#be essentialists for another thing

[menlove]

the issue abt studying race & sexuality/gender academically is there are. so many cases. where ppl online have taken terms from academia and just use them so so so so wrong in ways that range from missing the point in a harmless way to being nearly the exact opposite of the intended use

but you don't wanna be that "well, actually-" asshole and at this point these other uses are so widely used that there's really no correcting it so u just kind of have to :)

[officialpenisenvy]

wait so are you butch or not

i do call myself butch sometimes and i used to use that a lot as a teenager but it's definitely not my primary label in queer or wlw spaces anymore these days i prefer to just refer to myself as masc. mostly because like i was saying im not someone who is pursuing or will possibly ever pursue a relationship with a femme and the specific dynamic with femmes is often such an integral part to butch identity that i don't really see the point in sort of misrepresenting both myself and the butch label that way

[disneyprincette]

hey so does anyone else think the whole “i’m just a girl” “girl math” “girl jobs” (and to some extent the tradwives thing) etc etc thing is at least partly a reaction to living conditions under capitalism (expectations to overwork, lack of support, hyper-individualism, isolation, burnout, not to mention how much more hostile everything feels if you’re disabled in some way)… and not JUST regression into conservative gender roles. or is it just me

[genderqueerdykes]

as an intersex trans wo/man, i've noticed that unfortunately it has become painfully obvious that not only do radfems and terfs try to abuse trans men into falling in line with their beliefs, but unfortunately, this happens to trans women and transfemmes as well. i've unfortunately seen several trans women fall down the the "men evil, women innocent, trans men have cis male privilege, trans men don't struggle, trans men aren't men or trans they're just confused butches," pipeline really quickly after transitioning or their eggs cracking, and it's not necessarily that transfem's fault, but rather an abusive person sweeping in to take advantage of someone who needs and wants validation in feeling like a woman. the person who put the terf ideals in their head during this crucial stage in development is to blame, it is not inherently the trans woman's fault.

vulnerable transfems and trans women become indoctrinated into these things. trans women and fems are not inherently bitter, shitty, hateful people. it's a select few who become groomed by radfems who push this belief, and push it hard, because that's what you do when youve been indoctrinated into a cult. it's not an issue inherent to trans women and transfeminism at all- it's vulnerable people being groomed. this is a serious issue of trans women and fems being groomed and brainwashed.

this is a huge deal and we have to stand up for each other, because the transfems getting groomed into this need support and help to get out of this cult. it is not okay for women who are just trying to find their footing to almost instantly get sucked up into a literal hate group. we have to help trans people who become indoctrinated into gender essentialism, antimasculism, and transandrophobia just as much as we help other trans people unlearn transmisogyny. these issues are both damaging our community on the whole.

radfems are aggressive and will try to indoctrinate anyone they can into antimasculism, transandrophobia, and gender essentialism. a lot of trans women in the early stages of transition really want to be validated as women and such, will become groomed by these groups of cis women who will gladly feed them toxic ideals like women can never be wrong, women are always innocent, men are always harmful and evil, it just benefits the radfems, not the trans woman. this behavior grooms yet another person into spreading radfeminism without realizing it. when one espouses these beliefs they become a spokesperson for radfeminism and terfism

i'm plain tired of seeing this argument, because it is nothing but gender essentialist binarist bullshit:

"transphobia is worse for trans women than trans men because of x, y, z."

its not worse. its different. but equal.

i understand that many folks have not lived the life a trans man leads, but whenever you try to speculate on what it's like, you will always be wrong, no matter what, because you weren't in that person's shoes. it's impossible to see the nitty gritty of how a specific group of people are treated unless you are that person or spend lots of time around large groups of those types of people. trans men face homelessness at a disproportionately high rate compared to other groups of queer folk. we also deal with forced detransition. we deal with being dehumanized by she/her pronouns. we deal with having lesbianism and butchness weaponized against us. we also deal with sexual violence. we also deal with physical, mental, and emotional abuse. we deal with gaslighting, lying, being robbed, abandoned, injured and killed. its virtually impossible to find support if you're a pregnant trans man.

trans men have a lot of unique struggles. this is not a comprehensive list, but rather to show you that ALL trans people struggle. we are united under the same banner of transphobic treatment. we are struggling, but we are struggling together, and we can uplift each other without tearing each other down. punching down on another trans person hurts us all.

