#by doing this you are just further alienating innocent trans people and doing nothing to fix the real problem at hand

[elderredraccoon]

THIS!!! SO MUCH THIS!!!! I had experience with a carpentry mentor who was MtF but they were a huge piece of shit. However just vecause she was a bitch didn't make her any less of a woman. Just an asshole

I don’t know who needs to hear this but a trans and/or non-binary person being a piece of garbage isn’t an excuse to misgender them. Yes they’re a trash person but that doesn’t revoke their gender, give them consequences instead of treating correct pronouns like only good people get them instead of a part of who you are. They don’t “deserve to be misgendered,” they deserve to be punished normally, like cis people. Just saying.

[bestworstcase]

for months i’ve been dwelling on the, like, foundational differences between canon cassandra and bitter snow cassandra and meaning to write a. write-up of those differences and basically:

appearance

- canon cass is a bog standard slender but curvaceous woman with disney sameface and wavy hair and that is not how we roll in this household 

- one day i am going to do a proper design sheet for bitter snow cassandra but in the meantime this gets the gist across. cheekbones, strong jaw, squarish face, bigger more defined nose with a bump, thicker eyebrows, curls. plus, stocky and muscular. i imagine her being like 5′7″ she’s pretty short. 

- it is just emotionally important to me that all of you know bitter snow cassandra is not a skinny waif

- also she is trans

- disney heroine syndrome aside it’s clear that the intention is for canon cass to bear a strong resemblance to gothel, but - there being no biological relationship between bitter snow cass and gothel - i don’t imagine there being a significant similarity in her appearance and calanthe’s. obv they’re both strong-faced women with dark curly hair but that’s the extent of it. 

cutting here for length

parentage/family

- this is the obvious category lol 

- canon cassandra is gothel’s biological daughter, father unknown. she was an only child, and if she had other living biological relatives then we did not get to meet them.

- gothel abandoned her and she was thereafter raised by the captain of the guard, unaware of her heritage.

- bitter snow cassandra is the daughter of sholar and morana hároham, who were farmers of no particular renown in the remote saporian village of socona. she has/had two aunts—sholar’s older sister sirin hároham, and her partner maíne dathámar—who had two children, tathēdora (tath) and cornaīn, both older than cassandra.

- cassandra also has a number of living relatives in artois: her maternal grandparents perun and sibéal ghealach, their other children ronan and acanth, and their families. the ghealach side of the family is estranged from the hároham side and has been for two decades.

- several months after rapunzel’s birth, sholar and morana were implicated as ringleaders in the socona poisonings—an (alleged) terroristic attack on the royal court of corona involving tainted crops, which killed six and sickened dozens more, queen arianna included. they, and seven other farmers from the area, were arrested and swiftly hanged for treason.

- sir peter morgenstern, then a sergeant, was among the guards sent to arrest the hárohams and found cassandra in their home. he brought her back to herzingen with him, put her in an orphanage there, and then adopted her himself three years later once things settled down.

- except there was no treason or conspiracy. the socona “poisonings” were in actuality the result of a magical blight that burned through southern corona from artois to alcorsīa, killing hundreds and leaving its survivors disabled; the farmers of socona were a politically convenient scapegoat, nothing more. 

- maíne died in the first wave of blight-sickness. tath also became ill but survived for another fourteen years before succumbing to a secondary infection. cornaīn was killed almost four years after that by soldiers aboard a coronan prison barge. besides cassandra, sirin is the only surviving member of the hároham family. 

- cassandra is informed of the coronan version of the story when she is ten years old, and learns the truth from sirin shortly before her twenty-third birthday. 

trauma!

...which brings us to this section. 

canon cass

- suffered early childhood neglect and emotional abuse in gothel’s care. witnessed her mother’s abandonment at the age of four. this early trauma was exacerbated by the captain, and she suppressed the memories of her life with gothel. 

- her sense of self worth is tied to service and what she is able to do for other people; this was inculcated in her by gothel through parentification and neglect, and inadvertently reinforced by the captain’s militaristic and emotionally distant approach to parenting. he taught her to “earn her keep,” and seems to have used the credible threat of forced imprisonment in a convent to encourage good behavior. 

- that lack of self worth is further exacerbated by her station as a servant. cassandra’s closest—and perhaps only—friend is the princess she is duty-bound to serve, and this relationship becomes more and more toxic for her as time goes on and rapunzel repeatedly and consistently transgresses her boundaries. she has no viable support network and by the end of s2, she is completely alienated from her friend group and vulnerable to zhan tiri’s abuse. 

- learning about gothel is the final straw that pushes her over the edge, leading her to take the moonstone herself and lash out and rapunzel and corona in a blind rage with encouragement from zhan tiri. 

bitter snow cass

- sholar and morana were loving parents, and as a child cassandra was doted upon by her aunts, cousins [tath being 5 years older, and cornaīn 3], and the tight-knit socona community in general. around 4 she started to become insistent on being a girl, and was both allowed and encouraged to live as one. 

- the blight began approximately one and a half months before cassandra’s fifth birthday. maíne became sick and died very suddenly, and both tath and morana became severely ill almost as fast. the arrests began in tárosh, just weeks before cassandra would turn five. the trauma of all this and her abrupt removal from her home was all intensely traumatic for her, and compounded by her negligible grasp of the coronan language at the time. 

- in the orphanage in herzingen cassandra was mostly neglected and left to her own devices, but punished harshly for speaking saporian or asking for her parents. she began to suppress her memories of socona and her fluency in saporian was badly degraded. she continued to live as a girl but began to grasp that the particulars of her girlhood were not acceptable in herzingen and went to great lengths to avoid being identified as trans.

- shortly after her adoption, she met feldspar willipeg, who took her under his wing and helped her relearn and retain the saporian language as well as reintroducing her—lightly and delicately—to certain aspects of saporian culture. he remained an important anchor to her saporian heritage and friend/mentor throughout her life. 

- being a saporian child growing up in herzingen was traumatic in and of itself. much of her sense of self-worth is wrapped up in the idea of being coronan, and her various failures to measure up in this regard. she is riddled with self-disgust and self-hatred after years of active, subtle and not-so-subtle coercion to reject her saporian heritage. as a child and young adult she feels a tremendous pressure to demonstrate loyalty and service to the kingdom of corona in order to ‘prove’ that she is not like her parents. these internal feelings often manifests as compulsive acts of self-sacrifice or self-sabotage. 

- after she learns the truth of her parent’s innocence, her sense of identity and self-worth come unmoored altogether and she begins to oscillate wildly between defiant pride and vicious self-loathing. she is able to find community and solace with other saporians—moira caine and the crew of the zampermin—but her self-hatred and doubts continue to fester, and she struggles with feeling alienated from both her saporian heritage and her coronan upbringing.

key behavioral differences

- both canon cassandra and bitter snow cassandra are defined by their inability to articulate what they truly want. however, the sheer depth and breadth of the injustices bitter snow cassandra faces do mean that she is able to describe broad long-term goals or desires in a way that canon cassandra is not: she supports saporia’s side in the emergent civil war, and she wants redress for what was done to her family. where canon cassandra agonizes over shapelessly vague notions of “destiny” and “proving herself,” bitter snow cassandra wrestles with more concrete questions—how does she reconcile her friendship with rapunzel and her newfound separatist sympathies? what role will she play in corona’s civil war once the black rock problem is dealt with? who does she want to be? is [insert problem that is absolutely not her fault] secretly her fault?—and this gives her a certain sense of direction even when she is floundering and unable to come up with any answers. 

