed a few of themselves injecting fillers into their balls.

Bisexuals as untrustworthy

For one, shortly into the change I thought about those old "religious right" patriarchs fulminating against homosexuality who turned out to have male lovers, and we'd laugh about repressed homosexuality. But "upright-preaching man has side piece" is dog bites man, and "married man who valorizes male-female coupling as the foundation of society enjoys sex with men" honestly makes more sense as bisexual.

And maybe not so dramatic, but like, I spent several decades expecting my personal and social life to be tied up with relationships with women, with an upbringing that had stronger expectations (and a self-understanding this was a relaxation of stronger expectations still). I'm honestly fine with that – for someone who might be counted as part of some queer coalition I am quite comfortable with quite a bit of heteronormativity, and honestly feel more at home there than in many queerer scenes.

For two, going back to the first point above, this came as part of a package deal of becoming less inhibited and more social, which included talking my way into bed with girls when I didn't even realize that's what was going on, more instinctively operating to an "emotional" register of talking where the content is a meaningless substrate for evoking, reflecting, and amplifying sensibilities to make a connection, with a "gift of the gab" that doesn't know where it's going until it comes out of my mouth

And I haven't been in a relationship since this happened, and I think I've got a bit better handle on it now using the habits of mind I developed over several more neurotic decades, but I'm just saying there may be a type of person that's more likely to unthinkingly seduce random people they come across independent of any logical calculation such as "is this in conflict with my exclusive relationship with someone else" and bisexuality may be an indicator.

Bisexuality/pansexuality distinction

I'm told this is a big Discourse but it's all worthless so I've never bothered to see what it's about but I'll guess, knowing that if I misrepresent them they don't matter. When I was straight I was prepared to politely aver that no thanks, I had a cis fetish. In that trans women did not particularly do it for me

(I mean 4chan-type "traps" were defined by appealing to straight male sensibilities, but that wasn't particularly my thing and the things that were featured chicks without dicks)

and maybe trans men but I doubt I'd be appreciating them as men. Which given the ubiquity of the "fuck my pussy like a girl" thing might even work I suppose (which you can account for as a fujoshi-on-T fantasy without bringing gender into it, on the other "pretend I'm a girl and give me your str8 load" is a pretty classic gay guy pitch)…

By now, I mean I'm sure someone's constructed a gender identity that definitionally doesn't appeal to me, or at least they will now that I've tempted them, but it's not so much a thing. I do think of myself as "bi" over "pan" part simply because I established my sense of what sexuality is in the 90s. But part it's I suspect I'm not valuing the luvvies as they're identifying but as some varying admixtures of boy and girl which work for me in any proportion. It's just not terribly important to me what someone really is anymore because I don't have a major personality feature keying off that

Heterosexuality is really like that

…but I am intimately aware from memory that many people do. Originally I thought of this as "bisexuality is really like that" like, all of a sudden men were not just eligible for sexual ideation but heartwarmingly imagining relationships with. But to flip it around, yeah, until then it was only women that worked with and men were just blank.

Like when I was younger I tried to bihack myself, and I think dismissed any sort of distaste with the idea, and thought I was at least Kinsey 2 (I wasn't) and even tried hooking up with some guy. I felt his tongue and I'm sure the guy knew his way around a dick but there was no spark to it, other way around it wasn't degrading but just an unrewarding bother, like giving someone a massage with your mouth while they choke you. So I realized that the fact I never fantasized about men was a good sign I was straight.

So, uh, cut straights the same slack as everyone else, it's not like they have bad ideas they're just like that. Gays and lesbians too. including that the boundaries of their attraction won't necessarily be where you want to carve gender up for your own reasons. Not bad ideas, they're just like that.

[thatsonemorbidcorvid]

It was at the tail end of 2017 when Cora*, a frontline worker for a south London organisation supporting women who have survived sexual violence, realised that undercurrents of transmisogyny had become a new precedent for her workplace.

“I just remember there being far more comments like ‘Yeah we only support real women’,” Cora says.

Both visibility and hostility were on the rise for trans people in the UK thanks to proposed reform to the Gender Recognition Act. As a result, many junior workers were attempting to ensure inclusivity for trans survivors. But senior staff, made up of cis women, responded by shutting down the conversation altogether.

Cora’s organisation is not an island. On record, gal-dem has spoken to workers in the violence against women and girls [VAWG] sector, who have spent time at organisations including Imkaan, Rape Crisis, Refuge, Amnesty International and Liberty, academics working in the field of gender studies and members of the dedicated gender-based violence branch of union United Voices of the World. Of the workers who spoke to gal-dem, all were too terrified of reprisals to use their real names.

Alongside interviews, gal-dem examined records of public statements made by senior members of organisations like Nia, Southall Black Sisters, and the Centre for Women’s Justice. What emerges is a hostile landscape to navigate for trans survivors of sexual violence, both in accessing immediate frontline services and overcoming ideology that seeks to shut them out of the gender-based violence sector (GBV) in general. With one in six trans women experiencing domestic violence between 2017 to 2018 (and more recent figures suggesting violence against trans people remains high), this landscape’s hostility is undoubtedly already having damaging effects.

At Cora’s organisation, it quickly became apparent that senior staff were deliberately shelving pressing trans-related issues, in the hope that they would disappear altogether. Cora alleges that the CEO Rachel*, who had served as the head of the organisation for nearly three decades, encouraged a culture that was openly hostile to trans women.

Regular requests for the centre’s policy regarding trans women were lodged, but the policy didn’t exist. A lone attempt to create a gender inclusion policy ended with the firing of the employee tasked with producing it. As Cora remembers it, the day after the employee submitted their work, they were told their position was no longer viable. Although it wasn’t cited as a factor in the decision, Cora believes the incident speaks for itself. The policy was not adopted by the centre.

Staff soon began to organise and demand an outright commitment to supporting trans people, pushing the transphobic views of senior management into the open.

