#but now that my view of the different ways to experience and relate to womanhood have broadened

[nowendil]

thinking about. womanhood again

[transmisogyny-explained]

I want to submit a perspective on "afab transfemininity" from. an afab multi gender person. I know my experience isn't representative of everyone who calls themselves this, but I wanted to at least share

I don't call myself a trans woman, I hesitate to call myself transfem. nonetheless, I feel connected to femininity in a distinctly transgender way. when I first came out, I hated being a girl. I was a transmedicalist and validated myself by invalidating others. I had to face a lot of internalized misogyny and transphobia in order to really learn what it meant to be a man. after I started testosterone about 3 yrs ago, I realized I was a lesbian, and started feeling more comfortable being, at least in part, a woman. it was different this time because it was something I liked, something new and my own, not something ascribed to me. it's not cisgender in any way, it is transfemininity

this being said, I know my experience toward transfemininity is extremely different from the norm. I am not what most people are referring to when they refer to transfems, and there are many definitions of transfem that do not include me. despite that, I do have some experiences that overlap, things I can relate to. my femininity is at its core transgender in nature. my gender now is more complex... I feel like both a man and a woman, neither and both. but that doesn't mean my feelings about my gender are predatory or invalid. I don't want to talk over transfems, I am very aware of my place in these conversations. but I still have a place, and it frustrates me to see you share posts that minimize my experience into a stereotype

Why do you view transfemininity as being, at its core, the experience of being “both a man and a woman” lmao

Get back to me when you start viewing trans women as actual women and transfemininity as actual femininity, and not an aesthetic or a vibe or “some other third thing” apart from femininity.

You “feel femininity in a distinctly transgender way?” Congrats! You’re nonbinary! But that is NOT what being a trans woman is — Their womanhood and femininity is not essentially different from cis women’s.

What you are describing is a very generic experience of being a feminine nonbinary person, and I don't say that to insult you; but to compare that experience to those of trans women’s betrays the fact that you don't view them as the same gender as cis women. Which is transmisogyny. It’s textbook third-gendering.

Call yourself a nonbinary woman- Call yourself whatever you want, in fact. But trans women and TMA people are never going to feel safe around you so long as you continue insisting that transfemininity is essentially the same as the nonbinary femininity you experience, and essentially different from “real” cis women’s femininity.

Also, can I just say that it’s a little condescending that you would end your ask by saying “I’m aware of my place in these conversations, but…”

Like, if you were really “aware of your place” and were actually listening to transfems when we talk about transfeminism, you would be able to recognize the enormous amount of transmisogyny baked into your message. On top of the third-gendering, you also managed to:

Imply that TMA people don’t understand the complexities of gender and nonbinarity like you, a TME person, do

Imply that TMA people creating the language and spaces to discuss our experiences in a way that excludes you, a TME person, is invalidating and somehow tantamount to labeling you as “predatory” (what does that even mean?)

Sent an unprompted ask to a transfem’s blog venting your frustrations with the language of transfeminism, despite the fact that I’m not even the one who made those posts?

Showed a pretty absurd amount of entitlement by insinuating that it’s somehow my problem that you feel frustration over misunderstanding the basics of transfeminist theory

Subtly demanded that I do the emotional labor of managing your frustration, which, frankly, is just classic misogyny

Displayed a complete lack of understanding towards what transmisogyny even is, nor why we, as the direct targets of transmisogyny, need the the language and spaces to discuss it

I really don’t care what transfem “experiences” you think you relate to, the fact that you perpetuate and can benefit from transmisogyny will always separate you from us, and if you actually gave a shit about us and our struggles, you would recognize that and try to be a better ally to us rather than co-opting and redefining our language in a shallow attempt to define us out of existence.

As has been said countless times now:

“Transfeminine” does not mean “trans + feminine,” it is a term coined by TMA people to describe our specific experiences with being denied our femininity. That is something which you, as a person for whom (as you said) womanhood/femininity was ascribed by the system of patriarchy, cannot understand in the way we do.

[uter-us]

Hello! I am the anon from before who sent in my thoughts, and I wanted to respond to some of the questions that you asked.

do you think it's fair to say that considering we live in a patriarchal world, some women might not want to be perceived as women as a (subconscious) response to misogyny? do you think this could affect their gender identity? additionally, do you think some women might find they are "doing" womanhood wrong in the eyes of the patriarchy (ie not be feminine, or be a lesbian, etc), and in turn internalize the idea that that must mean they aren't women? do you think this could influence some people's gender identity?

I definitely think that there are people who might not want to be percieved as women due to misogyny, and I do think that could affect their experience with gender, or even their gender identity. I've seen a couple of people on Tumblr talking about how part of why they consider themselves non-binary or genderqueer has to do with feeling like they've "failed" at womanhood, or feeling like they'll never be able to meet the sexist standards a lot of societies have for women. So I definitely think that the way someone is treated based on their gender can influence their experience with gender or their gender identity later in life. I think this sort of relates to what I was saying about kinship; if someone who was assigned female at birth feels no kinship with women, they're less likely to consider themself a woman.

However, I don't think it's fair to say that most trans men and AFAB nonbinary people are women who, consciously or subconsciously, are trying to escape misogyny. Or that misogyny is the main reason AFAB people are trans. I've seen a lot of radfems/gender criticals/TERFs say this, and I'm kind of curious about your opinion/experience?

if im working w the understanding that kinship means a strong (family-like) relationship, is that really enough to warrant a role in defining who is a woman/man? like there are people who fit both of these rules (increased+significant comfortability w perception plus feeling they have a kinship w said group), and we can still recognize they don't belong in that group.

I think that's a really good point, that you can identify with something without actually identifying as that. And there definitely are some people that fit both of those rules, but don't belong in the group because they don't consider themself to be part of that group. But I think the big difference between identifying with something and identifying as something really comes down to whether they view themselves as being inside or outside of that group.

For example: Imagine two people: a cis woman and a trans man. Both are more comfortable being seen as a man, and both feel a sense of kinship with men. The big difference between these two people is that the woman sees herself as being outside of (but in proximity to) manhood. Whereas the trans man sees himself as falling somewhere within manhood.

I also looked at some other questions you posed on different posts, and there were some that I thought were interesting and I wanted to give my perspective on.

I'm curious on what you think in these examples of what constitutes "true" gender identity rather than maybe confusion or trauma or any number of influences.

Honestly, I think that someone's "true" gender identity can be influenced by confusion and trauma. I would define gender identity as someone's internal understanding and experience with gender (which I'm sorry if that's kind of vague or confusing, I'm really not sure how to word it). But I think because gender identity consists of your experiences with gender, it can be affected and influenced by trauma. The way I see it, if someone finds it distressing to be considered a woman, then they shouldn't have to be considered a woman, regardless of why it's distressing.

Finally:

seeing people accidentally feed into gender roles and stereotypes heavily influenced the perspective I have now!

I'm kind of curious what you mean by this, would it be possible for you to kind of elaborate on that?

I'm sorry for this being so long again. I think this is an important conversation to have and in my opinion it's one that doesn't happen enough. I'm still going to stay anonymous for now but if you have any other questions about it then I'll try to respond since I'm actually quite enjoying this conversation.

-🌻

heyy!! i appreciate seeing you back w answers yay (anyone reading, heres the first post)

heres my thoughts:

I definitely think that there are people who might not want to be perceived as women due to misogyny, and I do think that could affect their experience with gender, or even their gender identity.

i completely agree! i think this itself is a huge limitation to gender ideology, yk? do you think this is a limitation? and if so, how do you think you would go about handing this? (and i don't even mean fixing it as a whole since that is a huge task obviously lol, but just maybe one thing we could do to help?)

additionally (and this will probably affect your answers above), do you think the people who don't want to be perceived as women due to misogyny are nonbinary, or do you think they are just women reacting to misogyny, or something else?

I've seen a couple of people on Tumblr talking about how part of why they consider themselves non-binary or genderqueer has to do with feeling like they've "failed" at womanhood, or feeling like they'll never be able to meet the sexist standards a lot of societies have for women. So I definitely think that the way someone is treated based on their gender can influence their experience with gender or their gender identity later in life. I think this sort of relates to what I was saying about kinship; if someone who was assigned female at birth feels no kinship with women, they're less likely to consider themself a woman.

i've seen this too and its so sad to see. its sad to see people think they've "failed" to fit into a sexist stereotype, and also think/know that in some settings it feels just easier to not consider yourself a woman. its almost like an attempt to opt out of misogyny, yk? what do you think abt that?

also specifically referring to your, "if someone who was assigned female at birth feels no kinship with women, they're less likely to consider themself a woman," i'd say that (under my definition), a lot of those people assigned female at birth actually do feel kinship w women, but not women who identify that way. i think afab people seeing themselves represented among nonbinary afab people, and in turn finding kinship w them, is still a form of kinship w women-- although i expect push-back on this! i'd love to hear your thoughts!

what do you think about this and its affect of "othering" gnc people? like how do we know we are not just "othering" gnc women or men? how do we know we are not just telling gnc women they aren't women? (aka reinforcing gender stereotypes)

However, I don't think it's fair to say that most trans men and AFAB nonbinary people are women who, consciously or subconsciously, are trying to escape misogyny. Or that misogyny is the main reason AFAB people are trans.  I've seen a lot of radfems/gender criticals/TERFs say this, and I'm kind of curious about your opinion/experience?

I think it's definitely more than people may realize. the more i talk to especially afab nonbinary people, the more i see clear themes of internalized misogyny, and i say this without judgement too because everyone responds differently to distress.

i dont know if i would would say misogyny is THE reason afab people are trans ? i think it depends. because like for some people that misogyny is stereotypes, and for some its mvawg, and for some its lesbophobia, so like it j really varies. but i do think misogyny, at minimum, plays a critical role in how these people view women, and who a woman is, and what a woman feels (or thinks or is like).