belittling the trauma of other trans people is a form of queer infighting that terfs want you to do in order to fracture our community further. queer infighting doesn't help anyone whatsoever. trans men do not have it harder than trans women. trans women do not have it harder than trans men. amab and afab and intersex enbies don't have it worse than each other. these are all completely different and unique struggles that deserve to be acknowledged for what they are. you cannot use the same scale of severity for a totally different problem.

people love to completely gloss over the issues trans men face for the sake of believing that all men benefit from patriarchy. saying that trans men are not affected by specific kinds of transphobia is spreading the radfem belief that only women struggle under patriarchy. queer men, men of color, intersex men, gay men, bisexual men, trans men, polyamorous men, genderfluid men, bigender men, gender non conforming men, feminine men, men who crossdress, disabled men, neurodivergent men, mentally ill men, and other marginalized men suffer under patriarchy as well.

i'm not tolerating radfem gender essentialism being woven into queer ideals anymore. this behavior has to go. when you genuinely believe these things, we all lose.

[fatalism-and-villainy]

My other frustration with how D/s gets discussed in fandom is that, yes, sometimes people can be overly prescriptivist and essentialist in how they argue for their headcanons about characters' role preferences. Or they just conflate the external kayfabe of a given role with a character's overall personality (there are many doms who are shy and neurotic, lol. Just for one example).

But this sort of thing gets conflated with having literally any character-based justification for imagining them preferring a given role (or actively disliking another one). No, there's no particular "type" of person who enjoys dominance or submission, but there's also no particular "type" of person who enjoys, idk, hockey, or scrapbooking. People come up with headcanons for characters' other hobbies or interests all the time, and will use traits or preferences that they show in canon to justify them. Why is it suddenly off-limits to take into account how a character interacts with others, what they desire from relationships, or what their overall fantasies are when imagining how they might relate to kink? People's sexualities are generally not separable from their entire self, or how they process or relate to people and objects in a non-sexual context.

Or why is it permissible to do that but only if you're open to seeing them in either role? Sure, many of the same inclinations and preferences in their abstract form can manifest in either dominance or submission, but this varies greatly from person to person. Part of the process of coming up with headcanons is imagining a character as a specific person, rather than an abstract construct or cluster of signifiers, and thus a specific manifestation of a wide array of potentialities. "I think they'd find this unpleasant, unfulfilling, or boring, for xyz reasons" can be just as meaningful character work as "Here's a way they could possibly be into this."

A specific subset of my frustration with this sort of thing as well is the subtext I sometimes pick up on that the only reason you'd imagine a character as dominant is because you're horny for them, and giving them the "chance" to be submissive is the only way of bestowing care or vulnerability or interiority in general onto them. (And thus the idea that imagining both characters as switches is the only way for them both to get their needs met.) And I really wish people would stop framing things this way.

[plaidos]

i'm transmasc and i think another part of the reason for transandrobro shit is like... myself and almost every other trans man i know have a story of a cis woman or tme nb person who does not identify as a man that's used gender essentialist "men bad, women good" rhetoric to manipulate them, abuse them, convince them to recloset themselves and/or detransition, etc. as a trans guy with moral ocd that shit kept me in the closet for a long time. BUT i also understand that this doesn't happen bc these people "hate men" - it happens because they're transphobes who want to see us detransition. but i think a LOT of guys who experience this go "wow. these people hate men. misandry must be real! this is WOMEN'S fault!" instead of, like, recognizing that the problem is transphobia. then of course they start punching down at trans women, because they're the easiest group to take that anger out on. it's inexcusable imo and i hate them bc i can't talk abt the actual abuse i've faced without sounding like i'm saying "WAH THE FEMINISTS HATE ME FOR BEING A MAN," because, like, that's what they say, all the time every day. sorry for the ramble lol it's infuriating.

you’re totally right — the only thing i’d add is that of course that same gender essentialist “men bad, women good” rhetoric is not ever used in the defence of trans women’s place in the community — indeed, it is nigh exclusively used to deny US respect, space, rights, etc. and if anything used for this at a greater rate, more commonly etc.

[qinduang]

Yotha's Problem (And Why I Like It)

I'm done being angry at Yotha. In other words, it's time for me to over analyze what the writers were thinking, and understand where Yotha was coming from.