“We do get abusive callers on the helpline. But they present as men, not as trans women”

Cora remembers one member of the counselling department declaring that it was “unsafe” for cis survivors using the centre’s services to have people in the building who had not fully medically transitioned. She was challenged by Cora and her colleagues, who explained that this transmisogyny went against the fundamental principles of sexual violence workers: that you must believe survivors.

“I find it fascinating in a horrific way that this bedrock of [sexual violence services] is thrown out of the window immediately,” Cora observes. “They say, ‘Oh, men will just call up pretending to be women, and saying that they’re trans to get into the space to enact harm’.

“Do you not think we are trained in such a way that we are able to speak to someone and know? Because we do get abusive callers on the helpline. But they present as men, [not as trans women]… When you get a call like that, you know. As soon as you pick up the phone, it doesn’t feel right. The gut that you’ve honed so wonderfully and beautifully to do this work, it knows”.

When Cora and her colleague refuted transmisogynistic claims, the goalposts shifted. Senior staff instead claimed they weren’t equipped to work with trans women because they wouldn’t “understand” their experience with sexual violence. Tellingly, one staff member who used such a defence said they would feel comfortable supporting trans men who had “experienced violence as women” – revealing that they didn’t recognise trans men as men.

“There is a real focus on the penis,” Cora says.

Cora left the organisation a few years ago, in part due to the virulent transmisogyny that had become the norm. Rachel stepped down from the CEO position in 2020, after what Cora describes as “successful unionising efforts” from the organisation’s staff. While the new CEO is “far more inclusive”, Cora says, her former co-workers report that hostility to trans survivors persists.

“The problem is much deeper than top down,” she says. “It runs through most of the services.”

Women vs women

Cora’s organisation has become part of a larger war. Transphobia – or ‘gender criticism’ as its proponents like to position it – has become a battleground for a small but powerful pocket of UK feminists. With access to mainstream media platforms, large social media audiences and political influence, these ‘gender-critical’ feminists are attempting to turn trans people from a minority group into a full-scale moral panic.

But where does the antagonism towards trans people in the VAWG sector come from? Academic Alison Phipps, professor of gender studies at the University of Sussex, links it to “political whiteness”. Transmisogyny in the UK is focused on violence against white, cis women and “lasers in” on the male body as the source of that violence, Phipps explains. “There’s a lot of straight, [white], privileged [cis] women involved. Whiteness has a lot to do with it. Whiteness and class privilege.”

Weaponising woundedness against marginalised groups has always been a core component of white womanhood and political whiteness, adds Phipps. “It’s Carolyn Bryant [Emmett Till’s accuser] all over again,” she says. “[Trans-exclusionary feminism] is grounded in fear and, in some cases, a hatred of the Other and a deep need for protection.”

For the last few years, trans-exclusionary feminists central objective – achieved for the time being – was to prevent reforms to the Gender Recognition Act that promised to make the process of legally identifying as trans or non-binary (which isn’t a recognised legal identity at the time of writing) far quicker.

A spotlight fell on women-only services for survivors of sexual and domestic abuse as a result. In order to provide rationale for their aversion to trans individuals, the gender-critical cabal alighted upon whipping up fear around trans women who might need to access such spaces. For trans-exclusionary feminists, the argument goes that allowing self-determination through GRA reforms would open up ‘single-sex’ sites to ‘predatory men’, who would supposedly pretend to be women in order to perpetuate abuse.

Yet trans women, with some exceptions, already have access to single-sex spaces under the 2010 Equality Act, which would remain unchanged by any amendments to the GRA. Furthermore, no countries that already allow self-determination have reported any sudden trend of cis men engaging in such behaviours. A 2018 Guardian investigation found that Ireland, which introduced self-determination in 2015, has seen “no evidence” of new legislation leading to men “falsely declaring themselves female”.

No matter; gender critical feminists in the UK still insist that the sex assigned at birth must decide who is admitted to women-only spaces. Never mind that multiple global studies show that trans women report sexual and domestic violence at double the rate of cis women (with trans women of colour facing the most peril) – but, as with cis women, the perpetrators were most likely to be men.

“Trans-exclusionary feminism is grounded in fear and, in some cases, a hatred of the Other”

Phipps believes many transphobic, white radical feminists also think that acknowledging their own privileges compared to the likes of trans women is tantamount to erasing their traumatic experiences. “It’s as if they think ‘if you tell us we’re privileged because we’re cis, that means we haven’t been raped or haven’t experienced these awful things’,” she observes. “Well of course you have and that’s awful and it’s because of your gender. But that doesn’t mean you don’t also have race and class and cis privileges.”

In the VAWG sector in particular, Phipps says there is the feeling of “living in the past”, with particular aping of the 1970s women’s liberation movement. It’s a notable reference point for trans-exclusionary feminists, many of whom experienced the movement as young women. But they’ve created a warped pastiche that erases contemporary critiques of white radical feminism that were made at the time, says Phipps.

Radical feminist texts of the 1970s were often trans-inclusive. While the likes of Andrea Dworkin held problematic notions around issues like sex work, they weren’t trans-exclusionary and didn’t see the body in “essentialist” terms. In stark contrast, trans-exclusionary feminists of the present, do.

The crusade against trans women is tragic, says Phipps, a focus of energies on completely the wrong target. “There is a war against women worldwide,” she says. “But trans women are also [victims] of this war, not the perpetrators.”

A worsening situation

Frontline VAWG workers say that hierarchical power structures mean transmisogyny is often sanctioned from the top. Close ties between powerful names in the sector mean it is hard to challenge for fear of being blacklisted from multiple organisations. Nevertheless, those who spoke to gal-dem said they did so out of a desire to lift a lid on the situation and encourage more scrutiny of the reality behind the press releases.

“I couldn’t [continue to] work for an LGBTQ charity that poses like it’s inclusive,” says Lily* a former employee of one high profile organisation serving sufferers of domestic violence. She says she witnessed virulent transmisogyny during her time there.

One incident occurred when Lily’s workplace was developing a helpline for clients. She and her colleagues were concerned that the helpline wasn’t inclusive enough because the organisation didn’t have a gender inclusion policy. They asked for clarity on who the helpline was for.