- bitter snow cassandra seeks to separate herself from rapunzel and embraces the support of other friends long before canon cassandra’s friendship with rapunzel even begins to truly sour. there are several reasons for this; the situation in herzingen becomes untenable for her after she learns the truth and her loyalties change, and the simple fact that she has somewhere else to go enables her to leave. but also, rapunzel’s difficulty accepting her shifted allegiance and saporian heritage in general accelerate the crumbling of their relationship. at the same time, however, because bitter snow cassandra has both left rapunzel’s service and found a solid support network of her own, she is actually much better equipped than canon cassandra to assert her boundaries with rapunzel and attempt to repair their friendship.  

[rallamajoop]

...and the unironic joys of better living through chemistry

How do I love Venom: The Hunger, let me count the ways…

It’s by far the shippiest Venom/Eddie story to come out of the character’s heyday. It’s the only story of the era to treat Venom’s violent wild-animal instincts not as an immutable fact, but as something that can be managed. It pulls off an aesthetic like nothing else that was being done at the time.

And then there’s the way it says, Does the world around you seem sinister and foreboding? Do you lie awake at night contemplating metaphorical oceans of despair? Well shit, son – have you considered you may be suffering from a mundane neurochemical imbalance, and a round of the right meds could clear that right up for you?

It does all this without breaking the atmosphere, without a whiff that our story has been interrupted for a Very Special Message about mental health.

In the near-decade since I was first prescribed anti-depressants, I don’t think I’ve read another story that lands the message “Sometimes, it’s not you, it’s just your brain chemistry,” so well.

Fair warning: if you have not read The Hunger, I am about to spoil every major plot point. If you have, well, maybe I can still give you a new appreciation for a few details you might have missed.

It’s a strange book, whatever else you take from it. It’s almost the only thing either author or artist contributed to the Venom canon, and it’s so different stylistically and tonally from the 90′s Venom norm that it feels like a tale from some noir-elseworlds setting instead of 616 canon. When you take risks that big with a property, you leave yourself precious little landing space between 'unmitigated triumph’ and ‘abject failure’: if this book hadn’t absolutely nailed it, I’d be dismissing it as edgy, OOC dreck. Fortunately, if The Hunger is nothing else, it is a story that $&#@ing commits – to basically everything it does.

Now, I'm not going to tell you Venom: The Hunger is a story about overcoming depression, because I don't know whether author Len Kaminski even thought about it that way while working on it. There's always space for other readings, and this one take is not gospel. That said: holy shit is this thing unsubtle with its metaphors. And with that in mind, let’s start by talking a little about Kaminski’s take on Eddie himself.

As I may have mentioned before, I like to divide 90′s Eddie into two broad personas: the Meathead, and the Hobo.

Kaminski’s Eddie nominally belongs in the angsty, long-haired Hobo incarnation, but that’s a bit of a simplification: this version certainly has plenty of angst and plenty of hair to his name – but nowhere, not even at his lowest ebb, does he doubt that he and his Other are meant for each other, which is usually Hobo!Eddie’s primary existential quandary.

He’s also taken up narrating his own life like a hardboiled PI.

So that’s... novel.

The only other time Eddie’s sounded like this is, er, in that one other Venom one-shot Kaminski penned (Seed of Darkness, a prequel that sadly isn’t in The Hunger’s league), so I think we can safely file it under authorial ticks.

Then again, Hobo!Eddie’s always been one melodramatic SOB, so maybe this is just how he’d sound after learning to channel his angst into his poetry. You can’t argue it fits the aesthetic, anyway.

We’d also be remiss not to mention Ed Halsted’s art, which I can only describe as gothic-meets-noir-meets-H.R.-Giger. Never before or since has the alien symbiote looked this alien: twisted with Xenompoph-like ridges and veins.

But Halsted doesn’t treat Venom to all that extra detail in every panel. Instead, the distortion tends to appear when the symbiote is separated from Eddie or out of control – and I doubt you need me to walk you through the symbolic importance of that creative decision. More importantly, Halsted’s art provides exactly the class of visuals that Kaminski’s story needs.

Did I mention this is a horror story? You might be surprised how few Venom stories really fit that genre, but if all those adjectives about Halsted’s style above didn’t clue you in, this is one of them.

Anyway, with that much context covered, let’s get into the main narrative of this thing.

As our first issue opens, Eddie’s world has become a dark and foreboding place. He’s not sleeping, though he mostly brushes this off. (Fun fact: trouble sleeping is one of those under-appreciated symptoms of depression. Additional fun fact: the first doctor ever to suggest I might be suffering from depression was actually a sleep specialist. You can guess how that appointment was going.)

Just to set our scene, here’s all of page 1.

Eddie’s narration has plenty of (ha) venom for his surroundings, but the visuals are here to back him up: panels from Eddie’s POV are edged in twisted, fleshy borders and drained of colour, the people rendered as creepy, goblin-like creatures. A couple of later scenes go even further to contrast Eddie-vision with what everyone else is seeing:

As depictions of depression go this is a little on the nose, but then, you don’t read a comic about a brain-eating alien parasite looking for subtlety, do you?

Eddie  doesn’t see himself as depressed, of course. As far as he’s concerned, he’s seeing the world’s true face: it’s everyone else who’s deluding themselves. He’s still got his symbiote, so he’s happy. He’s yet to hit that all-important breaking point where something he can’t brush off goes irrevocably wrong.

But he’s also starting to experience these weird... cravings.

He just can’t put a name to exactly what he’s craving until a routine bar fight with a couple of thugs takes a turn for the horrific.

(I include this panel partly to point out even in The Hunger, the goriest of all 90′s Venom titles, you’re still not going to see brains getting eaten in any graphic detail. We don’t need to to get the horror of the moment across. The 90′s were a more innocent time.)

Eddie himself is horrified when he comes back to himself and realises what he’s done.

Or rather, what his symbiote’s just made him do.

Kaminski doesn’t keep us in suspense about why, though. Eddie may have just done something horrific, but there’s a reason, and it’s as mundane as a vitamin deficiency. He’s bonded to an alien creature, after all, and his symbiote is craving a nutrient which just happens to be found in human brains. And if Eddie can’t or won’t help it meet that need, it’ll do so alone. 

Now, giving us that explanation so quickly is an interesting creative decision: this is a horror story, and horror lives in what we don’t know. Wouldn’t it be all the more horrifying had the symbiote been unable to explain what’s going on, leaving Eddie without the first real clue as to where this monstrous new hunger had come from?

The Hunger doesn’t take that route though, and I love it. Eddie isn’t a monster, this isn’t his fault: he has a fucking condition, and wallowing in his own moral failings is going to get him nowhere. You might as well try to cure scurvy or rickets with positive thinking. Just like depression can make you feel like an utter failure at the most basic parts of being human, and all the affirmations in the world won’t fix it when it’s fundamentally your brain chemistry that’s the problem. Or like addicts aren’t weak-willed for struggling not to relapse, they’re dealing with genuine chemical dependency – or even like how someone who’s trans isn’t at fault for being unable to reconcile themselves to the bodies and the hormones they were born with by pure force of trying. Free will is more than an illusion, but we’re all messy, biological organisms underneath, and your own brain and biochemistry can and will fuck you over in a hundred wildly different ways for as many wildly different reasons and it’s not your fault.

We aren’t monsters. But if we do, sometimes, find ourselves identifying with the monster, there might be a reason for that.

(Ahem)

I’m just saying, that’s fucking powerful, and we need more stories that say it.

Anyway, in case you missed it during that tangent, issue #1 closes with the symbiote having torn Eddie’s heart in two itself free to go hunting brains without him.

