#but this is also why I do have a lot of sympathy for trans men and can understand and accept if that's the path they choose

[envolvenuances]

as the masculine woman who wasn't allowed to use the girl's bathroom in school and to this day have straight women prefer to stand than sit next to me at the bus or question if it's "appropriate" to have me in school staff teaching teenagers. the only "gaslighting" in this is the pretense that it is either a new phenomena or increasing because of The Trans Question being divisive in current gringo politics. when it's classic lesbophobia that always existed and honestly if you ask me things have been improving. but then I do feel like transphobia itself is a restriction of homo/lesbophobia against the mostly visibly gender non conforming of us.

[molsno]

hello ^-^

soo i saw one of your posts about transmisogyny which i thought was really well written and articulated, so i wanted to get your opinion on something.

i’ve seen some tme trans(masc) people on here say that treating trans men like “gender traitors” or “siding with The Enemy” is bioessentialist and terf rhetoric, however i see this brought up almost exclusively in response to conversations about tme and/or male privilege. to me it seems like they feel invalidated or vilified by trans women and discussions about transmisogyny, and so they reposition the issue as one which targets and oppresses them so that they can avoid having to confront any privilege they may possess. i also think the way they phrase it purposely obfuscates what they’re really getting at, which is that men are oppressed for being masculine and held up as the ultimate evil (patently untrue). but i don’t really know as much about it as you might and it’s also not my place to decide what is or isn’t transmisogyny as a tme, so i wanted to hear your thoughts.

no pressure to respond and i hope you have a nice day <3

thanks for the well wishes. I'm trying to hold it together today and I figure I may as well answer this to distract myself

anyway yeah, those are some pretty astute observations. to be honest, I have to agree that the "gender traitor" narrative is bioessentialist, which is why it very much is terf rhetoric. in order for trans men to be "gender traitors" or "siding with the enemy", you would have to suppose that they are fundamentally women, and that they chose to be trans in order to escape from misogyny and gain access to male privilege. the basis of this hypothetical relies on the premise that they are female due to some permanent unchangeable characteristic, which is exactly what bioessentialism posits. plus, this narrative relies on the willful depiction of transness as nothing more than a lifestyle choice, which is blatantly transphobic due to the fact that for many trans people, transness manifests independently of any external factors.

(you will find a lot of debate about what makes people trans, and there is a lot of disagreement even among trans people, but I'm not going to get into that right now. just assume that my point is that there is no universal narrative that explains why people are trans and it varies from person to person.)

that being said, I feel it's also important to point out that there's no shortage of transmascs who are terfs or were former terfs. the reason for this is pretty obvious when you think about it for a few seconds: terfs regularly talk about how womanhood is an innately traumatic and miserable experience, and closeted transmascs for whom womanhood IS a traumatic and miserable experience sometimes gravitate toward that community because it makes them feel understood. terfs very much operate like a cult in this way, and you could easily assert that transmascs who become terfs are victims of cult brainwashing. however, my sympathy for them ends the moment I remember that they willingly joined a hate group whose purpose is the extermination of people like me.

and make no mistake! many of these men are still just as transmisogynistic as they were before! even the ones who leave the terf community (which is not all of them) only do so because they often find that they're no longer welcome when they choose to transition, not out of any desire to atone for the violence they've perpetrated against trans women.

so, what are these trans men to do after they've been exiled from the community that validated their existence and gave them a political drive? how can they reconcile the fact that their decision to choose masculinity and manhood has resulted in them feeling ostracized, ridiculed, and isolated? it's simple really: redefine their politics around the premise that men are actually hated in society. this is an easy conclusion for them to come to when they've been living inside an echo chamber where everyone they know DOES hate men.

the problem with that, though, is that in the eyes of a radical feminist, a "man" is a biological category of person, and any critiques you can make about men's behavior can be attributed to a biological cause. terfs don't ACTUALLY hate men, they hate "biological males" - trans women.

and that's very true of these transmasculine "former" terfs as well. they still hold the same bioessentialist views, so they feel vilified whenever they come into contact with the "biological males" they've come to despise so much. most of them don't actually understand any other types of feminism besides radical feminism, so when they encounter trans women reminding them that they have male privilege, they fall back on their bioessentialist beliefs. they're not an evil "biological male", after all, they're a "biological female" who's "ontologically incapable of violence", and a feminist is criticizing them for "siding with the enemy" by "choosing masculinity".

you need to understand that when they do this, it is largely a form of deflection. they resent the radical feminists who discarded them for being trans, and are attempting to distance themselves from the people who hurt them. that's why they're so vehemently anti-feminist. and because they haven't unpacked any of their bioessentialist beliefs, they're able to paint trans women, who deep down they still view as privileged and dangerous biological males, as aggressive and oppressive radical feminists. ultimately, despite whatever conception they have of themselves, they're expressing a form of male entitlement by shutting the conversation down and making everything that terfs do about them, ignoring the fact that the vast, VAST majority of the violence they enact is targeted specifically at trans women. and why wouldn't they? they don't actually care about trans women. they still hate us just as much as they always have, even if they now pay us lip service and (sometimes) use the right pronouns for us.

let me make myself clear: not all transmascs do this. not even a majority! all in all, this kind of story represents a pretty small minority of trans men, but they're very vocal and very visible in the trans community. that's not to say that most transmascs don't hold transmisogynistic views (it's basically impossible to have absolutely none if you're tme), but few of them are this hateful. this story is just one that I've seen played out many times - mostly involuntarily - because I've gotten a lot of these types of guys arguing with me on here and painting me as a radfem for talking about basic feminist tenets such as "men are an oppressor class".

also, as a disclaimer since I don't have time to get into everything: terfs are not a monolith and some terfs welcome trans men into their ranks (though these are an even smaller number of them), this was just one scenario that I hope painted a clear picture of the cause behind this phenomenon you've observed.

I hope this was helpful. if you need more examples, keep an eye on the notes of this post; they'll come crawling in here to argue with me in no time.

[niiwa-angel]

please tell me why you think that transgender people are bad/faking it. With real reasons, please

Normally, I wouldn't answer a bad faith question like this but I feel like it's a question a lot of Radfems get asked so I'm going for it. I'm going to put a cut here, because I am going to post screen shots of TIM rape fantasies and I know that's disturbing. You have been warned

First of all, I divide trans identified people into two categories. 1. People with gender Dysmorphia and 2. People with sex based reasons. For category two, males tend to be identifying into sexualization while females are trying to identify out of it. This also includes females who fetishize homosexual male relationships and think that by identifying asale, they can have that Yaoi romance they masturbate to.

So let's address category 1 first. I do not hold anything against people with gender Dysmorphia and in fact, feel quite a lot of sympathy for them. However, I think the treatments we have for their illness is not helpful. We don't treat anorexics with gastric sleeves or laxatives, we don't treat people with depression by giving them razors, we don't treat people with anxiety by telling them they're completely right about their friends hating them. So why are we treating people with Gender Dysmorphia with hormones and surgeries when they should be receiving therapy?