“The reply from [Martha* the director of operations at the organisation] and another senior staff member was that ‘if they sound like a woman on the phone, talk to them’,” remembers Lily. “‘If they don’t sound like a woman, it doesn’t matter if they say they are, hang up. We’re not supporting them’.”

Lily also heard references to “men-women”, assertions that only “biological women” should have access to refuges and accusations from a senior staff member that junior employees were behaving like “perpetrators” by supporting trans-inclusivity as it put them on the side of “men”.

“They told us: if they don’t sound like a woman, it doesn’t matter if they say they are, hang up”

According to those present at one group meeting, a staff member declared that there needed to be a “step back” on giving “privileges” to trans women because they were damaging support being provided to “women”. The staff member is also alleged to have said this view was the organisation’s “policy” as well, blaming trans-inclusive terms like “person with a cervix” for having “erased” cis women.

Allegations of increased transmisogyny are mirrored across the sector. Eva, a non-frontline VAWG worker who has spent time at multiple women’s organisations, says she became aware the issue wasn’t going away in 2016.

One early indicator came when Eva posted on a social media platform, from the official account of one prominent organisation about the death of a trans woman in a men’s prison. The next day, she says, she was handed a social media policy that “explicitly stated” she was not allowed to post about trans people anymore.

Even in supposedly inclusive environments within the women’s sector, transmisogyny simmers, says Eva. Her organisation, which focuses on ending gender violence for Black women and girls, still throws up obstacles when it comes to officially including trans women, including a failure to create and implement a trans-inclusive policy.

She also believes economic factors have caused trans women to become a lightning rod of the frustrations and fears of some cis women within the field.

As she explains it, many of the more senior positions in the modern VAWG sector are filled by women who have been there since its foundation. They’ve seen funding and resources chipped away by successive governments, resulting in resignation that “they’re never going to win a victory over the government”.

Collective fightback

Eva stresses that she doesn’t believe the sector itself to be transphobic and that younger, more junior members of staff tend to be fiercely trans-inclusive. There are some power players in the sector attempting to make change.

Cara English, head of public engagement at trans-led charity Gendered Intelligence (GI), says that she’s been approached by CEOs of VAWG organisations to provide training on trans inclusivity to staff. But plans have been stymied by the individualised structures of centres and refuges subject to the decisions of CEOs.

“[GI] met with the CEO of probably the largest VAWG service provider in the UK,” Cara recounts. “She was saying transphobia is very prevalent and she’s not content with it. But there’s not really a great deal they can do apart from bringing training from trans organisations in house.”

The situation is particularly dire in England and Wales. Scotland however, while no utopia for trans survivors, offers a look at how trans inclusivity can begin to be implemented.

Simple commitments have made huge differences to services says Mridul Wadhwa, manager of the Forth Valley Rape Crisis Centre in central Scotland. One such initiative is the LGBT Charter, a programme which includes education on trans inclusion. Completion of the course sees organisations given a digital “badge” to display on-site, letting survivors know they are an inclusive space.

As a trans woman managing a refuge, Wadhwa says she has received “unnecessary negative attention”, despite over 15 years of experience in the sector. After a recent bid to become an SNP candidate, she was even hit with accusations online that she had “lied” by not disclosing her trans identity when she was first employed in 2005 by Shakti Women’s Aid.

“This was before the Equality Act,” she remembers. “I said in an interview that if [Shakti Women’s Aid] had known I was trans, they would not have hired me. But everyone knew I was trans when I was [hired] for my current position.”

Wadhwa’s experience has taught her that many trans women survivors seeking support are too fearful of being faced with transmisogyny to approach services in the first place. This renders them invisible within the sector, despite being a group disproportionately affected by sexual and domestic violence.

“You have to be explicit that you’re inclusive, you cannot assume that people know,” Wadhwa says, adding that as a member of intersecting minority groups, she expects to be “oppressed in every place I go”.

“You have to wear the badge – these things make a huge difference, as well as word of mouth recommendations spread by survivors who have worked with you. There also needs to be a trans-inclusive workplace policy”.

“You have to be explicit that you’re inclusive, you cannot assume that people know”

For workers who want to push back against institutionalised transphobia, organising collectively offers a glimmer of hope.

Cora tells me that challenging transphobia was a key driver of unionising efforts by herself and colleagues who didn’t feel “safe” enough to do so as individual unprotected workers. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the workers union United Voices of World, which has a dedicated arm for workers in the gender-based violence sector, says that one of the union’s goals is fighting transphobia in the field.

Those pushing for change recognise that while the pocket of women they’re up against is small and unrepresentative, they’re powerful, with a reach that extends into the upper echelons of journalism, the legal system and the halls of Westminster. All workers who spoke about the transphobia they’d witnessed feared the impact their whistleblowing might have on the sector, which they stressed still does vital work. But as Eva puts it, if the services are not working for all women, they’re ultimately failing in their purpose.

“If frontline services aren’t working for all women, they’re not working for any of us really,” she says. “They’re not rooted in our liberation or justice.”

Pulling trans-inclusive training in-house, as suggested by Cara English is also a key goal. But it will take determination and demand on the part of the workers within those organisations.

And ultimately, it will need the battle-weathered radical feminists perpetuating transmisogyny in the the GBV sector to do something they are unused to: rethink the dogmatic approach that has for so long served as a survival technique but now works to oppress a deeply vulnerable group of women.

The entire situation is, says Cara English, a “degradation”.

“The fact we’re still in a position when we’re actively having to humanise trans women and trans people to services that would seek to exclude us, in order to get into places that we should have the right to access… this is just an obscene position to be in,” she adds.

“It’s a wholesale failure to take into account the needs of trans people. It’s embarrassing. The issue isn’t that trans women aren’t accessing VAWG services. It’s that people aren’t seeing this joint fight against the patriarchy and the oppression of all women.

“That’s where we need to be focusing our attention. It’s about solidarity between all people who need help and an escape”.