I’m trying not to get too sidetracked at this point talking about Kaminski’s take on the symbiote itself. Suffice to say there are broadly two schools of thought on how it ought to function while separated from its host: the traditional ambulatory-slime-puddle version, and the more recently popular alternative where anything-you-can-do-with-a-host-you-can-also-do-without-one. I’m not much of a fan of the latter, personally: if your symbiote doesn’t actually need a host, I feel you’ve sort of missed the point. (The movie takes the route of saying symbiotes can’t even process Earth’s atmosphere without a host, which is a great new idea that appears nowhere in the comics, and I love it. Hosts or GTFO, baby!)

Kaminski has his own take, and I can only wish it had caught on. Without Eddie, the symbiote becomes an ever-shifting insectoid-tentacle-snake-monstrosity, driven by an animalistic hunger. It’s many things, but it’s never humanoid.

If you absolutely must have your symbiote operating minus a host, I feel this is the way to do it: semi-feral, shapeless and completely alien (uncontrollable violence and cravings for brains to be added to taste).

Issue #2 comes to us primarily through the perspective of the mild-mannered Dr. Thaddeus Paine of the Innsmouth Hills Sanitarium (yes, really).

Yeah, he’s not fooling anyone. Meet our official villain! He joins our story after Eddie is picked up by the police and handed off to the nearest available institution, on account of how completely sane and rational he’s been acting.

Naturally, Dr. Paine soon has copious notes on Eddie’s ‘crazy’ story about his psychic link to a brain-eating alien monster. Fortunately for Eddie, Paine also runs some tests and makes an interesting discovery. 

Congratulations, Venom: the ‘vitamin’ you were missing officially has a name!

Finding the right meds isn’t always this easy. I got lucky – the first ones my psych put me on worked pretty well – but I have plenty of friends who weren't so lucky. In fact, the treatment for Eddie's problems is so straightforward it arguably has more in common with, say, endocrine disorders like thyroid conditions or Addison’s disease, which differ from clinical depression but present many similar symptoms (but can sadly be just as much of a bitch to get correctly diagnosed – please do read author Maggie Stiefvater’s account of the latter when you get the chance, because forget Venom, that is a horror story).

‘True’ depression remains much less well understood by medicine, either in its causes or how to effectively treat it. But simply having a name for what was wrong with me made so much difference, and that’s an experience I imagine anyone who’s dealt with any long undiagnosed medical condition could relate to. It put my life in context in a way nothing else had in years.

(I can’t speak to the accuracy of the way phenethylamine is portrayed in this comic – a quick google suggests there may be some real debate that phenethylamine deficiencies have been overlooked as a contributor to clinical depression, but having no medical background, that one’s well beyond me. Either way, scientific accuracy really doesn’t matter in this context – it’s how it works in-universe for story purposes that we should pay attention to.)

Since this issue is mostly from Paine’s POV, we don’t get Eddie’s reaction to having a healthy amount of phenethylamine sloshing around in his brain again, just the assurance that treatment appears to be ‘completely successful’.

He’s still a paranoid, hostile bastard though. Meds can turn your life around, but they won’t make you not you.

But even if Eddie’s feeling better, he’s still psychically linked to someone who isn’t. Symbiote-vision still comes through drained of colour and edged in viscera.

That’s the thing about meds: they won’t solve all your problems overnight. If you’ve been depressed for a while, there are good odds you have problems stacking up. But working meds can be a godsend when it comes to getting you into a space where you can deal with your problems again, whether said problems are doing-your-laundry or all the way into not-giving-up-completely-and-just-accepting-you’ll-die-alone-on-the-street.

For Eddie, ‘dealing with his problems’ begins with stealing a keycard and busting out of the asylum.

Of course, that’s the easy part. How do you solve a problem like a feral symbiote? Like any good 90′s comic book protagonist, Eddie tackles it by putting on his big-boy camouflage pants and kitting himself out with weapons and pouches while quoting “If you live something, set it free. If it doesn’t come back, hunt it down.”

We can add this to the list of things I love about this comic. Even if The Hunger is a weirdly-stylistic tract about depression at heart, it’s also still a goddamn 90′s Venom comic, and not ashamed to be.

We’re into issue #3 now, and back to hearing the story from Eddie’s POV.

Eddie is very much aware that his symbiote has murdered innocent people while they’ve been separated. Even if this is the result of extreme circumstances, there’s a good case to be made that the symbiote is too dangerous to be allowed to live. Plenty of heroes would treat it like a rabid dog at this point.

But Eddie isn’t a hero, he’s a mess of a character and an anti-hero at best, so we don’t have to hold him to the same standard. He’s well aware his symbiote may be too far gone to save, that he may have to put it down – but that’s only his backup plan. He wants to help it. He wants it back. He’s down in that sewer with screamers and a flamethrower because he knows all his symbiote’s weaknesses, but he’s also carrying a large jar of black-market synthesised phenethylamine, because if he can just get close enough...

Depression can’t make you a literal monster, but it can make you an asshole. Miserable to be around, lacking even the energy to care who else you’re hurting. The depression doesn’t excuse that, but it makes everything harder, and it’s that much easier to sink back into your spiral when everyone around you has given up. It can make you think everyone around has given up even if that isn’t true.

So to have Eddie here say, in effect, I don’t care how many people you’ve eaten, I know it wasn’t your fault. I still love you. You’re still worth fighting for – god, does that get me right in the id.

There’s still a whole issue left at this point – we’ve still got to deal with our real villain, Dr. Paine, who we’ve just learned is into eating brains himself and torturing his patients recreationally, and who wants to capture the symbiote for his own purposes. There’s the scene where Eddie and his symbiote finally bond again, and Venom beats up all Paine’s goons while singing David Bowie because like I said, this is still a 90′s superhero comic and this is what Venom does.

But for our purposes, I'm going to skip to the penultimate page of the story, because the way it mirrors our opening page is really lovely.

Remember that shot of Eddie dealing with a beggar back at the beginning of the story, thinking about how these people would 'get their despair all over you'? Here he is again, cheerfully forking over the last dollar in his pocket to the next man to ask him for change. For all the gothic atmosphere and gore, it’s moments like this that make The Hunger easily one of the most positive, uplifting Venom stories ever written. Funny, that. (I could probably write a whole other essay on sympathy for the homeless as a recurring motif in Venom stories, but that... well, whole other essay and all that.)

What’s Eddie learned from this experience? Don’t take your symbiote for granted. Is ‘symbiote’ a metaphor for mental health here, is paying attention to its needs an allegory for paying attention to your own? I still don’t know how literally Kaminski meant us to take this, but it’s a lovely note to end on no matter how you parse it.

At the end of the day, The Hunger isn’t flawless. The conflict with Paine ends on a thematic but slightly unsatisfying note. Eddie makes much of his symbiote's loneliness and desire for union, but when the two of them are finally reunited, the only reaction comes from Eddie's side. In fact, the symbiote seems to have no response to being able to return to Eddie at all, and that’s an omission that bugs me.

But Kaminski is more interested than any other writer of the era in the truly alien nature of the symbiote, in its relationship with Eddie from Eddie’s side, and though plenty of others talk about the symbiote's love/hate relationship with Spider-man, no-one else had the guts to portray their relationship this much like a romance.