Perfect 10 Liners EP 13 is full of unresolved conflicts that the show has been establishing since EP 9: mommy issues, situationships, trauma, and ambiguous relationships.

But I fixated on Yotha's new found vice in this episode.

In Yotha's head, apparently, kissing = apology. And he's so wrong. But it's so perfect for Yotha's character.

His failure to communicate, apologize well, and process his emotions make so much sense when he grew up in an incredibly masculine household. Of course, the concept of "masculinity" is dynamic, but Yotha's family, especially if we consider how detached New is from caring about Yotha's well-being, is what gender essentialists define as masculine.

It's a family where they don't talk about "feelings," don't embrace their brother to comfort, and ignore obvious problems, because they keep to themselves. Being sensible and emotional is considered a feminine trait. It's exactly why Yotha and New are different from Faifa, because he grew up with their mother, but that's a conversation for another day.

Yotha's approach in apologizing is quite.. masculine. It's assertive and physical. He doesn't ask permission and holds Gun down. This "method" is what makes the most sense to him when Gun, obviously in love with Yotha, likes being kissed. Gun kisses back and melts into it. Yotha takes it as a positive response, so his apology, therefore, is effective.

Yotha just has these.. big and complex emotions for Gun, and it's difficult to navigate when all that he's known about love is painful. He's a child of divorce, his mother abandoned him, and the grown man that dated him at 16 broke his heart.

This is not to say that his kiss = apology analogy is right, but he doesn't have much to work with when he doesn't know what else to do. The fact that Gun also struggle to communicate his feelings makes it more difficult for Yotha to understand. How should he apologize? Why is he apologizing? These are questions that are difficult to answer when the other person won't tell you the problem.

All Yotha is holding onto are his observations, because he's intelligent, just a mess. He knows that Gun likes him, and he knows that kisses make Gun as happy as it makes him. So, it's the most sensible thing for him to do (in his own logic). It's not the healthiest, but it's what he knows, and he needs to know better.

Gun probably understands this at the beach. Yotha is still confused, vulnerable, healing, and definitely not ready for a relationship yet. So, Gun waits, because it's the love he knows that Yotha doesn't.

[drdemonprince]

I will generally honor a "do not reblog" tag if I see it, but I also find it a bit ridiculous for a person to make a public, rebloggable post on the reblogging website and expect people to know to not do it. Especially when you can, you know, turn reblogs off.

I will generally not honor a "DNI List" because I think it's completely ridiculous to expect a stranger on the internet to read through an exhaustive list of all the people the OP has some abstract beef with before one can like, reblog, or reply to a post on the like/reblog/replying website. Often I completely miss that a DNI exists altogether because I do not suffer from online moral puritanism (great thanks extended to all people who have ever criticized me online for wearing my nerves down to the bone), but if I do happen to see a person has an absurd DNI I will disregard it frequently out of spite.

of course some people's DNI's are so in your face and objectionable that I will block the person outright, which does have the side effect of honoring their DNI request, but that's not on purpose. it's just that i personally do not want a terf/gender essentialist/pro israel shitstain/ person who attacks horny people online for existing in my life.

boundaries are a thing YOU do, a thing YOU maintain for yourself, not something you can force another person to honor, and anyone who expects otherwise is setting themselves up for either a ton of failure or giving themselves ample opportunities to play at being the victim, which is of course often the point

[maxdibert]

The thing that gets me about that one post is where they said Snape *needs* to be straight and white because his reasons for bullying Harry are petty. Like, what does that even mean?? If James truly bullied Snape because he was already a blood purist and death eater like they claim, then what does it matter if he's black and gay? If it really was just a rivalry over Lily's attention, then there shouldn't be a problem right? Why are Snape's actions petty if he's white and straight, but somehow more legitimate when he has a different race and sexual orientation? Is pettiness only a white, straight trait? Are other people not allowed to be petty? Are white, straight people not allowed to be traumatized by bullying? They can only acknowledge it was traumatizing if its done to a marginalized group? Lmao I need their thought processes explained to me.