*Names have been changed to protect identities

[werevulvi]

I kinda just wanted to make a rant, to lay out why I feel so iffy about trans women and hopefully get a better understanding of my own feelings and what the fuck is brewing under that surface. There has to be a reason. This post is analytical drivel, not a debate, but by all means, feel free to respond or otherwise talk to me about this. Let's take it from the beginning and then go from there.

Part 1 Detransition:

So, I began detransitioning roughly 2 years ago. That's where my feelings about the trans community as a whole began to shift, and with that my feelings about trans women. At that time, I was still active in a truscum group and came out as detrans there, after having been known and looked up to as a trans man there for over a year. At first I was accepted, but when I started having doubts about wanting to get rid of my beard, and felt like I wanted to embrace my body hair and deep voice... people there started acting like shit towards me. They told me that my biological sex still being female did not matter, that I was essentially a man and had to detrans medically to be considered a woman again. That hurt badly.

Shortly after that, I was also told that because I was medically transitioned, trans women were "more female" than me. That was like the last drop that made the goblet pour over. Fuming, I started saying that I'm more of a woman than trans women can ever be, even if I keep a full beard, because they'll never be truly biologically female, no matter how much surgery they got. I was hurting by their cruel words, so I stuck it where it would hurt them the same. (I’ve always an “eye for an eye” sorta person.) That's when people started telling me that I hate trans women, but I felt like that was a misunderstanding. That I was just acting out, out of sadness, grief, anger, panic, and having my gender denied for the sake of validating trans women's genders.

But were they right?

Part 2 Gender critical thought:

Over time, I got exceedingly gender critical and fell into radblr. I also read/watched content that "exposed" transgenderism as a scam, most of which was articles and youtube videos from conservative right wing people, and Christians. I had joined an fb group for detransitioners, and the creator, a "born again" Christian detrans man, happily shared all the many sources he had on how transgender was all a scam from the start of its movement. I felt somewhat sick consuming those links, but probably equally intrigued. But at the same time, I kept a foot in the trans community, starving for attention, even though I was never good enough for them anymore, unless I lied and said I'm not a woman. What a sick twist of fate, I felt.

Part 3a Sexuality, from a lesbian view:

Sometime around that, I struggled with my sexuality and after a lot on inner search, I came to the conclusion I was a lesbian. I felt as though I was only attracted to the same sex as myself, including trans men, but felt nothing worth praising towards males, including trans women. That led to yet another rabbit hole that I tumbled down into. I became convinced that majority of trans women were lesbophobic predators, and I had some shit luck on dating apps. Most people who approached me there were gnc males; transvestites and trans women. I almost went on a date with a good-looking trans woman whom I had mistaken for female, because I felt guilty for having lost attraction to her the moment she told me she's trans and post-op. Luckily she canceled our date for unrelated reasons. I felt like because she was attractive to me before I knew she's trans, but felt completely uninterested in her after the fact, I couldn't possibly be attracted to trans women.

Part 3b Sexuality, from a bisexual view:

That, of course, is not necessarily a bad thing. But I kept asking myself why. Especially since I realised my error in my sexuality calculations, and upon correction discovered I'm actually bisexual after all. I still find women and transitioned females attractive, and in addition to that also men in general, and some vaguely transitioned males. Except from trans women. That odd little inconvenience stood out as a sore thumb which I couldn't stop scratching. Why? I kept asking myself. Why not trans women?

My question dug deeper than just to attraction. I don't think I feel iffy about trans women because I'm not attracted to them. I think it's the other way around.

I never had to convince myself to be attracted to trans men. I discovered early on in my own transition that some other trans men were really hot. That was it. I later on dated a trans man whom I was head over heals in love with. That confirmed it. I've been questioning my attraction to standard men and women far more than I ever questioned my attraction to trans men. It was that obvious, that clear. However, when it comes to trans women I was always the complete opposite. That no matter how I twisted and turned it, I only ever felt revulsion at the thought of being sexual or romantic with a trans woman. No matter how well or badly they passed, no matter how aesthetically pleasing or how charming their personalities.

I wanna clarify that I'm not at all forcing myself to be into trans women. I'm just trying to understand why, so that I'll no longer feel bad about my lack of attraction to them. Because I cannot accept things which I do not understand.

Part 3c Sexuality, digging for answers:

At first I thought, maybe I'm just not all that attracted to femininity. It's not like I typically get super into hyper-feminine natal women either, and fake tits and faces with a ton of plastic surgery has always made me queezy. No, I seem to have a strong preference for masculinity in partners, regardless if they're butches, other masc bi women, trans men or kinda standard masc natal men. So then it just kinda makes sense that trans women, whom are often hyper-feminine, just don't fit that image. Except... that one trans woman I almost went on a date with... she looked like a butch. I mistook her for a natal woman partly because she had short hair, no makeup and wore what looked like men's clothing, but I could see she had hips and tits, and her face looked naturally female. But I still wasn't into her, because she's trans.

Then I thought... okay, that one checks out, but maybe I'm just creeped out neo-vaginas? Yeah, that must be it! I'm almost equally creeped out by neo-penises too, but most trans men don't get bottom surgery anyway, so it hasn't been much on my mind. But then I thought: okay, but what about trans women who choose to not get bottom surgery then? I am attracted to dick. Nope, still uneasy at that thought. I started comparing men who are just very feminine, to trans women, and noticed yeah I don't actually feel half as iffy about men who are just feminine. A man in a dress and makeup can actually be very hot, to me. And I've always preferred long hair on men. But I prefer them still looking clearly male underneath that, although I don't mind a few androgynous features here and there. But I’m only into it if they don’t act like their affinity for femininity makes them women or non-binary, or if they’re feminine in a way that mocks or sexualises womanhood. So I’m not into tacky transvestites in over-sexualised lingerie. At least try to be tactful and elegant, please. So, it’s not male femininity per se that puts me off. If there’s any femininity I’m actually into, it’s male femininity. Because gender non-conformity is attractive to me. And I love the idea of being a strong female protector and girlboss of a gentle, delicate, feminine man. At least I like fantasising about that. (But enough about my daydreams.)