We also know that in young people, gender Dysmorphia is something they tend to outgrow as they react adulthood. So any treatments they get, such as puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, and surgery, are permanent "fixes" to temporary problems. Again, these people need therapy, not surgical intervention.

Now let's move on to category 2.

Trans identified males in category 2 are usually motivated by a fetish. Where men feel sexual gratification by performing tasks they view as feminine and often consume a lot of "sissy porn". Trans identified males have even talked about this at length and the misogyny really jumps out

This is a very famous "trans woman" who literally just said that the bare essentials to being female is "an open mouth, and expectant asshole, blank, blank eyes" and we're supposed to think it's not a fetish?

Moving on from that, a lot of trans identified males on this site LOVE to post about their sexually violent fantasies against real women. Let's take a look at them, shall we?

Nothing scary about that AT ALL!! Totally normal thoughts to have about your fellow humans. And for people who so desperately want to be seen as "women" the sure do like talking about violence they'd like to inflict on us. This isn't even the extent of it, this is merely a drop in an overflowing bucket of porn addicted depravity that trans identified males indulge in. If you want more, I suggest the R/FTM subreddit. You'll find lots of men discussing how they stole their female family members underwear and masturbated in them. Or how many of them have a fantasy about getting pregnant so they can get an abortion. Or how many of them have a fantasy about breastfeeding a baby. All of their fantasies are rooted in sexual gratification. By their own admission in posts they make on trans subreddits, sexual arousal and gratification are a major part of the "trans woman" experience. Look at how often they talk about "euphoria boners" on that sub when it comes to things like wearing dresses or skirts.

But let's move on from males for a moment, even though I could go on about them all day. While trans identified males are certainly the ones who pose the most physical threat against other people, trans identified females aren't harmless either, especially the ones with a gay male fetish.

Women with a gay male fetish adhere to the same level of entitlement that men with a lesbian fetish do. They are angry at real homosexuals for not being interested in them. Trans identified females tell on themselves all the time on X and Reddit, they complain about gay men not wanting to date them, they call "cis" gay men a disease, and that they wish AIDS has wiped them all out. I'm running out of pictures for this post but @capricornseason has lots of receipts on her blog. Not that I think you'll go check them out, because this is a bad faith question, but I encourage others to go see her page.

For women trying to identify out of sexualization, you'll often hear some very telling terms. "I don't feel like a woman" or "I was never into xyz". Usually, this means that they were tomboys or that they, like trans identified males, affiliate womanhood with sexual availability and submission. It's not, being a woman is just being an adult human female, how you dress, act, what career you chose, and how you spend your free time has nothing to do with that.

[woomycritiques543]

https://twitter.com/NazFX_Studios/status/1199643032292749312?t=1zGGNfvZkOKvFd0ItADX7Q&s=19

Vivziepop recently made a Collab with NazFX on Twitter who's releasing a Loona remake tomorrow. It appears she has collabed with this person twice? In the link I'm sending is a video of a white Alastor plush. My favorite character in the Hazbin Hotel series is whitewashed to oblivion again! Like WTF, Look at him? Why is he so white 😭? WHY IS HE STILL BEING PORTRAYED AS A NON BLACK CHARACTER? First it was Sallie May that was overly sexualized for being a trans woman which insulted the community and got a lot of backlash, then making another transmasc character Cis which got more backlash and now we're pushing for anti black, white Alastor! I encourage others not to buy from Viv or get the Loona plush to pocket her pockets because she's anti black and is absolutely terrible at portraying black characters, characters with different ethnic backgrounds in general or just LGBT characters. Vivziepop is not a spectacular person with great ideas. She can't represent characters period!

This is "OOAK." Not a collab. It's fanmade.

I get your concern, but please provide clear evidence before making accusations like this. Though yes... Vivziepop does whitewash him still, in fact, she made him lighter after the backlash about the Vodou representation, something fans and non-fans alike were disgusted by her doing this kind of anti-black behavior, and kept the symobols in the episode- just more hidden now.

Look at Vortex, look at how this character is drawn, look at how the muscles are emphasized while the white muscular characters are drawn otherwise normally or with Ozzie, have skinny arms.

Look at how they drew the white muscular characters and their anatomy compared to Vortex and try to tell me that there was "no anti-blackness" involved here. The white men have even anatomy, while for Vortex, it's emphasized to hell and back, and he's given almost no sympathy for being a slave, while Loona is multiple times just because she's white coded despite being Hell's equivalent to how black people were/are treated. Yet for Vortex, he's not sympathized with, even in his debut, and is only animated to "look intimidating" and to be violent while also having not a single black person influencing his writing. He's just meant to be the "token strong black man" while Coco and the rest of the background characters are put their for brownie points while we get no respect from these writers underneath this narrative. It's hypocritical, selfish, and downright racially insensitive. These stereotypes are far from "harmless", especially today with the newest Helluva Boss episode and how it relates to the harmful stigma against drag queens.

The fetishization of trans, drag, and black lives hurts us.

These stereotypes are not "comedy", they're reputational harm.

-while the other black characters are whitewashed and given names like "Coco" based on their skin. You can actually tell that the direction of this show had not a single black say on these shows, at all.

HB also made over half of their main poc characters succubi as an excuse to fetishize us. It's just hentai for minority fetishists, that's it, the show is just what Americans think hentai is, but worse, since it includes all misrepresentation of women from hentai along with ableism, racism, homophobia, and blatant transphobia from the writers being put into the tones and dialouge of the scenes.

The double standards need to stop. There is no such thing as a "good" dergogatory stereotype. Black stereotyping and fetishization is equally as harmful as blackface. This goes for Brandon Rodgers as well. Both him and Vivziepop have gotten away with racial stereotypes and sexism for far too long. There needs to be at least one black say behind this writing. This needs to stop.

Also look at the anniversary posts on Twitter:

Not a single black person in sight. I want to be excited by this show so badly due to the nice animation, cool world ideas (Hell with different demon species- how cool is that?!) and the cool looking bg characters but the creators keep ruining it with active bigotry.

So you're right about that one... 💀

Vivienne is speedrunning her own cancellation now...

-and it's just sad to watch. All she had to do was apologize for how she misrepresented multiple minority groups and let her stans attack us, none of this discourse needed to happen smh.

If racism and all around bigotry is "not ok" with Oye Primos. It's "not ok" with how Helluva Boss treats minorities as well. People need to stop having double standards just because one creator benefits their fan content more than the other. To the HB tag, if you like any of Vivziepop's shows, cool, but dont pretend to support us while denying how much bigotry the creators have just because you want more of Vivziepop's cartoon softcore porn.

Racism and queerphobia should not be normalized with any writer.

Stop the hypocrisy!