I think that's a really good point, that you can identify with something without actually identifying as that. And there definitely are some people that fit both of those rules, but don't belong in the group because they don't consider themself to be part of that group. But I think the big difference between identifying with something and identifying as something really comes down to whether they view themselves as being inside or outside of that group.

you're right; let me rephrase what i said before to include people who identify as and not just with:

"if im working w the understanding that kinship means a strong (family-like) relationship, is that really enough to warrant a role in defining who is a woman/man? like there are people who fit these rules (increased+significant comfortability w perception plus feeling they have a kinship w said group, and identifying as said group), and we can still recognize they don't belong in that group."

For example: Imagine two people: a cis woman and a trans man. Both are more comfortable being seen as a man, and both feel a sense of kinship with men. The big difference between these two people is that the woman sees herself as being outside of (but in proximity to) manhood. Whereas the trans man sees himself as falling somewhere within manhood.

what definition of manhood are you working with? (you might have to use the word "man" in the definition and im totally okay w that, but if you do can you provide some examples?)

Honestly, I think that someone's "true" gender identity can be influenced by confusion and trauma. I would define gender identity as someone's internal understanding and experience with gender (which I'm sorry if that's kind of vague or confusing, I'm really not sure how to word it). But I think because gender identity consists of your experiences with gender, it can be affected and influenced by trauma. The way I see it, if someone finds it distressing to be considered a woman, then they shouldn't have to be considered a woman, regardless of why it's distressing.

can you give an example of an experience w gender?

the last sentence here just ugh breaakkss my heart. like this sounds so emotional and dramatic but im literally having trouble writing this. i think its having somewhat been on this spectrum of distress w being considered a woman, but also seeing sooo many people feel this way. im thinking specifically about one friend right now (and i'd use kathleen stock's phrasing of "immersing myself in a fiction," cuz ik its super controversial among radfems but i do use he/him pronouns for him even though he is a human female / girl, even when he's not around, and maybe that'll change one day but for complicated reasons i j cant do that as of rn), and like im just thinking of him when you say this because the idea that just because someone doesnt want something, that makes it okay ?-- and worse: that that shouldnt be questioned? i dont know. he's been victimized in uniquely misogynistic ways, and abused and dehumanized on the basis of being female, and erasing his womanhood is a coping skill 100636438%. distancing yourself from what made you uniquely vulnerable to abuse is a COMPLETELY understandable reaction, which is why its so horrible that its taboo, or even considered hate, to bring this up.

also, "considered a woman" is interesting phrasing, because through the eyes of misogynists? he is a woman. he will be oppressed despite his gender identity. it reminds me of that one quote (if anyone reading this knows it, please share!) thats like, "the patriarchy doesn't have to ask pronouns to know who to oppress." something along those lines ? thats why i think it's so important for women to recognize that about themselves because its so crucial for forming female class consciousness and solidarity.

so ultimately: "The way I see it, if someone finds it distressing to be considered a woman, then they shouldn't have to be considered a woman, regardless of why it's distressing," is something i can find some agreement in but as a whole disagree w. i think some "uber exposure therapy" approach would not be effective, but like at the same time i also can NOT ethically not count my friend-- who considers himself a boy/man-- into my feminism. like he is a HUGE part of every feminist discussion i ever have even though though i've mentioned him like thrice ever (first time online), and my feminist motive is exclusively for the purpose of liberating women and girls.

okay and finally:

you quoted me saying "seeing people accidentally feed into gender roles and stereotypes heavily influenced the perspective I have now!"

I'm kind of curious what you mean by this, would it be possible for you to kind of elaborate on that?

yes! so what you're quoting was right under this screenshot:

his view of a female brain vs a male brain's behavior is very sexist! he said "i've had to put on a mask as strong , disciplined, grounded But deep down i've always been a woman inside , warmth, nurturing, loving. my body is [male] but my brain is very female." none of these traits are exclusive to either sex, and by claiming he must be a woman because of this behavior only reinforces the stereotypes and roles.

in a different post i say this:

"the writer was very explicit and clear on how a "female brain" behaves. he said he had kids and wife, and I cant help but worry abt the affects that these stereotypes must have onto his relationships with women, and how he must project them onto his family. if this is what he thinks women are, then that is what he will expect. this is a limitation."

this is not a one off stance of stereotyping as evidence of trans-ness. seeing this happen time and time again has heavily influenced my gender critical views. does that make sense? like did i elaborate thoroughly or do i need to rephrase/add?

I'm sorry for this being so long again. I think this is an important conversation to have and in my opinion it's one that doesn't happen enough. I'm still going to stay anonymous for now but if you have any other questions about it then I'll try to respond since I'm actually quite enjoying this conversation.

no need to apologize !! my messages are equally as long (if not longer hahaha), so also dont stress if you need time to respond cuz im super patient :)) and i completely agree that these conversations dont happen enough!! i def sympathize w either side though cuz some people have little patience (which i dont mean in a judgemental way! cuz if yk you arent in a state where you can effectively communicate then there shouldnt be any pressure to have these types of conversations)!! and im so enjoying this convo too :) i like the flower you signed off w too

take sm care and be so safe! (lemme know if i missed anything in your message)

[i-mybrunettelady]

1, 5, and 6 for any oc of your choice! (pride ask game) :3 @the-desert-beast

henlo fren <3 you get some shady lady, because her answers might be interesting here.

5. How did you figure out your oc's identity?

I basically told myself, "okay I want a lesbian character" and I made one? Ren's sexuality is a deliberate decision on my part, but I worked with it and now it's as organic to her as breathing, basically. I'd never made a lesbian character before her too (that stuck, anyway) so that's some Ren trivia lmao

a.(1) What's your oc's gender identity? What's their relationship to their gender?

Ren is a cis woman, but one with a complicated view of her own womanhood. Due to switching identities that are two different people at this point, she has been able to identify the shared aspects of both of them: womanhood and lesbianism. So she keeps those two close to her heart, they're separate yet inform one another in a specific way. If she were to somehow trust you enough to describe her experience of femininity, she'd say, woman who is lesbian.

6. How does your oc feel about labels? Theirs, or in general?

Others' labels she doesn't give a shit about. People can call themselves whatever they want, and she may be curious about it but ultimately she doesn't care? When it comes to her own labels, though, they're very important. Important enough to not get shared with anyone but the closest people around her. Seriously, general public knows she has a girlfriend, but has no idea what kind of sapphic she is, that kind of secrecy.

As I mentioned in the previous question, her own lesbianism is very important to her and has a.. I'd say nostalgic value, almost? Both Renira and Vera are lesbians, which makes it one of the last few ties she has to Vera, and is therefore important. This belief also plays a part in when she's undercover; she's slept with men in the past for the job, but the thing that separates her and the role she's playing is the fact that Ren herself wouldn't choose to sleep with men if it were 100% her vibes and her choice.

It's all a bit convoluted, but Ren is a walking identity crisis of a person and it's all so twisty and turny that I had to write it out like this. It's Ren after all. She was never easy to decode and define, she was never simple in any of the things that relate to her personally, so this isn't any different, really.

[uncloseted]

but femininity and womanhood aren't the same thing. you even said it. you're contradicting yourself. "she wasn't girly like other girls so she probably wasn't a girl. or maybe she was!" that sounds insane and also it makes no sense. it's progressive now to say that if girls don't like to be feminine they (probably) aren't girls?. even if it's a common experience for nb people, no one would've guessed that miley cyrus would come out as nb. most people don't even remember or care. a lot of people

who might seem cis (and not just from the way they look) would say that they're "just a person" or "just me". and i don't recall franky being asked about her gender. people just kept pressuring her to come out as a lesbian. and also many lesbians identify as non binary or even transmasculine. you don't believe me because you're not a lesbian. you have your statistics and studies but i know the real people i've seen. and i know i'm really annoying with this but my only friend changes the subject

when i try to talk about gender, my therapist i can't debate with, and people at suicide hotlines have better things to do. i'm literally going insane because I can't believe I'm the only one who sees this

With all due respect, I don't know what you're expecting to get out of this message. I've given you my views on this several times. I've unpacked the metaphysics of gender and provided a biopsychosocial model of gender that I think is compelling. As you say, I've given you statistics and studies about trans and nonbinary identities. I've given examples that you might be able to relate to of what the trans experience is like and provided resources created by trans people to help you understand how they view themselves and what their experience is like. You don't have to agree with me. But you know my views on this. You're not going to change my mind by trying to catch me in hypothetical "gotchas" about fictional characters. And I mean this with all the love and respect in the world, but if you feel like you have to call suicide hotlines to discuss your views on gender, it may be taking up too much of your mental energy. At the end of the day, whether you "get it" or not, whether you agree with it or not, the way other people live their lives isn't your responsibility. It's okay to be like "wow, that's weird and I don't get it, couldn't be me" and then move on.

All that said, against my better judgement, I'm going to answer the questions you've presented in your ask. Not because I think it will change your mind, but because I think it might help other people who are seeing this post to understand.

The original ask was about why people felt like Franky should have been nonbinary and the answer I gave is what I think. Rightly or wrongly, nonbinary people saw themselves in Franky's experience and they wanted that to be an official aspect of her character. I think masc or gender nonconforming lesbians felt a similar kinship to Franky and wanted that to become an official part of her character, too. There's nothing wrong with wanting to see yourself reflected on television or relating to characters who present themselves similarly to you. I think because Franky's gender identity was never really explored in series 5, lots of different types of people could relate to her experience.

Gender expression is a very personal thing, and people can present themselves in similar ways for different reasons. It's like we were talking about the other day with "dressing like a lesbian" - a girl can dress cottagecore in a tradwife way or in a lesbian way, and it's hard to know which it is without more context about the way the person views themselves. The same is true for people who present themselves in a way that's different from the traditional presentation of their assigned sex at birth. Some AFAB people present in a traditionally masculine way as an expression of their non-binary or trans identity. Other AFAB people present in a traditionally masculine way as an expression of their lesbian or WLW identity. Other cis AFAB people present in a traditionally masculine way because they just like how that style looks on them, or because they deal with body dysmorphia, or because they're a "tomboy", or because it works better for the lifestyle they have and activities they engage in, or a hundred other different reasons. Without talking to them, you don't know what their reasoning is for presenting the way they do. It's less that "if girls don't like to be feminine they (probably) aren't girls?" and more like "if people who were assigned female at birth don't like to be feminine, one of the possibilities is that they're trans/non-binary/genderqueer/genderfluid."

