#androgyny idol

[gnossienne]

Suranne Jones in Orlando by Sarah Ruhl (Royal Exchange in Manchester, 2014) (x)

[kpop-bbg]

[club-cheongyang]

[denim-bias]

[itstomowo]

the detective princess🪷🥞

[cascadianights]

Something something why do you think you so readily believed the idea of "androgyny" or "nonbinary" meant a thin masculine body stripped of curves or breasts and any unseemly hair that might break the illusion of degendering and a child-like body

[mortalboy]

if you guys understood my vision of patti smith being non binary but being born in a time where that identity couldn’t be realized. you would GET IT!!!

[devilst0at]

Hm. A small comment slightly relating to a post I saw today, even though it was really well thought out and beautifully illustrated. Absolutely no shade or hate, I would just like to share my views -

While I can see how Longlegs could be perceived or interpreted with a twinge of transphobia, especially considering its similarities to Silence of the Lambs (which, by the way, I LOVE but do see how people could interpret BB as problematic portrayal of a trans woman), I genuinely as a trans person do NOT believe that Longlegs is meant to be transphobic in any way. Here is why:

Dale Kobble/Longlegs’ androgyny is not directly related to his horror. His look is inspired by glam-rock, and androgynous looks and flashy fashion was all the rage in that subculture. Look at Marc Bolan or David Bowie - it’s all about long hair, interesting makeup, androgynous fashion, flares and boots and what have you. Dale is a huge nerd about glam-rock and I believe he models his own look after his idols - he wants to be attractive and cool and youthful like them. As to why I believe they would make him this way, I feel the whole point is that he’s washed up and weird and tries way too hard at his look, it’s almost desperate, especially considering the plastic surgery. That’s what’s disturbing about it - outdated, fake, desperate, washed-up. Dale Kobble is not a trans woman! He’s a man who thinks glam-rock is cool and wants to be pretty like Marc Bolan. Men can wear pink and makeup and have long hair and still be men. The fact that Dale is so washed up and tries so hard at his looks to a point of surgically created horror is the reason he’s creepy, not because he’s androgynous in itself.

I think it’s so important as a community to talk about and consider the way media portrays transness and androgyny, but Longlegs is just… not that. It’s a movie about generational trauma and processing trauma and abusive dynamics and satanic panic and the complexities of morality to me, amongst other things.

It’s also just a fun horror movie about a weird guy who worships Satan and sings randomly.

[ckret2]

I was mentally playing devil's advocate because I have a terrible habit, thinking "While I agree, there are authors who might just add details for the sake of visualization without any intended impact to the scene and it's important to keep in mind, like with the outfit descriptions in my immortal" and immediately realizing

That is a silly comparison to begin with

The outfit descriptors in my immortal DO impact the scene and the reading, especially in terms of how you imagine the author of the story

My Immortal would not have been as impactful as it is without these details

Even if the author didn't intend it as a meaningful detail, if it can be read as having meaning, then it can have meaning

those outfit descriptors are absolutely intentional

YEAH BABY THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!!!

The curtains were blue for a reason and Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way had icy blue eyes like limpid tears for a reason!!!

Was it GOOD writing? By most measures, no! But the author told us every color in Ebony's hair, every garment on her body, and every product on her face because she was deliberately trying to craft the perfect visual representation of the quintessential 2006 white goth girl.

Even the simple little fact that her fishnets are pink instead of black tells you something—the scene-tinged aesthetic movements the author was drawing from even though she only references "goth" style, the fact that Ebony as a character skews feminine in her presentation rather than the genderbendy androgyny that's also common in the goth scene—but we would have gotten a very different description if the pink fishnets had been the only color mentioned in her wardrobe.

You know and I know and everyone knows that the author gave her pink fishnets because she probably thought they looked "cool" amidst all that black—but the fact that the author prioritized a "cool" main character (rather than a dull everyman or a dislikable villain) tells us about the author's literary priorities, and what the author considers "cool" shapes the whole story.

Those over-the-top descriptors tell you exactly what kind of a character Ebony is going to be, exactly what aesthetics & tropes the story is going to explore and glorify (doom, gloom, goths, vampires!), and exactly who the author idolizes and considers admirable—from the specific (Amy Lee and Gerard Way) to the broad (nonconformist counterculture rebels who stand defiant against conformist "preps").

Was every detail in Ebony's appearance necessary? No. But did every detail matter? Oh yes. Every last bit told us a little bit more about her character, the story to come, and the author behind it all.