[boy-above]

on this pride month i've decided that the current closest descriptor for my gender is...

i'm gonna do a whole lot of talking abt my gender and stuff, honestly it's mostly for myself to organize my thoughts but i do like talking abt myself sometimes so if you read, thank you i guess

before i figured out i was a boy i ID'd as nonbinary for several years, i was hesitant to ID as masculine because at the time the community was so drenched with radfem ideology that myself and a lot of other transmascs were afraid to come out / even think about exploring masculinity because we were constantly being told how evil men were all the time. so instead i went through like, so many nonbinary labels, but none of them really suited me, i discovered. agender, bigender, genderfluid, i tried a lot of them. the thing is that i knew i didn't want to be a Girl, but was very hesitant to consider i was a Boy because of the previously mentioned radfem rhetoric being spread. this isn't a post to talk about that though, you've heard a lot about that from me already lmao. it's just an important component of the struggles with gender i had growing up.

anyway, once i finally accepted i was a boy, i was excited. i checked the boxes for a trans man, i wanted a dick (and am still mad i don't have one), i wanted he/him pronouns, i was comfortable being called a boy, etc. and i still want all of those things, so why am i starting to question the trans man label?

i think mostly it comes down to how my gender has been shaped by societal and environmental expectations. i have gender dysphoria but not in an entirely "traditional" way. i want a dick, i want a flat chest, i want a deeper voice. but im also gender nonconforming, and have no interest trying to do traditionally masculine things to "fit in" with cis men. i don't think femininity is some horrible thing to be avoided, i like a lot of feminine things and don't think so many things should be gendered in the first place. i don't think trying hormones would fix me because there's other ways i Don't want to look like a man. if anything i would say Nothing can truly fix my dysphoria because i don't want to look like Anything. there is no perfect me i can envision in my head, if anything i don't even want to look human; i don't even want to be perceived. there's also parts of me that no amount of surgery to fix, im only 4'9 for example, and even cis men get berated for being short let alone trans men.

that's why i've only told my immediate family, my friends, and my doctor that i'm a boy. i never plan of publicly coming out. on the rare occasion i do, i settle with they/them instead of my preferred he/him because it's just easier that way. you get a lot of laughing and eyerolling as a feminine looking person if you try to use he/him. ive been trans for so many years but i can never truly escape the chance that people might perceive me as a "trender" (hate that word, gag) because i simply don't pass. and then of course there's my parents who refuse to use he/him and will only use they/them. they know i want he/him but they won't even try. they're just like "you can't really expect us to call you a boy."

i have so much sympathy for fellow closeted people. the community never considers you and it ends up being a lonely place. you don't fit in with cis people but other trans people don't want you. once i read a piece called "i am a trans woman, i am in the closet, i am not coming out." and i can't even tell you how important that writing was to me. i read it at just the right time, years ago when i think i really needed it. it's one of the only things that made me feel like staying in the closet was an option. that i can only be out where i feel safe.

i've questioned before if my gender nonconformity and the way people treat non-passing individuals is the true reason i've become skeptical of my trans man identity. i think most likely it is, i think that if we lived in a world where it was perfectly socially exceptable to be a feminine trans man and people in public would accept me and treat me like a boy, i'd have no problem saying "i'm a trans man", but we don't live in that world. the world we're in right now has no room for people like me, and it's something i've had to accept. another thing worth mentioning is that i don't even really like the word 'man' being applied to me, i just felt like i had to use it because some people treat trans boys badly if they prefer 'boy' over 'man'. but i like being a boy. the word boy suits me better. the word man just doesn't seem applicable to me. i'm not masculine enough and the word just feels kinda wrong in my brain, the same way being called "handsome" does. i want to be cute, and calling me handsome would just be inaccurate. do you get what im saying?

but anyway, i think demiboy suits me because its more 'loose' than trans man for lack of a better word. its less specific and i think thats what i need right now. im a boy, but calling myself binary doesnt quite feel right. calling myself nonbinary also doesnt feel right though. like i said i ID'd as nonbinary for several years so i have no problem with the label in general, it just doesnt feel right when applied to me personally. it's kinda weird to describe, i know demiboy is not a binary identity, therefore is by definition nonbinary, but the word nonbinary itself just doesnt vibe with me, so i guess i would prefer not to call myself nonbinary??? i dont know how to describe it, it's just a labels thing. because like i said, i feel like trans boy isnt an entirely wrong way to describe me Either. im rambling now because i know my labels problem doesnt make sense. anyway uh yeah. i'm a demiboy. and for anyone who didn't see the post i made a while back, i use he/him and sometimes it/its. unenthusiastically throws a handful of confetti

[velvetvexations]

Hi Velvet! Would like to open this ask with a bit of positivity-- I've been having it rough lately, both in the general life department and my personal issues department, and scrolling your blog really helps calm me down and relax <3 I wish good things upon you, your loved ones, and the community you've built here. I'm really sorry for dumping this super long ask into your inbox, but I'm not sure who else would engage with what I have to say here. And on that note, I'm also extremely grateful to you.

I've been thinking a lot lately on all the "tme privilege" discourse that's pretty much overrun this site and wanted to throw in my two cents to the conversation as a bigender person (male + female). Full disclosure that I'm an AFAB perisex individual, and do not identify with the transmasc nor the transfem label. I haven't personally made any original posts on the topic myself, but I'd like to believe I generally have a grasp on where everyone is coming from.

In the broadest sense, I think holding these kinds of charged discussions during a period in which society is experiencing a collective moral panic over trans people has put a lot of us on edge. It's caused us as a community to forget the base truth that ultimately we are trying to navigate our very personal traumas through these discourses, and our priority has shifted from proactively extending compassion and sympathy to each other to defensively antagonizing and segregating ourselves out of hypervigilance. The natural consequence of such hypervigilance on social media platforms is the creation of an environment where opinions and perspectives are constantly being policed. So to a certain extent, I'd posit that the argument is not so much a direct trans intracommunity issue as it is a online socialization phenomena that intersects with trans digital spaces and our current political climate. As a lot of older trans people (by which I mean 30+) have observed, this is a fairly recent trend in trans discourse, and conversation was typically much more open and less hostile even a decade ago.

In the more specific, rhetorical sense, I can't make heads or tails of the logical throughline in any of the most radical arguments. It is just the case that sometimes lived experiences will contradict each other, and sometimes the things that have shaped one person's suffering will have shaped others' in similar but also very different ways-- it's frustrating that no one seems to understand this. Watering down the nuances of reality to these very clear-cut definitions of what makes up specific types of people's experiences is just strange to me. I am supposed to believe I would be TME despite identifying as a woman who also seeks gender-affirming care that would masculinize her bottom parts. I would love to hear what exactly would distinguish me from the specter of the degenerate trans woman in the eyes of society if I start walking around with a cock and boobs at the same time while calling myself a woman and a man simultaneously. I certainly would no longer be treated as a member of the social class of women, and I most definitely would be excluded from the social class of men. And yet by all means this is supposed to fall under the umbrella of transmasc experiences, despite me not claiming transmasculinity in any way shape or form. If I have physically transitioned and I am a woman, and then experience transphobia in ways that interface with my womanhood, how can that not be called transmisogyny? Then do I call myself TMA? But I was born with the sex designation of female! I was socialized as a girl and wouldn't possibly be able to grasp the depth of the trauma that real trans woman go through… It just goes around in circles. This is also honestly why I find myself identifying much more with intersex individuals than I do with binary trans individuals in general but, man, these circlejerks sure do jerk those circles.

