#but that entire enby thing is really more about freedom and can be represented in a variety of ways

[piowasthere]

'i like women!' he yells when none of his crushes r even female smh IN VRCHAT

there was this little moment in the Date, Merry, Kill ep where he yelled that and this was what immediately came to my mind and never left so i finally got around to making it kekw

this is also your annual reminder that Gemini is enby, and we should respect that and give more love to enby characters😊❤️✨

anyway alts under

the only reason i even included the VRC thing is cuz the structure of this ended up looking way too much like a thumbnail lmaoo

[separating-my-porn-and-tjlc]

:( my “canon translock would hurt trans ppl” trigger rant

Translock is great in fandom.

Discussions about how translock COULD be canon are not OK at all for the simple reason that...

Ben C is cis. His image is not appropriate to represent trans people.

Just like it was inappropriate in Zoolander 2.

We are still living in a time where trans actors suffer from a dearth of opportunity, therefore it's inappropriate to give a trans role to a cis actor. Even Tambor gets it (Soloway is a hateful jerkface but at least Tambor figured it out).

"please give transgender talent a chance"

This is not like... a sticking point. This is the whole point. I myself have toyed around with the idea of writing John Watson as a trans man in fics because his appearance and "manly man" behavior fit with most trans men of my generation. But I NEVER EVER want to see Martin Freeman playing a trans character on screen. NEVER. Even fantasizing about John or Sherlock as trans characters eventually gets tainted in my head because I just cannot break away from the advocacy side, from the political movement, the time and effort and money I pour into these fights every day.

And it feels especially relevant to have this discussion in the TJLC community on tumblr because a lot of us are trans and we're used to talking about what LGB representation means to us. Well, trans representation is fraught right now. And BBC Sherlock would not help us by making a cis actor play a trans character. Canon translock would be horrible.

I get uncomfortable with the idolization of cis bodies. I get it, too, like my partner is cis. We have an open marriage, and I strictly use that freedom to sleep with other trans people, but at the end of the day, the person I chose to commit to is cis and it bothers me that I did that. Translock in fandom speaks to this problem beautifully because it’s NOT about celebrating cis bodies. It’s about having a trans character with a trans body to tell stories with. In terms of canon, it would be a huge issue. "Idolization of cis bodies” is already something that has a choke hold on us in real life and I don't want it to bleed over onto the silver screen anymore than it already does.

I really like the translock art I see coming across my dash. It feels more... good/right to me because you ARE representing trans bodies and that's amazing. That helps. But yeah... I get upset to the point that I'd call it a trigger when I see the odd post about how "canon translock is still possible" because it makes me wonder if the person writing it even cares about the damage cis people are doing to us on the representation front. Including Ben C in Zoolander 2 (I feel like everyone in the TJLC community forgot about that because no one ever mentions it??!).

Before now, the only thing I ever considered a trigger for myself was mpreg. I grew up during the Great Harry Potty Magical Mpreg Baby Boom in the fanfiction world. I wasn’t even a potter fan but I’d come across it sometimes and could never get into it. Back then, I didn’t know my entire career was going to be “supporting trans people through pregnancy, lactation, and other reproductive health issues.” I didn’t know I was literally going to go through male pregnancy and feel freaked out by how much fic writers just write male pregnancy as... the way women experience it? I guess? Not understanding the way your gender impacts it. For some people (and therefore, for some characters), there’s an issue where cis writers don’t understand the way the hormone shifts during pregnancy actually feel for men and nb mascs, how changes manifest in a person’s mental health and behavior because of those shifts (which are medically different from what cis women experience in many cases, due to past history of hormone treatments and some natal conditions more common in transmasculine individuals).

I think with both “canon translock” and mpreg, the core of why they hurt me so much is the same. I want people to see me, to see people like me. I want people to understand. I want trans people to genuinely be represented in storytelling. I want trans writers creating trans characters played by trans actors. I want people to know who we are and what we look like.

So yeah, rant over I guess. I just wanted to be really clear about this because I love and appreciate so much about translock in fandom. I just also want people to understand the really serious problems we face in representation. When you mainstream trans stories by casting cis actors to play trans people, all the trans people who can never pass for cis are kicked just a little bit further under the bus. Considering that underside of that bus means imprisonment, ICE detention, systemic discrimination, lack of access to healthcare, sexual assault, homelessness, and homicide... It genuinely is a serious issue.

If you are a trans person who likes the idea of Ben C Sherlock (specifically) being trans masc, my plea to you is: look inside yourself. Ask yourself why you’d want to picture a trans person looking like a cis man. Really think about it. My hope is that your perspective will shift, open up a bit.

Fantasy is a wonderful thing. In my outpatient group therapy for addiction recovery, my counselor says “fantasy is always our first addiction.” But I still like it. I still get it. Translock fics and artwork are awesome and YES we deserve trans main characters in popular series. We need that landmark representation. But short of coming out as transfeminine or enby and playing a transfem or enby character, Ben C is physically incapable of giving that to us.

(It’ll be such a trial if Ben C comes out as enby bc the entire community will be like “WHY did you mock nb trans ppl with your mean characterization of an enby person in Zoolander 2?” and Ben C would look like a self-hating closeted republican for having acted that way/having made that terrible choice. Still, always happy to see another trans person activate.)