#because while i think trans panic is waaaaay less common than the media thinks

[jemandrr]

accidentally browsing a (very niche) female-dominated gaming space and seeing people TEAR into people who want an option to change the player character's pronouns to he/him or they/them without changing anything else because it'd invite men to invade a safe space. For a game purely about dating men. Like, I've been through plenty of female-dominated spaces where queer people and similar-interest straight men are welcome (in this case it'd be bi men but yknow), so it's just this one community, but jeez. The amount of fear that anyone who isn't explicitly a femme female would come in and A. hit on the faceless women there or B. taint the game by making the devs add designs of men who they don't want to date?

I got such a strong terf-y rhetoric from that community, like we can't have anything in common with people who aren't like us going on. All about taking 'our' things. And a lot of people contradicting one other but not trying to find out what the truth is because they have the same conclusion. Like two people saying A>B or B>A and no argument arises and no one shows interest in which is true because both people conclude C.

A lot of people even saying that, likewise, things that appeal to female or queer audiences should NOT be added to mainstream media just like queer content should not be added to female-oriented media. These hard walls around what belongs to who is like...they were raised by toy companies or something.

Like what is (paraphrasing so it isnt searchble) "I would never come into a male dominated community because I feel like I would be invading their safe space, so I don't get why men would want to come here and talk about liking men." At least the people who are scared of sexual abuse are warranted, I've seen tons of abusive language towards people they think are women in male dominated online spaces, but what is this fear of even...sharing interests with men? I know we've been in a new era of gender role enforcement with the tradfem movement, but jeez. And as for these last two points, they both are ones that were contradicted. People also said they do believe in diversity BUT just *this* shouldn't count.

Some people even said it's not fair that they get pushed to be more inclusive when mainstream media never does. Which makes me wonder if they're so deep in their niche 'I only experience content made by and for exclusively straight women' content that they haven't noticed any of the movements in media going on over the last 1.5 decades. Like it's true that we haven't made that much progress, but how do they think that no media gets pressed to increase diversity? The more rigid/right-leaning male audiences of tons of media have been complaining about forced diversity for years in exactly the same way (and sometimes, when it really WAS forced diversity, everyone complains because it's not representing anyone really but yknow). But I guess they wouldn't know that if all of them avoid mainstream media?

Also...what is the fear that gay men like men in a 'wrong' way...(and again, the unargued contradiction being plenty of people saying that they also like media about gay characters, but just they shouldn't make these characters gay)

And like I do get it, in the sense that being marginalized makes you skeptical and fearful of things you don't understand in its own separate way from how being in a privileged class makes you skeptical and fearful of things you don't understand. There's a lot more fear of exploring things different and new because the possible retribution feels/has been higher.

Honestly, this post isn't actually about a couple hundred to low-thousand women in a small community for niche games. Not like, I think it's important, I want to actively make them change. It's not that big a deal, not that surprising in the grand scheme. It's similar rhetoric to things i've seen before (Tradfem/terf). I've seen screenshots of, like, facebook mom groups before. And I've seen way bigger communities be way more open and welcoming, it's just a little outlier.

I'm just writing this because I'm a bit shellshocked because I forget how much that those kinds of people are not just the older, tech-illiterate generations, and not just shallow influencers who will say anything for the clicks (or because someone behind the scenes is funding it), their views behind the camera up in the air. Like I think I cultivate the people I interact with a bit too well. Too many of the people I actually interact with or witness the thoughts of regularly are queer and have flitting relationships with gender and then I remember the other side of the coin has people who think they're being progressive by suggesting that everyone who is different be segregated and therefore safe from each other with no room for intersectionality.