In Franky's case, she dresses in a way that's gender non-conforming, so she might be a girl, or she might not. We never really get Franky's view on it in series 5 of the show. In series 6 the official answer becomes, "Franky is a straight, cis woman who was uncomfortable with herself in series 5, but now that she's feeling confident, she presents herself as femme." That was a disappointing answer for a lot of people, nonbinary people and lesbians alike, and I think is a big reason why people still talk about it all these years later.

Also, and I say this with no respect, you can fuck right off with your assumptions about my sexuality. I am, and always have been, a proud member of the LGBT+ community, to the point where I live in a historically queer neighborhood to be closer to my community. That's one of the reasons I care about this so deeply and fight to protect the trans people.

[litcomp3]

I <3 MY...

This topic isn’t directly related to something we discussed in class, but I do think it is relevant. I want to tap into intersectionality. For those who don’t know, intersectionality is when multiple social categories can apply to an individual or group of people and produce a complex type of oppression. An example of this would be a gay black man. Gay men face discrimination and so do black men; however, when a person has both, the form of oppression they face will be different than what black and gay men suffer from, oftentimes worse. The intersection is important because that same black gay man may not be welcomed in the black community or LGBTQ+ community. With this in mind, I would like to discuss a group I’m most familiar with, black queer women. Black women’s intersectionality of their race and gender impacts them even within spaces that are considered safe. Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) are classified as safe spaces for Black people however, expectations and stereotypes still exist. Black women who are a part of the LGBTQ+ community feel as if they must dress a certain way in order to fit in with their peers or join organizations. 

On TikTok, I heard about these two authors who conducted two separate studies. One focused on female HBCU alumni concerning their views on black womanhood. This study allowed seventeen participants to share their opinions and experiences. Then the other study focused on researching black lesbian, gay, and bisexual students attending HBCUs. The analysis focused on participants’ sexual identities as lesbian and bisexual and the filtering of their voices, both broadly and specifically, within HBCU environments. By conducting their separate studies they found together that respectability politics do feed into controlling stereotypes of black womanhood on HBCU campuses. This is not only done by students but also by faculty and staff. The authors then break down their findings by allowing the participants to tell their experiences. Black respectability is a set of behaviors and attitudes that were considered acceptable by white society aka the dominant society in the United States. This concept was largely shaped by the middle-class black community who believed that by following these standards, they would gain acceptance and respect from the dominant white culture. Now you might be wondering, “ok what's the point of this conversation?” Well, the idea of respectability politics places the burden of change on the oppressed group, rather than the oppressor. This mindset suggested that if black people could simply change their behavior and attitudes, they could overcome racism and discrimination. Have you ever heard an older person talk about how they “accept” queer people, but just don't like how we “force” it on them. Respectability politics is the reason why some queer black people don't feel comfortable at HBCUs because instead of blaming the oppressor and welcoming all black folk, some decide to push aside other marginalized groups and feed into intersectionality. Black people would judge and shame other Black people as a part of the LGBT community because they feel as if they are hindering the progression of our society. 

-N. Beamon

[samuraipussy]

See, this response I do understand and really appreciate, because we do indeed agree on a lot of things. Most of them, in fact. If you found my response to misinterpret what you were saying, it's due to how you worded the below:

You do have a lot of nuance in how you approach the topic and some of that nuance was missing from the original post, which did strongly imply that you think trans readings of the story (outside the acceptable pre-existing gender boxes recognised at the time) are in direct opposition to canon, historically inaccurate and/or disrespectful towards the source material and woc with those experiences. That is what I took issue with.

So I apologise for going in too hard if that was not your intention, but I did need to point out why I read it that way.

I also took it rather personally because, hey, I know Mizu's experience is not pure fiction because I am one of those non-western women who's had to crossdress for my survival growing up in a society dangerous to me. I am also trans and not a woman anymore. I don't appreciate the fandom-wide erasure and implication that this is a trans-exclusive experience or an experience that erases the womanhood central to it, or the amount of harassment, anon hate and suicide baiting directed at people like me in the fandom just for pointing out we exist. So if I sounded like a bitch, that might've been a factor. I'm sorry if the above was not what you were trying to say and I took it out on you.

Now to get onto what we do agree on, I do appreciate trying to provide the historical context and the reminder for everyone that no, people in edo-period japan would not be thinking about their gender or sexuality the way we do today, not with our words or in relation to everything else in their society.

I think part of where the breakdown of communication on this issue happens is the fact that "trans" in itself is an extremely wide umbrella term that can encompass a lot of concepts, including:

1. Transgender identities the way that they are widely viewed and understood in western countries today by the majority of the community or society at large.

2. The wider experience of someone who exists outside of the gender binary in any capacity. I think Mizu goes under this definition.

A lot of people use it in the first context towards historical figures, which is inaccurate, western-centric and does erase the plethora of experiences outside of our understanding today. So I do commiserate with the frustration and I agree entirely with everything you said.

I'd say it goes even further than queer identities/experiences. I wish we talked more about gender and sexuality at large, because we can't hope to even begin to understand how queer identities and experiences emerged at the time when the majority of people don't consider that the roles of (what we might call cis today) men and women were entirely different themselves. This is where you get issues like historical figures/characters who get called "gnc" by fandom even while fulfilling a perfectly normal gender-role in the time and culture they lived in, simply because it was different from what we consider normal of a man/woman today.

And even though I get frustrated with that too sometimes, I think it raises some other interesting points about how we use language to talk about historical/cross-cultural concepts and from what talks I've had with people in the field, it splits into two situations:

1. Someone who wouldn't have been considered queer at the time but we can read as queer by today's definitions, which is still worth talking about. I think Wakashu is a great example of this, where it's an accepted male gender role/subgender in the time they existed but would possibly be a queer identity today. Another one would be bisexuality as a practice in cultures and times when it was more or less the default, rather than an identity apart from the default.

2. Someone who was queer at the time but would not be so today because our gender roles and sexuality norms are completely different.

And the issue that I've seen expressed a lot is a failure in making it clear which way we are defining someone under the queer experience, especially doing so without providing the right context for how exactly that experience is queer. Because I think both perspectives are really valuable to analyse, if done correctly.

since my post about sexuality in bes took off, i've been thinking about making one about gender because people have been even more Chronically Western about that than anything. but the topic of gender has also been talked to death about this show.

still. i've yet to see a single person touch on the actual historical aspect of gender in this period of japan. (weeaboos where ARE yall??? i cannot be the only one left here jfc)

so, more below the cut.

okay. so. before westernization and christianity came in and obliterated and sanitized the culture, there were 3 recognized genders that i know of. there was possibly a fourth but my research only got me so far on that and i gave it up a long time ago. i'm gonna be talking about the 3 i do know about.

male and female were the obvious ones. aligns exactly how you think. cock and balls = male/man, vag and tits = female/woman. yes, there were many crossdressers of both genders. yes, there were people who by today's language and understanding would be considered trans. they, however, did not have these words nor have a need for them. you were either man or woman. or...

then there was a third, which was USUALLY but not always applied to adolescent males called wakashu. the closest thing you might refer it to is androgynous. earlier in edo period it was pretty much a catch-all for any adolescent male, but much later it became far more specific to the exceptional beauty of the young male. a wakashu was a sex icon, something to be desired and lusted after, so beautiful and alluring that even the most stoic and hardened samurai warrior could break and beg for their attention. and yes, we're talking about minors. wakashu were typically in the 6-17 age range. many delayed their coming-of-age ceremony (which would then make a wakashu a man) well into their 20s. and there are records of some who continued to identify as wakashu even into adulthood. a person could decide when it was time to move from wakashu to man, it wasn't so set in stone.

this time in japan did have a lot of strictness but there was also a whole hell of a lot of fluidity that was just so extremely normal for them. choosing to remain wakashu wasn't a big deal. want to go on to be a man? cool, congrats on all your man-related responsibilities now hurry up and find a wife. want to remain wakashu? cool, congrats on all the awesome sex you're gonna be having and the many things you'll be learning. either way was a good path. you were likely to have a bit more opportunities gaining power and land going forward as a man, but as wakashu you'd be expected to be an apprentice and learn more things from your teacher (while also sexually servicing him, extra bonus - most of the time.), so both had benefits. a samurai class wakashu, for example, would very likely go on to be a man since by nature of being samurai they have tons more opportunity. but a peasant wakashu would probably be more likely to remain wakashu and learn as much as possible and earn as much money as possible (since they were often prostitutes or performers as well).

so desirable were wakashu that sometimes female prostitutes tried to disguise themselves as one to attract more clients. they were often indistinguishable from women with their colorful and intricate kimono - sometimes the hairstyle was the only giveaway. and though the japanese didn't give a shit about the gender they were fucking, as i've covered before, true wakashu enjoyed a bit more freedoms with sex than did women pretending to be wakashu. like i mentioned in my previous post how they did have specific terms for who was giving and who was receiving in sex, certain aspects played into this. wakashu were expected to receive when with men, and expected to give with women. this would of course depend a little upon caste heirarchy too but that was the general gist of it. women on the other hand were expected to always receive. (and although straps were very much a thing, you'll find the double ended dildo far more popular amongst w/w relationships - at least in depictions. in reality it was probably an equal mix.)

the concept of wakashu has not entirely left japanese culture and has actually since been divvied up into the two aspects it represented: youth (shonen) and beauty (bishonen). hence why shonen manga and anime is so popular, why there are always always always bishonen prominent in manga and anime, why yaoi often has the strict dichotomy of uke and seme. and why shotac-n remains so wildly popular while the loli opposite has gradually declined with the introduction of censorship laws. the entire concept surrounding adolescent males is still very rooted in the role that the wakashu gender played until quite recent in history. (it formally ended in the meiji era, which was not that long ago.)