[waitmyturtles]

At a bar in Euljiro, one of Seoul’s up-and-coming hip neighborhoods, two voices intertwined in a duet. One was high-pitched, the other an octave lower.

But there was only one singer, a 27-year-old named jiGook. The other voice was a recording made years ago, before he began his transition and hormone therapy deepened his voice.

“I don’t want to forget about my old self,” he told the 50 or so people at the performance, a fund-raiser for a group that supports young L.G.B.T.Q. Koreans. “I love myself before I started hormone therapy, and I love myself as who I am now.”

Like many other South Korean singers, jiGook, who considers himself gender fluid, transmale and nonbinary, wants to be a K-pop star. So do Prin and SEN, his bandmates in QI.X, a fledgling group that has released two singles.

What makes them unusual is that they are proudly out — in their music, their relationship with their fans and their social activism. They call themselves one of the first openly queer, transgender K-pop acts, and their mission has as much to do with changing South Korea’s still-conservative society as with making music.

In the group’s name — pronounced by spelling out the letters — Q stands for queer, I for idol and X for limitless possibilities. Park Ji-yeon, the K-pop producer who started QI.X, says it is “tearing down the heteronormative walls of society.”

Very few K-pop artists, or South Korean entertainers in general, have ever been open about being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer. Though the country has become somewhat more accepting of sexual diversity, homophobia is still prevalent, and there are no legal protections against discrimination.

For entertainers, coming out is seen as a potential career killer, said Cha Woo-jin, a music critic in Seoul. That applies even to K-pop, despite its young, increasingly international fan base and its occasional flirtation with androgyny and same-sex attraction.

“K-pop fans seem to accept the queer community and imagery so long as their favorite stars don’t come out explicitly,” Mr. Cha said.

That’s not a compromise that QI.X is willing to make.

The bandmates’ social media accounts, which promote their causes along with their music, are up front about who they are. So are their singles, “Lights Up” (“The hidden colors in you / I see all the colors in you”) and “Walk & Shine,” which Mx. Park says “celebrates the lives and joy of minorities.”

“Someday, we want to be on everyone’s streaming playlist,” said Prin, 22.

As a producer, Mx. Park, 37, who identifies as queer and nonbinary, has worked on hits for well-known K-pop acts like GOT7 and Monsta X. But she wanted to make music that spoke directly to people like her, with “an artist who could encapsulate our lives, love, friendships and farewells.”

She met some of the QI.X members through a K-pop music class she started in 2019, designed with queer performers in mind. (In other classes, she said, “It was assumed that female participants only wanted to learn girl-group songs and male participants only boy-group songs.”)

SEN, 23, said that when Mx. Park asked her to join QI.X, “it was as if a genie in a bottle had come to me.”

SEN had been a dancer and a choreographer for several K-pop management agencies, including BTS’s agency, Big Hit Entertainment, now known as HYBE. The people she worked with knew she was queer, and they were welcoming.

But whenever she auditioned to join an idol group, she said, she “never fit the bill for what they wanted.” People would say she was too short or boyish, or comment about her cropped hair.

That’s not an issue for QI.X, which doesn’t aspire to the immaculately styled look of the typical K-pop act (and, in any case, couldn’t afford the ensemble of stylists those groups have). Individuality, they say, is part of the point.

QI.X often performs at fund-raisers, for L.G.B.T.Q. and other causes, and sees its music as inseparable from its activism. Maek, for instance, an original member who sang on both singles but is on hiatus from the group, works for the Seoul Disabled People’s Rights Film Festival and volunteers for a transgender rights organization.

With no support from a management agency, Mx. Park and the group do everything themselves. They handle their own bookings and manage their social media presence, recording videos themselves to post on TikTok and Instagram.

Many of the videos are shot at LesVos, an L.G.B.T.Q. bar in Seoul that often serves as QI.X’s studio and rehearsal hall. Myoung-woo YoonKim, 68, who has run LesVos since the late 1990s, grew up at a time when lesbians were practically invisible in South Korea. “I would often think, ‘Am I the only woman who loves women?’” they said.

The QI.X members adore Mx. YoonKim, whom they call hyung, a Korean word for older brother. During a recent video session at LesVos, after dozens of increasingly comical lip-syncing takes of “Walk & Shine,” Mx. YoonKim started to join in. Before long, everyone was bent over with laughter.

To a casual observer of K-pop, it might seem surprising that so few of its artists are out. As Mr. Cha, the music critic, notes, L.G.B.T.Q. imagery has been known to surface in K-pop videos and in ads featuring its stars.