And Venom: The Hunger is no less interesting in the context of Len Kaminski’s other work. You don't have to look far into his Marvel and DC credits to pick up that the guy has a real thing for monsters. (“All of my favourite characters are outlaws, misfits, anti-heroes,” he says, in one of the very few interviews I could find with him, “I wouldn't know what to do with Superman.”) He's written for vampires, werewolves, victims of mad science, and all of three at once, littering his work with biochemistry-themed technobabble, melodramatic monologues, gratuitous pop-culture references, and protagonists who must learn to embrace their inner demons. So The Hunger represents more than a few of his favourite running themes.

For our context, his more notable other work includes Children of the Beast, in which a werewolf must make peace between his human and animalistic sides, and The Creeper, in which a journalist must make peace with the crazy super-powered alter-ego sharing his body. In fact, The Creeper and The Hunger share so much DNA (including an evil doctor posing as a respected psychiatrist who uses hypnosis on our hero while he's trapped in a mental institution) that it’s quite the achievement that they still feel like such very distinct entities beyond that point.

The human alter-egos of both werewolf and Creeper even use prescription meds while wrestling with their respective dark sides. The difference, in both cases, is that these are stories where meds play their traditional fictional role – and that's a role that could be as easily filled by illegal drugs or alcohol without making any substantive difference. You see, if a protagonist is using them, it's a sign of unwillingness to tackle their 'real' problems. Even among work by the same author in the same genre, The Hunger represents an outlier. And that's just a little disappointing – at least to me.

In real life, of course, prescription meds are no magical cure-all elixir. Depression meds that work for one person may not work for another, or may not keep working in the longer term. Everyone has heard stories about quack doctors who prescribe them to the wrong patients for the wrong reasons, about lives ruined by addictions to prescription painkillers, or the supposedly-damning statistics about how poorly SSRI's perform in rigorous clinical trials. The proper way to treat depression is obviously with lifestyle and therapy. People will still airily dismiss medications that we all know previous generations got along just fine without, or suggest that figures like Van Gogh would never have created great art if they hadn't been mad enough to slice off an ear. I mean, the fact you think you need those bogus mediations is probably the best possible sign of just how broken you are, right? Who do you think you’re kidding?

Our popular fiction loves stories about manly men who bury their trauma under a gruff, anti-social exterior and come back swinging at the world that broke them, bravely refusing even painkillers that might dull their manly reflexes. Other genres make space for broken people confronting their demons in grand moments of catharsis, finally breaking down into tears when someone gets through to make them face their problems. "I could barely make it out of bed in the mornings until I found a doctor who started me on this new prescription" is not only wildly counter to the accepted social narrative, it's a hard thing to know how to dramatise.

 Even other Venom comics have been guilty of this.

Believe me, I recognise all of this, and just how much progress we've made in the last few decades. But I haven't the slightest doubt that for so many vulnerable people, the stigma against prescription medications does infinitely more harm than those same meds could ever do. And just having the right to externalise my problems into it's not you, it's your brain chemistry, may have helped me more than the meds themselves.

(And again, no, being prescribed SSRI's didn't fix me overnight, but I honestly don't know if all the talk therapy and tearful conversations with family members in the world could've got me as far as I've come without them.)

I love Venom: The Hunger. It's no-one's idea of high art, but it doesn’t need to be. There is a whole other post’s worth of things I love about it that I’ve already cut out this one as pointless tangents, and that may actually be it’s biggest drawback as a go-to example: I fully recognise that I would not be making this post if The Hunger hadn't also also grabbed me as a great bit of Venom canon, being the massive fan and shipper that I am. Other people who are just as desperate as me for more stories with the same core theme, but not into weird 90's comics about needy goo aliens, probably won't get nearly as much out of it as I have.

But if it sounds anything like your jam, maybe you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

If nothing else, it proves that you can make a viscerally satisfying story out of a message that shockingly unconventional. And you may even have people still discovering it and falling in love with it 25 years after the fact.

[13yearslater]

Rights in the UK

I don’t really know what I’m about to write as I start this, but I’ve been feeling some feelings lately about the social and political climate surrounding trans people.

I’m grateful to be in the UK, which relatively speaking is a fairly progressive and safe country for trans people compared to many others. 

But I am still scared.

I’m not scared that I will be individually targeted and assaulted in the street. Although the 2,500 hate crimes against transgender people last year alone (a 210% increase since 2015/16) suggests that maybe my lack of concern is the privileged complacency of not being visibly trans, especially when we see that 81% of LGBT people don’t even report the hate crimes against them. That complacency lives on a tightrope however; I am one incident away, one incident of my trans status falling into the wrong hands, from realising that I am not immune to the abuse that I see my local trans sisters face on a daily basis.

And how confident would I be that any hate crime I were to experience would be dealt with appropriate and effectively? Well given that Scottish minister Humza Yousaf very almost pushed through amendments to Scotland’s Hate Crime & Public Order Bill that would directly exclude transgender people I may, perhaps naively, expect the police and courts to provide protection and justice for me now, but I am constantly reminded of just how fragile my protections are and how they can be snatched away at any given moment, and with public support. 

What really scares me is the disregard for our rights and the increasing amounts of ‘anti trans’ pressure groups in the UK who are continuing to gain support and traction, including many that are LGBT based wishing to exclude us from their community entirely. 

1. Gender Recognition Act

The Gender Recognition Act is one example I will address. This act is the means that trans people in the UK use to legally change their gender and acquire an updated birth certificate. This is a sixteen year old, heavily bureaucratic, expensive and lengthy process. It requires a payment of £140 and the following, many of which are also not free to obtain:

a) The requirement for the trans person to provide two medical reports, one evidencing a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and the other outlining details of any treatment received; 

b) The requirement for the trans person to provide a range of documentation that proves they have lived in their acquired gender for at least two years; 

c) The requirement for the trans person to submit a statutory declaration of their intention to live in their acquired gender until death; 

d) The requirement for married applicants to obtain the consent of their spouse or end their marriage;

e) The cost to the trans person of using the GRA process

It’s the very reason that over a decade later, I still have not obtained my gender recognition certificate. And given that an average of 300 GRC applications are processed each year compared to the estimated 200,000 to 500,000 trans people in the UK, I suspect I’m not the only one. 

So anyway, in 2018 there was a consultation about the Gender Recognition Act with over 100,000 respondents and promises to reform this act. The response was hugely positive with the vast majority supporting the reform. It highlighted all the issues with the process that is preventing trans people gaining legal recognition. We were all hopeful, and many of us who had been awaiting this moment to gain our own GRCs sat in wait. Unfortunately, two years later, the government announced that they had decided to scrap plans to reform the GRA altogether stating that this was not the priority for trans people. The consultation was also considered to be biased due to too many positive responses; despite only ~20% of respondents being trans themselves and ~20% being from all called upon by anti-trans groups such as Fair Play for Women.

2. The Keira Bell case

I don’t wish to get into the finer details of the case itself or my opinions on the matters involved, but to give a brief overview, a woman who transitioned and received puberty blockers at age 16, testosterone at age 17 and a double mastectomy at age 20. She later detransitioned and went on to sue the NHS (National Health Service) claiming that she was not challenged enough and that under 18s cannot consent to treatment such as puberty blockers with the aim to prevent the prescription of puberty blockers for all trans youth. 

Long story short, she was successful and the Tavistock clinic, ie the only gender identity clinic in the UK that treats trans people under the age of 18, is no longer able to prescribe puberty blockers to anyone under the age of 16, with those between 16-18 having to seek approval via court first.