now with all of that said, where does mizu fall? she's still a woman. plain and simple. had she been born in late edo, she would have absolutely been considered an extraordinarily beautiful wakashu and lusted after constantly. people would be tripping over themselves to bed her. but being early edo that was not the case and she is still a woman having to disguise as a man in order to survive so she can fulfill her goal. that must be acknowledged. that is a key point that is brought up many times within the show. to ignore that fact is to erase who mizu is. she is masking as a man because she has been told since childhood being a woman would get her killed. because she has seen it far too many times how simply existing as a woman leads to a dead end. because she tried it and it turned out exactly as she was told. being a woman is not an option in her quest for revenge. if she weren't mixed race, though? i'd bet my left hand she would have embraced the hell out of wakashu and used it to her advantage. screw sex as an art, mizu would have made it a weapon. mizu wielding both a sword and the sexuality of wakashu would make her the deadliest thing in all of japan. however, that wasn't the case and we musn't ignore what is ths case. in her world, she is a woman forced to disguise as a man. period.

mizu by today's standard's is a whole different story, though. there is enough ambiguity that she can fit nearly any label you want to slap on her and that's fine. we have a lot more leniency with modern western terms. we have a huge spectrum of gender and you can toss her just about anywhere on it. you are all correct and incorrect simultaneously because any modern terminology applied to her is automatically headcanon. and just as i emphasized on my last post, headcanons, fics, AUs, ect, are exactly where these modern western ideals belong. it's awesome that she resonates with so many different gender identities - few characters in media can pull that off so well! yall should absolutely celebrate that! use her to express your gender euphoria! but do so while remembering who she is in canon. her canon experience is not pure fiction. there are still people in today's world that must disguise themselves out of necessity and quite often that ends up being women of color. there are people in living history who had to do that to survive.

you can respect the source material and also have your own unique headcanons and perspectives. both can be true.

[redheadbigshoes]

hiii I’m also a 5’4 lesbian!! I just wanted to share my story bc I thought some ppl might relate to it (sorry for the long ask, I tried to condense it as much as possible). I used to think I was straight when I was 14 and first exploring my sexuality, bc I had previously dated one boy in middle school and one boy in high school. I didn’t totally dislike dating them either - I liked the close friendship but I HATED the hand-holding and hugging, and the first time my ex bf tried to kiss me, I punched in him the stomach (we were 12 at the time). I thought maybe it was just cos I was young and I’d get used to physical intimacy as I got older. Then I got older, and I developed a crush for one of my best friends, and she was a girl. I always wanted to get close to her, or find some ways to touch her, or get her to laugh and smile. She made me realize that I liked girls, so I settled with pansexual, bc I was just a teenager and I thought that some men were pretty to look at & since I had already dated two boys then I must be attracted to them. Throughout hs I ended up only dating girls, but I still solidly believed I was pansexual. I also kind of went thru an identity crisis when I got to my freshmen year in college - questioning my gender & sexuality, tried the transmasc label for a while, the whole 9 yards. I no longer resonate w that label, but I feel a lot more confident w my identity now (cis lesbian woman) after trying out so many different things. I met my current gf in college, and it was just like something clicked - that I was really only attracted to and wanted to be with women. While yes, I do find some men aesthetically pleasing and the thought “yeah he’s kinda cute” crosses my mind, I’ve never felt compelled to really date any men. I only did it when I was younger bc I was becoming best friends w those guys and I thought the natural progression was to start dating - plus we were kids, and I feel like kids tend to start “dating” pretty quickly even without there being true feelings towards one another. So I’ve only ended up identifying as a lesbian for the past 3 years of my life, but it’s the one I’m sticking with until I die. And my gf is actually my fiancé now ^_^ ig my life lesson is: explore yourself!! Don’t be afraid to try out things you feel like you might identify with! You never know what’s deep inside if you don’t try it out….

Oh this is so cute! I’m so happy for you and your fiancé!

I relate to a lot of the things you said. I’d try dating boys because that’s what other girls were doing, and I’ve never really questioned that. When I realized my attraction to women I used to identify as bi, because I couldn’t tell the difference between finding men attractive and being attracted to them, also because my experiences kissing boys and anything like that were not bad, so in my mind if they weren’t negative then it meant I was still attracted to them. The thing is: I wouldn’t feel anything when doing that with boys, and if you’re attracted to a person you’re supposed to feel something positive.

Growing up lesbians were showed very stereotypically as being masculine and knowing their sexuality since always. That was also one of the reasons I didn’t think I was a lesbian, because I didn’t fit any of those stereotypes.

Questioning your gender as a lesbian is very common, I did that too. But then I realized just because society has pretty wrong views of what is womanhood, that didn’t mean I wasn’t a woman. I’ve never felt uncomfortable identifying with my biological sex and the only reason why I started questioning that was because I began interacting a lot with queer people online and discovered all different non-binary identities and I began questioning if it was possible that I could be non-binary. Turns out just like you I’m not, I’m a cis woman and I’m way more comfortable being a cis woman now that I know I’m a lesbian than back when I still thought I was attracted to men.

[nothorses]

Recently I've found some circles where cis men talk about mens issues as it relates to feminism and the patriarchy, and also directly combat misogynist MRA types, which is great. But even though they may explicitly include trans men, it's by name only. They never really consider how the power dynamics between us and cis women are much different, they just tack "and trans men" on. And that's a huge form of erasure that needs to be talked about, acknowledging our existence and assuming we mirror cis men in every other way besides the obvious. It feels very silencing at times, even in an environment with good intentions.

Yeah, I notice this a lot in cis-centric analysis of gender-based oppression. There’s a very similar issue in feminism as a whole, and the way that cis woman feminists tend to see trans women as sort of just... “women on hard mode” (assuming they’re allies at all). There’s very little acknowledgement, if any, that cis women actively and directly oppress trans women; they’re more comfortable thinking of themselves as “sisters in oppression”, as being closely related in struggle, but Of Course Trans Women Have It Worse is thrown in as more of a platitude than a call to action.

The way trans men are viewed by feminist cis women who consider themselves trans allies is itself already an uncomfortable issue. Most of those women would rather avoid it altogether; particularly white cis women, as it threatens the sanctity of their white-supremacist, patriarchal victim status.

Feminist cis men tend to have a weird relationship with feminism to begin with, generally focusing a lot of energy on proving allyship by drawing constant attention to how Aware they are of their privilege.

Add to that how they “claim” us the way feminist cis women “claim” trans women; our transness is seldom acknowledged, and becomes more of a secondary attribute that they feel deeply uncomfortable mentioning at all. We’re doing manhood on hard mode- which means, for a lot of the menslib folks, that we’re at most just More Impacted by the issues cis men experience under patriarchy. Manhood itself is already pretty easy in comparison to womanhood though, right? So how hard could it really be for us?

When I’ve interacted with cis men like this, I’ve had them try to “validate” my gender by extending their feminist “ally” expectations to me: you’re a man now, that means you need to shut up, take up less space, and acknowledge your privilege over (cis) women. Here, I’ll teach you how!

Which is extremely harmful to us, a group who’s struggles are largely defined by invisibility. We’re constantly erased, silenced, spoken over, and spoken for as it is; the issue is only compounded by cis-centric understandings of gender-based oppression.

They succeed in seeing binary trans people as our binary genders, but they fail to acknowledge that our transness is inseparable from the rest of our gender. They fail to acknowledge that the patriarchy does not see us as those genders as well, and sees the rejection of our assigned genders as an act that must be punished, too. They fail to acknowledge that under patriarchy, there are more than just two solitary, binary positions to occupy- and that trans people cannot be sorted into one or the other.

[vergess]

As a person of color that's also genderfluid, I have a critique regarding this post [Bruh the sheer ease with which people who think of themselves as queer allies will say shit like, “analyzing this disney character through a trans lens is racist because it strips him of his racial heritage” is wild. Like, buddy, pal, friend of mine. You understand that trans people of colour are a thing right?].

The experiences of a white queer and a poc queer are very different bc the cultural context is very different. I'm not well educated on Colombian queer culture, but there is a difference between Colombian queer culture and white queer culture, which the people making these headcanons often ignore. That's the entire reason people are annoyed by them. Additionally, focusing on queer subtext detracts from the nuance and dynamics of this well-crafted POC story, simply because poc queer culture and yt queer culture are different. For example, headcanoning Isabela as a lesbian assumes that poc only marry for love, which in many cases is not true. The film did a great job at representing these poc dynamics, but yt fans are not. That's not to say Isabela cannot be a lesbian, but when headcanoning her, you shouldn't ignore the cultural context the movie gave.

Additionally, I'm not sure if you support the trans Luisa headcanon, but since you posted on the topic of trans Encanto characters, I feel like this comment is relevant to my critique. Historically, woc have been stripped of their femininity because they don't meet eurocentric beauty standards. Also, in my opinion, headcanoning a character as trans simply because they're buff or have a deep message is problematic. Obviously, Luisa being trans isn't inherently problematic, but the problem is that it stems from racist and transphobic perceptions.

Sorry if this ask is very long, I just wanted to get my thoughts related to your post out, and I've been seeing a lot of the arguments to latine people expressing their views just being presented as homophobia. Tl;dr, most of the critique towards queer depictions is just about the lack of poc incluson and the erasure of the movies values/point.

Listen, you're trying to make good points about cultural differences but the youtuber opened with "I'm not trans, but," and couldn't be arsed to ask any trans people around her for input.

And, frankly, if you think someone headcanoning Luisa as trans "robs her of femininity" while she continues to go around in embroidered skirts etc, that is a you problem. You're the one who thinks trans womanhood is unfeminine. You're the one denying women their femininity because you don't think they're doing it right.