Yeah, so, there’s something really messed up going on with all this, because what they’re saying has like two layers, two different readings, and both are pretty disturbing if you actually stop and think about it. On the one hand, what they seem to be implying — without saying it directly but definitely suggesting it — is that someone who isn’t white and/or straight can’t do bad things. Like, that’s the takeaway. According to this weird logic, if you make Snape queer and racialized, suddenly nothing he does matters. He could literally be Voldemort, he could turn into a serial killer like Ted Bundy, and somehow he’d still be… untouchable or something, because that’s the unspoken rule. Since he belongs to a historically oppressed group, his actions automatically stop being questionable. And that’s incredibly dangerous, not just because it’s essentialist to the core, but because it basically means you're assigning ethical or moral capacity based on who you sleep with or how you look in the mirror. It's completely fucking absurd on every level.

But the second point is even more fucked up. What’s being implied —almost unconsciously but very clearly— is that if a white, straight, working-class person like Snape is humiliated, bullied, stripped in public, and subjected to systematic psychological abuse during his teenage years by a bunch of rich, powerful kids —because let’s remember, James and Sirius weren’t exactly struggling— then suddenly it doesn’t matter. Apparently, according to these people, that kind of abuse only counts if it happens to someone who fits into a particular identity category they’ve decided is worthy of empathy. In other words, trauma is only valid if the victim is part of an oppressed group. But if the victim is a white, straight dude, then he had it coming, right? Then it’s not bullying, it’s not trauma, it’s not something that could scar you for life or mess you up psychologically.

And that’s where it all becomes a complete mess. Because if we start from the idea that only certain people have the right to be hurt, to suffer, to have trauma, or to react badly to the things that happen to them, then what we’re doing is accepting a worldview that’s incredibly dangerous, one where morality is distributed based on identity categories instead of actions or context. And I’m sorry, but that’s not social justice, and it’s not fighting oppression. That’s just swapping one arbitrary system for another equally unfair one, just dressed up as progressivism.

And finally, what pisses me off the most about all of this is how deeply dehumanizing it is. Because denying someone the capacity to do wrong just because they’re not white or straight is just as absurd as denying someone the capacity to suffer because they are. Both things reduce people to symbols, to archetypes, to puppets in some ideological narrative. And that, to me, is the most dehumanizing thing of all. Because every single one of us has the right to be complex, contradictory, vulnerable and yes, sometimes petty or even cruel. There’s no identity that automatically makes you a better person, and there’s no skin color or orientation that exempts you from doing horrible things or from experiencing horrible things.

So yeah, I’d love for these people to explain their thought process, because either they haven’t thought it through at all, or —if they have— then where it leads is kind of terrifying.

[sophie-frm-mars]

As a trans woman engaged with environmental politics I've often observed what felt like an ontological tension between the naturalistic view a lot of people adopt in those spaces and my reality of being trans. Lots of talk about the natural virtues of the divine feminine and so on, that lends itself to a very essentialist view of sex and gender.

I was wondering: have you noticed this tension, and do you know of any writers who have done work to resolve it? Or is it kinda unavoidable that when we place inherently higher value on things that are "natural", for trans people to end up othered in the process?

How long have trans women been doing diy castrations and brewing horse piss to get estrogen out? It's like 2000 years I think. Older than spectacles anyway

This is another one where the realities and the theory are not comfortable friends. I'm half way through a stay on a rural French commune right now and the communards have been universally lovely to me and my wife, also trans.

I like the manifesto "Xenofeminism" for arguments deliberately against naturalism, like medical and surgical abortions aren't "natural" in a Return To Monke way. Childbirth is the single biggest killer in history.

At core we have to understand that humans have and do will continue to change the world around them and the only "defending nature" that exists is making positive changes instead of negative ones, acting as nature defending itself, acting as stewards of the other-than-human world. There is no going back. I don't see any conflict with trans people's existence and valuing nature because nature is a made up concept to separate us from the other-than-human

[sepublic]

I’m probably patting myself on the back saying this but I am glad with Nizziverse that the central conceit of the Autobot-Decepticon conflict really is about other species because it reframes Optimus’ “Freedom is the right of all sentient beings” as not just some general catchphrase but like, a context-specific rebuttal to some prior phrase. Something like “Freedom is the right of all Cybertronians.”