I'm always happy to give people a space to talk about things. There's way, way too much hostility going on between people who should be working together. It's always important work to push back against that and to not swallow what you're told you have to accept as reality. You're doing really good at that.

[junkiepunkie]

the Scottish hate crime law

[I’ll preface this with the fact I’m Scottish] So... a lot of bigots appear to be having trouble understanding the new Scottish hate crime law. Let me explain.

This law is a massive step forward for Scotland, in my opinion, in the fight for social equality. It criminalizes the targeted abuse/purposeful discrimination of trans and gender non-conforming people, disabled people, as well as some other categories. If a person is reported under the law they can be charged as committing a hate crime -which would be true as that is in fact what that is- and at the very least all reported cases would be investigated, at which point you could be either found not guilty, guilty of non-criminal hate or guilty of a hate crime. Now, to me this is ABSOLUTELY FAIR and COMPLETELY WARRANTED, because I’m not a piece of absolute shit. The only people who could possibly be worried by this law are people who actively commit hate crimes and whom we should therefore have no sympathy for regarding this matter.

But why do I think people don’t understand the law? Well, that’s simple. Some people are angry because Humza Yusaf (first minister and there for leader of the country) and a Tory MP who’s name escapes me right now have both been accused of hate crimes, but only the Tory MP is maybe going to be charged. Now, Humza is being reported over talk that he was racist -to fucking WHITE PEOPLE!! The literal dominant socio-economic race- in a speech made 4 years ago about George Floyd. Spoiler alert: what he said wasn’t racist it just made idiotic white people uncomfortable. The Tory MP, in stark contrast, compared identifying as non-binary to announcing you were a cat. ....People are mad.... that only.... one of these men.... is getting charged....

now, I know what you’re thinking. “Ok sure, that is pretty stupid, but I mean, people have a right under this new law to report what they deem to be hate towards their race and so they weren’t exactly wrong-“

except that this new law doesn’t deal with race, that law was passed years ago. If this comment Humza made was really that bad they could have reported it years ago, but instead a ridiculous amount of white cos people decided to try and play a racism card without even understanding the idiocy of their own actions. Idiots.

in conclusion, I’m proud of Scotland for passing laws to keep up with the times yet I am also deeply dissapointed in my country’s population for taking advantage of a new law to be bigoted.

terfs suck.

trans people are entitled to rights.

white people need to stop calling things that check their privelage attacks.

[liquorisce]

So idk if you've touched it since but can you give us a little sneek peak of BYLB as an original work? Like the new characters and things things you plan on/have changed from the version we read?

thank you so much for this question!!

i'm not sure i have a sneak peek that that is good enough to share, because for a long time, despite rewriting nearly 25k words, i couldn't pinpoint what was wrong with it. I thought changing pov might be able to tell the story better, but that was a tool, not the material itself.

thanks to all the reading and writing i have been doing on other projects, i have been thinking about bylb a lot. i think one thing i'll have to do, a kill-your-darlings of sorts, is to cut down a lot of details about other characters, and sometimes whole characters themselves.

the story i really want to tell demands a lot of interiority, and i think i'm way better at it now, but it also makes me understand then, that i cannot devote the same kind of attention or perspective to levi's backstory with petra. to his dynamic with hange. The incident that occurred between Cherry and Hange. I can't just throw them in there like I did last time and expect those things to resolve themselves.

I'll explain it this way. In my first draft that's up on ao3, I'm trying to talk about:

Levi, Hange, Levi's late wife and their relationship to the sex work industry. All of their relationships are different and filled with different types of pain. Levi was a cop that fell in love with a sex worker who became his CI, and then got caught and murdered for it. Hange is a trans character who wants to undergo a sex change surgery and is trying to save up for it, but at the same time they want to invest in creating a better environment for the girls who end up in similar situations. With Cherry we see a situation where Hange feels like they have failed in that endeavour, because Cherry refused to follow the boundaries laid out by Hange, and ended up being abused at the hands of a customer who claimed to love Cherry.

Mikasa on the other hand is trying to reclaim the ownership of her body by making it work. quite literally. she's been mothered by hange, fathered by levi, and this industry whilst dangerous, has been a playground of exploration for her. because she's been so protected, she doesn't consider the aspects of it that she doesn't want to. she's a good dancer, and she's proud of it. she wants to get a kick out of turning men on, so she does. But where Levi and Hange feel like shit for exposing her to this industry, she is trying to assert a "Why can't I do this if i feel safe and free?" kind of attitude.

Mikasa's sexuality: Mikasa is somewhere on the ace spectrum, demi i guess. she's felt broken for so long because her body doesn't experience desire the same way as others, but she's grown up knowing that her body elicits desire in others. and she's tried to push and prod and poke at that sensation until it's sore. Now for whatever reason, she finds it in the arms of a man who is supposed to be off limits to her. She is willing to disregard these limits, but this man is hot one minute, cold the next, hung up over an ex, and mostly unreliable.

Eren's backstory and divorce: Obviously Eren comes into the story with a really key perspective, the opening scene is about him and his friends, and his inner turmoil. What I was trying to do was write a man on the precipice of change. Here you have a man who thought he was doing all the right things in life, and suddenly he's found out it doesn't work. What is a moral choice anymore? He isn't so sure. What am I doing with a stripper? Why am I getting a divorce? How am I in love with someone else when I promised to be with my wife forever? Why do I feel like a different person when I am with this mysterious girl? etc.

Historia's sexuality and cheating: I obviously have sympathy for her, the way I wrote her into the story. She married her best friend but fell in love with a woman much later, something that she never expected would happen to her. This is not something she has an understanding of, herself. She has a controlling father whom she genuinely fears for, and is still very fond of her husband. So even though she wants to leave him, she is scared to leave him behind. He's one of the few people in her life who has been good to her, after all.

I have 2 choices to make here,

1) either I write a dual pov story from Eren and Mikasa's perspective, in which case I would really massively cut down point 1, and just briefly mention point 5 and change Mikasa's back story because there is so much to unpack in the dynamic itself, OR

2) I would keep the story from Mikasa POV and try to tackle all the above whilst featuring Eren as just a love interest. you know what i mean?

I THINK i am leaning towards the former, but this is a thing that keeps me spinning every three business days. Ultimately I am also conscious of "writing what I know" and the idea that I could be making an offensive commentary on sex work does scare me. On the other hand, I love romance and writing about Eren unravelling feels so compelling to me.

Regarding character changes: I like the character I have fleshed out for Mikasa. where I lean into her wistfulness, devotion and submissiveness in other fics, here I wanted to explore her pride and obstinacy, and desire to fight. So I like the character that I have here. In an original, I would call her M, and have her whisper her name to her lover, and the audience would not know it until the very end.