What part of a random trans person on tumblr identifying with the way Luisa presents herself manages to "rob" anyone of the way she appears in the film?

No one is fucking stealing representation by pointing out that they relate to the experiences a character has.

What part of a blogger thinking "Isabela seems like she might be exclusively sexually attracted to other women" makes her initial willingness to marry a man for her family line disappear? Does that magically erase the movie's entire plot thread for her? Because I can cue up the film right now and all those scenes will sure as shit still be there.

Or do you think that talking about the possible lesbian implications of her story makes her difficult for you to relate to because you find lesbians alienating in some way?

It does not "undercut the values of the film" if Isabela's feelings of obligation are tied to being used as a breeding cow by her grandmother, being obligated by a crushing case of Eldest Daughter Syndrome to carry on the legacy of superhuman excellence, AND not wanting to marry a man. These are additive fucking traits, not subtractive ones.

Every time someone comes in to talk about how the nasty little queermos are distracting from the wholesome tale of POC family dynamics as if queer POC don't live simultaneously in both those spaces, I become this much more militant.

Did I think Luisa was trans when I watched the movie? No. Do I think so now? Fuck yes I do.

Everyone is trans now. Mirabel is every nonbinary ADHD stereotype you personally despise. Antonio will grow up to be a they/them lesbian even if they have to invent the concept themself. Isabela is the bisexual man-hater of your fucking nightmares. Isabela and then Luisa magically transitioned at age 5 when she got her powers. Pedro and Alma are T4T and Pedro carried the triplets. Camilo specifically has as far opposite a gender as the person he is imitating while imitating them.

And if you don't like me tearing these characters out of your hands by relating to them on a fucking social media website, you're welcome to block me, because no matter what bullshit I say, the movie still exists and your personal interpretation of it has just as much fucking weight as mine.

Take your transmisogyny, your lesbophobia, your total disregard for the bredth and intersections of POC existence, and your need to attack random people of colour for not worshipping fucking Disney the exact same way as you, and get the FUCK OUT.

[girlsgonemildblog]

Valley of the Dolls and Hollywood's Desire to Self-Protect

Poster from imdb.com

Valley of the Dolls (1967) tells the story of three young women working in show business in the 1960s. Originally adapted from Jacqueline Susann’s 1966 book by the same name, the screenplay was written by two women, Helen Deutsch and Dorothy Kingsley. The director for the film, though, was a man, named Mark Robson. The plot centers around three protagonists, Anne Welles, Neely O’Hara, and Jennifer North. Their stories connect and separate several times as they each navigate Hollywood, growing in stardom and fading into oblivion. All three storylines follow two themes, the role of women in the 1960s and the abuse of drugs by these women to deal with the pressures of their culture. The film largely stays true to the novel, but alters some important aspects in order to soften the critique that Susann originally proposed. Valley of the Dolls is an attempted commentary on societal demands on women in the 1960s, but is unsuccessful in its criticism due to continuing to perpetuate several misogynistic standards and Hollywood trying to alleviate itself of guilt.

Valley of the Dolls is one of few movies from its era that centers on multiple female leads without allowing for any male characters to come in and dominate the narrative. The story goes further than to just portray women, and even passes commentary on the harmful expectations put on them by society. There are messages about the workforce, body image, and marriage roles all present. Still, while the film may seem to have a feminist message for most of the plot, it falls short in its final moments. The two women, Neely and Jennifer, who are outwardly ambitious and more sexually promiscuous, are punished for their behavior, while the virginally pure and soft spoken Anne is the one who gets a happy ending, though not in the traditional sense.

The first woman to look at is Neely O’Hara (Patty Duke). Neely, the youngest of the three, is also the most talented and the most ambitious. While her two co-protagonists experience minor stardom, Neely becomes a full-fledged celebrity. As Neely begins her rise to the top, she is forced to work out, despite already being nearly rail thin. During her work-out montage, she even asks her trainer, “you call this acting?” This moment serves to show that for women, being an actor was not strictly about their talent, but also the way they looked. Working out is a part of the job for Neely because if she gains weight, people will no longer want to look at her and thus she won’t be able to be on stage or screen.

The affect of her ambition on her womanhood is also seen through the depiction of her first marriage to her hometown sweetheart, Mel (Martin Milner). When Neely gets her big break, she asks Mel to marry her, flipping the tradition of a man asking a woman. This is the first evidence of the gender role reversal that will be present later. In one scene, after Neely has made it and begun earning more money, the audience sees that Mel is now in charge of keeping house, a job typically meant for the wife at this time. The two get into an argument and Mel, sick of being bossed around by Neely, states, “I am not the butler,” to which Neely retorts, “you’re not the bread winner either.” The two get divorced shortly after. In the beginning of the movie, as Neely is about to be cut out of the broadway show, Mel gives her advice on how to handle the situation in a way that is both best for her career and best for earning money. Mel is more than happy to support Neely’s ambition when she is starting out and he is controlling her success. When Neely grows beyond his grasp, begins to overshadow him, and no longer needs him, the turmoil of their relationship begins. Mel’s male ego cannot handle having a wife who not only is not reliant on him, but who he is reliant on.

In contrast, Jennifer’s fatal flaw is not her ambition but her body. The audience is introduced to Jennifer (Sharon Tate) as she is scantily clad in a leotard with a giant showgirl headpiece on. Her first line is concern that she cannot walk, “I feel a little top heavy,” to which her director replies, “Dear, you are top heavy.” This is met by a chorus of laughter from the men in the room and clear distress from Jennifer’s face. Jennifer’s sin is simply her breasts and her beauty; she is punished for merely existing in her natural form. On the phone with her mother, she states, “I know I don’t have any talent, and I know all I have is my body.” She recognizes that she has no marketable skills, but with the way that society has commodified the female figure, she can use her natural assets to get ahead.

Jennifer’s plot line introduces the character of Miriam (Lee Grant), the sister of Jennifer’s husband, Tony (Tony Scotti). Miriam also manages Tony. This is interesting because all the other women in the film are controlled by men, but Miriam is not only not controlled by a man, but controls one herself. Jennifer, who seems not to have a manager, but operates as an independent, eventually is taken on by Miriam, emphasizing the way that Miriam acts as a male figure, controlling and dominating her world like men normally do. Miriam eventually sells Jennifer into porn. When Jennifer tries to protest, Miriam insists, “Tony wouldn’t know the difference.” Jennifer’s plea of “well, I would,” falls on deaf ears. Miriam views the world like a man, thinking only a husband should be offended by his wife’s immodesty, not recognizing that the woman is also a person with feelings about the exposure of her own body.

Jennifer’s whole life and career is based on her body. When she is diagnosed with breast cancer and must get a mastectomy, she states, “all I ever had was a body. All I know how to do is take off my clothes.” She is realizing that without her breasts, she will have no way of earning a living or supporting herself, as she has done her whole life. This drives her to suicide, deciding she would rather die than lose her body. The message of this scene is clear; despite the fact that society has deemed her figure the only thing that gives her value, her exploitation of it still must be punished by death. Women are supposed to surrender to the forces of the patriarchy, not use them to their own advantage.

The third protagonist, the redeemable protagonist, is Anne Welles (Barbara Parkins). Anne is introduced at the very beginning of the film through her own narration as she tells the listener that her family’s home has been around since the revolution, showing that she represents American tradition. The story of George Washington drinking from their well symbolizes that people like Anne are what give America life. This American idealization is what protects Anne throughout her career. As she enters the office for the first time to the slut shaming of a pregnant cat, the audience immediately knows that this place will not be very friendly to women. This is fortified when her boss tells her she is “too good looking” for her job and talks about getting her “broken in”. This is exemplifying the idea that beautiful women aren’t meant for work while also objectifying them by talking about women like they’re shoes.

Her romantic interest, Lyon (Paul Burke), who is also her boss, calls Anne, “barely pink” when he first meets her, admiring how young she is. He later tells her that jewelry is not for her, and that she should only be gifted flowers, specifically white ones. These are both attempts to preserve Anne’s delicacy, or “pinkness”.  Diamonds and gold are too flashy for a soft spoken woman like Anne, and the white flowers clearly symbolize purity. Constantly throughout the entire film, the audience is reminded of Anne being special and unlike other “bad” women such as Neely or Jennifer. At one point Lyon tells Anne that no other girls compare to her because they can’t “stand up to her image”. Not her actual person or personality, but her image. Anne does not have actual personhood in the eyes of Lyon, but exists only as the idealized woman.

This is further exemplified when she becomes the Gillian Girl. The man who hires her says he wants someone known with Gillian exclusively. The idea here is they want her to be only an image of beauty and innocence; if she works with other brands or as an actress she becomes more than one-dimensional and people can discover that she may have flaws. Anne’s ability to maintain her image of perfection and purity throughout the entire film is why she gets to live happily ever after at the end, unlike her two counterparts. She returns to her hometown and lives out the rest of her life as the embodiment of American tradition.

This movie gets its title from the nickname that Neely gives the pills that she and the other two protagonists all become addicted to. The name, “dolls”, calls to mind a picture of girlhood and female adolescence, highlighting how young Neely is (only 17) when the story begins. Many movies of the 1960s, such as Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider (1969) were depicting taking psychedelic drugs and having crazy trips. Valley of the Dolls shows a different type of drug use, the abuse of painkillers. Though the main characters are movie stars and models, their drug habit was likely more relatable to the suburban movie-going audience than that of Hopper’s characters. It was all too common for housewives to be prescribed “mother’s little helpers” to deal with what was condescendingly written off as “hysteria”. Another difference between these two movies is that psychedelic trips were portrayed as freeing, eye-opening experiences. In contrast, the painkillers are entrapping for the women and ultimately ruin their careers and end their lives.