If we take a look at who was involved in this court case we see Keira Bell herself and her mother as the claimants and the Tavistock clinic as the defendant. For the interested parties who had direct input into this case we had “Mrs A” - the mother of a 15yr old autistic child displaying gender dysphoria who is firmly against her child being able to access a gender clinic (interestingly, any of her input was regarded as purely hypothetical since her child had never attended, nor would ever attend a gender identity clinic), we also had Transgender Trend - an anti-trans pressure group and finally, we have the University College of London who are not gender specialists. Meanwhile, groups such as Mermaids who are a well-known charity aimed at supporting trans children and Stonewall who are campaigners for LGBT rights in the UK both applied and were both denied access to this case. The judge of course did also not have any authority on the subject. 

My issue here is yet again, how fragile my rights and protections feel and my ever waning confidence that government or legal processes are in any way fair and balanced. This was not a fair trial; there was no balance in stances, other than the defendant there were no gender specialists or even anyone heavily involved in the lives and care of trans people. The majority of interested parties were there with a firm agenda, and those that countered their beliefs were not allowed through the doors.

Puberty blockers are not an issue that affect me directly, but if a biased court taking the likes of “Mrs A” and her ‘theoretical’ input over reputable charities with a wealth of knowledge, experience and expertise can be created to make such rulings and remove healthcare from an entire demographic of people then what is stopping that happening to my healthcare? Nothing, that’s what.

3. The census

Our census takes place every ten years and has always allowed transgender individuals to choose the sex that aligns with their passport. For me personally, selecting male feels like a far more accurate representation of my place in society, my legal status and my physicality along with the fact that I have been listed as male in previous census forms. 

This year however, a second question was added. This questions asks “do you identify with your sex assigned at birth” with the options being yes or no and a box to enter further information when selecting no. The official guidance on the first question remained the same, stating that it was appropriate to select the sex that aligned with passports or legal documents. The first question allows data to be gathered on men and women, the second question allows data to be gathered specifically on the number of transgender individuals and other identities such as non binary - the two questions are entirely independent of each other and will generate separate sets of data.

But today, it came to light that anti-transgender pressure group, Fair Play for Women crowdfunded £100,000 to challenge this and bring it to court. This was successful and the official guidance has now changed to exclude all legal documents except a gender recognition certificate - which as previously mentioned, only a small percentage of trans people actually have due to the long, expensive and bureaucratic process involved in obtaining one. 

Personally, I don’t really mind if I have to tick female to a question that asks my sex at birth. The question doesn’t explicitly ask for sex at birth however and is more aimed at showing the demographics of the UK for which female is absolutely not accurate for me. What bothers me is that a group have raised £100,000 from the public to ensure that we can’t select an accurate representation of who we are and our place in society and that it was approved.

4. The toilet provision

This has flown under the radar due to Covid-19 but the government recently held a consultation around public toilets. It seems fairly innocent at first glance. Except again, we’re seeing these anti-trans pressure groups calling for action amongst their followers, some with the call to ‘protect single sex spaces’. Could this be the beginnings of American-style bathroom bills in the UK? 

---

So yes, I am scared. I’m scared by the fragility of my rights and freedoms; how easy they are to peel away bit by bit and how it passes by with little notice nor care, or in some cases with public support and even funding. I’m scared of the people who are given the power to make decisions about our rights based on no prior knowledge of experience of trans issues. I’m scared that we will be alienated and excluded from our LGBT spaces and supports. Will I be looking back in ten years, eternally grateful that I was able to transition when I did? Grateful for the gender clinics of today with their six year waiting lists? Will I live in a time where I must disclose my trans status on every document, at every job? Will I live in a time where I must provide my sex in order to use the gym? Will there be a time that I am not able to legally change my gender? I’m scared by the hostility of society, at times their vehement opposition to us existing amongst them, their disregard for the importance of our healthcare and all too often the anger that our ‘cosmetic’ surgeries are covered at all. 

In a time that my life and rights feel like a debate, unimportant and constantly at the mercy of others, in a time that members of the public will raise huge amounts of money just to stop people like you ticking a box on a form, you’re damn right I’m scared for the future. 

[bookishphysicsgirl]

Ok, see, I get where everyone here is coming from. But I still can't quite wrap my head around the comparison she made.

First off, yes, when she wrote the books she most likely didn't have queer and more specifically trans activists in mind in the portrayal of Death Eater's - most of it probably because trans rights were not a very popular topic at the time unfortunately - and that the point she is trying to make is that people are becoming like them now.

But again there are aspects - such as the necessity to rule over everyone else, maintain purity of blood, and overall entitlement and superiority - which are key in the depiction of Death Eater's that don't gel even when it comes to radicalized trans or queer people.

Most importantly though a lot of the more radical queers feel wronged and are moved by a need of revenge, anger at a society they feel failed them - and yes, that can also be said of many radicalized people in the right, or in any group really - but it never felt like that was the motivation of the Death Eater's even though if they really wanted to they'd have plenty of reason to be frustrated what with having to hide in order not to be burned at the stake. The Death Eater's wanted nothing more than power and control. If it was about revenge or a feeling of injury I think they would be a lot less hostile towards other magical creatures and especially towards wizards with muggle blood.

But okay, maybe you read them as seeking revenge and filled with a need to break out of the shadows instead of what they see as "assuming their rightful place". In that case the comparison would be due to death threats people received for being transphobic or violence doled out by radicalized activists. But still the difference remains very clear to me.

I do think harassing and threatening people is not the answer - specially online. This just makes you into an invisible enemy and pushes people who maybe just were indecisive about their standing or didn't understand enough further away and generally just has very negative effects on all sides.

However let's place ourselves in the shoes of a marginalized trans person for a moment. You listen to people everyday insult you or look at you sideways on the streets, talk on public media about how you shouldn't exist, how you are a predator to their children, or at best sick and in need of medical assistance for just being who you are. Then you hear about someone just like you who got murdered just for being themselves, another beaten in the streets. You talk and talk, you scream, you protest, no one listens. Eventually you get angry. You start seeing it all as a war with only one way out. You feel trapped so you lash out in the only way you can.

Again I am not excusing the behavior, or saying it's okay, or even the best way if doing things because it is not. You are alienating people whose minds you might have been able to change and quite possibly getting other innocent people caught in the crossfire. But, if the situation is bad enough, I can understand why somebody would turn to violence even if I don't agree with it.

What you have to pay attention to here though is that these people are lashing out because of fear, because they feel like there is no other way, because they feel like if they don't do this they could be next. Because they are in fact oppressed and they have truly suffered.

Death Eaters aren't oppressed. They aren't doing it for fear, to fight back, to have the right to exist among everyone else. If anything they would purposely maintain things segregated, because they believe non magical people are inferior. They believe anyone who isn't a pure blooded wizard is inferior.

Even the most radicalized of trans activists don't think that transphobes, the right, or religious people or even cis people are inferior, they think they are the enemy. In fact most of the issue comes from those groups positions of power.

The motivations are different and I do believe that makes all the difference in a comparison like this.

Yes, there are radicalized, violent people in the queer community. Yes, this is a problem. Yes, it is unacceptable. Yes, we need to actually talk about it instead of pretending it's not there at all and ignoring it.

Trying to use that fact to justify transphobia is and always will be wrong.

At the end of the day J.K. Rowling is acting bigoted and in a very similar way to the villains in her books and just coming out and saying "they are violent back, so really they are the ones acting like the villains" is just a bad cop out in order not to have to properly address the harm she's causing. Even if she might argue their violence was proportionately worse or more agresive.

Sometimes I just wish we could all sit down and have a proper talk for once, instead of viscously attacking each other. Is that asking too much?

She ain't even subtle anymore lmao

[basketballandtextbooks]

Bat how do you feel after watching the special

There are multiple levels to my thoughts.