Part 4a Womanhood, biology and identity:

Somewhere after having gotten that far in my digging, I started getting close to finding my sore spot: trans women's view on womanhood.

As for myself, my own view of womanhood is completely detached from femininity. I'm just like... I can even have a full beard and bass voice, a flat and hairy chest, and still be a woman. Because I'm simply bio female. Trans women tend to very often think that they need to "pass" and with that comes a certain look: high voice, no facial hair, no body hair, big breasts, curvy hips, etc. All of which are features that I'm dysphoric about having on my own body, but admire in other natal women. But on trans women, it's like I feel uncomfortable about those kinda features on them. Like to me being a woman is just dealing with having developed that way, or not dealing with having developed that way. Where as for them it seems to be actually striving for developing that way, and I guess that causes my brain to short circuit. Cannot comprehend.

Part 4b Womanhood, fragility and validation:

My womanhood is kinda fragile. I admit that. I'm quite insecure as a woman, because of my transition and masculinity. I feel like most of my womanhood has been lost, which although I'm fine with, I still grieve. I grieve it because I was a bit of an idiot when I first transitioned and had not yet processed my trauma - not because I regret looking like a man. It's complicated, but basically... I feel as though my womanhood is hanging by a thread, which is my genitals, reproductive system and chromosomes; all of which are either mostly hidden or always invisible.

I'm often met with disbelief and disagreement. People either saying "You're not a woman because you can't possibly be female. You look too male." or "You're not a woman because you medically transitioned. You having a uterus is not enough to make you a woman." and it gets to me. And then there are trans women... some of whom do not even need to put on a wig to be instantly validated as women by just identifying as such. Others thinking that because I look like a man, they refuse to think of me as a woman. And that... pisses me off.

There have been a few trans women who in some utterly failed attempt at being supportive of me have said I'm like a nonbinary person who is half male and half female. That's not a lot better, but thanks for trying... I guess.

Part 4c Womanhood, dysphoria and misogyny:

I think that might be what gets to me about trans women. All of it. This entire list of things. That some of them are lesbophobic predators and have absurd claims of what being female is, that others mock womanhood, and yet others view themselves as somehow more female than I am. The genital factor and the slight creepiness of plastic surgery. Their view of womanhood as an identity and my view of it as a biological sex. I keep ending up in fights with trans women about these sorta things. I can't keep a lid on my frustrations no matter how hard I try to just see them as people with dysphoria and opinions that are different from mine. I cannot find any fucking solidarity between myself, as a dysphoric natal woman, and trans women. I feel like they're making mockery of my sex, my dysphoria and my struggles with misogyny, as well as making me feel like shit about something that I love about my body: my transition. I have no common grounds with them, and whenever they try to find solidarity in stuff like misogyny, I feel like they don't even know what the fuck they're talking about. I have a huge bone to pick with them, on multiple levels, and I don't even know where to start or where it ends.

Part 4d Womanhood, jealousy:

But a lot of it comes from jealousy. And I think it's mutual. I'm jealous of their ability to access female only spaces despite being male, which I cannot access despite being female. I'm jealous of their ability to be accepted as women. And on the other side, I think they're jealous of my reproductive ability, and my female socialisation, which I'm not like super hyped about myself, although I do love my pussy (she gives me great orgasms.) I'm jealous of their ability to claim womanhood without even trying to pass as female, because people are quicker to accept the woman-gender-identity than the woman-bio-sex. But likewise, ironically, I sense that they're jealous of that I can claim the "woman lane" despite looking convincingly male, because I'll always be biologically female, no matter how insible my sex is.

They cannot see me as a woman, because of my transition, without looking at themselves as men, no matter how far they transition. And I cannot see them as women, no matter how far they transition, without labeling myself as a man, because of my own transition. I think that about nails it.

Part 5 Conclusions:

I don't think it's true hatred, but rather insecurities both from myself and from them. Because we cannot both exist as women under the same ideology. One of us has to be considered a man, and neither of us is willing to fold on that. Ultimately... I am a threat to their womanhood, as much as they are a threat to my womanhood. And that tension is so thick... not even a knife could cut it. I guess the sad thing is though, that I think that tension is unnecessary. I am so unlike trans women that we could potentially bond based on how different we are. Because there is a lot of similarity in those differences, if you really think about it.

But no, I do not wish them harm in any way. Despite the vast array of insults I sometimes hurl their way. That is really just in response to them insulting me. I do not think they're doing anything wrong by transitioning, or even necessarily by identifying as women. I think, if they had just been more like "I can see you as a woman despite having transitioned, because deep down you like being female and having a pussy... kinda like I'm a woman because I wanna have a pussy, despite having been born male" I would have been much quicker to embrace them. Because that, I could get behind; but they can't.

So, there is no solidarity. It remains an endless fight. But I feel like it's not just on my part. I have tried. I do try. But they're not willing to meet me halfway, and that makes me go to attack in self-defense, which makes then go to attack in self-defense.

[river-witchery]

Just me having some gendery thoughts tonight folks~

When I first started the whole questioning my gender thing, the first label I fell into was "demigirl." It was a comfortable stepping stone into realizing that I am very much Not A Girl. I was much too afraid, I think, to say I was wholly nonbinary—that, at the time, felt like a dangerously close stepping stone to accepting I was trans (news flash and reminder—demigendered peeps, you are trans enough to use that label, it's okay, and I love you all).

I was also, at the time, presenting very femme. I think it was in an attempt to "prove" to myself that I was cis. Or at least that I was enough of a girl to not feel uncomfortable presenting as one. This, uh, did not work (and I've come to understand that this is a trend among us trans folk).

Actually, in retrospect, it completely and utterly backfired. I had to completely change my style, my wardrobe. I experienced very bad dysphoria. All of this was compounded by the fact that my health was getting worse and worse, so I had to change the clothes I wore for my physical comfort, as well as for my dysphoria.