The character who has the least interaction with the “dolls” is Anne. This is done to keep the idea of Anne as the “pure”, “good” character. The way she begins to take the drugs is interesting, though; she first picks up the bottle when she realizes that her long-term boyfriend, Lyon, is having an affair with her best friend, Neely. This serves two purposes. This first is that it shows that the pills are not used for pleasure, like psychedelics would be, but for numbing purposes. This also displays the corruptive force of Hollywood; it is not until the plot moves from New York to Hollywood that these women turn sour. Because of this city, Neely betrays her best friend and sweet, innocent Anne is driven to drug use.

Jennifer is seen taking the pills two times, twice as often as Anne is. The first time she takes them is when she learns about Tony’s illness. Again, they are used to numb emotional pain. The second time Jennifer is shown taking the pills is when she purposely overdoses on them to kill herself. This is the most extreme version of numbing difficult emotions a person can take, and the most obvious way that the movie could show that these drugs do not provide enjoyment but rather stop misery. What the “dolls” provide is nothingness, and Jennifer takes this nothingness to its maximum.

Neely is the character whose story is most entangled with drug use. She begins when her trainer gives her diet pills to slim her already thin figure. During this montage, the audience clearly sees Mel, the symbol of her pre-fame life, shake his head and tell her no, but she responds with a shrug, as if to say, “what’s the worst that could happen?” Shortly after, she tells Anne that she takes sleeping pills that are so strong, she has to take red pills to counteract them to wake up in the mornings, but then must take the sleeping pills again at night because the red ones have not yet worn off. Taking the pills is an endless cycle for Neely that will lead her to spiral to rock bottom.

In a following scene, Neely is seen being an absolute mess on the set of a movie, causing them to call for her husband to take her home because she cannot work under such strong influence of drugs and alcohol. When Anne and Lyon go to check on her, Anne lectures her about the danger of drinking while taking the pills, but Neely asserts that she must do so because it makes them work faster. This moment shows the desperation Neely has to stop feeling. Later on, after getting drunk in a dive-bar, having sex with some random nobody, and being robbed the morning after, Neely overdoses and nearly dies. Anne implies that this may have been intentional, despite Neely insisting otherwise. The audience is left to wonder.

During the third act of the movie, after Neely has gone to rehab and gotten clean, her older rival, Helen Lawson (Susan Hayward), brags about how she never needed pills like Neely did. Lawson claims her current sobriety is only temporary and Neely will eventually return to her old bad habits. The character summarizes Neely’s entire story with one line, “nothing can destroy her talent, but she’ll destroy herself.” Lawson’s words come true; Neely’s final scene sees her relapsing on opening night of the show she’s supposed to star in and being replaced by her younger understudy, the very thing she was afraid of. Her story closes on her drunk in an alley, screaming her own name.

To properly analyze this film, one must compare it to its source material, Jacqueline Susann’s novel by the same name. Though the movie stays true to the novel in most major plot points, there are distinct narrative changes and omissions that drastically alter the story. One of the most distinct examples of this is that Lyon refuses to marry Anne until the final scene of the film. In the novel, he marries her when they first reunite in Los Angeles. When he begins his affair with Neely, Anne is pregnant with their first child, which gives Anne a stronger motive to turn to the pills than she has in the movie. The book version of the two women are also much closer friends, which creates a more dramatic change in Neely’s character than in the film. Removing these two extremes makes Neely’s character arc less impactful.

Another aspect that was removed is Tony’s obsession with sex. An important part of Jennifer’s characterization is that she has always been made to feel that her body is her only source of value. This is added to, in the novel, by the fact that sex is the foundation for her relationship with her husband. This is only alluded to in the film with one line when they are walking in the park. In the novel, it is emphasized explicitly at multiple points. One of the reasons Jennifer chooses to kill herself rather than lose her breasts is because she believes she will lose even her husband’s love. The film likely made this change, as well as the marital change, to make the characters of Tony and Neely more sympathetic. While this goal is accomplished, it also softens the harsh realities that Susann was trying to expose in her novel.

One final difference between the film and novel is the ending. In the film, Lyon finally proposes to Anne and she rejects him, getting to move on with her life and live peacefully. She gets a happy ending. The novel ends with Anne and Lyon still married, her discovering that he is having yet another affair with a client, and her returning to the pills. This final note makes it clear that there are no happy endings for women in this city. The change is another example of Hollywood trying to show itself in a more flattering light than the one Susann placed on it.

Valley of the Dolls, the novel, was written by a female author as a way to condemn the mistreatment of women in the 1960s, specifically the mistreatment perpetuated by Hollywood on women in show business. The film adaptation tries to duplicate this commentary, but fails for multiple reasons. The first is that it chooses to save the “good girl” character. In the written work, all three stories ending in tragedy shows how no woman is safe from the effects of the patriarchy. Opting to protect the “pure” character alters the message completely so that it is no longer a criticism but a continuation of the idea that ambitious, promiscuous women deserve punishment and good, virginal women deserve happy endings. In addition, it omits important plot points that provide motivation for the characters self-destructive actions, such as Anne taking the pills for the first time and Jennifer committing suicide. By removing the catalysts, the characters are turned into cliché hysterical women. The film fails to adapt Susann’s novel correctly because it replicates the sensational bits while omitting the message. Unlike the book, the film serves only to entertain and not to critique.

[army-of-mai-lovers]

Re: misogyny in atla fandom post. I’m a butch/gnc woman and there’s so few representation for women like me. I really relate to toph and admire her for being androgynous and masculine but still being a woman. She shows that there’s no “wrong” way to be a woman and that you can reject gendered expectations and still be female. She’s the only character I’ve ever been able to relate to for this. I feel like it’s kind of misogynistic when people HC her as a trans guy or non binary with they/them pronouns. I’m all for HCing characters as trans, but with toph it feels weird.

She’s constrained by the expectations put upon her for being a girl in a patriarchal society and also being disabled, and how those two intersect. But her acceptance of being disabled & and a girl and breaking the stereotypes pushed upon her for those facets of her identity is the whole point! And as a disabled gnc woman, I feel like stripping her of her womanhood bc she’s masculine/androgynous is the same as stripping her of her disability because she’s strong. Idk

This is a really interesting perspective, anon! Outside of tumblr, I’m a prospective gender studies minor, and in my gender studies classes we have this practice called situating. Basically, I explain who I am, so you know where I’m coming from. Esp wrt things like race, gender, and sexuality, you can read and learn and listen to other people, but you’ll only ever truly know your own experience, and it’s important for people to know that’s where your perspective on a certain debate is coming from. So, hi, I’m Arthur, I’m an afab nonbinary person who uses they/them pronouns, my gender expression is very much in a period of flux because I don’t have the ability to socially or medically transition as much as I’d like, so, at least for right now, most people interpret me as a sometimes gnc cis woman. Because I’m most often interpreted as a cis girl, even though that is not who I am at all, I experience misogyny, and that is unfortunately part of my trans experience. That doesn’t give me the authority to speak over women at all, but I do think it was a large part of me noticing the misogyny in this fandom and deciding to write what I did (and I’m so glad it resonated with you!) All of that colors the way I view gnc characters, as well as trans/nonbinary characters, and misogyny, within fandom and without. 

So, now that you understand where my thoughts are coming from, here they are. I definitely think it’s transphobic to hc Toph as a trans guy if you are not transmasc yourself. I’ve never seen trans guy hcs for Toph, but the idea of cis ppl equating this canonically cis girl character to someone who is unequivocally, indisputably, a guy, makes me super uncomfy. If there’s a trans guy out there who really relates to Toph and wants to create and develop that hc in a way that works for you, be my guest, but I do not have the authority or the desire to make trans guy Toph hcs. 

As for the nonbinary thing... I will admit, they/them Toph hcs make me feel seen, probably the same way you feel seen by Toph as an unapologetically androgynous/masculine cis girl. I answered some asks a couple weeks ago about lesbian hcs, and in that I talked about how since both lesbians and bi girls are underrepresented in media, hcs that might make one group feel seen and valued are gonna make another group feel erased, and I’m not really sure how to resolve that. The same goes for hcs around androgynous afab characters: butch women and afab* nby folks have so little representation that hcs that make one group feel seen are going to make another group feel erased. As a afab nonbinary person who uses they/them pronouns, who has never connected with any concept of womanhood despite sometimes having a pretty femme gender expression, I do relate to Toph a whole lot. I’ve also had to navigate (and am still navigating!) a minefield of gendered expectations in a patriarchal society, and talking and listening to and reading about other trans people, it seems to be a pretty integral part of the trans experience (not that there is one sole trans experience, we’re all very different, but that’s a topic for another time). The gender binary is, after all, a central feature of Western white supremacist patriarchal constructions of gender, and if you deviate in any way, whether it’s through being gender nonconforming, or through being trans/nonbinary, you’re probably going to have to fight really hard to exist and survive and feel confident in your body and your expression, because society is constantly sending you the message that you are deviant and thus not worthy. And it’s nice to think of your favorite character as having some of the same experiences you do. 

I will say, I see they/them Toph headcanons more often than I see they/them Katara or they/them Yue, and I’d encourage people to really dig deep and think about why they’re more comfortable hcing an androgynous character as being nonbinary than they would be a more obviously feminine character (especially since nonbinary folk come in all gender expressions). I also would just love to see more transfem hcs! People for whatever reason seem way more comfortable hcing male characters as trans guys than they do hcing female characters as trans girls (and the reason is transmisogyny--Mae @transtenzin made a post about this a couple months ago about how most transfem atla hcs are characters like Smellerbee, while transmasc hcs can center around more major characters like Zuko or Sokka--a wonderful post that I would link to if tumblr’s search function weren’t absolute shit.) 

But at the end of the day, I am going to have to disagree with you on thinking of nonbinary Toph hcs as misogynistic, because I know as a disabled afab nonbinary person myself, I’ve dealt with a lot of the same struggles that Toph deals with in the show, and I’m sure there are a lot of other afab nonbinary folks who feel the same way. However, I understand feeling frustrated by people hcing a canonically androgynous female character as nonbinary. I hope what I’ve said here can offer you a little insight into the other side of this, and I so appreciate you offering me insight into your side. 