One thing I have toyed with seriously, is making M an onlyfans persona who breaks a lot of rules for a man who says he's never done this before, and kind of taunts her by asking what's so special about her. this is what i would do if i choose to option 1 as I explained above, because then I can just really make this an obsessive love story that takes place in the shadows. And I can still touch upon points 2, 3 and 4 in proper detail! If I got this route, I picture M's persona to have pink wig and a pole installed in her room. I wonder if she would be a rich girl. We'll have to see lol.

Eren on the other hand... oh boy. I just would not know what to name him. I have grown attached to the name 'Mr Jaeger' and it kinda sounds sexy, idk what else to say lol. Also while writing original fic, I also feel somewhat of a fraud writing names of people that are so far removed from the names and cultures that I know intimately. I've toyed with the idea of making the MMC an indian man, because I can then relate to the cultural obligations family thrusts on you especially in a marriage. i think i just need to give myself permission to do this, and a lot of things will fall into place, because here then is an archetype of man that i know LOL.

I think the real thing is nailing down what questions I am trying to answer in this story, and i'm still not a 100% sure. However, writing this post was super fun and helpful because it also lays out very clearly what I need to think about and write about. All I know for sure is that I will write it eventually, and it will have a positive ending. thanks again for this ask!

[carusocarousel]

TW for discussions of beauty standards and gender dysphoria

Sometimes I still remember that event on trans Twitter where a detrans grifter was complaining about balding and spewing bullshit about testosterone, then a trans guy quoted the original post with an image of himself and said something similar to "skill issue". He was very pretty, very ethereal, I won't deny it. But... something about it felt wrong. I don't feel a lot of sympathy for the detrans person, they were doing it to appeal to the anti-trans, conservative audience. But I don't know, positioning balding as a negative thing and having it (indirectly)reinforced in the response? It feels sad.

Balding is something that could absolutely happen in your HRT treatment or due to age, illness and other causes; it's not unusual. There's nothing wrong if you don't wish it or you're scared of developing it. But I feel it's a problem when it's touted as this undeniably bad thing that lowers how attractive you and others perceive you.

And I find it weirder how it is seen as bad or undesirable, especifically in transmasculine circles? Our cis counterparts develop baldness all the time but it isn't seen as a deal breaker as much as between each other or people outside of our community who want to develop a relationship with us.

Maybe this is all conjecture. It's not like they aren't bald trans men and transmascs in our communities who are appreciated and loved. But still, why is it seen as a negative thing some people are judged on? And why is that judgement reinforced by us?

There have been times in the past where I've pondered about unrealistic beauty standards in the trans community, coming from trans people, and topics of desirability and attractiveness. I've seen a couple of posts where people try to defend trans men as men by posting photos of cis-passing, buff, masculine, shirtless trans men and asking along the lines "how could anybody confuse them as anything else than men?". And holy shit, it just bugs me. Not because of those trans men, mind you, but because of the generalization that all trans men look and aspire to be like them, with the unconscious implication that, if you're not being perceived as a man, it's because you're not "trying hard enough" to "pass". As someone who doesn't pass and doesn't wish to pass, I felt so invisibilized. And the sad thing is, it's not just cis people using these examples, but I've seen some trans folks doing the same! It's so disappointing.

I feel there should be a closer examination into beauty standards and desirability in our communities and how that affects us. It usually centered on how cis society perceives and treats us, but not very much on what messages we take from it and how we might be reinforcing stereotypes and expectations onto our own communities, between each other. Does it make sense? I need more info on this topic.

I've been in a couple of talks with other queer persons in MLM relationships. They've spoken about how they felt they needed to conform to other MLM folk's ideas and desires to be seen and respected . I've heard of a lot of judgement in gay communities especially. I wonder if a similar phenomenon happens in trans communities, especially transmasculine communities; how us men and masculine folks navigate through patriarchal expectations while we walk on the line of personal self-expression and safety from cisheteropatriarcal violence.

Honestly, thinking about this topic and experiencing it causes me a lot of dysphoria. It's one of the reasons I've drifted a bit from transmasc and trans groups in general. I'm at a very sensitive, uncertain point in my transition where I'm very self-aware of how I look, my mannerisms, how my voice sounds and what I wear. I don't feel inspired by a lot of transitioning before-and-afters because I don't feel they represent who I am or who I want to be. Many trans men and transmascs folks value a type of masculinity I don't identify or aspire to be; however, I also don't identify as feminine either. My identity cannot be pinpointed, it's always fluctuating; which makes it harder to exist in a lot of spaces.

[mlobsters]

supernatural s8e8 hunteri heroici (w. andrew dabb)

(huh, has he written without daniel loflin before? looks like no, but does exclusively after this)

literal cartoonish death, always a great sign. to go along with the very serious business in the recap

that's one creepy ass smile there, misha lol wtf are you doing. i wanna be a hunter *performing human smile flawlessly*

CASTIEL Can I, uh, at least ride in the front seat? DEAN and SAM simultaneously [SAM while shouldering CASTIEL out of the way] No.

so this is how it's gonna go

DEAN Listen, you see anything weird, anything out of the box, you give us a call. DETECTIVE Whatever you say, Scully.

where the hell did that come from? (picking scully instead of mulder)

*blurry flashback on sam starts to fade in* me, out loud: OH JESUS CHRIST. i know amelia was in the recap but i forgot, okay. i'm so tired of this plot mechanic

this man (brian markinson) has been in so many of my things

the x-files s5e9 folie a deux as gary lambert

the killing s2e12 donnie or marie as gil sloane

mad men s6e2 the doorway, part 2 as dr arnold rosen

the magicians s4e7 the side effect as everett

god mad men was a beautiful show. look at the sets and costumes and lighting. gahhh. and second, he played the character in the magicians that basically caused quentin to kill sacrifice himself and i just got real hurt over it all over again good job, brain-o

i swear i keep getting natalie portman's character in garden state vibes from how she's playing this part

SAM Uh, no. Maintenance, mostly. STAN Ah. Well, that makes sense. 'Cause I got to say, Sam, you look like a real fixer-upper to me.

i laughed out loud because ????? and also sam🧍‍♂️

DEAN Cas, you gonna book a room or what? CASTIEL No, I'll stay here. DEAN Oh, okay. Yeah. We'll have a slumber party, braid Sam's hair. Where are you gonna sleep? CASTIEL I don't sleep. DEAN Okay, well, I need my four hours, so... CASTIEL I'll watch over you. DEAN That's not gonna happen.

what a weird little interaction. i guess cas is back to being clueless about social stuff for comic relief. he had some really good snarky moments there for a bit, why are we backsliding

all right so. weird feelings about this dean cas convo. dean being very.. forthright demanding a serious conversation with cas. but this...

