#ask-toronto

[heartorbit]

bugs when you lift up a rock

[ghelgheli]

hey you might've been asked this before sorry if so, but have you read or do you have any thoughts on A short history of Trans Misogyny?

I have read it! I have a few thoughts.

I think it's a strong and important work that compiles historical archives into sharp analyses of how "trans misogyny" (using Jules Gill-Peterson's spacing) is not a recent phenomenon but a globalized structure with centuries of history. I also think it's flawed, for reasons I'll get into after a quick summary for those who haven't had the chance to read it yet.

JGP divides the book into three main chapters, the first on the notion of "trans panic". There, she traces how variants of this anxiety with the trans-feminized subject have presented—to deadly effect, for the subject—in such different settings as early colonial India, the colonization of the Americas, the racialized interactions between US soldiers stationed in the Philippines and the local trans women living there, and of course the contemporary United States itself. In every case she analyzes this "panic" as the reaction of the capitalist colonial enterprise to the conceptual threat that the trans-feminized subject poses; we are a destabilizing entity, a gender glitch that undermines the rigid guarantees of the patriarchal order maintaining capitalism. Punishment follows.

The second chapter is my favourite, and considers the relationship between transfeminine life and sex work. I posted a concluding excerpt but the thrust of the chapter is this: that the relegation of so many trans women and trans-feminized people to sex work, while accompanied by the derogation and degradation that is associated with sex work, is not itself the mere result of that degradation inflicted upon the subject. In other words, it is not out of pure helplessness and abjection that so many trans-feminized people are involved in sex work. Rather, sex work is a deliberate and calculated choice made by many trans-feminized people in increasingly service-based economies that present limited, often peripheralized, feminized, and/or reproductive, options for paid labour. Paired with a pretty bit of critical confabulation about the histories of Black trans-feminized people travelling the US in the 19th century, I think this made for great reading.

In her third chapter, JGP narrativizes the 20th century relationship between the "gay" and "trans" movements in north america—scare quoted precisely because the two went hand-in-hand for much of their history. She emphasizes this connection, not merely an embedding of one community within another but the tangled mutualism of experiences and subjectivities that co-constituted one another, though not without tension. Then came the liberal capture of the gay rights movement around the 70s, which brought about the famous clashes between the radicalisms of Silvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson (neither of whom, JGP notes, ever described themselves as trans women) and the institutions of gay liberalism that desired subsumption into the folds of capital. This is a "remember your history" type of chapter, and well-put.

I think JGP is correct to insist, in her introduction, on the globalizing-in-a-destructive-sense effects of the colonial export of trans womanhood. It is, after all, an identity conceived only mid-century to make sense of the medicalized trans subject; and "gender identity" itself (as JGP describes in Histories of the Transgender Child) is a psychomedical concept conceived to rein in the epistemic instability of trans existence. This is critical to keep in mind! But I also think JGP makes a few mistakes, and one of them has to do with this point.

In her first chapter, under the discussion of trans misogyny in colonial India, JGP of course uses the example of the hijra. Unfortunately, she commits two fundamental errors in her use: she mythologizes, however ambiguously, the "ascetic" lives of hijra prior to the arrival of British colonialism; and she says "it's important to say that hijras were not then—and are not today—transgender". In the first place, the reference to the "ascetism" of hijra life prior to the violence of colonialism is evocative of "third-gender" idealizations of primeval gender subjectivities. To put the problem simply: it's well and good to describe the "ritual" roles of gendered subjects people might try to construe contemporarily as "trans women", the priestesses and oracles and divinities of yore. But it is best not to do so too loftily. Being assigned to a particular form of ritualistic reproductive labour because of one's failure to be a man and inability to perform the primary reproductive labour of womanhood-proper is the very marker of the trans-feminized subject. "Ascetism" here obviates the reality that it wasn't all peachy before (I recommend reading Romancing the Transgender Native on this one). Meanwhile, in the after, it is just wrong that hijra are universally not transgender. Many organize specifically under the banners of transfeminism. It's a shame that JGP insists on keeping the trans-feminized life of hijra so firmly demarcated from what she herself acknowledges is globalized transness.