Another thing to note: while I haven’t seen trans guy Toph hcs, I have seen people hc Toph as a he/him lesbian. He/him lesbians are of course a valued part of our community, and I applaud any and all he/him lesbian Toph hcs. Pronouns =/= gender. 

Tl;dr don’t hc Toph as a trans guy unless you are a trans guy and even then I would tread lightly, gender and transness and representation is complicated and I’m not entirely sure how to resolve conflicts between different groups of marginalized people who are trying to find rep in opposing hcs of the same character, and imo hcing Toph as nonbinary is not misogynistic (but my opinion is not the final word on any subject!) Also, we stan he/him lesbians. 

*amab nby folks of course also receive very little rep, probably even less than afab nby folks, and that is a very important conversation to have, but seeing as 1) this ask was about hcs for an afab character, and 2) I am not amab and therefore very unqualified to lead a conversation about hcing certain characters as amab or the larger field of amab nby rep, I thought it best to focus on afab nonbinary people in this post. 

[rwbwby]

the most relatable yet difficult to explain part about being a trans guy who’s attracted to women is the subtle differences in your attraction vs that of, say, a cis guy who likes women. and it’s hard for me to properly put it into words, but i can really only speak to my own life, so this may not apply to everybody, but my own narrative is that i didn’t even truly figure out i was trans until college, so i spent two decades of my life being raised as a girl, and then a young woman, and it shaped so much of my experiences with how women are treated (being treated as one myself for years) that it gave me insight cis guys just aren’t privy to. and just the same, i was never raised with those same gendered expectations as cis men, so i have no idea what it’s like to go through childhood being treated as a boy, and then as a young man.

and let me put the disclaimer right here so you don’t get any ideas: TERFS, this post is not for you to clown around on and bring your interpretations of “female socialization” onto. i’m one trans guy sharing personal experiences, and if you want to water down what i say and use it to push your bullshit narratives, save us all some time and get the fuck out. i can and will skip your kneecaps across a lake.

so here i am, having been raised with all the expectations of womanhood that i kicked off of me like heavy blankets on a summer night, and suddenly taking on the role of a man, and the expectations are completely switched. i’m painfully aware of how my presence can make women fearful when it’s just the two of us in an elevator. i was that girl in the elevator for most of my life, i know that fear personally. it breaks my heart to think that now, i’m the one causing it. i’m aware that my opinions are taken seriously more often than the women i’m with, even if they know more about the subject than i do. i experienced repeated sexual harrassment at work and nothing was done about it because it wasn’t taken seriously since we were both men, when the same was rightfully punished when it happened to women i worked with—though still not punished nearly enough. how it was viewed by the staff, even, was completely different.

and it affects my attraction, too, because all of this baggage and all of these experiences shape how i view women. i grew up on the other side of that fake binary, where it was easier to work through misogyny once i was aware of what it was because so much of it was internalized. so much of my own work on introspection and self-love also came with a side benefit of combatting that internalized misogyny. and sure, we all still have lingering biases that we actively have to work through. but most of the time when i’m talking with cis guys about women—and it doesn’t matter if these guys are straight, bi, pan—there’s always a separation there. there are things about living life as a woman that they don’t understand. things that cis and trans women alike understand, that AFAB trans people often understand for some portion of their lives, they just don’t. they’ll just say the most sexist shit like it’s normal, or make awful assumptions about women based on gender.

this isn’t to say trans men can’t be misogynistic. obviously, we are. sometimes we even play that up when we’re first transitioning because the pressure from other men to do so can be incredibly strong. the impostor syndrome is real in those moments. it’s no excuse, just one of many reasons, and it’s still just as awful. but those of us who transitioned later on can attest to the fact that our experiences being treated as a woman shaped us and affect us today. the key here, which TERFS will conveniently refuse to recognize, is that this makes us no less of men than cis men. we don’t suddenly become “fake men” because we’ve also experienced life through the lens of womanhood. that view is incredibly limiting and, when flipped the opposite way, is used by transphobes in extremely destructive ways. but i feel like so many of us are afraid to have this conversation because transphobes can so easily use it against us to fuel their bullshit. it doesn’t make it any less true for my own experiences, and i’m sure a lot of other trans men feel the same.

[adorpheus]

on fujoshi and fetishization

Lately, more and more, both here on tumblr and on other sites, I keep seeing people spew unfiltered hatred at fujoshi - that is, women who like mlm content such as gay fanfic and fanart featuring men with other men. And I don’t mean like a specific type of fujoshi, like the ones who are genuinely being weird about it, but just like a general hatred for girls (but especially straight identifying girls) who express love for gay romance.

I hate to break this to you all, but women (including straight women!) actually are allowed to like mlm fanfiction and fanart, even enthusiastically so. A woman simply expressing her love of gay fanfic, even if it is in kind of a cringey way or a way that you personally don’t like, is NOT automatically fetishization.

I’ve been on the receiving end of fetishization for my entire life, from a very young age, as many black and brown folx have, so I consider myself pretty well acquainted with how it works. Fetishization isn’t just like, being really into drawings of boys kissing, or whatever the fuck y’all are trying to imply on this god forsaken site. 

Fetishization is complicated imo, and can encompass a lot of things, such as (but not limited to):

1 - dehumanization, e.g. viewing a group of people as sexual objects who exist purely for entertainment purposes, rather than acknowledging them as actual people who deserve respect and rights

and

2 - projecting certain assumptions onto said people based on their race/sexuality/whatever is being fetishized. These assumptions are often, but not always, sexual in nature (like the idea that black people in general are more sexual than other races, etc etc etc).

I’m going to use myself as an example to illustrate my point. Please note this isn’t the best or most nuanced example, but it is the most simplistic. A white person finding me attractive and respectfully appreciating my black features as part of what makes me beautiful is not, on its own, fetishization. A white person finding me attractive solely or mostly because I’m a PoC is now in fetishization territory. Similarly, assuming I’m dominant because of my blackness (like saying “step on me mommy” and shit like that) is hella fetishistic. 

That being said, theres definitely a difference between how fetishization works in real life with real people, and how it shows up in fandom. 

Fetishization manifests in many different ways in fandom, but most commonly on the mlm side of things, I personally see it appear as conservative (or centrist) women who love the idea of two men together, but don’t actually like gay people, and don’t necessarily think LGBT+ people deserve rights (or “special treatment” as its sometimes dog whistled). These women view queer men as sexual objects for entertainment rather than an actual group of people who deserve to be protected from systemic oppression. I’ve noticed that they often don’t even think of the men they “ship” together as actually being gay, and may even express disgust at the idea of a character in an mlm ship being headcanon’d gay. In case its not obvious, this is pretty much exactly the same way a lot of cishet men fetishize lesbians (they see “lesbian” as a porn category, rather than like, what actual LGBT people think of when we read the word lesbian). There’s a pretty popular viral tweet thread going around where someone explains seeing this trend of conservative women who like mlm stuff, and I have also personally witnessed this phenomenon myself in more than one fandom. 

The funny thing is, maybe its just me buuuut.... The place I see this particular kind of fetishization happen most is not in the anime/BL fandom, from which the term fujoshi originates - I actually see these type of women way way more in western fandom spaces like Supernatural, Harry Potter, and Hannibal. I can’t stress this enough, there’s a shocking amount of people who are like, straight up trump supporters in these fandoms. If you want to experience it, try joining a Hannigram or Destiel group on facebook and you will probably encounter one eventually especially if you happen to be living through a major historical event. Like these women probably wouldn’t even be considered “fujoshi”, because that term doesn’t really apply to them given they aren’t in the BL/anime fandom, yet they’re the ones I personally see actually doing the most harm.

Of course this isn’t the ONLY kind of fetishizing woman in the mlm/BL world, there are other ways fetishization shows up, but this is the most toxic kind that I see.

A girl just being really into BL or whatever may be “cringe” to you, or she may be expressing her love for BL in a “cringey” way, but a straight woman really enjoying BL is not, on its own, somehow inherently fetishization. Yes, sometimes teenage girls act kind of cringe about how much they like BL and that might be annoying to you, but its not necessarily ~problematic~. 

That being said, IT NEEDS BE REMARKED that a lot of the “fujoshi” that you all hate so deeply, are actually closeted trans men or nonbinary people who haven’t yet come to terms with their gender identity, or are otherwise just NOT cishet. I know because I was one of these closeted people for years, and I honestly think tumblr and the cultural obsession around purity is one of the many reasons I was closeted so deeply for so long. STORYTIME LOL!!! In my early adolescence, I was a sort of proto “fujoshi”. I identified as a bi girl who was mostly attracted to men, or as most (biphobic) people called it, “practically straight”. I wrote and read “slash” fanfic and looked at as well as drew my own fanart. We didn’t use the term fujoshi back then, but that’s definitely how I could have been described. I was obsessed with yaoi, BL, whatever you want to call it, to a cringe-inducing degree. I really struggled to relate to most het romances, so when I first discovered yaoi fanfics (as we called them at the time), I fell in love and felt like I finally found the type of romance content that was made for me. I didn’t know exactly why, I just knew it hit different. LGBT+ fanart and fanfiction brought me an immense amount of joy, and I didn’t really think too hard about why.

At some point, in my early 20s, after reading lots of discourse™ here on tumblr and other places like twitter, I started to get the sinking feeling that my passion for gay fanfiction was ~problematic~. I had always felt a sense of guilt for being into mlm content, because literally anyone who found out I liked BL (especially the men I dated) shamed me for liking it all the fucking time (which btw is literally just homophobic, like can we talk about that?). In addition to THAT bullshit, now I’m seeing posts telling me that girls who like BL are cringey gross fetishists who inspire rage and should go die? 

Let me tell you, I internalized the fuck out of messages like this. I desperately wanted to avoid being ~problematic~. At the time, I thought being problematic was like the worst thing you could be. I was terrified of being “cancelled”, before canceling was even really a thing. I thought to myself, “oh my god, I’m gross for liking this stuff? I should stop.” I beat myself up over this. I wanted so badly to be accepted, and to be deemed a Good Person by the internet and society at large.