Some critics see this phenomenon as “queerbaiting,” a cynical attempt to attract nonconformist fans — or to deploy gender-bending imagery because it’s seen as trendy — without actually identifying with them. To Mr. Cha, it suggests that K-pop has a substantial queer fan base, and that some artists might simply be expressing their identities to the extent they can.

Mr. Cha thinks the taboo against entertainers’ coming out reflects a general attitude toward pop culture in South Korea: “We pay for you, therefore don’t make us uncomfortable.” (Similar attitudes seem to prevail in Japan, where one pop idol recently made news by telling fans he was gay.)

QI.X’s fans, who call themselves QTZ (a play on “cuties”), love the group for charging over that boundary. Many are overseas and follow the group online, leaving enthusiastic messages. “I’m so happy I can finally have an artist in the K-pop industry that I can relate to on a gender level, on a queer level,” one said in a video message to the group. “I’m so excited for you!”

The band also gets hateful messages, which its members do their best to ignore. Prin, 22, is optimistic that attitudes in South Korea are changing. (Joining QI.X was Prin’s way of coming out as gender queer, but friends were much more surprised by the news that Prin was in an idol group.)

The biggest show of QI.X’s career, so far, was in July at a Pride event, the Seoul Queer Culture Festival. In recent years, it had been held at Seoul Plaza, a major public square. But this year, the city denied organizers permission to hold it there, letting a Christian group use the space for a youth concert instead.

Activists saw that as discrimination, though the city denied it. Conservative Christians are a powerful force in South Korean politics, having lobbied successfully for years to block a bill that would prevent discrimination against gay, lesbian and transgender people. Organizers held the festival in Euljiro.

For its set, QI.X had about 20 backup performers, some of whom were their friends (Mx. YoonKim was one of them). They had rehearsed only once together, on the festival stage that morning, because they hadn’t had the money to rent a big studio.

Christian protesters were picketing the festival, some with signs that read “Homosexuality not human rights but SIN.” But fans were there, too. As QI.X sang “Lights Up” and “Walk & Shine,” hundreds crowded in front of the stage, many wearing headbands that were purple, the group’s color. There were Pride flags, and signs that read “We only see you QI.X.”

Hours later, the excitement still hadn’t faded for QI.X. “I felt alive for the first time in a while,” SEN said.

Text by Jin Yu Young, photos by Chang W. Lee (if you have a NY Times subscription or a free trial, the videos and photos of this piece are wonderful!)

[reco-obsessed]

we know that Reko's father forced her into the industry at an early age, but it's not entirely clear what genre. The idea of it being an 'industry' definitely implies she was more of a pop idol since there isn't really a 'classical' industry in the same vein, though there is still definitely heavy competition and a lot of notoriety to be gained through being very skilled at classical music, especially at an early age, so I wouldn't be so quick to write that off, either. Even so, the plot line of her being 'forced to make music she didn't want to make' and her father being blinded by money definitely feels like it makes more sense in the context of a popstar. In my personal opinion, I like the pop idol route because it really emphasizes the distinction between her current views and aesthetic and the one her father would've been trying to get her to be. A sudden stark rebellion by going super edgy and emo in middleschool contrasts with her needing to be seen as nice, innocent, happy all the time (and probably a fair bit more feminine than she actually felt, too, since alt styles are heavily associated with androgyny). Its also worth noting that she mentioned crushing multiple huge industry offers throughout her later years, which further implies she had a strong reputation already. However logic is pulling on my sleeve and it's telling me that it honestly feels weirder for a 10-13 (this age range being chosen with the logic that it would've had to been *before* or she entered middle school, as per her personal account) year old kid to be a super successful pop idol than a highly successful classical music prodigy. Though, I guess there's the possibility her father actively lied about her age to get her in the idol industry.

[kpop-bbg]

[club-cheongyang]

[denim-bias]

[blackpilljesus]