On a satire level, they bungled a lot of the information. They were trying to take an “all sides are stupid stance” on an issue where people are dying daily and there are actual medical reasons for one stance to be factually incorrect so taking an “all sides” stance is... fucking tone deaf. To be fair to them, I enjoyed the amount of meta that informed their episode about knowing that their episode was doing more harm than good and using Randy as a tool for that particular satire was a smart and effective mood. That said, it was a mixed message that promoted a lot of misinformation. While the meta parts were funny, lamp-shading how poor your satire is doesn’t actually make your satire good. It just means you’re lamp-shading the issue. It was disappointing because I had hoped for better as they frequently write good satire. Stan’s character journey was the only cohesive one throughout the episode and while it was a good one, there was so much of the episode that was tone deaf to the severity of this issue. While I think it’s valid to bring levity to the issue and I was hoping they would, they missed the mark by a long-shot. That said, they usually don’t do well with medical issues. The last time they bungled their satire this badly was the vaccination episode. And they infamously bungle literally every trans-related episode. There were aspects of the episode that were poignant, well thought out, and well executed, but the majority was an under-researched in-cohesive mess. Which to some extent I think that’s what they were aiming for because they view the pandemic as an in-cohesive mess. The issue is that one of the reasons that pandemic is such a pervasive issue (especially in the states) is the mass spread of misinformation so when they spread misinformation to criticize the spread of misinformation... it’s just stupid.

However on a character level I very much enjoyed the episode. It was yet another Randy focused episode and as I’ve expressed on a few occasions I just don’t find him funny. Oh no, he jizzed on the weed, that’s sooooo surprising. Honestly Randy is a very one-note character. He does something horrifying, people are horrified, he faces no consequences, rinse, repeat. That all established, I think it’s important character information that he cheated on Sharon twice in China with no guilt whatsoever. He only wanted to hide his crime because “my wife is a bitch”. Also considering he cheated with non-human entities, I think this is strong proof of Rowelie’s viability so take that as you will Rowelie shippers. Also the fact that people grow Randy mustache’s if they ingest his cum and Sharon had a mustache at the end... I sort of hate that Randy took that as proof that she smoked his weed. Now, even if she had smoked it his behavior still is completely and disgustingly inexcusable but also... everyone in South Park is openly smoking so she could have very easily gotten second hand Randy-stache. Or just given her husband a blow job. Also it’s interesting information that within universe Randy’s cum has mutagenic properties. Again for the Rowelie shippers: you could use this as an excuse as to how Towelie turns into a human, Randy’s cum mutated him. Also I think it’s likely that microwaving his balls could be what caused his radioactive jizz. Or one of the times he was experimented on by aliens. Or both. Altogether Randy was a repulsive bastard within the episode who I find boring at best BUT the amount of meta information that he introduced will be very useful to inform my theories. (Also again, the fact that he so easily and guilelessly cheats on Sharon tells me that he that he has done it a multitude of times. My theory is that after he gave Gerald a handy in the hot-tub and was forgiven he just never stopped, basically assuming the permission to do it once was broad permission to do it forever) (oh and second note: this is the second time within canon that Randy has poisoned people’s weed so uh... that’s fucked up)

Freaked out a lot about Jimbo dying, I’m really scared they’ll kill Jimbo but also since they already killed Ned I wonder if the two of them can be happy in the afterlife together because no one can convince me that Jimbo and Ned aren’t canon. Also Randy’s blatant racism and lack of empathy for Jimbo’s illness was really yikes. I dunno guys, I’ve always had a soft spot for Jimbo. He’s a stupid stereotypical red-neck but he had a sort of charm to him and I thought he was funny. I miss when him and Ned were regulars on the show.

CARTMAN DANCING AND SINGING WAS ACTUALLY THE CUTEST THING EVER ON THIS FUCKING EARTH, FIGHT ME I LOVE THIS STUPID SELFISH LITTLE CRETIN also it’s yet another episode to add to the list of “times Cartman shows he can grow into a better person” and list of “times Cartman seems to show a special soft spot for Stan”. Cartman does tend to listen more frequently when Stan asks and less frequently for literally anyone else. So the Stanman was strong in this one. Also really enjoyed the Stutters. While yes, Stan was completely using Butters as a tool to project his own feelings of unease I think it really says something that he chose Butters for that role. I think to some extent he felt that Butters might be feeling the same mortality-panic he was feeling (whether it was true or not) and that kinship he felt with Butters led him to feel that Butters was also feeling the way he did. He was panicked and he thought out of all his friends that Butters was the one who might share his feelings. I enjoy that sort of subtle connection between them and it’s been a consistent thread within the show that Butters and Stan just treat each other a little different than they do literally everyone else. It’s worth thinking about.

I think Stan was also at his limit because he was already suffering from isolation issues due to Tegridy Farms from before the pandemic. He’s always been a social boy and this brought him to the brink of what he could handle.

THEY SHOT TOKEN AND I SWEAR TO GOD YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW LOUD I WAS SCREAMING AT THE TV I THINK I PISSED OFF MY NEIGHBORS i fucking knew it was coming too. The fucking SECOND they shoved those fucking corrupt ass cops in the same room as Token.... I fucking feared for his life. They’ve killed off fairly major background characters before and killing Token would be... topical. I will make it my mission to personally destroy every fucking cop in South Park (Barbrady gets a pass... BARELY). I hate them all. I’ve hated them all for a long time but they murdered several children (including Kenny, the bastards) and they SHOT MY BOY TOKEN I WILL RIP OFF THEIR FUCKING ARMS SEE HOW WELL YOU CAN SHOOT THEN YOU TRASH BASTARDS

Nothing big Kenny happened this episode, insert sad fanboy noises

There were some strong Kyman moments. Cartman went to Kyle’s house for help at the beginning of the episode, obsessed over whether or not he’d be in the same room as Kyle, tried to vomit on Kyle, AND THEN KYLE FUCKING JUMPED HIM AND BEAT HIS ASS DOWN, FUCK ALL OF YOU WHO INCORRECTLY THINK DIFFERENT KYLE IS A FUCKING DOMINANT TOP, HE DOESN’T TAKE IT, HE GIVES IT

Adding that to my long list of “episodes where Kyle shows he isn’t a pushover, is very violent, and can easily kick Cartman’s bitch ass” because every so once in awhile I have to break out that list when someone insists upon how submissive Kyle is. Bitttttttccchhhhhh, you haven’t watched the show if you think that. My favorite kid doesn’t take your shit

Very interested in Red’s new canon last name (McArthur) but I’m also unsure about it because in the scene’s where it’s shown I couldn’t quite tell if it was actually Red or Powder. She kept being shown from odd angles and her hair looked a little shorter than normal. That said, I’m happy if it is her because I’ve been wanting a canon last name for Red for a long-ass time. Even presuming you go by the cousin’s headcanon for Craig and Red, there’s no guarantee they would have the same last name.

Let’s see, I think I had some other thoughts but those were the main points

OH PAUSE THE SCREEN WHEN THE PARENTS ARE ON ZOOM it’s really cute/funny what the usernames are. For example Annie’s mom is totally just using Annie’s account so she’s probably not very tech savvy. There’s actually a lot of minor character detail that you can infer from those screen-names.