This is what he and Megatron outlined after they successfully defeated the Functionists, but the quote as we know it really does reflect how he’s grown and what makes him better than the Decepticons, what reassures us that this conflict isn’t meaningless, because it addresses the in-group attitude of the Decepticons that made their talk of freedom become outdated and hypocritical, bio-essentialist even, in its paradoxically narrow definition of where “freedom” is extended. Optimus’ quote really does reflect, again, the central premise of the conflict and what the story is about.

It’s Optimus acknowledging that there’s more to this world than the Transformers themselves, and tbh I feel that also reflects one of the attitudes behind Nizziverse. That in the end, humans ARE vital to Transformers, that the basic premise was in the interaction of our world with another one; Our vehicles turn into their robots. It’s a twist, you can’t have a twist if it’s Cybertronian vehicles turning into Cybertronian robots, you don’t have to think about how a real life vehicle would turn into a robot and vice-versa if you can just create an original alt-mode clearly designed to accommodate and work around the robot mode and never the other way around, which is much more rewarding because it interacts with real space by interacting with real things.

And I want to explore the tension and the implications of Cybertronians turning into parts of our world more, and how this develops our relationship, how our relationship with our world is redefined by them, and how it bleeds into our relationship with them. How this relationship is the foundation for the story because the story is the conflict. And in general I love the interaction of Transformers with the worlds they inhabit and mimic so much that I want to explore more the other worlds they’ve encountered, and not just humanity’s.

[genderqueerdykes]

i dont know why, but your butch post got me thinking about about yet another problem the lgbtqia+ community has: prelabeling people as tops/bottoms. and even being disgusted with/erasing switches, which I've seen a lot. I'm a lesbian. i don't consider myself butch or fem because I'm not comfortable with those labels, but to the outside eye I do seem a little butch. i remember when I was in highschool I had a friend who always said I was "top-coded" and always called me a top. as a bottom and now a questioning aro/ace spec that shit made me so uncomfortable. and I told her that many times, but she just used the shitty "its just a joke" excuse. like omfg shut up

holy shit thank you because i literally wanted to talk about this in that post but wasn't sure if it would make it too long. you messaged me at exactly the right time, thank you so much because this bugs the hell out of me too

that's soooooo gross, i'm sorry that person was saying that to you. first of all that's literally none of their business, you really shouldn't just say that to someone. what the fuck does "top coded" even mean? not all tops are the same, there's literally all kinds of different top dynamics. also i think people get top/bottom and dom/sub mixed up, too, which is even more frustrating. they're not mutually exclusive, they don't mean the same thing. you can be a dominant bottom, or a submissive top. power bottoms are a thing. service tops are a thing.

i literally hate that people inherently assume that butches are tops and femmes are bottoms. like it's just kinda written in stone that femmes have to be submissive pillow princesses and butches have to be tops that take care of all of their needs and barely have theirs addressed at all. like, what about the butches who are bottoms? what about the femmes who are tops? also like you mentioned, do people literally not realize switches exist...? like that's literally also an option.

"butch" does not mean "top". "femme" does not mean "bottom". it's soooo gender essentialist and binarist to go. masc partner = top fem partner = bottom. you just recreated the cishet binary *again*. i can't get over how this is NOT progressive. i do NOT get why white cis lesbians think it's progressive to force butch lesbians to behave exactly like we expect cis men to behave, and force femme lesbians to behave exactly like we expect cis women to behave, but it's NOT PROGRESSIVE!

also, great point, which is that a lot of lesbians are ace. it's so shitty for someone to sit there and try to guess if you're a top or bottom when you're not even interested in sex. honestly is' gross as hell to analyze your friends' and prospective partners behaviors and categorize them into top or bottom. what the hell is wrong with people. that's not a joke, that's invasive, and creepy.

[transformersconfessions]

I really hate the fact that members of the fandom tend to make Prowl and Bluestreak siblings. its not canon, and its arguably anti-canon given how media such as the CoP frames them as having an unspoken "more than just friends" relationship with one another. If it were just like- "hey wouldn't it be fun if this that or the other" then it wouldn't be an issue, but there's this heavy emphasis on fantasizing Bluestreak as a character, as well as leaning into some severely uncomfortable territory with the notion of "Praxians" as an "exotic partner" in the same manner as with Seekers. its really not different to how people act about specific racial or ethnic groups, leading to some majorly fucked up bio-essentialist trends. Prowl stays semi-consistent and is often treated as an independent character, but Bluestreak ends up being "babified" and objectified into being a plot piece for Prowl. Ive seen the same thing happen quite a bit with Jazz as well, however Smokescreen (likely due to being more notable due to prime) often gets out of the objectification with the remaining issue of racial eroticism that people get into. I get its an independent choice a lot of people make, but there are implications and undertones to art that people need to recognize. Bluestreak isn't just "quirky little brother" or the occasional "prowl's kid" he's a fully realized person and a victim of severe trauma that deserves to be acknowledged and respected