You said that believing that men are secretly gay is a cope, but I disagree. Before you judge me, read my opinion. We live in a phallocentric world and in the western world everything has its origins in ancient Greece, and I'll use it as an example. They believed that only men could truly love, women were used as breeding grounds. The world hasn't changed today everything in "male civilization" is made for men. Only boys were allowed in schools. Medicine only studies the male body. Everything is made for men. The central focus of society is men. Men hate everything related to women. I'm not even talking about femininity you can see that in some cultures and societies there are many representations of androgynous men, men with a "third gender", statues of androgynous men, stories and religions that show androgynous men, these things never include female androgyny. All androgyny in society is focused on the male body. Men culturally accept femininity in the male body more than they accept the existence of women. Men don't see women as human beings to feel sexual and romantic attraction in a human way, they see this as a form of domination of mother nature (uterus) to create male descendants (in most societies only male children were seen as descendants who would keep the family's title, money and material things, only sons were seen as the next generation of the family, that's why the abortion of female fetuses in many societies is a tradition) everything about the "heterosexual man" is phallocentric, they draw penises in places, they see penises in things, they create technology and constructions based on the penis, men clearly idolize their own organ, obviously they are not physically gay but psychologically how is this not a type of gay narcissism? I say this as a lesbian too, like how they have sex with a woman and don't care if she reached orgasm, they don't recognize female physiological sexuality, women don't exist for them (besides being mothers). They use the female body to masturbate, heterosexual sex ends when the man has an orgasm, if the man doesn't have an erection he won't care about doing something sexual with the woman (like oral sex or using his hands to touch the clitoris) so everything is focused on penis, as if they were having sex with themselves, if their organ doesn't work they don't care about women's organs, heterosexual women (99% of women) live in a state of physiological alienation not even they care about their own bodies, we live in a world of faggots, the phallocentric patriarchy is a big faggotland for me, just read the things Freud said about female sexuality and everything he says is exactly how men see women, as if women were castrated men, even if the clitoris is not seen externally in most women, women can verbalize this pleasure, the clitoris being internal is not an excuse to simply ignore the existence of female sexuality and consequently female existence in civilization, I don't understand this. That's why lesbians and straight men don't have the connection that gay men and straight women have. I realized this only by looking at the culture of societies. All artistic and religious expression is about men, male androgyny and phallocentrism. I can't find any civilization that has images of androgynous women (Amazonian women are not treated as something real). None of these third-gender or soul-gender religions include women. In conclusion, there is no gynocentric culture or civilization. Everything is about men's vision and their organs

I dont agree with all of this but it's an interesting take. I think most of these things can happen without maIes desiring romantic or sexual engagement with other maIes so it wouldn't make them gay.

[chevelleneech]

While I obviously don’t think Jungkook exists in the same androgynous lane as Felix, I do think his physical appearance is naturally just as “unisex vibes” lol. So it’s both really nice and bittersweet to see a such a decent portion of Stay pushback at others who have a problem with Felix dressing and styling himself in a feminine or androgynous way.

I came across a tweet from last month talking about how they want “masculine Felix” back, and how it’s JYPE forcing him to look like a woman because some fans said he’s androgynous. Meanwhile, it was Felix himself who had been saying for at least two years or so now, that he prefers himself this way.

So I think it’s lovely to see people going to bat for him, because it’s important. I talk about it all the time it feels like, but idols are so often viewed as dolls and or otherwise a new play thing for our entertainment, with it going very forgotten that they too are people. They have sexualities, personalities, and preferences for how they identify same as everyone else.

It’s bittersweet, because for as open as BTS are, they are also (rightfully) extremely protective of their personal privacy. Meaning even with they show us a little bit, they won’t necessarily discuss it. So all those tweet defending Felix has me thinking about tweets about Jungkook during his Calvin Klein era, and him with his bob. He looked great to me and to a lot of others, and it harkened back to him saying some years ago that he thought he looked pretty with long hair. Hair that very length, I’m pretty sure, yet way more fans were vocal about how ugly they felt it made him.

It softened his features and brought out the exact androgyny some of us spent years saying he had. No, he doesn’t “dress the part” — because more people only view gender ambiguity as “man is pretty and dresses like a woman” or “woman is handsome and dresses like a man — but he does naturally have a face that can be styled either way.

Point is, there is no point. I’m just glad Felix has a vocal set of fans who outweigh those who have something bad to say about a version of himself that he’s spoken on enjoying. He doesn’t fit into the original packaging box anymore. Idol men and women are expected to both break traditional gender roles while also upholding them, and Felix is done with it. Which is something I wish I knew JK’s opinions on, because he’s said similar things as Felix.

Clothes is grnderless and people should wear what they feel best in, and he shops heavy in the gender neutral section. Again, his personal style just means more masculine, which is fine, but the way people treated him with long hair and reacted to his CK ads, were shitty, and it irked me. More so because after that he said he was done with his long hair, and while I clearly don’t know if that was a catalyst, I just hope he knows he can do whatever he wants with his looks. A pretty boy will pretty boy, and Jungkook is pretty.