I am now at the happy realization that I am very nonbinary. I'm very genderqueer (and just queer in general). Dressing more androgynously helps my dysphoria, and I like fucking with the notions of gender presentation. I want top surgery and I am not completely averse to going on T temporarily (but I am not sure if I actually want that or not yet).

But, as I am who I am, I like to question and explore. There was another reason I identified so strongly with the demigirl label, and it's because it helped describe an experience I was definitely having.

Now, for me, being a demigirl meant I partially identified with womanhood. The other part was me identifying with being nonbinary or agender or something else. I wasn't entirely sure at the time. But on top of that, I could tell that my gender seemed to fluctuate.

And that last part, that's the part I've been thinking about. Because I definitely am not a woman. I have come to terms with that. But I put the fluctuating bit on the back burner and kinda ignored it until recently.

So yeah, I'm nonbinary for sure. I am genderqueer for sure. I am also sometimes very agender. And then sometimes... transmasc? I am still coming to terms with that I think. There is definitely some sort of fluctuation to my gender experience.

I think maybe I am afraid, in the same way I was afraid to say I was trans, to say I'm transmasc. There's this pushing question in the back of my mind of, "just how masc are you?" And I guess that is something to explore, even if it is a little scary.

Well, that was gender thoughts with me. I feel better writing it all out. If you read all this, thanks! Also, wow, you must have the concentration of a god to get through that wall of text.

[dmitri-smerdyakov]

The Fantastic Beasts Franchise and JK Rowling

Alright, so...hi everyone.

I don’t know how many people follow this blog anymore because my main blog of operation is now @alwaysahiccupandastrid - I still try to keep this blog relatively active though, just because it was my original blog, I’ve had it since I was 13, and I have so many memories attached to it.

I’m aware that a lot of the people who follow me, especially since late 2016, do so because a) I was a loud and proud Fantastic Beasts fan, b) I wrote some Newtina and Jakweenie fic, and c)...I don’t know. I literally don’t know why people bother following me anywhere because I don’t feel like I have a lot to say. But, anyway, many people probably follow me due to Fantastic Beasts and my posts/fanfics within the fandom.

Those who follow my active blog will already know my feelings and thoughts, but because of the fact many things about this blog - me, the posts for the last four-ish years, the url itself - are Beasts related, I felt it was necessary to come and write an actual post here instead of just reblogging things and calling it a day. I’ve always been very outspoken online, but I’ve been avoiding a certain topic of conversation on this blog for years now, and I’m finally in a place where we can discuss it.

I am, of course, talking about the hot topic that is JK Rowling.

Back in the days between FBAWTFT and FBTCOG, I was a very outspoken defender of JK Rowling and her decision to defend Johnny Depp’s inclusion in the films. Now, this is something I still stand by to this day, and due to the evidence that has since come out, I’m even more steadfast in the opinion that keeping Depp was a great decision. I am fully in support of him and the way he’s currently battling against his abuser. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about right now. As I was saying, back in the day, I was outspoken about the opinion that “we don’t know the full story” etc., and as a result I received very colourful anon messages. Now, to my knowledge, none of these were about JKR being a TERF/transphone, but I think it’s important to mention that at the time I scoffed at the idea she could be one. I openly admit that I didn’t listen to what other people - including actual trans individuals - were saying about JKR and her transphobia because I frankly didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t want to admit that the person who wrote something that saved my life could be so hateful and a bad person - that, and at the time I passed it all off as “wokeness out of control”.

It is now 2020. Up until last Saturday night, I was still in support of JK Rowling - I didn’t agree with some of the stuff she had said, but I was trying to be positive and have hope by telling myself that she didn’t mean to be transphobic, that she just didn’t know what she was doing was wrong, even though the evidence clearly showed otherwise (I.e. her liking transphobic / radfem tweets). I said to my followers on my Beasts page that instead of cancelling people outright, we should be attempting to educate them instead, and if they choose not to learn then fine. And, being 100% obvious, I didn’t want to admit it because I frankly already was feeling annoyed at two different Beasts cast members for different reasons: Ezra Miller (for choking a girl) and Dan Fogler (for his tweet about BLM - admittedly that was probably him being well intentioned but not saying it right). So yeah, I didn’t want to cancel another member of the Beasts “family”.

I had JKR’s tweets on notifications, and for the most part over the last few weeks, it was all about the Ickabog. However, on Saturday night I noticed that she had suddenly tweeted something completely different, and I looked at it. Given that I had adamantly defended her and said “freedom of speech” for so long, it’s telling that my first thought upon seeing her tweet was literally “for fuck sake, Jo, why”.

I won’t post her tweets here but to sum that first tweet up, it was her being annoyed over the term “people who menstruate” being used in an article instead of “woman”, and mockingly saying “there used to be a word for that” before pretending she didn’t know the word. She knew that tweeting it would start arguments and anger, and yet she still made the decision to do so. Her follow up tweets frankly dug the hole deeper; she tried to defend herself by saying, to sum it up, “I have a butch lesbian friend who agrees with me” “I just care about women’s rights!” And “IF trans people were marginalised I’d march with you!” (“If”, of course, being the real kicker here because what do you mean IF. They ARE. Every DAY.)

Since then, JKR has written an essay on her website defending herself and her opinions, and yes, I read it. I read it a few times, in fact. At first, I felt my anger simmer and felt I had been too hasty to make anti JKR jokes, that I was wrong...but then I read it again properly and realised that what she had written was a piece that turned herself into the victim, and that despite putting on the appearance of her saying she supports trans people, including the phrases “I support trans people” and “of course trans women are real women”, she still spewed much transphobic vitriol and hate. She cited no sources for any of her proclamations or statements about statistics, implied that trans men transition to escape their “womanhood”, that trans women are men in dresses, that trans women are dangerous to “real” women (aka cis women) and shouldn’t be allowed into women’s changing rooms or toilets. There was also the autism comment, and the implication of autistic girls somehow not being able to make decisions or whatever.