*

[xxchromies]

Btw I don’t care too much about the continuation of the species itself. The point I’m making is that given that we are wired to reproduce (all animals are, it’s not a bio essentialist thing, what’s the point of acknowledging that there are two sexes if you can’t acknowledge WHY this is the case?), it seems a bit strange and unproductive to shit on straight women, given that they will always exist. The desire to sleep with men isn’t just societal, it’s literally a part of our biology. It’s not like the desire to wear makeup, for instance.

Also once again men are the problem. It almost feels like people are running away from the main issue by saying we should just not date or have sex with men ever again. The 4B movement is good because the idea is that it will show men we wont put up will their bullshit anymore. So they’d have to change. You can’t just be like “you should just not bother with men cause they’ll never change”. Like they very much can, but they aren’t. Acting like they can’t is just another way of saying “boys will be boys”.

[bronanlynch]

#I for one would LOVE to hear about how transition could’ve saved Katejina @average-transdalorian

ok so. a thing that really struck me abt victory is how much katejina resents being forced into normative feminine roles (especially motherhood), from the beginning katejina resents being expected to have to watch the kids and take care of the baby and that's part of what drives katejina away from the league militaire (in kind of an inverse of the reccoa situation, where reccoa resents that the aeug aren't doing enough to reinforce normative femininity for her)

and then katejina ends up with zanscare, nominally a matriarchy, and has chronicle asher talking abt how a woman needs to be the one in charge, and katejina has more power and more agency and no babies to take care of but still isn't happy or satisfied, and then fights uso at the end and seems to hate him in part just for seeing him as a woman. and the way katejina talks to and treats women (the shrike team, the women sent to fight uso in bikinis) that feels like a way of externalizing self-hatred and punishing them for being women bc *katejina* hates having to ~be a woman but doesn't know that not being a woman is an option and is therefore lashing out at the concept of femininity

and I think there's something there abt hating being a woman in the way that's expected, and then being presented with another way of being a woman and hating that too, and lashing out abt it in ways that are cruel or irrational or unfair bc it's hard to articulate the real problem, that makes me start to think that maybe the problem is being a woman at all. transition could've saved him (made him less bitter & unhappy and also less prone to taking his personal dissatisfaction with his life out on other people in ways that include but are not limited to joining gender essentialist fascist cults) and unfortunately for everyone there was no opportunity for him to realize this :/

[pynkhues]

To be entirely fair (and I write this with the utmost respect to you, you are not one of the people who do this) there are some fans of Bottom!Lestat, Femme!Lestat, and Mother!Lestat who seem to be just as gender essentialist and homophobic as some (as you said, not all) of the Bottom!Louis, Femme!Louis, and Mother!Louis fans they despise. Some of them have preferences that are set in ‘straight’ relationship templates, but they want Lestat to be the feminine person and Louis to be the masculine person, and their upset is not with gender essentialism or homophobia but that some people in fandom favour the opposite dynamic. Some fans who see Lestat naturally as a Femme and reject Louis as a Femme do so because they think the image of a feminine or Femme Louis is revolting, and that has everything to do with Lestat’s whiteness and Louis’s Blackness.

Many Femme!Louis fans are as passionate and perhaps acerbic and defensive as they are because this fandom has been no more kind to them than it has been Femme!Lestat fans: Predominantly Black Femme!Louis writers were put on a list to shame and mock them in 2023. A Femme!Louis writer was harassed to such extent by some fans for the decisions he made in his fic that he stopped writing for Loustat and turned against the fandom. Black Femme!Louis fans have been called white men’s whores, race fetishists and porn addicts. I appreciate that many Femme!Lestat and Bottom!Lestat fans have been harassed, shamed and mocked as well and I am sorry for it. It’s quite horrible. And I do not want to make excuses for their behaviour, but I saw that some of the fanfic writers who have been hostile to you for your masculinity meta were some of the same fanfic writers who had been called race fetishists, white men worshippers and harassed for writing Femme!Louis. Hurt people hurt people, and all that.