My second big complaint with the book is JGP's slip into a trap I have complained about many times: the equivocation of transfemininity with femininity (do you see why I'm not fond of being described as "transfem"?). She diagnoses the root of transmisogyny as a reaction to the femininity of trans women and other trans-feminized subjects. In this respect she explicitly subscribes to a form of mujerísima, and of the trans-feminized subject as "the most feminine" and (equivalent, as far as she's concerned) "the most woman". Moreover, she locates transfeminist liberation in a singular embrace of mujerísima as descriptive of trans-feminized subjectivity. As I've discussed previously, I think this is a misdiagnosis. Feminization is, of course, something that is done to people; it is certainly the case that the trans-feminized subject is in this way feminized for perceived gender-failure. This subject may simultaneously embrace feminized ways of being for all sorts of reasons. In both cases I think the feminization follows from, rather than precedes, the trans misogyny and trans-feminization, and there is a fair bit of masculinization as de-gendering at play too, to say nothing of the deliberate embrace of masculinity by "trans-feminized" subjects. Masculinity and femininity are already technologies of gender normalization—they are applied against gender deviation and adapted to by the gender deviant. The deviation happens first, in the failure to adhere to the expectations of gender assignment, and I don't think these expectations can be summarized by either masculinity or femininity alone. I think JGP is effectively describing the experience of many trans-feminized people, but I do not think what she presents can be the universalized locus of trans liberation she seems to want it to be.

Now for a pettier complaint that I've made before, but one that I think surfaces JGP's academic context. In her introduction she says:

In truth, everyone is implicated in and shaped by trans misogyny. There is no one who is purely affected by it to the point of living in a state of total victimization, just as there is no one who lives entirely exempt from its machinations. There is no perfect language to be discovered, or invented, to solve the problem of trans misogyny by labeling its proper perpetrator and victim.

Agreed that "there is no perfect language to be discovered"! But JGP is clearly critical of TMA/TME language here. Strange, then, that less than ten pages later she says this:

this book adds the phrase trans-feminized to describe what happens to groups subjected to trans misogyny though they did not, or still do not, wish to be known as transgender women.

So JGP believes it is coherent to talk about "groups subjected to trans misogyny", which she thinks consists of the union of trans women and what she called "trans-feminized" groups. If this is to be coherent, there must be groups not subjected to trans misogny. So we've come around to transmisogyny-subjected and not transmisogyny-subjected. Look: you cannot effectively theorize about transmisogyny without recognizing that its logic paints a particular target, and you will need to come up with a concise way of making this distinction. But JGP dismissing TMA/TME with skepticism about "perfect language" and immediately coining new language (basically TMS/not TMS) to solve the problem she un-solved by rejecting TMA/TME... it smells of a sloppy attempt to make a rhetorical point rather than theoretical rigour. It's frustrating.

I have other minor gripes, like her artificial separation of "trans women" from "nonbinary people" (cf. countless posts on here lamenting the narrow forms of existence granted TMA people if we want recognition as-such!) or her suggestion that "a politics of overcoming the gender binary" is mutually exclusive from rather than necessarily involved with struggles around "prison abolition, police violence, and sex work". Little things that give me the sense of theoretical tunnel-vision. But I don't think all this compromises the book's strengths as a work of broad historical analysis. I would simply not take every one of its claims as authoritative. Definitely give it a read if you have the chance, especially for the second and third chapters.

[suburbanbonfire]

i think about your art every single day. when i first joined the hockey fandom here on tumblr i immediately went to look at the kraken tag and your art was the first thing to pop up so i’d like to thank you for being part of endearing me to this fuck ass sport <3

humbly requesting if you feel like it……..

one of the deweys from the wild

forever Dewey <3

[wmnylander]

Blueprint S9 E6: Papi

[nectar-cellar]

how do we feel about beard-mir 😭

my excuse to take more pics of him.

like okay i rly made beard pack 06 for him just to barely use it

(slutty ass glasses)

[grapefruit-personified]

maybe you shouldn’t be fat 🤷‍♀️

I normally wouldn’t entertain anons like this. But honestly you are just a sick sad person. Not that it matters but many people are plus size due to things they can’t control. Maybe people just like larger sizes for a multitude of reasons. Maybe you should look outside of yourself and see your small little viewpoint on fat individuals means nothing.

I honestly hope you get shamed by people because you are just gross.

[crunchycrispy]

i too would giggle incoherent things at johnny toronto if he were leaning over the boards to talk to me

(5/?)

[3416]

Hey, where can I find the video of Matthews from the press conference you posted? Specifically the video you posted screenshots of. Purely for scientific purposes of course. I've looked everywhere and can't find it. Thanks!

if you're talking about from media day where he's getting up from the chair, i watched it live so i was able to clip on the fly from tsn's live stream. it's from this press conference but the leafs video editors cut out the in between parts. luckily i hadn't cleared the trash on my laptop yet so here's the clip lol

[offside-the-lines]

🥶 A (Kinda Weird) Hockey-ish Ask Game 🥶

Happy new year folks! To kick off 2024, I came up with an ask game mildly inspired by ‘every’ NHL team. Not every question is hockey related. It’s a little different. It’s a little weird. It’s quite fun. Start the year by getting to know your moots.