I’m going to get straight to the point: I don’t support JK Rowling or her radical feminism.

As someone who is a proud feminist (libfem?), I can honestly say that never have I felt threatened or like I was being silenced by the inclusion of trans women in feminist spaces or conversation. Never. In my second year at sixth form, I was in charge of the LGBTQ+ club until a new leader with better leadership skills could step in, and - put simply - that year, the club was made almost entirely of first year transgender students. Even though I had called myself a trans ally for years, I realised there was a lot I didn’t know, and I learnt quite a lot from these students. I continue to still learn today. They were some of the nicest and most intelligent people I got the chance to meet, and I can truly say that at no point was I ever worried to be in a room alone with a trans woman, nor was I concerned about which bathroom they went in - bathrooms are bathrooms. Speaking of bathrooms...when I was at uni during a particularly tense rehearsal a few weeks before our final show last year, a guy in our group made me cry and I ran to the women’s bathroom to escape. Not only did the other girls come to comfort me, but you know what? The guy came in and apologised profusely to me. Did any of us girls give a shit about having a guy in our toilet? Absolutely not. It’s a fucking toilet. And, on that note, I was never worried about a trans woman or even a cis man attacking me in the toilets. You know who DID attack me in the toilets regularly? Other cisgender women.

As a feminist, I fully support trans women and am not threatened by the inclusion of trans women in women’s spaces or in women’s rights discussions. While I agree that cis women and trans women inevitably go through different struggles, at the end of the day, we all identify as women and are women. I think that if your feminism is so threatened by the existence of trans women - TERFs, RadFems, JKR, looking at you - then your feminism is flimsy and not feminism at all.

As a woman, I find it highly offensive that JKR and many RadFems focus so much of womanhood and feminism on an involuntary biological function that, frankly, many of us would rather do without. Yeah, I’m talking about periods - no matter how proud I am to be a woman, I still fucking hate periods and would get rid of mine if I could without erasing my chance of having kids someday. I can hear the RadFems accusing me of “internalised woman hatred” for saying I hate my periods, but you know what, they suck and they hurt and fuck them. The fact that JKR (also the the radfem movement) reduced “women” to just people who menstruate and can have children, and vice versa, is incredibly offensive and misogynistic. For a start, trans men menstruate, intersex people can, non binary can etc. Next, not even ALL cis women have periods - women who are menopausal, young women who haven’t started puberty yet (some do start very late), some women don’t have regular cycles, some women have medical problems that affect their cycle, some women are on birth control that can stop their cycles. So the idea of women being defined as “those who menstruate” is offensive not only to trans/intersex/non binary individuals but also to cis ones too.

As I write this, I’m a 22 year old woman who is still learning and changing every day, and one of the things that I’ve found myself thinking about recently - especially since we’re in lockdown and we have nothing BUT time to think - is about myself and my identity as a woman. What prompted this was when I saw Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved book, “Little Women”, which I’ve since read, for my birthday back in January, and I left the cinema feeling exalted and powerful with my own identity as a woman. (I’ll be returning to LW in a bit)

After some thinking, I’ve realised some things. For me, my identity as a woman is not just because once a month my uterus decides to shed; I do not identify as a woman just because I have certain physical features. I am not a particularly feminine person either, and I’m what some may call a “tomboy” (a phrase I actually don’t mind but I know a lot of people do for understandable reasons since it’s a phrase designed to differentiate people who don’t conform to society’s expectations etc) because I prefer video games and more geeky stuff to shopping or dressing up or make up.

For me, there is no one way a person has to be or appear in order to identify as a woman. Women are beautiful, complex human beings; we are not defined by our genitalia, by an involuntary biological process. Women are strong, intelligent, and interesting people - no two are the same. For example, some decide to raise families, some choose to pursue a career, some do both - all of these are valid and none are more “feminist” or “womanly” than the others, because it’s our as women. I guarantee that if you lined up every single woman in the world - cis AND trans - no two would be the exact same.

I mentioned “Little Women” earlier, and as I was pondering over what makes me identify as a “woman”, I thought a lot about a certain quote from the 2019 film that has stayed with me since it was first said in the release of the trailer. It’s spoken by Jo March to her mother, and I’ve started to understand what for me makes me a woman.

For me, being a woman is all of this: having minds, hearts, souls, ambition, talent, and being beautiful each in our own ways. Women are capable of love and empathy, capable of desire, capable of the most complex and human feelings and emotions, and coming out the stronger for it.

Sex is one thing; gender identity is another.

I won’t dissect every single thing JKR wrote in her essay, but I will just say this: her comments regarding autistic girls are extremely tone deaf and she does not speak for those with autism. I’m going to be honest and admit something here I haven’t before: I have not been diagnosed with autism or aspergers but I AM currently on the waiting list to see someone who COULD diagnose me. Apparently I show signs of a potential diagnosis, so...we’ll have to see. But I have friends who are autistic, and they’re disgusted by JKR trying to use them to support her TERF arguments. Autistic and other neurodivergent people are absolutely capable of making decisions and are NOT people who need to be babied or have their hands held, to be told who they are. It’s incredibly ableist of JK Rowling frankly.

I would also like to point out... I’ve seen people saying “but she doesn’t hate autistic people, Newt is autistic!!!” - yes, but JKR didn’t write him as autistic. Eddie Redmayne chose to play Newt as autistic - JK Rowling didn’t do shit.

It’s also time that I acknowledge that both Potter and Beasts inevitably hold JKR’s problematic views, and that by denying her ownership of her work, we’re not holding her accountable for the horrible things she’s done. This includes - but is not limited to -:

Anti-Semitic stereotypes in the goblins

Lycanthropy being used as a metaphor for AIDS - an illness that is heavily associated to the gay community, and also there was the panic of the AIDs crisis in the 90s where much misinformation and homophobia was generated and spread because of it.

Adding further to the lycanthropy point, one of the infected individuals - Greyback - is stated to have a sick preference for infecting children. Not only are werewolves tied to harmful gay/AIDs stereotypes, but also to the disgusting and frankly wrong notion that gay people are pedophiles.