I’d say the harassment evidences how much transphobia there is in fandom, as even nominally queer communities are rife with gender essentialism, homophobia and reflexive disgust of non-conforming queer bodies and that is true regardless of if Louis or Lestat is the subject. With Louis, one must consider the role anti-Blackness plays as well.

This is where your other anon may have touched on a fallacy and where they may need to unpack some of their own presuppositions: topping is not the only way one can care for one’s sexual partner, and bottoming is not the only way one can be desired. A top can be feminine and a bottom can be masculine, or neither can be feminine or masculine, or both. In essence, it does not matter how IwtV stages Loustat’s sex scenes because they will be loving, tender and passionate with one another no matter what. It speaks volumes that they’ve had several love scenes in which who topped and who bottomed was debatable, but the love and passion between them was unmistakeable.

(x)

I appreciate the respect, anon, as well as the context, and yeah, of course, there are people on both sides engaged in the same rhetoric. I understand that, just as I understand that there is an undercurrent of (and often overt) anti-Blackness in this fandom which denies Louis any trait that isn't stereotypically masculine, and contributes to the racism in this fandom more broadly. That's important to acknowledge and it's important to tackle, of course it is, and I hope I do my own part in the ways that I can on here.

And look, I'm open about the fact that I don't really engage in the broader discourse within this fandom, so I don't think I can comment on meta or the many and varied things that are happening on other blogs or social media threads, but one of the areas I do engage pretty broadly is in fanworks, and I don't know. I absolutely hear what you're saying, but when I'm scrolling through ao3, it's pretty clear that the dominant preference and understanding of these characters is not the version of Louis and Lestat you're arguing is as endemic as the one the previous anon was talking about.

Again, I can appreicate that it exists though, and that things happened before I joined the fandom that have influenced the ecosystem, and I'd never deny the experiences of people who went through that, but in saying that, I hope you wouldn't deny mine either.

Because it's terrible that that happened to the writer(s) / clique you know I'm talking about, but they weren't hostile to me, anon, they doxxed me. Look, I don't want to play the victim, I'm conscious of the race politics in all of this, just as I'm conscious of how I want to engage in fandom, and a lot of this I didn't post at the time, because I didn't think it served anyone or anything, but I was sent my full name, my brother's name and birthday, information about my estranged father's workplace, my sister's name and information and, as many people know at this point because I did post about it, a threat to send her and my 7 and 8 year old nephews smut that I had written for consenting adults, in between getting people sending anons on the regular calling me a racist bitch. I had to talk to my family, I had to tell my workplace what was happening, because that felt like the logical next step in the harrassment, I had to talk to a lawyer, the latter two of which was pretty humiliating, but hey, at least now, legally, in Australia, it's considered assault (and I hope the person who threatened my nephews lives every day with the fact that a part of them was willing to at least threaten child sexual assault if not commit it for the sake of a personal opinion).

I appreciate you citing someone who quit the fandom on the other side of it, but honestly, right then, in the thick of it? I was going to too. Would you feel it gave more weight to my harassment if I left the fandom or stopped posting fic? And would it mean more or less if I too lashed out at those I know were behind it?

Because here's the thing - I rebuke your idea that hurt people hurt people, anon. It's fun in fiction, but it's a cop out in reality. It has never and would never cross my mind to treat people the way that they treated me. Them doxxing me doesn't make me feel empowered to dox others who disagree with me. In fact, I feel even more disgusted by it having been a victim of it myself. I hope that's a testament to my character, because I do actually think how you choose to behave after being harrassed is a testament to yours, and if you decide it gives you a free pass to be cruel to others for the simple act of disagreeing with you - - God. I don't even know what we're doing here at all.

Anyway.

I agree though that there is a lot of transphobia in the fandom and TERF rhetoric across the board, but I actually think you and the last anon are in agreement about the fact that equalising things like top = dominant = masculine is inherently false. It was, at least in my reading, their main point and their criticism of the broader fandom that that is the way people handle it, and that that's inherently a fallacy, as you said. But yeah, agreed too that who's doing what to who doesn't actually matter, and that their love and passion for one another is what does.