Yeah those are my major thoughts: Randy is trash, nothing new, Cartman was ADORABLE and also lots of good meta for him (I have some hcs that one of the reasons he adored the social distancing so much isn’t because he hates human contact because we know from previous seasons that he’s a bit of a lonely boy, but he likes the social distancing explicitly because it gives him an excuse to reject other people before they can reject him), good stutters moments, good kyman moments, good stanman moments, there were some style moments if you squint? Kyle was one of the people Stan consulted about his feelings of unease but since it wasn’t just Kyle that he consulted it didn’t really feel like that was a special personal part of their relationship, moreso that he wanted Kyle to kiss his booboo and make it better. Although further proof that Kyle is the dom in that relationship. Kyle was agitated over the situation but overall rational, Stan was flipping the fuck out. Stan came to him submissive, scared, and asking for Kyle to make him feel better. Kyle remained calm and logical. I swear to god if I read one more cutesy-innocent Kyle post I might flip a table. Literally Kyle’s canonical self is RIGHT THERE

OH YEAH MY BUTTERS THOUGHTS there’s nothing really new here but it continues the trend of Butters being a self centered prick. (I love him but he is) Instead of even trying to understand the number of people dying or the gravity of the situation, he’s just upset and throwing tantrums because he doesn’t get to play at Build a Bear. And it’s made explicit in the writing that unlike Stan he isn’t struggling with the nebulous fear of death (probably brought on by his uncle getting sick). Butters is just bitter that he doesn’t get to have special things. Also Stan was the only one who tried even a little to save Butters from getting taken by the guards. No one else tried to stop or warn Butters. So again, very cute Stutters moment where Stan is overtly worried for Butters’ well-being even when he’s throwing a bratty tantrum. (I don’t know how anyone perceives Butters as an altruistic person, he’s a selfish twat. he’s a lovable selfish twat, like Cartman, but he’s still a selfish twat. and none of his shitty behavior in this episode was even remotely related to Cartman so you can’t connect it to him. Butters, on his own and without anyone else’s influence, does and acts like a shit-head). There is the excuse that he’s only ten but literally everyone in that cafeteria is only ten. But Butters is the only one kicking other people’s food because he didn’t get his special prize.

This all sounds like I hate Butters. I love Butters, warts and all, I just get really annoyed when fandom ignores his warts because his warts are PART OF THE REASON I LOVE BUTTERS. Also it’s like... blatantly and observably canon that he’s selfish.

I’m going to happily ruminate on Stan feeling a strong pang of protectiveness towards Butters though. That was quite illuminating.

[phaylenfairchild]

The Ongoing Problem With Trans Representation in Media

The Crying Game

In 1992, as a budding Transgirl who hadn’t yet heard the word “Transgender” nor knew anything about gender or sexuality, I watched an film by Neil Jordan called “The Crying Game.” It was dubbed “The Most Shocking Film Of The Year” by entertainment magazines. At the time, I had an insatiable longing for people I could relate to on film, and often had to substitute women as figures of my future intent; I wanted Richard Gere to sweep me away like he had Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. I wants to slither around like Catwoman, with that brilliant confidence that was the perfect mix of bad ass girl power and unapologetic confidence. She was my revenge idol. I wanted to flip-flop, cartwheel and yoga pose into school and kick the shit out of my bullies while making them all love me at the same time.

But the Character of Dil in “The Crying Game” was most accurate to who I knew I was becoming. This androgynous, beautiful woman captivated me. Dil was the lover of a soldier, Jody, played by the incredible Forest Whittaker, a man held prisoner by the IRA who pleads with a fellow solider and friend, Fergus, to protect Dil. She unwittingly becomes the subject of both fascination and affection of Fergus.

Through the course of the film, the two fall in love, and when it comes to the pivotal moment where the characters start becoming intimate- it takes a dark turn.

As Fergus begins to disrobe Dil in the bedroom of her bedroom, he gets on his knees, expecting to find female genitalia and instead reveals a penis.

Yes, right there. A penis. And if you saw it in the cinema, a 12 foot tall image of a penis. On a woman. Fergus twisted away in disgust and proceeds to vomit immediately. Then, he hits her.

I remember being horrified- my breathe caught in my throat- not because she had a penis, but because he acted with such sudden and unexpected repulsion over someone he was just kissing and intending to bed.

The film was marketed on the Trans “Surprise.” Studios launched campaigns for audiences not to give away the ending.

In the afterglow of The Crying Game, Transphobic rhetoric became more aggressive than ever in cinema. Who can forget Ace Ventura, played by Jim Carey, belllowing “Einhorn is a man?!” in reference to the character played by Sean Young, and then heaving into the toilet at the very notion an attractive woman might not have a vagina.

Transwomen were reduced to bawdy, comedic or grotesque twists by lazy writers in Hollywood. The go-to joke. The trend continued throughout the 90’s and well into the 2000’s. With what little Trans characters there were on screen, they were always the subject of comedy or villainy. Because, for some reason, it’s still an outrageous knee-slapper to see a sexy woman you suddenly discover has male genitalia or much easier to hate her, so they make her the freakish bad guy, such as in Sleepaway Camp, like some dangerous modern day Frankenstein who will curl their hair, twirl their penis then sit your throat.

More recently, the Trans representation in film has changed in context- with sweeping period dramas like “The Danish Girl” — which won an Oscar for the cisgender actor, Eddie Redmayne, playing the role of a Trans woman. Or, the “Dallas Buyers Club” — which won an Oscar for the cisgender actor, Jared Leto, playing the role of a Trans woman. However, the year that Redmayne won his Oscar for putting on a dress and pretending to be Trans, a film that had been far better received critically, Tangerine, which featured two actual Transwomen played by Transwomen, was snubbed, despite receiving nominations or awards by every other organization the entire awards season. The Academy demonstrated they’d rather give an award to a man tepidly playing a Transwoman, than a Transwoman giving an incredible performance.

Of course, those Transwomen were playing sex workers. I have it on good authority from my Trans identifying actress friends that it’s almost impossible to get roles for anything else. “All I get offers for are prostitutes,” one accomplished actress told me. “If we want access to work we either have to be a prostitute, a mistress, a self-hating trans person, dead or dying of AIDS, or willing to be ridiculed for comedic value. That’s where we are. In 2018.”

But, some will argue the merits of “Transparent,” The Amazon series that features a middle aged man, portrayed by Jeffery Tambor, who transitions from male to female later in life. It is the first television show to take viewers on that journey, one which details the experiences of those in the orbit of the transitioning main character, including her children and ex wife, without exploiting it as sensationalist. “Transparent” features a plethora of Trans identifying artists, both in front of the camera and behind it. While the primary stars are all cisgender performers, Alexandra Billings, Trace Lysette and the iconic Candis Cayne are all series regulars. Zackary Drucker and Our Lady J feature as producers. It appears to be our staple; our one single thing we’re allowed. Unfortunately, although heavily awarded, it’s not got very broad appeal. It’s a series by Transgender people, about Transgender people… so mainstream remains a little stand-offish. It’s “That Transgender show.”

That’s not surprising. We Trans people working in media have to pave our own way, create our own projects, self produce them, star in them. If we try to intermingle cisgender society within our works, we’re typically turned away. As a writer, I’ve had my screenplays turned down by many companies exclusively because, despite having a cisgender lead, it has a trans character. In a fantasy film I wrote which was a finalist in Outfest International’s Screenplay competition, the response I received from interested production companies wanted me to turn the Trans girl into a “traditional” girl. Every film I write has a Trans character, not just because I’m politically advocating the normalizing of Trans people in everyday society, but because I refuse to create worlds in which we do not exist simply for the comfort of mainstream audiences. “Why does she need to be Trans?” An agent once asked me.

“Why not?” I answered.