The only Asian character is called Cho Chang. Cho Chang. That’s two steps away from outright just calling her “Ching Chong”. It’s not a name an actual Asian person would have.

The Goldstein sisters are probably distantly related to Anthony Goldstein, who JKR confirmed (on Twitter of course) is Jewish, meaning that Tina and Queenie are most likely Jewish too (and Goldstein is a Jewish surname). However, despite the fact that the first FBaWTFT is set DURING Hanukkah in 1926, there’s zero signs of them celebrating or observing it. Maybe that’s more on set design than anything else, but come on - if I, a fanfic writer, can do some research, JK/the crew of a major movie can too!

Adding on from that, gotta love how one of the JEWISH main characters then decides to join the Wizarding world equivalent of Hitler. I already had problems with Queenie’s characterisation in CoG, but that’s the icing on the cake.

POC/Black characters - in both series but since I’m a Beasts blog... Seraphina Picquery, a Black female president serving a term during a MAJOR wizarding world crisis, is severely reduced to have only 3 lines in CoG. Nagini’s only purpose is to be the only friend of Credence, a white man, before he joins Wizard Hitler and abandons her; she’s also an Asian character who we know one day permanently becomes a SNAKE, and who goes on to actually have a piece of Voldemort’s soul inside of her?? And some do see her as his slave, though you could argue that she’s actually the only being that he holds any love or respect for. Leta Lestrange is a half-black woman who is killed/literally sacrifices herself for TWO WHITE MEN, and who’s death was literally confirmed to have been added in last minute.

Also, the whole Lestrange storyline was fucking nasty: white Lestrange Sr imperius-ed a black woman (Yusuf Kama’s mother), raped her, and she then died in childbirth. I’m sorry, what the fuck??

In Harry Potter, Seamus is a terrible stereotype of an Irish person - he likes to blow things up. Look up the IRA and their bombings. Fucking Irish stereotype. As someone with Irish grandparents and who is proud of their Irish heritage, this really pisses me off.

Let’s not forget the whole Native American cultural appropriation. That truly speaks for itself.

So here is where I speak candidly to everyone who follows me and/or sees this post. While Beasts is no longer my No. 1 fandom these days, it and Potter still hold a huge piece of my heart. I have 5 wizarding world tattoos, so much merchandise, and I can safely say that being a fan of both series has shaped me as a person. Both of those series helped me get through the darkest days of my life, including bullying at school, my Nan passing away, and my mental health struggles.

This is why what’s happened has impacted me so much and broken my heart. For me, it feels like it’s tainted now because of Jo and her views. I know that we should separate the art from the artist, but when her views are so clearly woven into the very fabric of the Wizarding world, it’s a huge problem.

Here’s another part of the dilemma - I do not wish for the Beasts films to be cancelled. I’m well aware that the *cough* people who dislike me will say I’m trying to be negative, trying to boycott the series blah blah blah, but that’s truly the last thing I want. I still love the story, the characters, the soundtrack, and I want to know how it ends, if only for my own piece of mind. It’s also important to add that by boycotting Beasts, it’s also harming the hard working thousands of others who worked on the films: the cast, the crew, the extras, the musicians, etc., not to mention the fans who actually are invested in the series and have taken solace in it. It’s not fair for them to all suffer over the actions of one TERF.

This is one of my biggest worries, however: the Fantastic Beasts films do NOT have a good reputation as it is. The second film was boycotted by some due to Depp, and now there’s talk of people boycotting number 3 because of JK Rowling. Lots of people already talk hatred about it, and this will only fire that hatred up even more.

There’s also talk of Eddie Redmayne potentially being kicked from the franchise due to a “leak” that he doesn’t want to work with JKR anymore, but this could be sensationalist news reporting. But if it came down to it, I can honestly say that I would rather continue to have Eddie play Newt than keep JKR as a writer. Eddie has done more for Newt than even JKR has, and if he goes, then that will be the last straw for me within the fandom. That will be when I take a sharp exit out, sell my FB merch and have my tattoos covered.

To add, the Fantastic Beasts scripts are...not great. Or, at least, what we saw on-screen wasn’t. Maybe that’s David Yates being the literal worst (fuck you, Yates, you suck) and cutting all the parts with strong female characters, but I honestly don’t think that JKR can write screenplays well at all. I think she’s clearly better at writing books, and that’s fine - books obviously allow for more time to explore characters and story/plot arcs etc, and film scripts offer way less of those chances. I don’t think screenplays allow her to write what she needs to in order to tell the story she wants to, hence why CoG was kind of a hot mess. So maybe it’s just that she’s not suited for screenplays and should stick to books.

Honestly, I kind of just wish that WB would hire another person to finish writing the Fantastic Beasts movies - obviously they’d have to keep JKR on board to tell them the actual plot, but get someone who can actually write screenplays and not be problematic to write them.

By now I’ve gone on long enough that I’ve forgotten my original intent while writing this, so I’ll try to sum up and end now. In short, I am extremely disappointed in JK Rowling and do not support her or her views any longer.

I don’t know how any of you guys are feeling but I would be interested to hear other people’s thoughts, especially other Fantastic Beasts fans. I want to also add that, as always, my DMs and inbox are always open - if not here, then always at @alwaysahiccupandastrid where I’m more active nowadays.

Finally, you guys don’t need me - a white cis woman - to tell you this but you’re all valid and magical and fuck JK Rowling. Her characters would all be ashamed of her, and the characters we grew up with would not stand for the bigotry and vile hatred she spreads under the guise of ““protecting women””. Several of the amazing actors from Potter and Beasts have spoken out against her and her tweets: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Bonnie Wright, Katie Leung, Chris Rankin, Eddie Redmayne. Some have been...less inspiring (Tom Felton, Evanna Lynch, looking at you two 👀)

I’m sending love to everyone right now. I wish I could say something more useful but I’ve spoken enough - I’ve made my opinion clear. I love you all, please stay safe.