I tried to shape up and become a good ally (lmfao). I stopped writing fanfic and deleted all the ones I was working on at the time. I made a concerted effort to assimilate into cishet culture, including trying to indulge myself more deeply in the few fandoms I could find that had het content I did enjoy (Buffy, True Blood, Pretty Little Liars, etc). I would occasionally look at BL/fanfic/etc in private, but then I would repress my interest in it and not look for a while. Instead I would look at women in straight relationships, and create extremely heterosexual Couple Goals pinterest boards, and try to figure out how I could become more like these women, so I, too, could be loved someday. 

This cycle of repression lasted like eight years. Throughout it all, I was performing womanhood to the best of my ability and trying to become a woman that was worthy of being in a relationship. I went in and out of several “straight” relationships, wondering why they didn’t make me feel the way reading fanfic did. Most of all, I couldn’t figure out why straight intimacy didn’t work for me. I just didn’t enjoy it. I always preferred looking at or making gay fanfiction/fanart over actual intimacy with men in real life. 

Eventually, I stumbled upon a trans coming out video that someone I was following posted online, my egg started to crack, and to make an extremely long story short, after like 3 years of introspection and many gender panic attacks that I still experience to this day, I realized that I’m uh... MAYBE... NOT CIS..!? :|

I truly believe if I had just been ALLOWED TO LIKE GAY STUFF WITHOUT BEING SHAMED FOR IT, I probably would have realized I was trans way way sooner. Because for me, indulging in my love of gay romance and writing gay fanfic wasn’t me being a weirdo fetishist, it was actually me exploring my own gender identity. It is what helped me come to terms with being a nonbinary trans boy.

Not everyone realizes they are trans at age 2 or whatever the fuck. Sometimes you have to go through a cringey fujoshi phase and multiple existential crises to realize how fucking gay you are AND THATS FINE.

And one more thing - can we just be real here? 

A lot of anti-fujoshi sentiment is literally just misogyny. omg please realize this. Its “women aren’t allowed to enjoy things” but, like... with gay fanfics. Some of the anti-fujoshi posts I see come across my dash are clearly ppl projecting a caricature they invented in their head of a demonic fujoshi fetishist onto any woman who expresses what they consider to be a little too much enthusiasm for gay content and then using their perception of that individual as an excuse to justify their disdain for any women, especially straight women, ‘invading’ their ~oh so exclusive~ queer fandom spaces.

 god get over yrselfs this is gatekeeping by another name

idk why i spent so long writing this no one is even going to read it, does anyone even still use this site

*EDIT: HOLY SHIT WHEN DOING RESEARCH FOR THIS POST I FOUND OUT THAT Y-GALLERY IS BACK OMG!!! 

[lethimrunsonia]

Gender HC’s for @democracydiesindarkness and I’d Poly!Losers AU. Also gonna tag @ull-float-too

1. Richie is non-binary, and for him that means he is just Richie. He likes to blend feminine and masculine because it matches his need to hurt people with his fashion choices. He likes to dress in bright and blaring Hawaiian shirts, but he also likes appearing in the kitchen in ugly patterned short skirts and equally awful tights, and he LOvES make up (because your face can be an art canvass!) (also Richie wants to be pretty but he doesn’t think he is :( ) and now that his hair is the longest except for Bev, he likes to have Bev or Stan play with it and give him updos. Uses he/him pronouns but doesn’t mind other pronouns.

2. Bev is cisgender, but she struggled with her womanhood for a while, because it was so weaponized against her. It wasn’t that she wasn’t a woman, it was just it was scary and dangerous to be one. Once she understood this, she ran at it face first and embraced it. The others never made fun of her for doing “girly things” like make up, hell, she’s done all of their makeups at one point or another. They’ve all helped her do her hair, especially Richie and Stan, and she and Stan have always bonded over fashion and making designs. They’ve never treated her “feminine interests” as something stupid, or lesser, in fact, all the Losers have taken interest in her activities. Bev uses she/her pronouns.

3. Ben is cisgender, but has always been “accused” of not being a man because he likes a softer approach to things, feelings, writing, and art. The fact that’s he likes to be pretty, like art, and build pretty things, sometimes makes him think he isn’t a man, after all. But the others support him, and tell him he’s whatever he wants to be, and Ben knows how he is a man is his brand of masculinity, and he owns that. Besides, when the guys at work give him shit he just smirks, becaus their fear and projection doesn’t scare him. He has his family who understands him, and loves him. Ben uses he/him pronouns.

4. Eddie is cisgender, though he is the epitome of soft boy, and is constantly belittled and looked down on about it. Eddie is short, like 5’4, and slim, but he’s never felt more like a man than when he’s with his friends. He likes fashion, he likes looking cute and aesthetic, and he looks like he could be snapped in half, but at the same time, he’s the most ready to throw fists, Stan right behind him in that regard. After the Bowers gang really hurts Bill in high school, the three of them, Richie, Eddie, and Stan have a huge fight with them. Everyone at school stops saying shit, not only about Eddie, but about the rest of his family. They even stop saying homophobic shit around any of them, after the rumors of how Eddie gave Bowers two black eyes and a broken nose start to circulate. Soft is tough, and Eddie is both. Eddie uses he/him pronouns.

5. Bill is genderqueer, though at first he viewed himself in a similar way to Eddie. He can be very feminine, he likes to be pretty, he likes dressing up, and having Bev do his makeup, but it’s not until Richie accidentally calls Bill “baby girl” that he figures out that he might not always be a boy. The Losers are just like “yeah, of course you can be a girl? Are you a girl all the time? Should we call you something different?” And that is A LOT and Bill panics. Eventually, Bill realizes a lot of the time he’s just Bill, and gender isn’t important to him, sometimes he’s more masculine and feels very much like a he, but other times he’s Bill but he’s a girl. He wants to be called those titles and seen as that, but he also likes his name. He likes how his partners say his name, how much love there is for him in that name. so he doesn’t see a reason for another. Baby girl is good enough. Bill uses he/him and she/her pronouns, is okay with they/them.

6. Mike is cisgender, and he is the epitome of a cute farmer man holding a lamb with a cat on his shoulder with a big grin. Mike has to deal with the racism of Derry, and the fact that people viewed him as a broken man because he was black and pansexual, that he was not good at being a man because of his blackness and queerness. But Mike is positive masulinity. He is protective, and honest, open, hard working, and compassionate. Everyone should want to be like Mike Hanlon, a man of the might of the mind. (He becomes a professor and teaches history!) Mike sees his Losers’ expression of gender and just sees a truer expression of them, of his loves. Mike uses he/him pronouns.

7. Stan is agender. He uses masculine pronouns most often because his experience is kind of based on my experience where I am agender and I usually use she/her, but really like them/they pronouns. Stan likes to dress up, in skirts/dresses/suits, always tries to look professional and way hotter than anyone else except his Losers. Stan watches Richie and Bill figure out their genders, and how they want to express it, and realizes he relates, but he also doesn’t. He doesn’t feel attached to masculinity or femininity, he just sees Stan. Bill and Mike research for a while, and come to Stan with this label, and Stan cries because, oh, Stan isn’t broken. Stan is home. Stan uses they/them and he/him pronouns.

[stonefemblues]

I’ve been struggling with this for a while, and so I wanted to ask a seasoned femme for some insight, if that’s okay. I want to identify as a femme lesbian, but I’m not sure if I can. Some of it is confusion on what defines a femme - I’ve heard so many different ideas of what makes somebody femme that I don’t know what’s true or ahistorical anymore. Some of it is not feeling feminine enough (though I feel closer to femininity than womanhood, if that makes sense?), though I know (1/2)

“aesthetics do not a femme or butch make. I’m single, so I can’t say I can be defined by dating a butch (tho I’m weak to femmes too). A lot of what I end up hearing is to read more history and it feels like a secret club I’m not allowed in without the secret phrase from a secret book. It’s confusing and distressing and I know I don’t HAVE to be femme or butch to be a lesbian, but at the very least, it feels bad not to understand my community like this. Do you have any wisdom to share? (2/2)”

ok to start off, you CAN identify as femme if you want to, right now. go ahead, try it out, you have permission!

the simplest definition i can give for femme is a lesbian who expresses femininity in their own way for themselves and for other women, who loves butch women, who feels a connection to butch/femme history/culture/community, and who stands in solidarity with the working class. “femininity” does not have to mean anything specific here, there is no femme uniform. you can choose to perform it however you wish, picking and choosing what aspects of things considered feminine you enjoy and what you don’t. if you’re a femme, you’d still be femme while wearing a three-piece suit.

honestly falling in love with/dating a butch is what really secured my femme identity for me, but you can definitely still be femme while single. you can try on the femme label and see how it fits, and maybe when you get more experience in a relationship you might find that it feels even more right, or maybe you’ll realize it doesn’t fit after all, but either way its perfectly fine to try it out.

reading about the history of butch/femme definitely helps a lot, because it gives you the context for the culture that is more difficult to get irl, since butch/femme is no longer mainstream within lesbian communities, and the majority of wlw you meet in real life will most likely not be butch/femme or know much about it. reading butch/femme history will help you feel connected to your community and your history. but there is not one specific thing you are required to read. you can get a lot of the context you need as well by reading what contemporary butches and femmes are saying about their identities too.

there are a lot of differing views on what it really means to be butch or femme and that’s ok. i have my own opinions which may not line up with everyone else’s. but what i think is important about them is that they are terms for a community, not an isolated identity. they are used to communicate something about yourself to other people in your community. and your personal community of women loving women, whether it’s online or in real life, might not look the same as every other lesbian’s. so you need to find a personal meaning that fits within your own community, if that makes sense. not all butches and femmes know each other or consider each other part of the same community, its not a secret club. find other femmes and butches that you relate to and enjoy the company of (irl or online), read what they are saying, seek out connections to other people. that is what will ground you in your femme identity more than isolated introspection will.