🦆 If I were to make a summoning circle for you, what food could I summon you with?

🐺 Build a NHL starting line up (3F, 2D, 1G) based on a really weird criteria for comedic effect (e.g. guys with names that sound like Dylan).

🧸 Do you have any object that you like a little too much or can’t seem to get rid of? What is it and why?

⚔️ What is goaltender interference? (Wrong answers only).

🔥 Give me an unpopular opinion on hockey. Preferably Hot Takes (not serious).

🌪️ What’s something that's been on your mind for a long time that you just can’t seem to shake?

❄️ What is your most and least favorite thing about winter?

🏔️ What is an obstacle you have overcome that you are proud of?

💣 Blow it up: pick one NHL team. Change its name, mascot, logo/colors. Tell me why you chose the new elements.

🌟 What are your five favorite things about yourself? Come on, don’t be shy. Give me 5.

🪽 Name a NHL player whom you would: Sacrifice to the Gods, Do Hard Crimes With, and Save the World With.

⛽️ What snacks would you pick up at the gas station for a road trip?

🐀 What is the funniest thing you’ve ever heard a hockey player say?

👑 If you could add an award to the NHL awards, what would it be and who would be its inaugural recipient?

🌲What is a place that gives you a sense of peace?

🔔 Who is an NHL player you are convinced you can best in a physical altercation?

🐯 What movie villain or creature do you think people should love more?

😈 What is your weirdest head canon about an NHL player?

🍹 If I were to make a summoning circle for you, what drink could I summon you with (cocktail or coffee order, alcoholic or nonalcoholic)?

🗽What’s a gift that you didn’t think you wanted but turned out to be useful or great?

🏛️ Here, have a soap box. What is one thing you feel really strongly about that you think everyone should know?

🦧 What cryptid do you think is real? Why? (If you don’t have one, make one up).

🐧 Show me a good rock. (You can also paint me a word picture).

🦈 What type of shark would you be?

🦑 Vampires and werewolves. Give me the pros and cons.

🎶 What would your goal song be and why?

⚡️ Describe yourself like a rainstorm.

🍁 Using a scale of one leaf to five leaves, how much maple syrup do you put on pancakes/waffles/french toast?

🏒What was your first impression of hockey? Why? Has it changed? If so, why?

🎰 What is a gamble/risky decision you have made recently that has paid off?

🦅 For Americans & Non-Americans alike, what’s the most *American* thing you’ve ever done?

✈️ What is a place you long to see?

[astrangetorpedo]

The video of Jblu you just posted reminded me of this vid….. the glance/smile between lu & jb is my favorite

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTNCMaGVm/

lucy’s gentle smile… ough x

[sweettomyhoney]

hear me out, we need more fanfics where the nhl player is the "loser" like make him be less famous and less successful than the y/n make y/n like internationally famous

NOW THISSSS 😩💕 let’s keep it real if we did not like hockey we would not know who any of these men are. Most celebrities don’t even know who these men are. 

[highdefinitions]

fav 1634 lore?

oh jesus god where do i even begin. maybe from the start where they met in that elevator during world juniors and then the invisible string of it all. and when auston shattered the glass during practice off of one of the first ever feeds from mitch. and how auston supposedly got mitch (and bunts) their number chains and chose different styles that suited the both of them as thank you presents for being good lineys and friends. and most recently during this season when auston and mitch were hugging and auston protected mitch’s head while they hit the boards. all things i think of very frequently

[leafsleclerc]

toronto maple leafs first time scorer connor dewar

[heartorbit]

WAOT WERE U THE ONE TSUKASA COSPLAYER AT MIKUEXPO GIVING OUT MIKU STICKERS TO THE PJSK FANS

THATS ME!!!!! i didn't mean to just give them to pjsk fans help but i severely underestimated how many i should've made and cut out .. so i just ended up giving them to cosplayers or people who said hi to me .... T_T

THERE'S ALSO THIS SUPER CUTE BRACELET SOMEBODY RAN UP TO ME AND GAVE ME AND I TREASURE IT SO I NEED TO ADD IT TO THE POST AND SHOW IT OFF .. WAH!!!! ITS SO CUTE LOOK!!!!!!

[domifucker]

the biggest prettiest smiliest boy in the world

[pwhl-mybeloved]

oh my god did you see this 👀😂

LMFAO Toronto cannot afford to be sued by tswift this is too funny