Orange is the New Black was lauded for it’s inclusion of a Trans character, played by a Transgender woman, Laverne Cox. Because gender diverse characters in media are so rare, it catapulted her well beyond the boundaries of performance into the realm of social activism. That same attention and expectation destroyed Caitlyn Jenner who was no longer just allowed to be the tabloid mainstay by proxy of the Kardashians, but now had to be our fearless leader, our ambassador to cigender tribes. There are about five Trans figures that cisgender audiences can name: Caitlyn Jenner being the most notable along with Cox on a lesser scale. Others paying attention know that the Wachowskis, directors of the successful Matrix franchise both transitioned and Jazz Jennings, the teenager with her own reality show on that channel that also shows My 600 lb Life and Sister Wives. Cis people don’t know Janet Mock, although her work is invaluable, but they heard a Transgirl took on Rose McGowan at a book signing. Our names cross their facebook feeds when the news reports our deaths. Beyond that, we’re people not allowed to use bathrooms in certain states, a word that is banned by the CDC, and reduced to that one Transgender person who did something that one time which the media loves to exploit for a headline in a fleeting story. Especially when it’s salacious. When former Playboy Playmate, Kendra Wilkinson’s basketball star husband, Hank Baskett, had an alleged affair with a woman, the media latched on like a thirsty tick to the ass-end of a fat dog because that his mistress was Transgender. Of course, despite evidence, he denied it, and the couple leveraged the scandal to maximize ratings and profits by following the controversy on their reality show. They even starred in their own one-hour special to discuss it. Similarly, the media pounced at the opportunity to reveal the alleged affair that Jennifer Lopez’s then boyfriend, Casper Smart, was having with a Transwoman he met on Instagram. Then there was the story of Michael Phelps, the olympic gold medalist who had an ongoing, but secret relationship with an intersex woman- one which he never denied, but ignored instead. In every case, the transwoman is vilified by the media, like some sexual predator; A succubus who cast a spell of seduction on innocent men. That’s when the media pays attention.

That’s problematic. The fact that mainstream society possesses more general awareness of cis actors who play Trans characters, or random Transwomen involved in scandals does nothing to improve our actual visibility, or integrate us into mainstream culture. It alienates us further onto the fringes of society.

We’re like the unicorns of media. When one of us pops up and garners any attention for something other than simply being Trans or scandalous, people react with; “Wow, you really do exist.”

Far and few are the opportunities for Trans actors and actresses, filmmakers and film writers. It’s not because there are too few of us, it’s because when Hollywood looks at us, they don’t see our potential, they see a political cause. An embattled, marginalized person. When we disclose our trans status to people, they suddenly lose sight of our face and instead see the last anti-trans headline they read splashed across out forehead- and maybe they feel sad. Maybe they feel that if they’re uncomfortable or distracted exclusively by the fact that we’re trans, moviegoers, television viewers and the greater cisgender community will be too.

Perhaps this is why we haven’t really seen a transgender performer portray a non-trans role- unless you count Candis Cayne playing a fairytale creature in The Magicians. Cayne is such a brilliant performer she could play anything. She’s stunning, she’s captivating onscreen, she’s a staggeringly talented actress…

But apparently, despite the multitude of cisgender actors playing trans in media, she isn’t allowed to play a ciswoman… just trans, and maybe a unicorn.

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[lastoneout]

Hey so uh y'all know this is straight up radfem rhetoric that will do fuck all to actually combat the rise of fascism in this country while putting young people further at risk of being indoctrinated into conservatisim, right? Like this is 100% the basis of political lesbianism and is a direct pipeline to becoming a fucking TERF which is a direct pipeline to holding hands with Nazis, we should NOT be supporting or promoting the idea that the only way for women to be safe is to completely isolate themselves from men, especially in the coming years where unity with our allies, a group which includes men, will be the key to survival for so many people. The state of the world right now is based in part on the rampant spread of individualism and exclusion and distrust, why the hell would perpetuating that help??

Also this alienates women who cannot or will not abandon their connections to men(wanting to marry and love and have sex and children with men is morally neutral) and strips us of our ability to find allyship with marginalized men who are on our side and also will face extreme violence under this new administration. This will cut us off from black men and disabled men and intersex men and queer men and will absolutely be used as justification to completely fucking abandon trans men, who have already been completely abandoned by current mainstream feminism to the point that I cannot go five seconds without someone saying reproductive rights are an issue that only affects women when that is in NO way the case. Basically no one has been including trans mascs/men, nonbinary people, and intersex people in the abortion and birth control discussion this election cycle despite those groups needing just as much help and support on this front and that is a PROBLEM. Like trans men and intersex people who can get pregnant are going to be at a hellish level of risk going forward, infinitely more so than the average cishet perisex woman. We cannot abandon them further.

Plus for some of us marriage will potentially keep us safer or help us escape this country should we need to, I'm disabled and can't work I cannot just move to another country, but if I get married and my fiancé goes first and finds a job that can support us both that will help me. And like you can also get married to a man and still refuse to have kids in protest? Most of the people in our generation aren't having kids anyway? And tbh those of us who want to are not bad people nor should we have to put our entire lives on hold for god knows how long to stick it to the men. We live in hell right now, why the fuck should we be asking people to completely abandon things that could make them happy in a weird form of protest that won't work and is a gateway to being a raging Nazi transphobe??

And on top of all of that this also lets the hundreds of thousands of women who voted for Trump on purpose because they too have bought in to his rhetoric off the hook, which again, is where radical feminism leads because it is fundamentally based on the idea that men are always dangerous and harmful no matter what but women are always innocent brainwashed victims who can do no harm. And writing off men as a lost cause who are evil by nature and thus cannot be saved is also not only radical feminist bullshit, it's legit just conservative "boys will be boys" bullshit with a progressive hat. I am not giving shitty men a free pass to suck forever by pretending they are incapable of change, they can, should, and MUST be held to a higher standard. That is what I mean when I say radical feminisim is a conservative ideology, it doesn't believe a better world is possible because it assumes men will always be evil and should be avoided at all costs which upholds the status quo, it does nothing to actually challenge it.

(And hell, if all that wasn't enough, this is also flawed because the kinds of women who are left leaning enough to consider doing something like this likely already only associate with progressive men, so who are we even punishing here? No woman riding the tradwife MAGA waterslide is going to do this, so the only men who get punished are the good ones who are on our side, which helps who, exactly?? Like christ y'all this falls the fuck apart so fast the second you actually think about it.)

There are men who will be my allies in the coming years and women who will be my enemy. Women are just as capable of being bigoted fascist pieces of shit as men are, this election proved that. We waited for women to save us and most of them fucking didn't. How the hell am I supposed to believe women are inherently safer or better while looking at the breakdown of what demographics voted for Trump. Some of the most vile, traumatizing misogyny and biphobia I have faced in my life was at the hands of other women and some of the most outspoken feminists who work tirelessly to tear apart the patriarchy I know are men. My fiancé, a cis man, legit checked MY toxic masculinity yesterday, I recently came out as butch and have been trying to live up to that by staying as strong as possible right now, and HE had to tell me to knock it off and let myself cry. Gender and sex are not indicators of morality and acting like they are is pure, unadulterated radical feminist bullshit.

We can and should absolutely talk about the rise of alt-right beliefs amongst men in this country, especially young men, but we cannot ignore that young women are buying into that shit too and a lot of it is COMING FROM RADICAL FEMINISTS, I cannot fucking stress enough radical feminism is a direct pipeline to becoming a conservative, the TERF to tadwife waterslide is real and likely WHY so many young women are voting conservatively. The more we concede to this rancid bullshit the more women wander directly into the alt-right's open arms.

The problem isn't men, it's systemic misogyny perpetuated by both men AND women, and also fascism. Don't lose sight of the true enemy.