CASTIEL Dean, I... When I was... bad... and I had all those things – the... the leviathans... writhing inside me... I caused a lot of suffering on earth, but I devastated Heaven. I vaporized thousands of my own kind, and I – I – I can't go back. DEAN 'Cause if you do, the angels will kill you. CASTIEL Because if I see what Heaven's become – what I – [sighs] what I made of it... I'm afraid I might kill myself.

i don't like how this is framed to gain sympathy (and i have a general great distaste for how suicide is thrown around in media anyway)

ORDERLY It's creepy, right? A lot of these people – they just tune out and live in their own heads. It's like maybe the real world is too much for them, and they just run and hide, you know?

the way i laughed at that prompt for a flashback

STAN I think the two of you are holding on to each other, yeah. 'Cause I know she's scared. After what happened to Don, I don't blame her for taking off. Needing to run away and hide – I know why she did it. The question is – what are you running from, Sam?

yeah current!sam, what are you running from huh?? good thing the kevin tran thing drags out for a long time so you can figure out you wanna keep hunting or whatever by the time it wraps up

oh gosh, it's bj from mash

m*a*s*h s10e18 heroes - mike farrell as bj hunnicutt

*mumbling threats at the screen, if you flashback again because dean said something about living in a dream world........ 🔪*

SAM Look, it can be nice living in a dream world. It can be great. I know that. And you can hide, and you can pretend all the crap out there doesn't exist, but you can't do it forever because... eventually, whatever it is you're running from – it'll find you. It'll come along, and it'll punch you in the gut. And then... then you got to wake up, because if you don't, then trying to keep that dream alive will destroy you! It'll destroy everything!

it's a 3 way pep talk. everyone here needs it. personally iffy on the whole cartoon schtick but i do like this test pattern room effect

bro please i'm having extreme flashback fatigue 😭

LOL i took a screenshot of dean opening the bottle this way at the beginning of the episode because i was like this is so strange that they're focusing on it, is he using his pocketknife?? also like, opening a beer while getting in the car still at the gas station? well. now i see, more silly setup for a silly payoff later

SAM My, uh – my brother used to do that. STAN Yeah? SAM Yeah. STAN He a good guy? SAM Yeah. Yeah, uh, he – he was... the best. Uh, I, uh... I lost him, and, uh, I ran.

i don't hate the story they're telling through the flashbacks, i just hate how it's executed. i can see why they're doing it this way, so we're not actively suffering through the separation, it already happened. and the people want sam and dean together. but avoiding separating them has also made this really clunky and drag out by chopping it up and sprinkling it over so many episodes

anyway, resurrecting amelia's not-actually-dead husband certainly gives us all a guilt-free out of this whole fucking situation

[sheathandshear]

Something that is missing in a lot of the Trans Disc Horse around trans men and transmasculine people and the specific (but also not unique!) problems many face from society is this... particular terror many people have (yes, cis and trans) around people who look masculine but act feminine, particularly in that grey area of appearance where they don't look quite like a cis woman and don't look quite like a cis man and so must be up to something, because why else would you carry out that kind of deception rather than just be one or the other? The gender that we "are" and the gender that we're "pretending to be" vary wildly with the observer; the only constant is that discomfort and suspicion.

The people who've been overtly transphobic to me haven't done so on the basis that I'm a woman pretending to be a man -- their complaint was that I was too much of a man to be a woman. That I was a threat to them because of covert (not overt!) masculinity. These were not situations of "oh, assumed to be TMA until revealed to be TME and then the cis people apologized and fell all over themselves to retract their bigotry and suspicion" (which... never happens anyway? tf). I'm tall and big, but I don't bind, I'm not on HRT, I have prominent breasts, my voice is high, it is very obvious that I'm not a cisgender man, and yet their complaints were the same. "I don't want HER, SHE's a MAN!" (Actual quote.) These people don't give a shit that I have breasts and a uterus and a vagina and more estrogen than testosterone, they already know that I do; the imagined predatory penis in my pants is real and dangerous in their minds as an actual physical one.

I personally have sympathy for these people. Almost everyone I've had this reaction from have been cisgender women and girls who've had deeply traumatic experiences at the hands of men and see in me that which hurt them, only worse, because I don't fit clearly into the box of "man" or "woman". I recognize that this is not about me as a person, but rather a consequence of the pain and conditioning that came before me. It doesn't make it okay to take these things out on me, but even though it hurts, I choose not to take offense. Cisgender men, by and large, have neither cared nor paid attention to the subtle signals of my gendered appearance and presentation -- they tend to take me at face value, and I've gotten bro'd, brother'd, sir'd, and man'd far more often by men. (Which I recognize is NOT the experience of many transfeminine people, especially those who date men.)

I genuinely don't know how to characterize this kind of suspicion and aggression as anything other than a specific kind of transmisogyny -- not exactly as transfeminine people experience it, but close enough that it provides categorization for these experiences better than any other schema of societal oppression that we've come up with. It's not misogyny, it's not homophobia, it's not transmisandry, it's not exactly femmephobia, it is very specifically the prejudice against behaving like a woman but appearing like a man and the assumption that I must have some nefarious purpose for doing so. And there is not an inconsiderable extent to which my choice to currently not pursue HRT or present myself as a man rather than a "theyfab" is because I'm a pediatric nurse and I work with children in very physically and emotionally vulnerable situations and I'm afraid of getting more of these reactions than I already do. Do I get as many as one of my trans woman friends, who also works with children? No. But I've gotten more as I present more and more masculine, I'm sure that it would only increase as I progress further down the path of masculinization, and I suspect that my anxieties around further transition are not that far off from some of my transfem siblings and sisters in a similar position, even though according to prevailing trans theories our experiences should be exact opposites.

[wazzuppy]

I saw your post about how people treat the phrase "white feminist" and yeah, I totally agree. There is this really weird trend to fully ignore misogyny even in leftist circles and belittle women who try to talk about how they're oppressed. Even if a woman is white she's still gonna be systemically oppressed because that's just how misogyny works. I find it pretty disgusting on this website where most discussions about misogyny are hijacked by people literally going "man hating is so bad and you shouldn't point this out". It's cool people defend trans people but 1. criticizing men as a social class isn't "bioessentialism" or whatever, it's genuinely just talking about the oppressor class and 2. why do you see trans women as men??????? like why is this argument always brought up anyway? i get TERFs would say it that way but when the target is so obviously not a TERF it's so odd. I've lost mutuals on here for just saying the words patriarchy and that MRAs are bad. It's baffling. I hate this progressive language coded misogyny in leftist spaces with all my heart. Women should be allowed to be afraid and angry when they're so obviously oppressed in every part of their lives. Sorry for the big rant

no need to apologize, i pretty much completely agree.

i think there is a very weird attitude around men's rights in general. like, it often feels as if they're trying the take the fact that they're men and have an inherent advantage to GAIN their rights out of the equation.

not to say i don't think men should have rights or that every single man is more privileged than the average cishet white woman. that's not true. but privilege exists even in marginalized groups because hierarchy still exists, and advantage and disadvantage often affect the same person. like, even a gay man has a leg up over a het woman because they are a man. and likewise, a het woman has an advantage over a gay man because theyre het. things arent as simple as "this group is always more oppressed than this one no matter what." its more fluid than that.

not to mention... a lot of the issues that do affect men (as in the hyper masculine, "feelings are gay" bullshit) are ones that were started and continue to be perpetuated by other men. like yeah, it fucking sucks and it should be fixed, but you get why the victims aren't the ones who should be doing the work, right? we can help and we can offer sympathy, but ultimately that's something THEY need to get over for any real progress to be made.

i also think there's something kind of gross about how a lot of feminist discussions are taken as "you just hate trans men!" automatically, without even knowing the genders of the people having the discussion. trans people should ABSOLUTELY be taken into account and defended, and its completely true that many, many feminists are transphobic. but the assumption that radical feminism (and i mean actual feminism, not "radfems" because thats just a different flavor of wanting patriarchy) = hating trans people feels very icky to me. you can be feminist without being transphobic, and you can be transphobic without being feminist.

leftist language, in general, needs some kind of adjustment or just for people to better understand what certain terms are actually supposed to mean. because lots of people just slap the word "terf" onto someone who is either not feminist or not transphobic.

for example: j.k rowling is undeniably transphobic. she regurgitates lots of terf rhetoric, but the problem with calling her a terf is that... she's not a feminist. like at all. she has an obvious hatred of women and has an extremely conservative mindset of what women should be. that's why all of the mothers in harry potters are good, and all of the unmarried/women without kids are bad. that's why hermione's personality is just a list of misogynist stereotypes.

this issue is especially gross when you remember how dogshit trans feminists are treated, masc or fem. trans people will talk about how men have personally hurt them and how that affected their views, and then a dozen cis queer people will come in like "noooo hating men is bad!!" and assume theyre cis.

i have more to say, but honestly, im tired and a lil sick so i'll leave it there for now. but theres a lot i think that needs to be discussed with how leftist language has evolved, and how feminism is sometimes treated like a scapegoat when it comes to who should be blamed for transphobia. i dont know of any of this made sense but yeah.

[molsno]

I can actually see why some transmascs may talk about "hatred of masculinity" in a good faith (and still be wrong).

Before realizing that they were men they were probably identifying as women heavily dissatisfied with being women and probably also heavily gender non-conforming. Neither of those are considered fully acceptable by wider society, but totally accepted by feminist movement, at least here where I live. And the most prominent feminist organisations here are radfem-adjacent.

Now, saying that those organisations at large are "anti-men" or even "against masculinity in men" is wrong, considering how they tried to portray their enemies as effeminate as some kind of own. And, though I have never witnessed it myself, how straight girls who use radfem rhetoric are willing to invent new definitions of lesbianism to call their cishet boyfriends "lesbians", men for them have higher priority than lesbians at least.

Still, running into people there who did just hate men was a daily occurrence, and many more were parroting their rhetoric ("feminine energy" as some kind of fix for civilisation and so on). If some transmascs allied more with people like this, discovering that they are what they considered to be some ontological evil might have been traumatic.

Still, posing misandry as big societal problem and not fringe worldview that they internalized is silly at best (I am using misandry here as personal attitude, not system, hence no quotes). And I always assume that people who talk about it as something important are either doing it in bad faith or repeating someone's bad faith arguments without analysing it.

(Now it's up to question how many transmascs actually joined those organisations in any way, considering how for unrealised trans girl that I was any idea about how good men or masculinity are even (in not ridiculous form) was an instant "no" on all levels, but who knows)

yeah, that's pretty much my understanding of it, too. basically all transmascs who believe in transandrophobia display at least some level of internalized gender essentialism underlying their entire ideology.

and like, I get it. the feminist wave of the 2010s was so deeply entangled with radical feminism that for a good while, anyone heavily involved in the movement was exposed to the biological essentialist worldview central to radical feminism that declares that men are ontologically evil, and I have no doubt that many young, repressed trans people at the time internalized that idea to an extent. I certainly did, and it only amplified my dysphoria as a teenager. it was traumatizing to me, and I can completely understand why it would be traumatizing to transmascs to come to terms with the fact that they were something they had always believed was inherently bad.

it's just like you said though, it's a mistake to frame misandry as a society wide issue when really it's a very small minority of people. but a lot of trans men never question or challenge the worldview they developed in their youth, so when they start getting read as men when they're adults and inevitably face transphobia, they start attributing it to a societal hatred of masculinity instead of recognizing that the actual cause of their oppression is a society that seeks to protect the concept of the immutable gender binary that enables the patriarchal hierarchy of power at all costs.

I don't really have any sympathy for them, though. like yeah, it sucks to be made to feel like you should hate yourself just for existing, but like, that isn't unique to them. the gender essentialism so many of them have internalized is a big reason a lot of transandrophobia truthers start aligning themselves with terfs, and I don't think I need to tell you how I feel about that. 😑 they have an alternative, they can just reevaluate their beliefs until they come to realize that man and woman are completely neutral categories entirely devoid of value judgment and don't say anything meaningful about any given person other than what they like to be called. I'll admit from experience that accepting that truth can be difficult but it's not impossible, and challenging your worldview is something you're going to have to do a lot in life if you actually want to meaningfully change how you interact with people and the world around you.

but why do that when they can demand trans women bend over backwards to appease them? it must feel good to get a taste of that male privilege when a few trans women are actually self-hating enough to listen to them. that is, at least until they get too much backlash from the rest of us who have enough self esteem to stand up for ourselves and they recede into the open arms of terfs for comfort from the mean trannies.

[katatonicimpression]

Salty comics ask: 2,3,5,7, 11, 21, 38. If you feel like it. Character(s) of your choice.

2. What character death for the sake of drama was the worst?

Everett's is pretty bad. They announce that he's dead, then proceed to do an entire 4 issue arc that has nothing to do with him before even explaining what happened. Then, after the explainer, they barely mention him. And I think actually the fact that (similar to the Hellions), his resurrection on Krakoa hasn't featured any of that angst or drama because it's not the direction they want to go with Emma..

But yeah. Transparently done for the drama, to raise the stakes. And, much like with Thunderbird or Darwin in the First Class film, it's a tired racist trope.

3. Who is your most hated comics writer?

Gezza D.

Although, there's definitely overall worse writers out there. There are some attrocious comics that I've struggled through. But in general, I'm not one for going out of my way to look up who the writers and artists are for everything I look at. If I remember their name, I remember their name.

And I genuinely think it's not good to get too fixated on these figures, especially when you don't like their work. I've been hyper aware of how fucked up even the valid criticism can get, when it's relentless, large scale and directed at a single person.

So, I guess I'm saying that I hope Gerry doesn't have tumblr.

5. Who mischaracterized [x] the worst?

Monet? Cullen Bunn wrote Uncanny X-Men (2016) so fuck that guy I guess.

Bobby? Whoever had the idea to pair him up with Mystique.

7. What “throwaway” character could they have done more with?

Ooh, there's a lot of good answers to this.

I'll put forward Mel from that first Cap storyline with Nightshade. No reason why they couldn't bring that back and make more out of it, even if he's dead.

Mindmeld. Interestingly, the new character of Escapade is also a trans woman with similar conciousness transfering powers. But they're hardly similar outside of that; there's plenty of room. Bring back Mindmeld.

11. What’s the worst art you’ve seen?

I saw your post with the Greg Land examples. Seconded.

A lot of Liefeld options, obviously.

Sometimes it feels pretty mean to harp on art for not being so good. I get the "they're professionals, they got paid for this" argument, but whatever. Hell, sometimes I like it when the art looks kind of shitty because it gives me hope for my own lol.

But I will say that, for me, when it's that more realistic and hyper-smooth style that was big in the 2005-2015 era, that's when I have the least sympathy. There's so much technical competence on display and yet so often, really poor compositions of the panels and just a sub zero taste level. So yeah, Greg Land.

21. Who’s the most overhyped villain excluding the Joker?

Thanos was more entertaining in his early days when he was goofier.

I think it makes sense that the MCU used him as their first Big Bad, but I personally do not care about him or take him seriously as an existential threat in the slightest lol.

And specifically, I think the effort to rebrand him as a serious, universe destroying, massive big serious scary, manly man scary villain, makes him less fun. And because of the movies, they're going to keep him as the biggest of big bads forever now. Boo.

38. What character that was reduced to a love interest deserves so much better?

Honestly the phrase "reduced to a love interest" is not one I associate with good faith arguments (see: MCU Sharon hate), but there's something to it sometimes.

Most of the examples I can think of are temporary (e.g. Monet is a love interest in Weapon X-Force, Rachel is basically just a love interest in Captain Britain - The former was awful and the latter is... fine). It's not always an issue when it's temporary and done well, but is a problem if it's a rut the character gets stuck in when they're only "so-and-so's partner", or if they're really ooc or the writing is insulting etc... It also doesn't count if they were only ever conceived of as a love interest.

Weirdly, the only character I can think of that this has definitely happened to is Layla Miller, who hasn't been a character outside of Jamie's wife and a mother to their kid for like a decade.

I'm sure there are better examples, I'm just drawing a blank.

[strkid]

Gonna be annoying on tumblr by typing on the post:

Cheating absolutism is something that stifles people’s queer exploration. The inherent power structure at play between a gay fling vs the established straight relationship means that for the straight partner, to be jealous of the gay fling is in some ways absurd. Yes of course couples should talk to each other BEFORE opening up or exploring, but at the same time I also do think that especially for self identified straight men, having that conversation with a partner or even oneself is a very high bar to set; it relies on a lack of self repression and openness towards oneself that not everyone has before exploring their own queerness.

Harsh absolutism combined with rigidly enforced heterosexuality pretends that homophobia and biphobia as systems of oppression don’t exist; it pretends that heterosexual and gay relationships are in any way treated as equal in society, and that the feelings a closeted person in denial harbors for someone of their own gender are on equal footing as the ones they feel for their heterosexual partner

They are not. Calling it cheating as if it’s a choice that threatens the monogamous heterosexual relationship, rather than the opening of a door that only leads to a huge steep uphill battle of self acceptance and unlearning and a lot of pain for most, enforces heterosexuality.

It uses the (surface level, available only to those on the very top of the social hierarchy) “acceptance” of gay relationships against us.

We need to ask ourselves why same gender relationships are only treated as equal when it hurts us, and never when it would benefit us.

Are we really being political, radical, anti normativity, queer when we enforce monogamous heterosexuality? Is that really the queerest possible analysis of a situation like this? Is it the most feminist analysis? Is it the world we’re trying to create?

Yeah of course it would have been better if this guy had talked to his girlfriend about his desires before it happened. Yeah he should have told her that “I’m on this trip, I’m feeling things I can’t explain, I think I’m attracted to my male coworker” but in order to even name that he would have had to be able to admit to himself that that’s what he was experiencing

If that’s the bar that’s set for someone to not be labeled an unforgivable cheater who deserves as fate worse than death or what have you, then we will also end up living in a world with a lot more closeted people than if we accept that some level of exploration has to be able to happen

Of course the gf doesn’t have to stay with this guy. But as outsiders to the situation, we have to extend some level of sympathy for someone who is so deeply entrenched in heterosexuality that he feels this is normal.

This level of denial and expectation that others will participate in the denial with him is a tragedy through and through.

Yeah he’s holding on to his heterosexuality because he doesn’t want to associate with people like us.

Yes that’s horrible. But it can ALSO be true that he’s never encountered us in any type of scenario where he’d even have considered he was one of us.

Bisexuals have the highest suicide statistics of any sexual orientation, bisexual women experience levels of rape, domestic violence and murder only surpassed by what is experienced by trans women as a demographic.

We are invisibilized and because we often grow way into our adulthood without any meaningful connection to our own queer community, we often end up building lives for ourselves that holds us prisoners.

I won’t argue that bisexuals are inherently incapable of monogamy, that’s of course biphobic in and out of itself

Instead I will argue that strightly and tightly enforced monogamy only serves to enforce and uphold heterosexuality

That the norm of strict monogamy leaves absolutely no room for bisexual people to discover ways of life and relationships that meet our needs.

I am never going to be able to leave Reddit.

[the-one-true-nobody]

Some people are so absorbed in their own anti-trans agenda that they fail to realize that if their logic only works if you assume transgenderism is fake and evil to begin with, they've crossed over into the kind of blatant transphobia that can't be written off as anything else.

Like, what I mean is, there's a nugget of sympathy in the sort of person that has the perception that certain things just go too far or are scientifically inconclusive at the present. I myself am not entirely sure about certain things—in the sense that I would argue we need years and years of uninhibited study to speak confidently about them, not in the sense that said trial-and-error period shouldn't be allowed to happen.

That's an important distinction, because a lot of anti-trans rhetoric posits that we should err on the side of not doing a thing at all if it hasn't already been conclusively proven to a degree that satisfies them (typically to a degree where the thing has to be put into practice to be proven to that level in the first place; therefore a degree to which they will not let it be proven at all).

But "no such thing as a trans child, men like you need to leave the kids alone," that's a blatant accusation that transgenderism is an intentional lie, and that men (specifically men; let's just ignore all the trans men in the world, I guess) are lying to children to "turn" them trans. The transphobic rhetoric here is that underneath everything else, the "real" agenda is "grooming" and that everything else is a fake smokescreen that people should ignore rather than think about.

They have to believe that it's all fake and that being trans is a "choice" that only adults can be trusted to make, see, otherwise the whole thing collapses into a black hole of prejudice and blithe assumption that no logical person could ever consider objective or fair.

...As I said, there is a nugget of sympathy in the perspective that certain things go too far or are scientifically inconclusive at present. But if you want to argue from that very objective kind of doubt, you also have to admit to the fact that "inconclusive" really just means "it could still go both ways," and for some people, that's just too neutral a position for their ideological convenience, isn't it? So they'll try to talk like that is what they're saying when what they're really saying is, "but I'm sure science will side with me, and against you, in the end, so we really shouldn't waste time doing the science in the first place..."

That is where you get statements like "there is no such thing as a trans child" from: from the assumption that they are definitely right, and will be proven right in the end, and therefore everyone should just skip the part where they get proven right, because they already are right, so why should we vet them? The irony of this perspective is that it's also part of the transphobic rhetoric to characterize the trans community as doing that very thing.

You really can't have it both ways, though. Not without living inside of a blatant double-standard, anyway.